Did you know that some first-aid kits have drugs in them? Neither did I.
That was why I didn't pay too much attention when I first noticed that one of the kids had brought in our kit from the van and left it on the kitchen floor. I found it open and nearly empty. I threw away the assorted bandage wrappers and forgot about it.
Then I found the rest of the mess.
It was on 8-year-old Eamon's bed: the still-damp, chewed-up remains of some kind of paper wrapper. I pieced the bits together until I could read the label: Acetaminophen.
I froze. The gutted first-aid kit came racing back to my mind. I struggled to recall the details of a television show I once saw about small children who had overdosed on Tylenol.
I hurried downstairs and rounded up the usual suspects: the 5-year-old, the 3-year-old and the 2-year-old. They lined up before me, wide-eyed. “Did one of you chew on this paper?” I demanded. They shook their heads in unison.
I narrowed my eyes and looked them over. To my surprise, not one of them looked even the least bit guilty. Not one of them appeared to need dialysis.
Then I remembered another one of the usual suspects, one who has a particular penchant for chewing: the dog. His penitent expression when I called his name confirmed my suspicions. The “Bad mommy” chant turned to “Bad doggy” and I was relieved. Sort of.
Twenty minutes later found me sitting on the front steps with my furry friend dutifully following the veterinarian's instructions. Every five minutes I pried open the dog's jaws and forcibly fed him a tablespoon of hydrogen peroxide. Then I waited for him to vomit. When he refused, I tried again. And again. And again.
Between doses of the repulsive remedy, I sat on the gravel walkway. It was then that I had the following profound thought:
What on earth am I doing?
I was sitting in the dirt waiting for a dog to vomit so that I could get back to laundry, dinner and other not-so-momentous duties. Pathetic, right?
Before I had a chance to plunge into the bout of self-pity I was planning, though, God intervened. He turned my gaze toward the expectant faces of my children — the ones who depend on me to feed them, to clean them, to teach them, to love them. And to attend to their dog's healthcare needs.
The true worth of a mother's work is not readily identifiable in any one of the menial tasks she performs, I realized. Its value is evident, though, in the precious bodies and souls of the children in her care. A mother's duties challenge her to say Yes to God's call, one small task at time, even when it seems there must be some loftier goal she could be pursuing
The significance of a woman's self-giving was a subject Pope John Paul II spoke of frequently. In Mulieris Dignitatem he told us, “A woman's dignity is closely connected with the love which she receives by the very reason of her femininity; it is likewise connected with the love which she gives in return. … Woman can only find herself by giving love to others.” Just so.
As for the missing pills: After giving up on the dog, I found them under Eamon's bed.
Danielle Bean writes from Belknap, New Hampshire.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Danielle Bean ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: Campus Watch DATE: 08/07/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 7-13, 2005 ----- BODY:Catholic Identity
The ordinances, approved by the Vatican last year, uphold academic freedom and scholarly excellence.
They also stress the recruitment of faculty of “exemplary character” so as to appoint “teachers who are outstanding in their integrity of doctrine and probity of life.”
Land Swap
The donated land consists of Broken Anvil Ranch, a gift of Francie Mortenson-Perkins, some of which the Diocese of Cheyenne would like to swap for state land, a step that might be opposed by the American Civil Liberties Union.
The total area leased and owned by Wyoming Catholic College in and around Lander would be 8,575 acres, or more than 13 square miles.
Love of School
Part of a family that fled Cuba following the country's takeover by Fidel Castro, Eduardo Aguirre Jr., arrived in the United States ahead of his parents and was taken in as a boarder at Holy Cross, which became “a vital ray of sunshine during what was a bad time in my life,” said Aguirre.
“It was a huge act of generosity on the part of the school, both in financial assistance and caring ways,” said Aguirre, who continues to support Holy Cross, because “it was there that I got my first understanding of the generosity of America.”
NFL Streak
St. Norbert serves as the site where the players eat, sleep and relax while actually training at legendary Lambeau Field.
It was decided last year that the players would eat their lunch at Lambeau to save time. This year, the players voted to return to St. Norbert for lunch each day, offering an indication of why the team's relationship with the college is so enduring.
“We kind of spoil them a little bit,” a campus chef said.
Focus Expands
FELLOWSHIP OF CATHOLIC UNIVERISTY STUDENTS, July 12 — The fellowship, known by the acronym FOCUS, will expand to four additional universities this fall.
The new campuses include the U.S. Naval Academy (Annapolis, Md.), Bradley University (Peoria, Ill.), Western Illinois University (Macomb, Ill.) and the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
Focus trains recent college graduates and sends them out in teams of four per campus to work with students through formal programs and personal discipleship to help them build virtue and habits of prayer.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: The Joy of Service DATE: 08/07/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 7-13, 2005 ----- BODY:PROLIFE PROFILE
In the medieval world, the monastery served as a center of learning and hospitality, drawing ordinary Catholics as well as the titled and powerful.
Casa Maria, the graceful convent and retreat house of Sister Servants of the Eternal Word, serves a similar purpose for modern-day believers drawn to this oasis of joyful service and solemn worship.
Cradled in the green hills of Irondale, Ala., a suburb of Birmingham, Casa Maria is a testament to the special charism of Sister Servants of the Eternal Word, a relatively new order whose constitution was approved within the last decade. Promoting spiritual renewal through retreats, catechesis and informal counseling, the 14 women religious who reside here inspire and educate a steady stream of retreat participants and local Catholics.
“Our charism draws on the spirit of St. Francis and St. Dominic,” explains Sister Louise Marie, the Ivy League-educated director of the retreat program. “St. Dominic inspires us to teach the faith and communicate an active spirit of devotion. St. Francis helps us to teach spiritual things spiritually and not to approach our faith as an intellectual exercise divorced from our life.”
In an increasingly secular world, where the devout need time for spiritual recharging and struggling Catholics look for encouragement in the face of doubt, Casa Maria offers a unique opportunity: Catholic retreats are widely available throughout the United States, but relatively few of them invite pilgrims to share in the life of a contemplative/apostolic religious order.
At Casa Maria, retreat participants are welcome to join the sisters — clad in sturdy, floor-length brown-and-white habits — for their daily prayers and devotions. Both groups also come together several times a day for Mass, meals and conversation.
Beautiful hymns and artwork, devout priests and a well-trained cadre of altar boys enhance the celebration of the Mass. No surprise, then, that those who come seeking help with individual concerns often return to their own parishes eager to reproduce the liturgical experience offered at Casa Maria.
“You can kill the faith more quickly through banal liturgies than bad catechesis,” Sister Marianna observes. She trains a group of about 15 young men and boys to assist visiting clerics and the resident priest, Dominican Father Lambert Greenan — an Irish-born canon lawyer and the retired editor of the English-language edition of L'Osservatore Romano — whose wit and learning enliven the retreat experience.
Good music is a core liturgical principle at Casa Maria, where the sisters devote time to the selection and practice of hymns, then lead the singing during the Mass.
“The music is a way of feeding people in the liturgy,” notes Sister Rita Marie, the novice mistress.
“We're an example that ordinary voices can produce a good effect through dedication, practice and good liturgical music,” she adds. “You need a high standard and the willingness to spend time on it. But it's not an inordinate amount of time. Most parishes have more resources than we do.”
Hand-Built Home
Retreat participants cherish the opportunity to join the sisters for Benediction, recitation of the Rosary and other devotional practices that have virtually disappeared from many U.S. parishes. Casa Maria's liturgies underscore the truth that religious devotions incarnate the doctrine and practice of the Catholic faith and make it accessible and real in people's lives.
If the liturgical celebrations are performed sloppily, that sends a message that they don't matter. Those who still hunger for beauty in worship, the sisters observe, will go somewhere else to find it — even if it means looking outside the Catholic faith.
Casa Maria, a hacienda-style building with tile floors and arched entrances, provides a suitable framework for an apostolate that celebrates classic aesthetics. But no one should assume that these religious women are solely occupied with transcendent matters: The sisters not only designed the convent and retreat house, but they also built most of it, too.
The sisters’ willingness to engage in the hard work of construction between 1993 and ’96 impressed their neighbors in this Bible-belt region, where Catholic practices still prompt misgivings and confusion. Today, a network of about 50 local volunteers help the order with retreat meals, cleaning, yardwork and other chores, leaving the sisters with more time for their apostolate.
“I was called to do this volunteer work,” explains Mary Hartsfield, one reliable supporter. “The sisters’ prayers get me through the difficulties I face. They work hard together with us; they laugh with us and they teach us, too.”
Changing Lives
The nuns of Casa Maria have firsthand experience with the crisis of faith that roils the modern Church. They also keep abreast of theological, canonical, liturgical and cultural trends through reading and contacts with informed Catholics. This helps when it comes to counseling, for example, casual visitors who come in seeking quick advice.
“Our lives are relatively hidden, yet we have a lot of impact on the people who come here,” Sister Louise Marie observes. “Many will open up to a sister faster than to anyone else. We help prepare the people in an informal way for the sacraments that are offered and encourage them to speak to the priest. Often, we have to provide answers that might help someone resolve their position with the Church.”
The order's motto is caritas veritas. And any sister at Casa Maria will tell a visitor that love and truth are equally important: Real love requires communication of the truth or the faith will be deformed.
Casa Maria's calendar includes a spectrum of offerings, from silent retreats to confirmation days for youth to spiritual adaptations of 12-step programs that help participants tackle stubborn problems such as addictive behaviors.
The order also provides solid catechetical materials that help their visitors follow through with regular study and reflection. Casa Maria's bookstore offers an assortment of reading and audiovisual materials on everything from chastity education and Marian devotions to classic faith-oriented movies and novels.
One might expect that an apostolate of steady spiritual counseling and logical planning would leave the sisters depleted. Instead, the spiritual bonds and affectionate ties that form during the retreat encourage the sisters to deepen their spiritual life and commitment to their vows.
“Religious life is very challenging,” Sister Louise Marie admits. “You're challenged to do things physically you haven't done before. You're challenged intellectually to learn the faith, to grow at a personal level and to live in charity in community.”
Joan Frawley Desmond writes from Chevy Chase, Maryland.
Information sisterservants.org (205) 956-6760
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joan Frawley Desmond ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Priests for Life Launches Lay Association DATE: 08/07/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 7-13, 2005 ----- BODY:AMARILLO, Texas — Four months ago, Priests for Life announced the formation of the Missionaries of the Gospel of Life, a pro-life society of priests in the Diocese of Amarillo.
Now the organization has announced the creation of an association that will allow lay people to join in the organization's work materially and spiritually.
That's welcome news for people such as homemaker Godelieve Bartolucci. She's long been active in the pro-life movement. Twelve years ago she and six other women began a chapter of the Helpers of God's Precious Infants in Birmingham, Ala. The women gather layette items for expectant mothers, counsel women, help at the local crisis pregnancy center and pray the rosary outside an abortion business once a month.
Bartolucci has long wanted to combine her pro-life work with involvement in a lay association.
“I've looked at lay third orders,” she said. “I've looked into the Franciscans and Opus Dei, but this order is made for me. It combines the apostolic work I've already been doing.”
Priests for Life is confident many others will follow suit.
“I think this will be one of the largest moves regarding the laity and the sanctity of human life in the history of the Church,” said Jim Pinto, pastoral associate with Priests for Life. “I expect that we will have individuals and whole groups coming in. There has been a void that has been there for a long time that is going to be filled.”
Pinto said he's already heard from interested individuals and groups in Alabama, Florida and Michigan.
While Priests for Life Director Father Frank Pavone announced the new society of apostolic life in an e-mail to supporters June 17, Pinto said the desire to create such an association has been part of Priests for Life from the very beginning.
“When the announcement was made regarding the Missionaries of the Gospel of Life, the documents stated that there would be a lay association,” Pinto said. “It's been there from the get-go.”
Pinto began the work preparing for and developing the lay association three years ago.
Reaction to the news was positive.
“I am thrilled that the Lord, through the Holy Spirit, is leading Father Pavone and his beautiful vision of having priests who are prepared for pro-life ministry,” Amarillo Bishop John Yanta said. “Father Pavone has in mind that Priests for Life will be at the forefront, but always at the same time being joined with the non-ordained in this common and important ministry.”
Leaders of other pro-life apostolates were supportive as well.
“I think it is wonderful,” said Mary Ann Kuharski, director of Pro-Life Across America, a nonprofit organization that gets pro-life billboards placed nationally. “I applaud Father Pavone for doing this.”
Kuharski is no stranger to lay movements. She belongs to a third-order Carmelite lay association.
“I don't dare set foot in my office without first going to daily Mass,” Kuharski said. “I think the pro-life movement lost something when we called the pro-life movement a civil-rights movement and tried to tackle it from an intellectual position. Those of us who already have a faith base will benefit from the lay association. All of our brothers and sisters in the pro-life movement will benefit from it.”
Off to a Good Start
If the early interest in and success of the priestly order is any indication, the lay association might have a flood of interest. Priests for Life held its first discernment retreat for priests interested in the order June 24-26 in Amarillo; 35 priests attended. Father Pavone said they have had a few hundred inquiries to date.
“We had an exciting and excellent retreat,” Father Pavone said. “Over half of these men are ready now to begin the formal process of application, which will take place over the next three months.”
The first group of candidates will begin in Amarillo in late September, starting a year of spiritual and community life as well as full immersion in the vision and mission of the society.
“Experts in the pro-life movement from around the world will come to address them, and they will participate in various pro-life ministries and events around the country,” Father Pavone added.
Bishop Yanta participated in the retreat as well.
“I was very impressed with the commitment of the men who came to find out more about the missionaries,” Bishop Yanta said. “They came from all over — California, Florida, Kansas, Minnesota and Texas.”
In order to handle the additional inquiries, Priests for Life has planned two additional discernment retreats. One was held July 19-22 in Amarillo. The second, specifically for seminarians and those considering the seminary, will be held Aug. 16-21 in Newark, N.J.
While Priests for Life does not yet have the specific prayers and spirituality worked out for the lay association, they are inviting those interested to contact them. According to Father Pavone, there will be two types of membership.
The first is for those who are free of other obligations and want to join the society to do pro-life work on a full-time basis.
“They will be able to apply for our formation program and receive the specialized pro-life training we will offer,” Father Pavone said.
The second is for those who are married or who have employment commitments incompatible with full-time, pro-life work.
“They would make certain commitments to prayer, personal study and pro-life work to the extent that one's duties permit,” Father Pavone said.
He added that involvement in the society would not be something additional but simply an extension of the work many are already doing.
“Whatever pro-life work you are already doing can be done in the context of the spiritual commitment to belong to this society and with the special blessing of the Church that such membership brings,” Father Pavone said.
That is what is attractive to Bartolucci. She doesn't know whether the other women she works with will have an interest, but she recognizes that the lay association is right for her.
“I don't expect all of them to have that calling,” she said. “It's a religious call from Our Lord. A third order is a means to grow in holiness.”
Tim Drake is based in St. Joseph, Minnesota.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Tim Drake ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Weekly DVD/Video Picks DATE: 08/07/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 7-13, 2005 ----- BODY:Because of Winn-Dixie (2005)
Fans of Kate DiCamillo's Newbery Honor novel can rest easy: Winn-Dixie is true both to the letter and the Christian spirit of its source material. The film tells the story of a young girl named Opal (Annasophia Robb, The Island) and her single Baptist preacher father (Jeff Daniels) who come to a small town where the father takes a job at a storefront church and Opal meets a big, shaggy dog.
The animal slapstick will keep even young viewers entertained, but the story is really about Opal's summer of discovery.
The story addresses some tough themes, including broken families and alcoholism, in a way that is accessible to children and never inappropriate even for the youngest. Like one character's semi-magical candies, Winn-Dixie is both sweet and sad, a blend that does the heart good.
Content advisory: Accessible treatment of themes relating to a broken marriage and alcohol abuse. Fine family viewing.
The Karate Kid (1984)
Recently re–leased in a special-edition DVD, The Karate Kid is perhaps the best of the Rocky clones: formulaic, manipulative, hokey — and thoroughly rousing. Directed by John G. Avildsen (who directed Sylvester Stallone in the original Rocky), the film's sincerity and emotional poignancy have a way of steamrolling over gaps in plausibility and logic.
Ralph Macchio stars as Daniel LaRusso, a sensitive lad reared in the nurturing enclaves of Newark, N.J., who finds the harsh realities of life in southern California a bit overwhelming after his single mother (Randee Heller) takes a new job.
On the one hand, there's Ali (Elisabeth Shue), a bright, sweet California blonde from the other side of the tracks who takes a shine to Daniel. On the other, there's Johnny (William Zabka), Ali's swaggering, karate-fighting ex-boyfriend, who travels with a menacing coterie of fellow bullies and doesn't deal well with rejection — or competition. The heart of the film, though, is Daniel's relationship with an unexpected mentor and father figure, inscrutable handyman Mr. Miyagi (Pat Morita). He's wise, humorous and crusty, with unexpected skills and methods.
Content advisory: Recurring bullying; stylized martial-arts sequences; some objectionable language. Fine for tweens and up.
National Velvet (1944)
The classic girl-and-her-horse story, National Velvet stars 12-year-old Elizabeth Taylor in her best childhood role as horse-crazy Velvet Brown, a young English lass who moons over anything that goes on four horseshoes the way her older sister Edwina (19-year-old Angela Lansbury, also in her most appealing young role) moons over boys.
The horse that wins Velvet's heart is the Pie (short for Pirate), an unruly sorrel gelding with amazing jumping potential. Velvet sees his potential, but only Mi Taylor (24-year-old Mickey Rooney), a conniving orphan who professes to hate horses but clearly knows all about them, can help her train that potential into competition quality.
Velvet's mother (Anne Revere), a stern, no-nonsense farm wife who takes pride in her own impressive youthful achievements, offers her daughter much-needed encouragement and support.
Content advisory: Nothing problematic. Fine family viewing.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Steven D. Greydanus ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Roe Myths and Facts DATE: 08/07/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 7-13, 2005 ----- BODY:EDITORIAL
Judge John G. Roberts, like every recent nominee to the Supreme Court, is sharing the spotlight.
He has been nominated to take Sandra Day O'Connor's place on the high court, but the attention isn't just on him. It's also on the Supreme Court's 1973 decision that legalized abortion: Roe v. Wade.
To hear some tell it, to question the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade is to be an extremist. Most people think that, in Roe, the court ruled that abortion, at least in the first trimester, should be a decision between a woman and her doctor. The courts, they say, should stay out of it.
Roe would be bad enough if that understanding were true. It would be a death sentence for babies with toes and fingers, beating hearts and developing brains. But it's not true. Roe is much worse.
For months, the U.S. bishops have been publishing information about Roe v. Wade to set the record straight. As the Supreme Court nomination draws more attention to the issue, groups like the National Right to Life Committee and Priests for Life have also begun information campaigns.
Some of the myths — and realities — about the famed 1973 decision follow.
Myth: Roe v. Wade only allowed abortion in the first trimester of pregnancy.
Fact: Roe and its companion case, Doe v. Bolton, legalized abortion at any stage in pregnancy.
True, the Roe decision said abortion could not be restricted for any reason during the first three months of pregnancy. But it also ruled that, if the health of the mother was at stake, abortion was permissible at any point in the pregnancy.
Threats to “health” can mean anything from morning sickness to lethal illness to anxiety or depression — that of the woman or of her family members. Abortion businesses have gotten rich off that loophole for decades.
Myth: The mainstream media have been reporting Roe v. Wade accurately.
Fact: They've been making the same mistake for 32 years, saying that Roe only legalized abortion in the first trimester.
On Jan. 23, 1973, a headline in the New York Times announced: “High court rules abortions legal the first three months.” This July, an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll asking about Roe summed it up this way: “The Supreme Court's 1973 Roe versus Wade decision established a woman's constitutional right to an abortion, at least in the first three months of pregnancy.”
Myth: America's support for Roe v. Wade means that the American people are predominately for current abortion laws staying as they are.
Fact: Late in February, Harris released its latest poll on abortion. When people were asked if they support Roe v. Wade, a slight majority (52%) said they did. But the same poll showed that 72% of the same respondents would ban abortion in the second trimester. And 86% — that's almost 9 out of 10 — would ban it in the third trimester. They would oppose Roe if they knew the truth.
Myth: The current Supreme Court is divided 5-4 in favor of Roe v. Wade.
Fact: The 2004 the Supreme Court was divided 6-3 in favor of the basic Roe v. Wade abortion regime. The abortion majority on the court only narrows to 5-4 on the issue of the partial-birth abortion procedure. Pro-abortion polemicists conflate that with opposition to all abortion, and some journalists repeat the distortion.
Myth: Democratic appointees to the Supreme Court are pro-Roe; Republican appointees oppose it.
Fact: It is true that the Democratic appointees on the court can be counted on to protect the basic Roe v. Wade ruling. But most pro-Roe justices were appointed by Republicans. Nixon appointed John Paul Stevens, Gerald Ford appointed Anthony Kennedy, Ronald Reagan appointed O'Connor and George H.W. Bush appointed David Souter.
Will John G. Roberts Jr. join the three other anti-Roe nominees who are Republican appointees? We certainly hope so.
In 1990, as a Justice Department official under the administration of President George H.W. Bush, Roberts wrote a brief in a pending Supreme Court case stating the administration's position that “Roe was wrongly decided and should be overruled.”
He may have been stating his boss’ opinion, not his own. It ought to be his, though, too. It's certainly the most sensible opinion, when you look at the facts.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: What the Catholic Storytellers See DATE: 08/07/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 7-13, 2005 ----- BODY:Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code has now sold more than 25 million copies.
A movie is in the making. Millions of duped fans are convinced the book's far-fetched conspiracy plot — involving who else but the Catholic Church? — is based on well-founded facts.
The even sillier Left Behind novels by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins have distorted Church teachings to the tune of more than 30 million books sold.
Catholics are left wondering why good fiction illuminating the truths of the Catholic faith can't seem to carve out similar success stories.
“It has to do with the appeal of the story and with marketing,” says Amy Welborn, an Indiana-based Catholic writer and weblogger (amywelborn.typepad.com/openbook). “Andrew Greeley has been very successful, and a lot of people don't want to talk about him. But if you're talking about a Catholic fiction writer, there's been no one in the past 15 years who has done what he's done.
“Part of it is the novelty that he's a priest and his books are controversial,” she adds. “How about a story that is positive about the faith?”
Mark Brumley, president of one of the country's largest Catholic publishers, Ignatius Press, notes there is a growing market for Catholic fiction — but Catholics still lag well behind evangelical Protestants in overall interest in faith-related books.
“We're always keeping an eye out for good Catholic fiction,” says Brumley. “But there is a fine line between fiction with a message and fiction that raises certain questions. We don't want propaganda.
“On the other hand,” says Brumley, “we do believe in the power of telling good stories, stories in which a dimension of faith is expressed or questioned that the Christian faith has the answer to. There are times when a novel can address some theological questions more directly, but you have to be careful because it can quickly degenerate into propaganda and the people you're trying to reach are apt to dismiss it.”
Artistry Is Job One
Having published numerous nonfiction works with Catholic publishers, Welborn now wants to pursue fiction. Part of her desire stems from her appreciation of storytelling's power to stimulate readers’ imagination.
She also sees an ideological divide separating many Catholic writers from the Catholic press. She says she wants to help bridge the gap by offering good stories anyone — believers and non-believers alike — can enjoy.
“The new fiction I've read the past few years that touched on religious or explicitly Catholic themes has not been evangelistic in nature,” she points out. “Like Flannery O'Connor says, ‘Leave that to the evangelizers. Your job is artistry.’”
It's a tricky balance to present good fiction with Catholic themes and sensibilities, but Welborn sees an enormous potential market ready for the developing: more than 60 million Catholics in the United States. She notes that the Pulitzer-winning novel Gilead, by Marianne Robinson, is a “deeply religious” book. Released last November, it's still selling strong.
Ignatius Press has published fiction by Ralph McInerny and Louis de Wohl, and currently publishes Catholic author Michael D. O'Brien, whose Children of the Last Days series has broken through to secular and international audiences.
O'Brien says he's been surprised that his novels have become bestsellers: He is primarily a painter of religious icons out of his home in Ottawa, Canada, and only started writing “out of obedience to an inner prompting by the Holy Spirit.”
“As far as climbing up the cultural ladder, that's just simply not part of my personality,” he says. “My primary motivation was to tell a story, and I did it as an act of love.”
His books are about the sufferings of man in exile from God. (See the Register's review of his latest, Sophia House, on page 12.) He also tries to place the human struggle in the larger context of what is happening in the Western world vis à vis the secularization of man and the banishing of God and faith from public life.
“These are ominous signs, and part of the reason anti-Christian forces have assumed so much power to themselves is that we Christians have done little to resist it,” says O'Brien. “Catholics have too long lived with a kind of timidity. We haven't believed in the power and the beauty of our own message as much as we should have. But the whole thing is changing now.”
Write and Trust
Joan Mahowald, a Catholic writer from Baxter, Minn., recalls the rich Catholic culture she grew up with in the 1950s, when the media was more open to the faith. Authors like Evelyn Waugh, A.J. Cronin and Graham Greene graced store shelves; Archbishop Fulton Sheen had a popular television show. Movie classics like The Song of Bernadette, On the Waterfront and The Bells of St. Mary's played regularly on the big screen.
“Now we have works filled with distortions and actual hatred [of the faith],” she says. “When John Paul II became Pope, here was an actual leader of the Church who recognized the value of the media. He himself was an artist, playwright and poet. He stressed the importance of art and writing in the culture.”
Mahowald believes Mel Gibson helped open a new door with The Passion of the Christ, but feels the Church can do a much better job engaging the culture through books and other media.
After getting rejections from secular and Catholic publishers, Mahowald turned to AuthorHouse to self-publish her first novel, The Longing, a classic romance story set in the 1950s. She presents Catholic elements through the main character, a young Catholic girl who practices her faith and turns to God and the Church for help with life's struggles.
Mahowald expects the book to appeal primarily to members of her own generation but doesn't dismiss younger audiences, as she believes they are hungering for wholesome material. She has also heard from Protestants who want her to write more.
“There is a large market out there,” says Mahowald. “I'd like to see it tapped by the mainstream media, but I think it's a shame the Catholic publishers are ignoring it.”
O'Brien offers this advice to aspiring Catholic literary artists: Trust in God.
“Whatever your art is, do it well and consecrate it to the service of Christ and his Church,” he adds. “Let God do what he wants to do through your life and through your gift.”
Barb Ernster writes from Fridley, Minnesota.
----- EXCERPT: Is a Catholic literary revival in the making? ----- EXTENDED BODY: Barb Ernster ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Facts of Life DATE: 08/07/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 7-13, 2005 ----- BODY:Contrary to popular (politically correct) notions, women are more sensitive to physical pain than men — and they cope with it less well, too. That's according to scientists at England's Bath University, who say their research could help develop better-targeted pain-relief medications.
Source: BBC, July 4
Illustration by Tim Rauch
----- EXCERPT: Ouch! ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Growing Up Chaste DATE: 08/07/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 7-13, 2005 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON — Remaining a virgin until marriage can be a daunting task for a young person in today's “sexually saturated” society.
That's the assessment of John Grabowski, associate professor of moral theology at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.
“It is a toxic environment for young people who are trying to grow up chaste,” said Grabowski. Movies, television and the Internet trivialize and commercialize the marital act, he said.
That is one reason why he sees value in virginity pledges. So do many young people, according to a report from The Heritage Foundation. The Washington, D.C.-based research organization found that young people who take virginity pledges are less likely to engage in any type of sexual activity.
The June 14 report, authored by Heritage staffers Robert Rector and Kirk Johnson, used the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health to draw its conclusions. Among Heritage's findings is that 81% of virginity pledgers had engaged in some form of sexual activity by the time they became young adults, compared with 92% of non-pledgers. Girls who pledge were one-third less likely to become pregnant before their 18th birthday when compared to non-pledgers. The lower levels of sexual activity put virginity pledgers at lower risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases compared to non-pledgers.
The results, Rector said, show that over a five- or six-year span — from the time a person took a pledge to the final survey — the pledge had “a measurable effect by the time they [children] became adults.”
Rector, Heritage's senior research fellow in Domestic Policy Studies, added that there is approximately 90% “parental support for teaching a solid abstinence message to young kids. There is universal support for delaying sexual activity, which is a really good thing.”
Motivating Factors
What is motivating young people to take virginity pledges is their sense of “religious and moral conviction,” said The Catholic University's Grabowski. “Some young people simply want to give a more public form of witness, so taking a step like this is a way of articulating that witness — putting their faith and moral convictions into practice.”
Grabowski encouraged young people to remain chaste by developing themselves completely by participating in the Church's sacraments, helping the poor through soup kitchens and other programs, and praying the Rosary at an abortion clinic.
“For St. Thomas Aquinas, the virtues are a unity,” Grabowski said. “You can't have one virtue and not have at least an openness to the others; they grow together. You can't have a person who is genuinely just, if they are not also chaste or not also prudent.”
The Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States, however, does not believe virginity pledges are the definitive solution. The organization advocates sexual education programs that include information on contraception as well as abstinence.
The council cited a study from Columbia University sociology professor Peter Bearman, which concluded young people who take pledges are 30% less likely to use contraceptives when they become sexually active and are less likely to be tested for a sexually transmitted disease.
“All of that, as it relates to virginity pledges, is a very bleak picture,” said Adrienne Virrelli, spokeswoman for the council. “We know that young people who delay sexual activity are more likely to use contraception, when they do become sexually active, and have fewer partners. Teenagers can talk about abstinence and contraception and not feel as if they are getting a mixed message.”
In the Heritage report, Rector and Johnson state that virginity-pledge programs are “not omnipotent,” and in the years between the time a child takes a pledge and the time he reaches adulthood, there will be thousands of “events and forces that either reinforce or, more likely, undermine the youth's commitment to abstinence.”
Because of that influence, Rector opined that abstinence programs are “quite remarkable.”
Young people “are seeing 10 hours of intervention over the course of a year, whereas they are spending 2,000 hours in front of a television set with the opposite message,” he said.
The Heritage Foundation lauded organizations that actively encourage young people to abstain. Mary Beth Bonnacci, founder and president of Real Love Inc., based in Denver, has been promoting abstinence for 19 years. She said that pledges “absolutely are making a difference,” as they create “positive peer pressure.”
While health issues certainly are important, warnings of risks in having sex “don't motivate teenagers because they don't adequately assess risk,” she said. A pledge is motivated by the desire for “real love” and by religious faith.
“It is when they know they are called to a higher standard — in every faith … — that they respond,” Bonnacci said. “When we present chastity as God's way of finding and living love and giving them what they are hungry for, they respond.”
Additional money may be on the way for federally funded abstinence programs in fiscal year 2006, beginning in September. The government allocated $167 million in the current fiscal year, with community-based abstinence education programs receiving $104 million of that amount.
The House of Representatives is considering an $11 million hike in the budget to $178 million, with community-based programs receiving the entire increase, lifting their allotment to $115 million. The budgets for the Title V and Adolescent and Family Living programs would remain at 2005 funding levels of $50 million and $13 million, respectively.
“The goal should be to help as many young people as possible commit to being sexually abstinent preferably until marriage,” said Wade Horn, assistant secretary for the Administration of Children and Families in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
“We know that abstinence education can help young people delay onset of sexual debut,” he added. “That's important because … the longer someone waits to become sexually active, the fewer lifetime sexual partners they will have; and fewer sexual partners is related to reduced risk of unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.”
Wayne Forrest is based in Providence, Rhode Island.
----- EXCERPT: Study: Virginity Pledges Have 'Measurable Effect' on Teens and Young Adults ----- EXTENDED BODY: Wayne Forrest ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: With Roberts Pick, Uncertainty on All Sides DATE: 08/07/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 7-13, 2005 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON — The nomination of Judge John Roberts to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor has created more questions than answers for pro-life voters.
The 50-year-old Roberts is a practicing Catholic, a graduate of Harvard Law School, and a brilliant, well-qualified lawyer who previously served in two Republican presidential administrations. His wife is actively involved in the pro-life group Feminists for Life, and they have adopted two young children.
Although this brief biography may offer a few hints, it is almost anyone's guess what Roberts stands for.
Because Senate Democrats delayed his judicial confirmation during the first two years of the Bush presidency — along with a host of other appellate nominees — Roberts was not confirmed to the District of Columbia Circuit Court until 2003. This makes his record on the bench quite meager.
Former colleagues have told various publications that Roberts has never been outspoken about anything — indeed, that he may have never said anything controversial in his entire life.
Roberts has even tried to downplay what little paper trail there is. For example, he wrote a brief when he served as deputy solicitor general under President George H.W. Bush, which stated that the opinion in Roe v. Wade “finds no support in the text, structure, or history of the Constitution.” Although this may give hope to pro-lifers, Roberts said in his 2003 confirmation hearing that he had been representing the Bush administration's position on Roe, not necessarily his own position.
Senators Lend Support
Roberts's lack of a paper trail has left Democrats without much ammunition to use against the nominee. And with even partisan Democrats such as Robert Byrd of West Virginia and Hillary Clinton of New York already offering tentative support, Roberts appears ripe for confirmation. One GOP Senate staffer felt confident enough to predict privately a 70-vote victory.
Democrats are poised to offer at least token resistance. They are currently demanding access to memos he would have written while serving as deputy solicitor general, and the Bush administration is refusing on the grounds of attorney-client privilege. But the common wisdom on Capitol Hill suggests that Roberts’ confirmation will sail through the Senate.
The Bush administration has worked hard to sell Roberts to its constituency. While introducing Roberts two weeks ago, Bush promised that the judge “will strictly apply the Constitution and laws, not legislate from the bench.”
But the nominee's thin record has some Republicans worried. The last Republican “stealth” nominee to the Supreme Court was Justice David Souter. Despite assurances from President George H.W. Bush's staff that Souter was privately friendly to the Republican platform, he immediately became one of the high court's most reliably anti-GOP votes as soon as he was confirmed.
“There's a lack of a real public record, and there's certainly a lack of paper trail,” said Bernard Dobranski, dean at the Ave Maria School of Law. “The real concern comes out of the Souter nomination, in which there was also no paper trail.”
The documents that have been released date back to Roberts’ service as special assistant to Attorney General William French Smith during the Reagan Administration. At the time, Roberts was a 29-year-old lawyer writing legal analyses on various topics, including school busing and affirmative action, in which he generally tends to favor limited government.
Regarding the question of the ideology of Reagan's judicial nominees, Roberts wrote, “It really should not matter what the personal ideology of our appointees may be, so long as they recognize that their ideology should have no role in the decision process — i.e., as long as they believe in judicial restraint.”
While nothing in these writings provides a smoking gun about Roberts’ personal views — particularly because they are so old — Dobranski pointed out that they are consistent with Bush's description of Roberts.
“It seems to me the kind of analysis you would expect from a conservative,” he said.
“Roberts’ credentials are impeccable, his pedigree is strong, his intellect is sound,” said a spokesman for Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. “But the senator just did not know enough about his legal background and judicial philosophy. He would much prefer that it be someone whose judicial philosophy is well known.”
The spokesman said that Brownback, who met one-on-one with Roberts July 25, now feels “much more comfortable” with the nominee, but he added, “He still wants to use the hearing as an opportunity to learn more about his philosophy.”
Many other Republicans, hoping to shepherd Bush's nomination through the Senate without a major confrontation over abortion, will probably argue against the idea that nominees should answer questions about cases they might hear while on the court. They look back to the confirmation of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in July 1993 as their model. During her hearings, Ginsburg explicitly refused to answer any questions about her views or her judicial philosophy.
By that standard, Roberts could refuse to comment on any abortion-related topic, because in November, the Supreme Court will be taking up two abortion-related cases, including Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood, which will test New Hampshire's parental consent law.
David Carle, a spokesman for Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, equivocated on whether the Ginsburg standard would apply to Roberts's hearings.
“Senator Leahy believes that nominees are entitled not to answer questions about specific cases that are before the court,” he said. He added, however, that it would be appropriate to ask about “settled law” from prior cases — and he specifically mentioned Roe.
Catholic Faith
Carle also said that Roberts’ Catholic faith should make no difference in his confirmation hearings.
“There is no religious test for office in the United States and there never should be,” said Carle. Religion is “completely out of bounds.”
Still, the issue of Roberts's religion came up July 25 when law professor Jonathan Turley wrote in the Los Angeles Times that Roberts told an anonymous senator that Roberts would have to recuse himself in cases where the U.S. Constitution conflicted with his Catholic faith. The source for this anecdote turned out to be Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill. — a strongly pro-abortion Catholic lawmaker — who disputed Turley's facts after publication and denied that he had said any such thing. Roberts and Durbin both denied Turley's story. Durbin said that Turley got both the question and the answer wrong.
Meanwhile, Democratic lawmakers, including Sens. Charles Schumer of New York and Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, have both declared that the pro-life activism of Roberts’ wife, Jane Sullivan Roberts, is off-limits for questioning of the nominee.
David Freddoso writes from Washington, D.C.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: David Freddoso ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Following the Work Of the Holy Spirit DATE: 08/07/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 7-13, 2005 ----- BODY:When I was studying history as a young man, I heard of a remarkable movement called the Oratory of Divine Love, which had been founded early in the 16th century by a laywoman from northern Italy, whom we now call St. Catherine of Genoa.
She was something of a Mother Teresa figure and, in fact, directed the largest hospital in the world for poor people.
It was a time of confusion, chaos and scandal. During Catherine's early years, the Church had been governed by the most scandalous of popes, Alexander VI. There was a great deal of abuse and scandal in the Church. There was the constant selling of offices and positions, like those of bishop and parish priest.
There was also an immense amount of theological confusion and ignorance. A large number of devout clergy, religious and laity, however, were spread throughout Europe. No one knew that the Catholic Church was about to explode in the Protestant Reformation and that the unity of the Church in western Europe would soon be destroyed.
This woman and her friends hit on a very simple means of preserving their faith and doing good: They founded the first prayer group known by that name in Church history. The English word oratory comes from the Latin oratorio, which means prayer group. Catherine and her friends started the movement of prayer groups that did precisely that. They prayed together and studied the Scriptures as the guide to their personal spiritual life.
Members of the oratory also took upon themselves the obligation of effectively doings works of charity for the poor and works of religion for the Church. The latter included things like assisting in the parish, teaching religious education, and assisting the sick and the dying.
Italy at that time was a totally Catholic society, but not a very Christian one. By means of a life of common prayer, members of the oratory tried to change their society. It seemed like a modest goal. However, the Oratory of Divine Love spread throughout Italy and southern Europe and had an immense effect. Many historians think that France, and especially Italy and southern Switzerland, kept the Catholic faith because of the oratory. From its ranks came a new religious community, the Oratorian Fathers, founded by St. Philip Neri.
Several years ago I was haunted by the memory of the oratory and its devout foundress who changed her world without ever leaving her home city of Genoa. I have been deeply affected by the writings of St. Catherine, which I published in conjunction with professor Serge Hughes (Paulist Press’ Classics of Western Spirituality series). Her most important and simple message was that all reform must begin in the individual's heart.
In recent years, with the help of Jerry and Yolanda Cleffi, former ministers of the Assemblies of God, and several other devout people, we have been able to start a number of oratories throughout the United States and some other countries. This year we had our first retreat and weekend of prayer at the Sisters of Life retreat house in Stamford, Conn.
It has been a slow start because of my incapacity after having been struck by a car. Nevertheless, I could see that the laypeople who joined the oratory genuinely profited by the weekly meeting, which includes prayer, Scripture reading and meditation on some point of Catholic doctrine. An outline of each week's meeting appears on the group's website (oratorydl.org).
All around us are signs that the Church desperately needs reform. If we do not see this, we are not looking at what is going on. Reform means personal change and bringing institutions back to their rightful purpose. Catholic education, Catholic social services, Catholic medical services — all need reform. Pope John Paul II and our present Holy Father have clearly called for reform of the clergy and religious life.
The secular newspapers do not know what to call all this. They break it down into political categories of liberal and conservative, which only confuses the issues. The question is: Do we want to follow the Gospel? Do we want to know the teaching of the Church?
If you are interested in joining or starting an oratory, please see our website. The answers are all there. Get an oratory going, and you will see that people will change. They will move from discouragement to encouragement, from an almost angry despair about the Church's troubles to a positive enthusiasm, which comes from the recognition that there is a way out.
St. Catherine of Genoa never let anyone forget that the work of the oratory was completely the work of the Holy Spirit, and that its goal was without deviation to follow Christ in the midst of the world. Maybe this is what you are being called to right now.
Franciscan Father Benedict J. Groeschel is director of the Office for Spiritual Development for the Archdiocese of New York. His latest book is Praying to Our Lord Jesus Christ: Prayers and Meditations Through the Centuries, from Ignatius Press.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Father Benedict J. Groeschel, C.F.R. ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Umbrian Wonderland DATE: 08/07/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 7-13, 2005 ----- BODY:It was late afternoon when I reached Assisi last year. A slanting rain was pouring down, ensuring a thorough drenching.
The town was all gray stone, and the only person I saw outside was a policeman swathed in a plastic poncho. This scene wasn't exactly what I had in mind upon setting out, but then it was April in Umbria. I should have done the math.
Then the inn I thought would surely have a room did not. The person at the desk told me of an apartment nearby that was rented by the night or week. It was the best I could do at that point, so I went for it. The unit turned out to be pleasant and modern, with a kitchenette and TV. The latter would come in handy in case it never stopped raining, I thought.
A nearby trattoria welcomed me for an early dinner (anything before 8:30 is early in Italy) and, at last, dry and fed, I bought a paper to read and was asleep by 10.
Awaking about 6 the next morning, I decided to see where I was, as well as to get coffee and a cornetto (croissant). When I got downstairs I heard a gentle church bell, so I followed its sound down a narrow, winding street only to find myself in a wide clearing. A pale sun lit a vast church façade. Mass was just beginning. I joined the few local people inside as a sweet sound of praise came from behind a grille.
The Clarisse (Cla-REE-say) — the Poor Clares — were greeting God as morning came to Assisi.
How blessed I was. I was living right next to the Basilica of St. Clare (in Italian, Santa Chiara: kee-AH-rah), on a level of Assisi below the main Franciscan complex. Mass was the perfect start to a new day. And I did indeed welcome St. Francis's Brother Sun.
Parts of the church, including the crypt, would be closed until 9, and so I bought a book about the basilica from a newsstand and found a caffe nearby for a cappuccino. Appropriate to drink one here, I thought, as the name refers to the brown color of the Capuchin Franciscan Order.
I spent the early morning walking about the town, enjoying the flowers that were starting to color the hills beyond the Basilica of St. Francis above. Assisi has a quiet charm — and a mystical beauty — out of season.
When Francis and Clare lived here, however, they saw an ostentatious town and bloody wars — mainly town against town — as part of daily life. Both Francis and Clare had had to renounce family and friends to reach the state of holiness they achieved.
Clare of Assisi (1193-1253; feast day Aug. 11) exemplified her name, which means clarity, enlightenment. As the daughter of the noble Favarone di Offreduccio, she could have lived a life of ease and privilege. Instead, she reached for something more beautiful.
Her kind and generous mother, Ortolana, made sure that Clare had a good Christian education. But then Clare's fascination with Francis, with his rebellion and fanatical devotion to the poor, went beyond her family's comfort zone.
Clare's illumination, however, was already changing her daily life. After a time of reflection and talks with Francis, Clare showed amazing courage one night. The eve of Palm Sunday was her night of escape from her family and old life. She went off alone into the woods to the tiny chapel of the Portiuncula, where Francis gave her the habit of penance at the altar of the Virgin Mary of the Angels.
That night, the Franciscan brothers took Clare to a Benedictine monastery, where she was protected by the Church against her family's taking her back. Later, at another monastery, she was joined by her sister Caterina, who became Sister Agnes and proved a great comfort to Clare.
St. Clare's letters to Agnes are very moving, and show her thought as she was creating the Order of Poor Clares. Some of her early, simple words inspire even today:
“What you hold, may you always hold. What you do, may you always do.”
And …
“Gaze upon the Lord;
Gaze upon his face;
Gaze upon the One who holds you in his embrace;
Gaze upon his life;
Gaze upon his love;
Gaze upon his coming poor from heaven above.”
Lesser Sister
Pope Gregory IX approved Clare's wish that the order forming around her would live renouncing private property, unlike many of the convents of the day.
The daily life of the Poor Clares, as they became known, was similar to that of the Franciscans. Close to the Friars Minor, they were known as the Lesser Sisters. Their cloister at San Damiano (which can be seen today) was a place for them to gather the spiritual strength to go out during the day, evangelizing the nearby towns and working for their keep.
Clare's accomplishments are all the more amazing when we realize that her health was almost always poor. Francis also was often ill. When he, in his later life, became blind, he lived just outside San Damiano, where the Poor Clares were, and there he wrote his Canticles.
He directed his last will to her and the sisters, and his funeral cortege stopped at San Damiano for a final farewell in 1226.
Among Clare's miracles was that of saving San Damiano from invading Saracens. She did so by praying with and holding up the holy Eucharist in a small ciborium.
As her health failed, she begged Pope Innocent IV — who came in person to visit her — to approve her rule, patterned after St. Francis's own rule for monastic living. This he finally did before she died. Soon afterward she was canonized.
When I revisited her cathedral, built in 1260, I could appreciate the ceiling frescoes representing her heroic life.
To my surprise I saw, in the Chapel of the Crucifix, the very famous colorful crucifix that spoke with St. Francis in San Damiano. I had assumed that it was in the Franciscan basilica in Assisi.
Another joy at St. Clare's is to see her tunic and cloak and some of her hair. Next to that are the breviary and tunic of St. Francis and the shirt she embroidered for him.
The Chapel of the Santissimo is adorned with marvelous fragments of Giotto's school, especially a beautiful nativity scene. On one Christmas Eve, Clare, though still ill in her cot, miraculously participated, it's said, in the Christmas Eve celebration held by St. Francis. This “virtual reality” experience led to her being named the patron saint of television.
St. Clare's mortal remains were discovered in 1850 in a stone sarcophagus under the high altar. Her relics were placed in an urn, which can be seen from the circular staircase at the crypt.
As you kneel in the church to pray, remember Clare's closing to a letter to Sister Agnes:
“Before I say farewell, there is one thing that I must add: that you cling with all your heart to the One who is our life. Whose love inflames our love, whose beauty all admire, whose gentleness is peace. Our gracious Lord.”
Barbara Coeyman Hults is based in New York City.
Planning Your Visit
St. Clare's feast day is Aug. 11, but Assisi seems in perpetual adoration of its saints. Spring and fall are usually the best seasons, although you might want to bring a foldaway umbrella. At Christmas there are many festivities in Assisi and in nearby Gubbio, celebrating the Nativity. It was St. Francis who created the first crèche, using live animals, and it played an important role in Clare's life.
Getting There
Assisi is one of many steep hilltowns in Umbria, in central Italy, and getting there without a car can be challenging. Sometimes a national bus line that goes directly to Assisi is the best bet. The website Assisionline.com has helpful information
----- EXCERPT: St. Clare's Assisi ----- EXTENDED BODY: Barbara Coeyman Hults ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: Letters to the Editor DATE: 08/07/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 7-13, 2005 ----- BODY:Here Comes Harry — Again
Your article about Harry Potter (“Judging Harry,” July 24-Aug. 6) fails to be objective in two ways:
1. It allows the anti-Potter viewpoint to beg the question of whether Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger intended his letter to advise parents or children of an appropriate age not to read Harry Potter books. While Regina Doman and Msgr. Peter Fleetwood present an understanding of the facts as their opinion, the others promote their opinion as established fact.
2. After assuming the Pope “opposes” Harry Potter, the anti-Potter representatives appeal to Catholics not to read Harry Potter based on respect for authority. However, in a sentence from the letter not included in your article, Cardinal Ratzinger wrote: “I would like to suggest that you write to Father Peter Fleetwood.”
Msgr. Fleetwood at that time was a member of the Pontifical Council for Culture, which had just released a document on the Church and the New Age. He was in an authoritative position, informed about the New Age worldview, and he took the time to read both Gabriele Kuby's and J.K. Rowling's books. Msgr. Fleetwood thoughtfully responded to Mrs. Kuby with a four-page letter advising her about the Harry Potter books. According to Msgr. Fleetwood's July 14 interview with Vatican Radio, Mrs. Kuby never responded (source: Catholic News Service).
Father Joseph Fessio is quoted in your article as saying: “We should be disposed to want to follow the leadership of our superiors in the Church.” I hope your readers will dispose themselves to consider the informed opinion of Msgr. Fleetwood, since he is the superior recommended in Cardinal Ratzinger's letter.
ROBERT TREXLER
Cheshire, Connecticut
Polygamy Follows
Regarding “Citing Kids, N.J. Court Says No to Same-Sex ‘Marriage’” (July 10-16):
Judge Stephen Skillman pointed out that polygamy supporters could use arguments made by same-sex “marriage” supporters. I strongly agree with him. Further, I believe that, if a society allows same-sex “marriage,” it is consistent for it to allow polygamy, too.
Same-sex “marriage” supporters say we should allow marriage between any two consenting adults who desire it. They also point out “the right to privacy and equal protection” to support the legalization of same-sex “marriage.” Polygamy supporters could use the exact same arguments and assert that we discriminate against them. They could also ask on what grounds same-sex “marriage” is acceptable while polygamy is not.
If we allow same-sex “marriage,” we cannot reject polygamy without being arbitrary.
YEONGLAN G. DROUAL
Turlock, California
Disturbing Disconnect
Regarding “Bill Would Require Parental Notification When Teens Seek Contraception” (July 24-Aug. 6):
Let's charitably remind others of this inconsistency:
Parental consent is required for allergy, asthma or ADD medicine to be administered at school. No parental consent is required to dispense contraception to minors.
This one is common sense.
KRIS CORTES
Flossmoor, Illinois
The President Is Not Pro-Life
In your June 26-July 2 issue, a letter titled “President Falls Short” indicates ways in which President George W. Bush falls short of being truly pro-life on the embryonic stem-cell issue. I share the writer's concerns, and I would say that Bush made the wrong decision on embryonic stem cells on Aug. 9, 2001. That alone ought to disqualify him from being pro-life.
However, there is another reason why I cannot consider Bush to be pro-life. This reason very probably disqualifies most other conservative Republicans from being pro-life as well. However, most pro-life groups, including your paper, have almost completely ignored this question.
Welfare reforms in some states contain family caps, a provision where welfare payments are not increased for additional children born to welfare mothers, and/or they deny welfare benefits to single, teenage mothers. However, such provisions will tempt the woman to abort the baby and are therefore pro-abortion.
Bush supports family caps. In his 1997 State of the State (of Texas) address, he said, “We should not give additional cash benefits for having more children while on welfare.” That statement clearly contradicts his claims to be opposed to abortion. As a result, I did not vote for him in either 2000 or 2004; I cast write-in votes for president, instead.
The abortion issue ought to make it clear that the problem of unmarried sexual activity will have to be solved by some other means besides punishing the woman after she is pregnant. The fact that a pregnancy is out of wedlock is absolutely no excuse for abortion. When it comes to out-of-wedlock pregnancies and childbirths, avoiding the further sin of abortion simply must have priority over punishing any prior sexual sins.
Also, Bush's tax cuts did not include converting the dependency exemption into a 100%-refundable tax credit or making the child tax credit 100% refundable, measures that could have compensated for the effects of family caps. This makes it even clearer that Bush is not being truthful in his pro-life claims.
PAUL D. WHITEHEAD
Falls Church, Virginia
Women Who Pine for Priesthood
“Activists Still Pine for Women Priests” (July 24-Aug. 6) is a fairly balanced article. Aside from the usual suspects who dwell on the fringe of the Church and mostly inhabit the far side of 50, there is barely a ripple of interest in this matter among most Catholics.
The late Christopher Lasch called this the age of narcissism and indeed it is. Every time someone or some group becomes dissatisfied, a great issue arises in the media — whether it's over sex-change operations, reparations for the reputed descendants of slaves, reconquista of the American Southwest, homosexual “marriage,” polygamy or sundry other items of self-absorption.
In The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations (1979), Lasch defined the American narcissist as “… acquisitive in the sense that his cravings have no limits, he does not accumulate goods and provisions against the future, in the manner of the acquisitive individualist of 19th-century political economy, but demands immediate gratification and lives in a state of restless, perpetually unsatisfied desire.”
Considering just how closely linked are the issues of female ordination and the goddess movement among self-described “progressive” Catholics, one may soon expect that many of them will find themselves back where they started — in the mental hovels of self-centered adolescence.
JOHN I. HETMAN
Niles, Illinois
God on the Pod
Thanks for the article “Invasion of the Podcasters” in the July 17-23 edition. And thanks for mentioning Disciples with Microphones, of which I am a member. We're trying to make this new technology a good means of answering our late great Pope's call for evangelization using the media.
A couple of notes, though. Virtually all of the podcasters noted in your article are members of DwM, including the featured podcaster, Jayson Franklin, and the most famous Catholic podcaster, Father Roderick Vonhogen. This fact wasn't mentioned.
Also, you should give yourselves a little pat on the back: Our group is the direct result of an article one of your correspondents (and our fearless leader), Carlos Briceno, wrote last year calling for a reform of Catholic radio and asking openly for volunteers to join together in the renewal.
Thanks for the great paper. Keep up the blessed work!
JAMES KURT
Jersey City, New Jersey
This writer is author of Our Daily Bread: Exposition of the Readings of Catholic Mass and co-podcaster of “The Breadcast.”
Media Maven
I produce a Catholic radio show called “Cross Signals” (crosssignals.com) that you and Jayson Franklin referred to in the Register article titled “Invasion of the Podcasters” (July 17-23). First of all, thank you. It is a good thing that we as Catholics are becoming more involved in new media technologies and I appreciate your efforts in promoting these works and making other Catholics aware. There are quite a few things happening in this arena, and your coverage of this is valuable.
I have been producing “Cross Signals” here in Portland, Ore., since January 2004. It's basically a Catholic variety show, incorporating interviews with priests, music, dramatic presentations, movie reviews and so on. Recently some other stations around the country have expressed interest in the program, and I hope that more will open their doors to this type of program. I am presently creating an even greater web presence, podcasting included, and I'm excited to see what transpires.
I worked several years with a Catholic film company and now I'm doing production work for a major Christian television network. If ever you would like to collaborate on Catholic media issues in the future, please let me know if I could be of assistance.
MICHAEL MCNAMARA
Beaverton, Oregon
Corrections
Due to a reporting error, “Sisters and GIs Remember WWII Rescue” (Feb. 20-26) gave the impression that John Fulton of Kinnelon, N.J., led the U.S. ground forces in a 1945 rescue of civilians in the Philippines. In fact, Fulton led about nine Filipino guerrillas and an escaped internee in the raid.
Also, the website offering Lorraine Murray's book How Shall We Celebrate? (Resurrection Press) is catholicbookpublishing.com. The web address was printed incorrectly with her column titled “Help Wanted: Long Hours, Low Pay, Meet Jesus” (July 10-16).
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: U.N. Officials Shut Out Pro-Life Groups DATE: 08/07/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 7-13, 2005 ----- BODY:NEW YORK — In early March, the United States and the Holy See fought a lonely battle at the United Nations against pro-abortion activists with only the vocal support of a handful of pro-life non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
Another abortion battle at the United Nations now looms, and could prove even lonelier for the United States and the Holy See due to maneuvering by U.N. officials.
Pro-life non-governmental organizations were barred from speaking to or lobbying member states at the recent preparatory talks for the upcoming Millennium Summit +5, which will be held in September. Yet, pro-abortion groups, such as International Planned Parenthood Federation, the National Youth Network for Reproductive Rights and Family Care International, were welcomed.
“The U.N. generally allows NGOs to sit in on these things and press their cause with delegates,” said Austin Ruse, president of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute. “The new tactic is to exclude all NGOs and force them to apply. The U.N. can then hand-pick the ones it wants to participate.
“Whereas other strategies have failed to silence the pro-life voice,” Ruse added, “this one may have been successful.”
Ruse believes the United Nations changed its approach to non-governmental organizations because officials there are uncomfortable with the success the pro-life movement has had in its lobbying efforts. As an example of one such success, Ruse cited the fight at the two-week session of the Commission on the Status of Women, or Beijing+10, held in March.
The United States, with the support of the Holy See and a handful of pro-life non-governmental organizations, proposed an amendment to the Beijing document that sought to clarify that the Beijing Conference of 1995 did not create any new international human rights and did not include an alleged “right” to abortion.
Though member states did not support the amendment, they did not contest it either.
As Ambassador Ellen Sauerbrey, U.S. Representative to the Commission on the Status of Women, summed up at the time, this meant that “based on consultations this week with states, we further understand that states do not understand the Beijing or Beijing+5 outcome documents to constitute support, endorsement, or promotion of abortion.”
Pro-life activists from around the world traveled to New York to work to educate member states on the original intent of the Beijing conference. Pro-life leaders credited them with influencing the outcome.
‘Very Concerned’
But this time, the United Nations made sure the pro-life view never entered the debate. Ruse reckoned that 10 or so pro-life non-governmental organizations applied to participate in the talks and were all turned down.
Officials at the U.N. press office did not respond to a request for comment.
Richard Grenell, spokesman for the U.S. mission to the United Nations, called the exclusion of the pro-life element from the preparatory talks “troubling.”
“We're very concerned about the situation,” he said, adding that officials from his office are “looking into the matter.” He declined to comment further, after adding they are in the process of “looking into the facts” and are “asking the right questions” about what happened.
A spokesman for the Holy See's mission to the United Nations, Father Vittorio Guerrera, said that the Holy See is concerned about the situation.
“As we are in an ongoing process of negotiations, it is not our policy to make any public statements at this time,” Father Guerrera said.
The original Millennium Summit, held in September of 2000, was considered as the U.N.'s way of taking stock of itself at the dawn of a new millennium. As Secretary General Kofi Annan wrote at the time, it was “an opportunity to strengthen the role of the United Nations in meeting the challenges of the 21st century.”
The document produced at that conference called on member states to renew their commitment to combat poverty, war, HIV/AIDS and pollution, and to defend the rights laid out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. That document, written in 1948, made no mention of the “rights” to abortion and contraception.
But that “omission” is exactly what officials at the United Nations, certain member states and pro-abortion non-governmental organizations want to change, according to Ruse.
“The reason this didn't smell right is that one of the main themes in the run up to the millennium conference has been ‘reproductive rights,’ which were not part of the original goals of the millennium declaration,” he said.
Overshadows Intention
One pro-abortion group, Women's Environment & Development Organization, for example, in an informational guide on the Millennium Development Summit's goals, laments that the goals, as they were articulated five years ago, “do not represent the full vision of gender equity, equality and women's empowerment or poverty eradication and structural transformation. Chief among the gaps is the failure to include the issue of reproductive rights.”
Ruse said that the fixation by certain groups on “reproductive rights” overshadows the original intention behind the summit.
“These NGOs genuinely want to reduce poverty and promote education, all of which we support,” said Ruse. “But they also push to make abortion a universal “right.” It is being packaged as one of the most important goals of the Millennium Development Summit.”
The danger behind this lies not only in an attack on the right to life, according to Ruse, but also in an attack on national sovereignty. Though any documents produced at the Millennium Summit would technically be non-binding, they would nevertheless “be held by U.N. potentates as universal law.”
Eduardo Llull writes from New York City.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Eduardo Llull ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: National Media Watch DATE: 08/07/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 7-13, 2005 ----- BODY:Questions About Lobbyist's Political Donations
According to records on file with the Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance, Saunders gave several contributions, amounting to $900 total, to politicians who support abortion and same-sex “marriage.”
Saunders, who now represents the bishops in the state Legislature, told the Globe the donations were made while he was lobbying for credit unions and were simply “the nature of the business.”
Massachusetts Citizens for Life questioned the appointment.
“If there are personal contributions given to lawmakers or political candidates who are not in sync with what the Church teaches,” the group's executive director said, “then doesn't that call into serious question the motives of this individual?”
Fargo Diocese Mandates Natural Family Planning
The new policy will go into effect Sept. 8. It requires couples to receive an introduction to Pope John Paul II's Theology of the Body and complete a full course on an approved method of natural family planning as part of their marriage-preparation program. The Archdiocese of Denver was the first to implement such a requirement.
“I have seen a great need for this instruction to help couples fully live the sacrament of marriage,” Fargo Bishop Samuel Aquila said. “Young adults are bombarded with negative images of sexuality, with attitudes that demean the marital commitment and with lies about the so-called ‘freedom’ contraception provides. They need to know and they deserve to know the plan that God has for them regarding their sexuality and the conjugal love they will share as husband and wife.”
Cardinal to Same-Sex ‘Parents’: Not So Fast
Cardinal Marc Ouellet of Quebec told a Senate committee hearing as Parliament debated the legalization of same-sex “marriage” that canon law does not allow the “signatures of two fathers or two mothers as parents of an infant.”
“For an infant to be baptized lawfully it is required … that there be a well-founded hope that the child will be brought up in the Catholic religion,” Canon 868 says. “If such hope is truly lacking, the baptism is, in accordance with the provisions of particular law, to be deferred and the parents advised of the reason for this.”
Sunday Is Just Another Day
According to a 2003 survey by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 33% of full-time workers are on the job on an average weekend.
Robert Thompson, director of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University, noted that for many people Sunday is no longer centered on “church and the family dinner.”
Phoenix Bishop Thomas Olmsted recently urged the faithful to “refrain from all shopping and enjoy Sunday as a day of rest, a day of leisure, a day for family, a day for celebrating the Eucharist.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Effects of Hiroshima and Nagasaki Still Being Felt DATE: 08/07/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 7-13, 2005 ----- BODY:When someone commits a grave sin, such as adultery or murder, but never confesses or even acknowledges it, the sin festers. Things begin to go wrong in his life, and he does not understand why. His character slowly becomes corrupted. He loses his former ideals and goals. He finds he is unable to escape a constant, gnawing unhappiness.
The same principle holds for groups of persons, since together, or through their leaders, groups can do things that are seriously wrong. The history of Israel illustrates this: Frequently, its troubles and woes could be traced to some unacknowledged infidelity. In our own time, nations have fallen through presumption and folly. Large firms such as Arthur Andersen have collapsed through unprincipled actions they tried to rationalize.
It is common for Catholics to look at American culture today, with its “moral anarchy,” and wonder when things began to go wrong. Why do we have rampant divorce, abortion, contraception, promiscuity, pornography, homosexual activism and secularization? Usually the ’60s are blamed, and yet there was no noteworthy cause then. Could our moral anarchy, perhaps, have its origins in something even prior to that decade?
This August marks the 60th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We propose that Catholics reflect seriously on whether those bombings amount to a serious, unacknowledged national “sin,” one that has contributed to the corruption of the national character. Could our current moral malaise be traceable — at least in part — to these great, dishonorable acts?
From the point of view of natural law, and Catholic moral teaching, these bombings objectively were acts of mass murder against some 200,000 people, mostly women and children. And yet today it remains common for Catholics to defend them.
Recently we attended a dinner party with about 20 pro-life Catholic friends. In an informal poll, only 4 were confident that the bombings were objectively immoral. Our friends tried to defend the bombing with bad arguments, using premises unacceptable to a well-formed Catholic conscience.
“The bombs were necessary to shock the Japanese into surrender,” they said, “To have fought Japan in an invasion, we might have lost as many as a million soldiers.”
But can an end justify the means? One cannot do evil so that good may come. Non-combatants cannot be directly killed in war, even to achieve a good end.
“In being the first to use the atomic bomb, we adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages,” commented Admiral William Leahy, chief of staff to President Truman. “I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children.”
Our friends then remarked that wars should not be run on abstract principles but on realistic military tactics. In essence, they posited that national interest and ethical principles can sometimes be in conflict.
But Truth is One: Authentic self-interest is never at odds with what is right. In the case of the atomic bombs, one does not need to look far to see that, even then, good ethics and good military practice really did coincide. Eisenhower and MacArthur, the greatest American generals of World War II, both opposed the use of the bombs as unnecessary.
“Japan was already defeated, and dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary,” Eisenhower wrote afterwards. “Our country should have avoided shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives.”
MacArthur likewise asserted that there was “no military justification for the dropping of the bomb,” and that “the war might have ended weeks earlier if the United States had agreed, as it later did anyway, to the retention of the institution of the emperor.”
In the end, it looks as if the best military course of action was exactly the same as the right ethical decision.
Our friends at the dinner party then said that the bombings were justifiable as part of “total war”: All Japanese people, including women and children, were forced to contribute to the war effort. There was no distinction between soldier and civilian; thus, all shared in the guilt.
But we need to be clear about what justifies taking another human life during wartime: It is not “guilt,” but rather being an actual aggressor. One cannot seriously claim that the women and children of Hiroshima were aggressors. They would not have climbed into planes to attack the United States if all the Japanese soldiers had died.
Ultimately, the “total war” argument is an attempt to avoid the explicit condemnation of the Catholic Church of “indiscriminate” attacks — those that do not distinguish between soldier and civilian. The Church has repeatedly reminded us that it is evil to adopt the total war outlook. Wars conducted according to the just-war principles require that one observe carefully the distinction between aggressors and civilians.
Our friends then said that the bombings could be justified by “double effect”: The intended goal was ending the war quickly; the unintended side effect was that 200,000 Japanese people died; and this evil was proportionate to the good achieved, since it probably saved a million U.S. lives.
But this is a misuse of the principle of “double effect.” Double effect applies only to good and bad things achieved in an action itself, not those that are a consequence of the action. (This is why double effect never justifies doing something bad as a means to a good end that comes about later.) The good achieved in the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was the destruction of a relatively small number of unimportant factories. The evil caused in the bombing was the death of 200,000, which clearly is not proportionate. The “intended” good of ending the war quickly is a remote, not a proximate end, which is not relevant to double effect.
“Suppose Germany had developed two bombs before we had any bombs. And suppose Germany had dropped one bomb, say, on Rochester and the other on Buffalo, and then having run out of bombs she would have lost the war. Can anyone doubt that we would then have defined the dropping of atomic bombs on cities as a war crime, and that we would have sentenced the Germans who were guilty of this crime to death at Nuremberg and hanged them?” Thus argued Leo Szilard, a leading scientist in the Manhattan Project, and Catholic teaching would suggest that he was correct.
Mother Teresa used to point to a deep connection between abortion and nuclear war, warning repeatedly, “The fruit of abortion is nuclear war.” But could the reverse be true also, that we see the fruits of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the mentality of abortion and the culture of death? There is, after all, a chilling similarity between the bad arguments for dropping the bombs and the misguided attempts to justify abortion as a “necessary evil.”
It seems reasonable to assert that America is in fact suffering from an unacknowledged sin — one that will continue to fester, undermining our moral idealism, until we bring it out into the open, acknowledge it as the war crime it was, and do penance and reparation.
Catherine Pakaluk is a Ph.D. candidate in economics at Harvard University. Her husband Michael is the author of Dissoi Blogoi, a scholarly weblog. They have 11 children and live in Lancaster, Massachusetts.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Catherine and Michael Pakaluk ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Better Beda Than Never DATE: 08/07/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 7-13, 2005 ----- BODY:Marketing television shows like “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “The Simpsons” is not the kind of activity you would expect to see listed on the curriculum vitae of your local priest.
But both those shows are in the background of Robert O'Callaghan, who, God willing, will be ordained a priest in the diocese of Nottingham, England, in three years. Like all his fellow students at the Pontifical Beda College in Rome, O'Callaghan was called late to his vocation.
Founded in 1852 by Pope Pius IX and more commonly known simply as the Beda, the college has ever since devoted itself to training men who come late to the priesthood. Located in suburban Rome, in the shadow of the Basilica of St. Paul's Outside the Walls, its original purpose was to train convert clergymen from the Anglican Church, a tradition that continues to the present day.
But nowadays, the college, which enrolled 15 new students this academic year, also trains older men from other walks of life, including widowed fathers and students from around the world.
“It's quite fascinating, the amazing variety and richness of background and experience that so many of the men have brought with them,” says Jim Mulligan, a final-year ordinand with an interesting history. He was a miner in the Yukon Valley in Canada, a teacher in inner-city London schools, and a sheet-metal worker in New Zealand.
Other students include a former barrister, a South African soldier, a professional musician, a research chemist and the former headmaster of one of the most successful secondary schools in Britain. Before earning a good living in London as a marketing manager for the media corporation 20th Century Fox, Robert O'Callaghan used to repair watches at Sekonda.
All the Beda's students have had their own unique paths to the ordained ministry. Mulligan responded to his calling at 50 while sitting on the top deck of a London bus near the Archway Bridge.
“It came over me like a Joycean epiphany that this is what I must try to do,” he remembers. He says there then followed a “long period of private discernment” before he “took the plunge” and wrote to the vocations director in the Archdiocese of Westminster.
A Bishop's Bequest
O'Callaghan's story is particularly special: At 36 he is already a widow, his wife having died from meningitis in 2000, just a year after they were married.
“Of course, my faith took a nosedive,” he recalls, “but once I recovered from the bereavement I went on many retreats to re-find my faith.” A short time later, he received a calling to the priesthood.
“In some ways I feel a bit like a convert,” he explains, “leaving my faith and coming back, but through the actual form of bereavement.”
Each student at the Beda is referred to the college by his local bishop. Some have been sent straight there, others have spent a foundation year or so at another college. But, unlike their younger counterparts, they will then embark on a four-year course instead of the usual six, attending in-house lectures as part of an integrated formation program.
The college is particularly distinctive for its openness to other cultures — a tradition that harks back to the days of the British Empire but has since continued, often because of an absence of such colleges in students’ home countries. In Africa, for example, anyone over the age of 25 will usually not be admitted to a conventional seminary because younger students will defer to them as elders rather than equals.
As a young man, Kenyan student Michael Babugichuru trained at his seminary in his home diocese of Malindi, but left before completing his studies. Seventeen years later, and after a 10-year stint studying and working in Greece, he believes the decision to leave was a mistake.
“Every time I seriously tried to get settled, get married, raise a family, the thought of priesthood would come up,” he explains. So now, at 40 years of age and after much searching, he is delighted to be able to try again for the priesthood, this time at Beda College.
“After I had made that decision,” he adds, “I felt relieved — like tons of weight were lifted off my back.”
The Beda also occasionally trains students from countries where Christians are persecuted. One student from China called Paul (not his real name) studied for six years in his home country, only to see his bishop arrested and not replaced. He fled to the United States. After completing one year of studies at the Beda, he will return to his parish in Hawaii. (House arrest awaits him if he returns to China.)
“It's difficult,” he says. “You can't imagine it. In my seminary life, we kept running from one place to another. We couldn't stay in one place more than six months. We had to keep moving.”
For college rector Msgr. Roderick Strange, the widely diverse backgrounds and advanced ages of the students are a plus.
“There is an expectation when they come to us that they are mature human beings,” he says. “Certainly that's the way I would like them to be treated.”
As head of the college for the past eight years, Msgr. Strange says most students see their time at the Beda as one of discernment, albeit a relatively short one, in which they are open to explore the possibility of priesthood.
“The majority come with that sense of awe of what they're doing, saying, ‘Gosh, I really should have done this years and years ago, and I really didn't feel it could possibly be me.’” They have that “good sense of being open to formation,” he adds.
No Small Sacrifice
Meanwhile he is wary of a small minority who can have an “absolute certainty” about becoming a priest — which, to him, often indicates a flight from other responsibilities, a certain kind of immaturity or a search for security within the Church.
“Sometimes they say to me, ‘But I've sold my home, I've given up my job for this; you have to ordain me,’” he adds. “It doesn't work that way. You can't buy yourself into priesthood.”
Most students agree that leaving behind entrenched attachments to a secular way of life is no small sacrifice.
“To detach myself from some of life's trappings and values to concentrate on serving others, serving the Lord, was quite a painful transition at first,” says O'Callaghan. “At one moment you're in charge of people, you make decisions, you're in charge of accounts worth two or three million pounds — and then you're turned around and being formed.”
So far, like so many students at the Beda past and present, he has no regrets.
Edwin Pentin writes from Rome.
Information
bedacollege.com
----- EXCERPT: The Pontifical Beda College fosters late vocations ----- EXTENDED BODY: Edward Pentin ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: Central Themes Emerge as Benedict Completes First 100 Days of His Papacy DATE: 08/07/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 7-13, 2005 ----- BODY:VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI recently passed his first 100 days as the Successor of St. Peter — a period in which there has been much continuity with the historic pontificate of John Paul II but also distinct differences in style and priorities.
Since his election, the Pope has been keen to downplay the Chair of Peter in an attempt to give a clearer view of Christ. His papal liturgies, rich in symbolism, have sought to fill the faithful with awe and reverence for the divinity of Jesus.
“The purpose of our lives is to reveal God to men,” the Holy Father reminded the faithful at his inauguration Mass April 24. “And only where God is seen does life truly begin. Only when we meet the living God in Christ do we know what life is.”
Benedict‘s approach to the papacy likely stems in part from his own reserved personality. Yet it's clear it also conforms to his theological beliefs.
“Benedict has long been aware of the tendency in European theology to overemphasize the humanity of Christ and fail to recognize the divinity of Christ,” explained Father Vincent Twomey, professor of moral theology at St. Patrick's Pontifical University in Maynooth, Ireland. “I do think he will give greater stress to the divinity of Christ and, with that, to the whole mystery of God — Father, Son and Holy Spirit.”
Father Twomey, an academic acquaintance of the Pope for 34 years since being a former student of Benedict at the University of Regensburg, believes the Pope takes this line because he “is more a theologian than John Paul II.” His predecessor, Father Twomey added, “was a great theologian as well, but he was more a philosopher — that was his strength.”
Father Brian Johnstone, a systematic moral theologian at the Pontifical Alphonsian Academy in Rome, believes Benedict's theological approach to the papacy can be traced back to his writings on St. Bonaventure.
“[Benedict] did not accept the Thomist idea of the autonomy of philosophy or the autonomy of science but rather a wisdom based on faith in Christ as the ultimate source of truth,” he said.
“He does seem to believe, quite explicitly, that you cannot hope to find moral truth without, ultimately, faith in Christ, though he is respectful of other views,” Father Johnstone added.
For all that, Benedict is not regarded as any more centered on Christ than his predecessor, with whom he collaborated so closely for 23 years as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
“John Paul II was extremely Christocentric, as can be seen in his first three encyclicals,” said Msgr. Michael Magee, a Rome-based biblical scholar and liturgist. “What there may be is more focus placed on the transcendence of the faith, accentuating the transcendent dimension, and ideas that have come to light are an indication of that.”
Most observers expect that this focus on the transcendent will be reflected in the liturgy. So far, there have been few changes made in that direction except in the Holy Father's own papal ceremonies, but changes could start as soon as the fall.
“The liturgy has to recover its sense of mystery,” Father Twomey said. “If you have a liturgy that has Jesus kind of having a party with his friends, it's a very humanistic approach. The whole sense of mystery, awe and wonder simply goes out of it.”
Father Twomey believes Benedict's own liturgies, which emphasize awe and mystery, will “encourage” more general change. “That will strengthen the sense of mystery, which is linked to the centrality of Christ, Son of God and son of Mary,” he said.
In the context of the anticipated liturgical reforms, some Vatican commentators predict changes in the Office of Papal Liturgical Celebrations during the coming months.
“Pope John Paul II was very strongly aware of the significance of culture and the need to incorporate cultures in the liturgy,” Father Johnstone said, whereas Benedict prefers liturgies that “reflect the natural implications of faith.”
Deeper Dialogue
Another significant development in Benedict's early papacy has been an emphasis on ecumenism. Advances have already been made, with Orthodox Church representatives agreeing in late June, after meeting with the Pope, to resume theological dialogue this fall after a five-year suspension.
The official theological dialogue, which is carried out by a Catholic-Orthodox international mixed commission and includes representatives of the Catholic Church and of the various Orthodox Churches, has been blocked since 2000, when disputes arose at a meeting in Maryland. The disputes were centered on the theological and canonical implications of Uniatism, the term used by the Orthodox regarding Christians in traditionally Orthodox countries that are in communion with Rome.
The Pope has also highlighted the importance of interfaith dialogue, pledging to visit a synagogue and meet with Muslim religious leaders during this month's visit to World Youth Day in Germany.
The Holy Father has placed a heavy emphasis on improving diplomatic relations with Asian countries, particularly China and Vietnam, which do not have formal contacts with the Holy See. And, like John Paul II, he has also spoken forcefully against secularism while carefully steering clear of direct involvement in political disputes.
There has never been a pope with such a public record of his thoughts, so few have been surprised that Benedict's papal style is consistent with what he followed as a renowned theology professor in Germany and later in Rome as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Benedict phrases his statements carefully and precisely and, on matters of doctrine, he remains firm and uncompromising — unafraid to proclaim unpopular truths and prepared to engage in debate with his opponents.
But he is also engaging with the public more than expected and has developed good relations with the media in his first 100 days.
“In carrying out his ministry, the new Pope knows his task is to make Christ's light shine out before the men and women of today: not his own light, but Christ's,” Benedict told his brother cardinals the day after his election. In his first 100 days, few would deny he has sought to do just that.
Edward Pentin writes from Rome. (Zenit contributed to this story.)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Edward Pentin ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: COLOGNE CALLING DATE: 08/07/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 7-13, 2005 ----- BODY:VATICAN CITY — World Youth Day 2005 shows every sign of matching the high expectations of its organizers, and many German youth are eagerly waiting for the event.
“We're looking forward very much to our visit to Cologne, taking part in the events and meeting young people of so many different nationalities,” said Eva Maria Dapper, 22, from the Bavarian city of Würzburg.
Dapper, a volunteer in her diocesan World Youth Day office, is responsible for organizing transportation of a large group of 2,000 young pilgrims from Würzburg to the Rhineland, where they will stay for the duration of the event, from Aug. 16-21.
But the work is absolutely worth it, she said, and the visit of their fellow Bavarian countryman, Pope Benedict XVI, will, of course, be a highlight.
“We're very happy that the Pope is going to visit and, personally, I very much hope that he increases interest in the Church among the youth in Germany,” she said.
Coming four months after Pope John Paul II's death, when many young people took part in a worldwide outpouring of love for him, World Youth Day is likely to attract greater crowds than the event's previous incarnations. Up to 800,000 young people, 600 bishops and 4,000 journalists are expected to attend under the theme “We Have Come to Worship Him.”
“Young people are looking for Jesus Christ, and would like to find him in Cologne,” said Cardinal Joachim Meisner of Cologne in early July. “Our word must be shown through our lives … and that is what the youth of the world expect from the Archdiocese of Cologne.”
Cardinal Meisner said that at the beginning of July, 400,000 young people had already registered and that even up to “2 million could be expected.”
The spiritual program for the 20th World Youth Day is comprehensive: 248 churches and halls throughout the city — including seven evangelical churches and one Orthodox church — have been designated for catechetical sessions, led by bishops from all over the world.
In addition, a “spiritual center” will be created in which 20 churches belonging to movements and religious orders in Cologne, Bonn and Düsseldorf will serve “to deepen the spirituality of young people,” according to Father Josef Funk, area manager of the World Youth Day office. The ecumenical Taizé community also will have a strong presence.
Organizers also plan pilgrimages to the “Dom,” Cologne's magnificent gothic cathedral, which possesses a famous shrine to the three Magi.
“Within three days, we expect 400,000 people to have visited the shrine of the three kings,” said Father Ulrich Hennes, secretary of World Youth Day.
Central to the events, however, will be the opportunity for young people to receive the sacrament of reconciliation in a center set up in the Koelnmesse, a large conference hall in the city. From Aug. 17-19, from 8 a.m. until midnight, approximately 100 priests will hear confessions in 30 languages there.
There will also be plenty of opportunities for adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. The spiritual program will “prepare us for Christ,” Father Hennes said, and “help realize the vision of the Pope to build a just and peaceful world.”
Activities Nationwide
But Cologne is not the only city organizing activities. Dioceses and young people all over Germany have been preparing and raising money for the event for the past three years.
The Schönstatt Movement, a lay apostolate aimed at renewing the world in Christ through Mary, is setting up a shrine to Our Lady as a “Covenant of Love for the Youth of the World” in Schönstatt, the town where it was founded in 1914. Already, 2,500 young people from 36 countries have shown an interest.
The parish of St. Sakrament in Düsseldorf is organizing an exhibition of pictures, music and writing centered on the Mass. It will be set up in a former air-raid shelter.
Aug. 12 has been designated the Day of Social Service, when participants will have the chance to “work to build a civilization of love and justice,” as John Paul II urged World Youth Day participants in Toronto three years ago.
Prior to the official start of World Youth Day, however, will be a program called Days of Encounter in the German Dioceses from Aug. 11-15. All German dioceses are taking part, hosting more than 120,000 young people from 162 countries.
The aim of the event is to provide foreign guests the opportunity, together with their German hosts in church and other diocesan communities, to get to know one another. They will then travel to Cologne for World Youth Day.
‘Enormous Shift’
Finally, in a highly symbolic gesture, the traditional World Youth Day cross, which is brought over land and sea to whichever country is hosting the event, is now being carried from Dresden, in the former East Germany, to Cologne over a period of 40 days.
Fifty young Catholics traveled the first 400 miles, and more youths, together with 30 German bishops, will accompany the cross on the pilgrimage to World Youth Day, passing the former Buchenwald concentration camp where the violence inflicted by the Nazis against so many young people will be remembered. The cross, weighing 68 pounds, began its journey through Europe on Palm Sunday 2003 and has been around the world several times since the tradition was begun by John Paul II in 1984.
The Cologne and Bonn city authorities have been in close cooperation with event organizers and will have buses and trams running around the clock. They have also created maps and guides for visitors on how to reach the Marienfeld, the main venue for the event.
Press Is Skeptical
There remains the question of what effect World Youth Day might have on Germany itself, a country that has, like many parts of Europe, become more secularized.
“Everyone in Germany is aware of World Youth Day,” according to Ludwig Waldmüller, a Bavarian producer in the German section of Vatican Radio. The German press has shown some skepticism about the event, or on occasions has ignored it altogether, as has happened during previous World Youth Days.
“There was a big fuss when it became clear that the Pope hadn't invited a Protestant church to the event,” said Paul Badde, Rome correspondent for the German daily Die Welt. “So they [the secular press] have been trying to make problems.”
Now, however, he says, “It's getting increasing attention.”
Waldmüller agreed. “It's not true that the press are writing very little about it,” he said. “More attention has been paid to it than previous World Youth Days, in Toronto or Paris.”
Badde, a devout Catholic, is, like many German Catholics, convinced this World Youth Day will be of historic significance.
“Here we have a Pope from the country of the Reformation returning to the country of the Reformation,” he noted, adding that the German people, often deeply entrenched in secularism, are now becoming aware that “something went wrong” in the period Chesterton termed the “shipwreck of Christendom.”
The press, Badde said, is understating this change of heart in the German people, reporting that “only 5%” of the population had come back to the Church since John Paul II's passing and Benedict's election.
“That's actually a hell of a lot,” he countered. “An enormous shift.”
Edward Pentin writes from Rome.
----- EXCERPT: Land of the Reformation Gets Ready for Catholic Mega-Event ----- EXTENDED BODY: Edward Pentin ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: What Happens After the Honeymoon? DATE: 08/07/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 7-13, 2005 ----- BODY:By now it's an accepted truism: Most American couples walking down the aisle today spent untold hours and dollars organizing their weddings — and very little time, if any, getting ready for their marriages.
Talk about misplaced priorities.
“In Familiaris Consortio (The Role of the Christian Family in the Modern World), Pope John Paul II talks about how, in order to show the world that the sacraments are real and do bring about sanctification, we need to make sure our couples prepare properly for the sacrament of marriage,” says David Walker, director of the marriage and family life office in the Archdiocese of Denver.
It's up to the Church, he adds, to give Catholic couples access to “all the tools they need to live this out in the post-Christian culture we live in.”
One such tool his office employs, a video-and-workbook set titled God's Plan for a Joy-Filled Marriage (Ascension Press), is the first of three required programs for Denver's engaged couples. Christopher West, Denver's first marriage and family life director, put it together based on John Paul's theology of the body.
Tool No. 2 is a course in natural family planning taught by the Couple to Couple League. Not a few Denver couples have been known to enter this phase skeptically, or even cynically, yet come out beaming.
“My husband, Tim, and I came back into the Church because of our NFP experience,” says Alia Keys of Denver.
“I was panicky about natural family planning; I had a very contraceptive mentality before that class,” she continues, explaining Tim was a cradle Catholic, she a “disgruntled” Catholic.
“Neither of us understood the Eucharist,” she says. “Then we took our NFP classes and all of a sudden the scales fell from our eyes. We started going back to church on a regular basis.”
Their conversion has been complete: Today they're NFP teachers, and Alia recently became Denver's coordinator of the marriage and family life office.
To director Walker's knowledge, while some dioceses have strong NFP programs and some parishes require couples to take the course, Denver is still the only diocese in the country that mandates natural family planning instruction for all its engaged couples.
Walker says statistics show that nothing can safeguard a marriage against divorce as effectively as natural family planning: The highest divorce rate his office could find for couples practicing natural family planning was 4% to 5% — compared with the 50% average across the United States.
“Natural family planning really builds stronger, healthier marriages,” he says.
Another distinctive part of Denver's marriage-preparation program lets couples take all but NFP classes over the Internet.
Sarah Reeves and her fiancé, Andrew Nunlist-Young, felt more open discussing questions during their recent online course. After both graduated from the University of Colorado in Boulder, she was in living in Massachusetts and he in Utah.
“The online course gave us a chance to gather our own views, to go over the readings and to pull our thoughts together before talking about them with one another,” Reeves explains. “I had to take some time to think where I was on an issue.”
Lifelong Process
The Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston promotes natural family planning with similar gusto, says Winnie Honeywell, director of family life ministry.
“We have a guideline that says every couple of childbearing age must take an information session or a course,” she says. But the course isn't mandated for the couples.
Honeywell clarifies that Galveston-Houston's overall marriage preparation is not a program but a “perspective, a schema” that, in accord with John Paul's 1981 apostolic exhortation Familiaris Consortio, treats marriage preparation as a lifelong process.
Five diocesan offices worked together to articulate this perspective, publishing the fruit of their cooperation as a manual in 2003. Today the diocese uses the manual to advance the marriage-prep program in a number of different diocesan programs. For example, the youth office has added workshops on dating and the perils of cohabitation.
“When we get young couples coming straight into marriage prep, they're already formed by the culture as much as by the Church,” Honeywell says. “You can't start talking about cohabitation [out of the blue] and expect to have a whole lot of effect. You have to talk early on about how everything fits together — marriage, chastity, the importance of covenant relationships and the dangers of cohabitation.”
The familial vision of John Paul II is also important in the family-life office of the Diocese of Arlington, Va., according to Robert Laird, its director.
“We're trying to speak the language of John Paul in marriage prep — which is actually his New Evangelization,” he says. “We're taking what he's saying and applying it.
“In Familiaris Consortio, Paragraph 33, John Paul calls natural family planning something else — really, fertility awareness,” he adds. “Teaching a couple about their fertility and the virtuous application of natural family planning is also what Paul VI defines in Humanae Vitae (On the Regulation of Birth) as responsible parenthood.”
Laird continues: “When couples ask what is natural family planning, I say it's fertility awareness. And the virtuous application of natural family planning is responsible parenthood, which is really an application of what John Paul calls the theology of the family. That's how we teach it in our marriage-prep weekend conferences.”
Mike and Kyle Boeglin of Arlington know it works.
“We were planning to use birth control,” Kyle Boeglin says. But three weeks before their wedding at St. Paul's in Bloomington, Ind., they were introduced to natural family planning, learned the basics and, shortly after, took the full course when they moved to Arlington.
“It had such an effect on us, and it's so wonderful for our marriage,” Boeglin says. “We love our Catholic faith and natural family planning has helped us embrace it.”
It didn't take long for the practice to pay off. “On our honeymoon we were fertile and we had to decide whether to embrace natural family planning for all it was,” she says. “And we did.”
This year the Boeglins, like the Keys in Denver, began teaching an NFP class.
“We consider ourselves everyday people, average 20-somethings, and we felt we could relate to other people our age,” Boeglin says.
The Boeglins now work with the Lairds, giving their witness at marriage-prep conferences.
“We've been so blessed by being NFP teachers,” Boeglin says. “It reaffirms our faith and it's a marriage booster to us.”
And it has born another big blessing already — their 5-month-old son, Joseph.
Joseph Pronechen writes from Trumbull, Connecticut.
----- EXCERPT: Three marriage-prep programs show the way ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joseph Pronechen ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Most Baltimore Parishes Using Approved Catechetical Texts DATE: 08/07/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 7-13, 2005 ----- BODY:BALTIMORE — Andrea Reddinger knows first-hand what her children are learning in their parish religious education classes. She not only is one of the teachers, she has helped evaluate the textbooks.
For Reddinger, who has a child in seventh grade, it is both important and necessary that those books are in conformity with the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
“I know both sides of this because I'm teaching as a parent,” she said. “I know that anybody could be saying anything, and I like to know as a teacher that there are specifications about what I can teach and should be teaching these children, and what is not really acceptable to teach.”
Consequently, Reddinger was surprised to learn that one of the textbooks in use in her parish was not in conformity with the Catechism by the U.S. bishops. The book, Harcourt Religion Publishers’ Crossroads, is being used for seventh and eighth graders at Our Lady of the Fields Parish in Millersville, Md.
Diane Lampitt, president of Harcourt, said the company is in the process of revamping all its curriculum products and submitting them to the bishops. However, she said Crossroads is an older product, and only new texts are being sent to the bishops for review.
“We can't just stop a product and start another one right away,” Lampitt said, adding that Crossroads will go out of print eventually if people aren't buying it.
After publication of the Catechism of the Catholic Church in 1993, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops began looking at catechetical materials in this country to see how they conform to it. The Committee to Oversee the Use of the Catechism was instituted in 1994, and it started reviewing materials in 1996. A year later, Archbishop Daniel Buechlein, OSB, of Indianapolis, then chairman of the committee, reported to the bishops what they had found in this initial review.
He outlined 10 areas where catechetical texts were deficient: the Trinity and the Trinitarian structure of Catholic beliefs and teachings; the centrality of Christ in salvation history and an insufficient emphasis on the divinity of Christ; the ecclesial context of Catholic beliefs and magisterial teachings; a distinctively Christian anthropology; God's initiative in the world with a corresponding overemphasis on human action; the transforming effects of grace; presentation of the sacraments; original sin and sin in general; the Christian moral life; and eschatology.
By 1998, the committee had developed a standard, or protocol, which it would use to assess the submitted material. Publishers have the option to submit the material or not. The bishops wanted it voluntarily submitted because they didn't want to review material that didn't have a chance at being changed.
New Orleans Archbishop Alfred Hughes is now chairman of the bishops’ Ad Hoc Committee to Oversee the Use of the Catechism. The committee's findings are updated quarterly and compiled in the Conformity Listing of Catechetical Texts and Series, which is posted on the bishops’ website (www.usccb.org).
In many dioceses, including Baltimore, principals and parish directors of religious education are directed to choose books from the listing. As of March 1, there were 92 texts on the list.
As part of a series, the Register is looking at 20 dioceses with the largest elementary populations to learn whether books in conformity with the Catechism are being used. The Register has looked at the Archdiocese of New Orleans, headed by Archbishop Hughes, which requires catechists to choose books from the conformity list, and the Diocese of Buffalo, N.Y., headed by Bishop Edward Kmiec, which directs catechists to use textbooks on that list — but with its limited catechetical office staff finds it difficult to enforce.
Donna Fischer, director of religious education at Our Lady of the Fields, said she also was unaware that the Crossroads series lacked the bishops’ conformity declaration. The series was in place when she became director three years ago, and she had understood that all the books in use were in accord with the Catechism.
For grades 1-6, the parish is using Silver Burdett Ginn's This Is Our Faith, which has been declared in conformity with the Catechism. It is to be replaced next year with another series from the bishops’ listing, Sadlier's We Believe. Plans are to replace Crossroads, too, Fischer said, as soon as a suitable series can be found. Crossroads is “fairly old, but we didn't want to make that change this year because the junior high coordinator didn't have something she liked better,” she added.
Individual Cases
In its preschool program, Our Lady of the Fields is using another series that is not on the bishops’ conformity listing, but that one, Our Sunday Visitor's I Am Special, is soon to be submitted to the bishops for review, according to Kelly Renz, Our Sunday Visitor's acquisitions editor for religious education. Previously, Renz said, the committee that reviewed texts did not have a protocol for an early-childhood religious-education series.
Sharon Bogusz, coordinator of elementary and sacramental catechesis for the Archdiocese of Baltimore, said the conformity listing should be the starting point for choosing textbooks in both parish and school religious education programs.
The archdiocese makes sure educators know about the list by giving all new catechists a copy of it. They also are given the National Conference for Catechetical Leadership's publication, How to Choose Catechetical Texts, which was just updated to reflect the new National Directory for Catechesis, a guide published by the bishops’ conference for all who have catechetical responsibilities in dioceses and parishes.
Sister of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary Kathy Kandefer, associate director of the National Conference for Catechetical Leadership, said the publication is mainly aimed at helping educators pick the best resources for the needs of their particular parishes. She said the 28-page booklet presumes that the books being considered are in conformity with the Catechism, and quotes a variety of sources, including the National Directory for Catechesis, to support that.
Once catechists in the Baltimore Archdiocese are given guidelines for picking books, Bogusz said, “We don't go into parishes and police whether they're using one textbook over another.” However, she said that if she learned a parish was using materials not meeting the criteria, she would speak to those involved individually and work toward getting them to use books that are in conformity.
In the case of Our Lady of the Fields, it was Fischer who contacted Bogusz, the archdiocesan official, after learning the Crossroads series was not in conformity. Bogusz then followed up by sending a clarifying e-mail to all catechetical leaders reminding them of the process to be followed in choosing books.
‘Sure Way’
Except in two instances, a random check of other Baltimore Archdiocese parishes and schools found all to be using books in conformity with the Catechism.
St. Philip Neri School in Linthicum Heights, Md., is also using Crossroads for Grades 7 and 8, though the books for Grades K-6 carry the bishops’ conformity declaration. Principal Teresa Baker said conformity with the Catechism is very important to her and her staff, but that the school has stayed with Crossroads for now because they have been unable to find anything else they like.
At St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish in Crofton, Md., the Benziger series, Share the Joy, which is on the bishops’ listing, is used for grades K-6. Discovering, published by St. Mary's Press, is the text for Grades 7 and 8; it does not bear the bishops’ conformity designation.
Sister of the Holy Family Helen Milano, director of religious education, said she likes Discovering because it fits the needs of the parish's home-based religious education program. She said she is not particularly concerned that the book is not on the bishops’ conformity listing.
John Vitek, president and chief executive officer of St. Mary's Press in Winona, Minn., said Discovering was published before the review process began and that the company has decided to send only new products to the bishops’ committee for evaluation. He said another reason Discovering has not been submitted for review is because it is not in a traditional textbook format.
The series will continue to be published as long as it remains popular, he said, adding that not having a conformity designation does not seem to have hurt its sales.
“Each bishop is free to establish guidelines in his own diocese, and at the present time, it's maybe a third of the dioceses in the country that have mandated that the conformity declaration is required for use of books in their diocese,” Vitek said.
Among other parishes and schools in the archdiocese using or in the process of changing to texts from the conformity listing are:
" Holy Family Catholic Community in Middletown, Md., which is in its last year of using Sadlier's We Come to Jesus, an outdated text, and plans a switch to either Resources for Christian Living's Faith First or Silver Burdett Ginn's Blest Are We, both of which are on the conformity listing.
" St. Joseph (Sykesville) in Eldersburg, Md., which uses Silver Burdett Ginn's Blest Are We series.
" St. Ursula Parish, Baltimore, which uses Loyola Press's Christ Our Life, a text found by the bishops’ conference to be in conformity.
" Woodmont Academy in Wood–stock, Md., which has been using Ignatius Press's Faith and Life, but will be changing to Circle Media's The Treasure of My Catholic Faith in the 2005-2006 academic year. Both texts are on the bishops’ listing.
Dianna Arnold, a member of St. Joseph's Sykesville who has two children attending Woodmont Academy, said she loves the books her children are using. Arnold said her children also have taken part in their parish religious education program's first Communion preparation for which they used The Gift of the Eucharist, a Silver Burdett Ginn book that bears the conformity declaration.
“It was a little bit basic for what my kids get,” she said of the first Eucharist text. “My kids get so much religion at school that they already know the answers when we go over the questions.”
The first Eucharist book seemed good as a basic text, Arnold said. “It went over important things, but from the standpoint of Woodmont, their religious education program is so in-depth that this is ‘lite’ for my kids. But it seemed like a good book for an hour a week when they do religious ed.”
Sister Milano said at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, catechists have copies of the Catechism to serve as a supplement to any other materials being used.
“I think they underestimate the person who is sharing faith. There is complement and supplement to any booklet and the main person is the catechist. That's where it's at.”
However, Sister Margaret Brogden, youth and religious education minister at Transfiguration Catholic Community in Baltimore, which uses Sadlier's Coming to Faith, a series that is on the bishops’ listing, said conformity with the Catechism is extremely important because not all catechists, especially volunteers, may be sufficiently acquainted with Church teaching.
She said, “This is a sure way that we're not teaching heresy, which is important.”
Judy Roberts is based in Graytown, Ohio.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Judy Roberts ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: To Love, Serve and Die DATE: 08/07/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 7-13, 2005 ----- BODY:In the Gospel of Matthew (10:26-33), Jesus said to the Twelve Apostles: “Fear no one.
Nothing is concealed that will not be revealed, nor secret that will not be known. What I say to you in the darkness, speak in the light; what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops.”
And he added, “Everyone who acknowledges me before others I will acknowledge before my heavenly Father. But whoever denies me before others, I will deny before my heavenly Father.”
I first met King Kigeli V of Rwanda at an event in Washington, D.C., where I spoke on the Martyrs of Vietnam on behalf of Prince Nguyen Phuc Buu Chanh. At 7 feet, 2 inches tall, the king is an imposing figure.
It was only after I met his majesty that I did research on the horrible carnage in Rwanda. King Kigeli was driven out of leadership by the then MDR-Parmehutu party under the leadership of Rwanda's first president, Gregoire Kayibanda, who also abolished the monarchy.
After reading about the brutal massacres in his home country, I felt sad that I was not more aware of the problems there. If I knew more and was better prepared, I could have at least apologized for certain circumstances and members of the Christian community who unfortunately participated. I made a vow to myself that, the next time I go to such an event, I will research the backgrounds of all the guests and study the current events of all involved.
I write this article as a post-apology for the horrible atrocities that have been committed upon the faithful subjects of the king, and the brutal killings of the faithful that continue today.
To die for Christ is one thing. To die because of Christ is another. One requires the willful offering of an individual's life for Christ; the other is the taking of a person's life because of a hatred for Christ.
The victims of the “killing fields of Rwanda” are too great to do justice in a small article such as this. I will just highlight a few of the Catholic clergy. These are some of the martyrs we speak of, the Martyrs of Rwanda.
In 1997, Hutu gunmen murdered Sister Griet Bosmans, a 62-year-old Belgian nun who was the headmistress of the Catholic school, and 17 students. In the same year, gunmen fired automatic weapons and threw grenades at schoolchildren, killing five children and one adult.
In the same year in Kampagna, Rwanda, Missionaries of Africa Father Guy Pinard, 61, was barbarously murdered as he brought the Blessed Sacrament to sick members of his parish one Sunday.
The year 1998 was a particularly brutal year for the religious serving Our Lord in Rwanda.
Father Boniface Kabago (Ruhengeri), a Diocesan priest, and Sister Valens Mukanoheli of the Benebikira were murdered.
In the capital of Kigali, Father Vijeko Curic, a Croatian-born Franciscan priest serving the missions in Rwanda, was murdered near Holy Family Church. He was killed by a pistol shot, fired at close range, while he was in his car.
Five Daughters of Resurrection nuns were murdered in their convent in Rwanda's northwest province by Hutu rebels. The rebels butchered Sisters Epiphanie Gasigwa, Felicite Benimana, Betilde Mukamuhire, Cesarine Wimana and Xavera Mukagakwaya with guns, machetes and axes.
In the new millennium, the violence continued: In the Rwandan Diocese of Kabgayi, Father Isidro Uzcudum, 69, a Spanish priest of Fidei donum (St. Sebastian), was robbed by three men and then shot in the head by one of the men who wanted more than he received. Giuliano Berizzi, an Italian lay missionary, was murdered in his home in Kigali, perhaps mistaken for a missionary priest.
Pope John Paul II, who condemned the killings, wrote that the Catholic Church in Rwanda could not be blamed for acts by individual members.
“The Church in itself cannot be held responsible for the misdeeds of its members who have acted against evangelical law,” the Pope wrote in a letter addressed to Rwandans. “All the members of the Church who have sinned during the genocide must have the courage to bear the consequences of the deeds that they have committed against God and against their future.”
On Pentecost, Pope Benedict XVI called on Rwandan Catholics to remain hopeful for the future and steadfast in their faith, although they were “harshly tried” by the nation's 1994 genocide. He also asked that the Holy Spirit help “make fruitful the efforts of those who are working to build fraternity among all Rwandans in a spirit of truth and justice.”
The Martyrs of Rwanda remind us of Christ's teaching to the apostles: “Nothing is concealed that will not be revealed, nor secret that will not be known. … Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul” (Matthew 10:26-28).
And remember the most important message from that passage: “Everyone who acknowledges me before others I will acknowledge before my heavenly Father. But whoever denies me before others, I will deny before my heavenly Father.”
Thomas J. Serafin is president of the International Crusade for Holy Relics.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Thomas J. Serafin ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: From Shock to Compassion DATE: 08/07/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 7-13, 2005 ----- BODY:Maura Weis got news that any expectant mother would dread.
Seven months into her pregnancy, doctors told Weis, wife of then-New England Patriots Offensive Coordinator Charlie Weis and future head football coach of the University of Notre Dame, that their daughter, Hannah, had polycystic kidney disease, and likely would not live for more than a few days after birth.
Today, despite the fact that Hannah, 10, is developmentally delayed and has mild mental retardation, she attends a regular school. Her mother serves as chairwoman of the board of Hannah and Friends, a not-for-profit foundation dedicated to raising awareness of people with autism and developmental delays.
Maura Weis recently spoke to Register correspondent Theresa Thomas.
What is your family background?
I have a brother and step-brother. I attended Catholic grade school and public high school. I met my husband Charlie at a restaurant on the Jersey shore. We have two children. Hannah is 10 and Charlie is 12.
What went through your mind when doctors told you your daughter had polycystic disease and wouldn't live for more than a few days?
I was just shocked. Nothing like this had ever happened in my family before. When we got the news in the doctor's office, I felt absolutely overwhelmed, but because my husband Charlie and I had our 2-year-old son with us, I didn't want to break down. Once we got home, I went upstairs to my room and prayed that the baby would be okay. When I was praying I felt this sense of peace. I felt like God was saying everything was going to be okay. I really believed that. When I went back to my obstetrician, however, she said the only thing she could offer me was an abortion.
How did you react to that?
I was taken aback. This was a child inside me, not a tumor to be removed. Charlie agreed completely. We both knew that our daughter's life had meaning, whether she lived an hour or a day or many years.
Describe the day Hannah was born.
It was April, a nice sunny day, and Good Friday. I had a very peaceful labor, which only lasted three hours. Charlie was with me, and I was trying really hard, doing my Lamaze breathing. I was thinking, “This child is really in for it. I'm going to do the best I can for her.”
Hannah was born in front of 13 people ready to whisk her away because they expected all sorts of problems. But she came out crying and looking perfect with no signs of distress.
So Hannah was healthy?
Hannah's creatinine levels [which measure kidney function] were normal. Her kidney function, analyzed through her blood work, looked great. Her kidneys appeared polycystic on the ultrasound because her ureters were small. Urine had backed up into her kidneys and one had atrophied. The atrophied kidney had to be removed when she was a couple months old, and one ureter had to be opened up so everything could work properly. Once that was done, we thought the crisis was over, and we were ready to move on.
What happened after that?
Hannah seemed to be right on track with her milestones, except for her speech, but the doctor said not to worry, as long as she understood what we said to her. At 18 months, she got her measles/mumps/rubella shot and Charlie left the New England Patriots and went to the New York Jets [as coach]. As we settled in Long Island, I noticed a drastic difference in Hannah. She didn't want to be around people. She was really quiet. She was content watching TV all day.
I thought maybe it was because she wasn't around other kids, so I put her into preschool. The first day, when I went to pick her up, the teacher pulled me aside and asked me if Hannah was deaf. The teacher said they would talk to her, and she ignored them like she didn't even hear them. After a lot of testing, the diagnosis was pervasive developmental disorder, a form of autism. It was really devastating. Later we found out she also has some mild to moderate mental retardation.
Where do you think your strong belief in the sanctity of life developed?
I was very close to my grandmother, who died when I was 13. I specifically remember being at her wake and thinking how important life was, no matter what the age of the person. I valued our relationship so much.
I don't recall a time in my life when I didn't believe that life is precious, but I've come to understand its value in a new way through different events in my life.
For example, a couple years ago my husband had gastric bypass surgery. He had internal bleeding that went unnoticed, and we almost lost Charlie. The doctors actually told me, “Your husband isn't going to make it.”
Through the prayers of many people, though, Charlie recovered and was soon coaching on the sidelines on a motorized cart. When you lose or almost lose people you love, you tend to take life very seriously. These kinds of experiences make you value life.
What is important to know about respecting the lives of children with special need?
It's important to understand what these children need. When Hannah was younger, the hardest part of adjusting to this challenge was the way some people related to her. Here was my beautiful daughter whom Charlie and I loved beyond belief, who made it to this planet under incredible circumstances, having had surgery, for example, when she was just 2 months old. She was happy. She was a good person. She'd never harm anyone, and yet people would stare. It hurt so much.
One time when we lived in New Jersey, Hannah and I were going into my son's school during a thunderstorm. She loved the rain and had a big smile on her face as we ran through the raindrops to the entrance. We were soaking wet when we got to the door. She was about 3 years old and a big baby, a bit overweight. She looked a little different from other kids her age, but I wasn't thinking about that as we ran in. There was a teacher on the phone in the hallway who was glaring at her with an expression that seemed to say, “What's wrong with her?” I went up to her and asked, “Why are you staring at a child like that? I don't understand.” After that the teacher was so nice to Hannah. I think she just didn't know how to react to her.
People with special needs want to have friends just like anyone else. They want to be loved just like anyone else. If they fall under the autism spectrum, maybe they can't verbalize it. Maybe they can't look someone in the eye with love, but they're feeling it inside and their feelings really matter.
Have people ever surprised you in their kindness toward your daughter?
Once we were on an airplane and, for some reason, had to get off before take-off. Hannah didn't understand why, once we were on the plane, we'd have to leave. She got all worked up and started crying and making noise. There were no seats left in the terminal, and Hannah kept crying and crying. Two young women about 18 years old got up and offered us their seats. That kindness really touched me.
How did Hannah and Her Friends come to be?
As we experienced Hannah's struggles and challenges, Charlie and I would talk about other families that were faced with similar circumstances. We thought of parents who have low incomes, trying to put food on the table. We were fortunate enough to have been blessed with Charlie's career and income, but we wondered how other families could afford some of the things our daughter needed and enjoyed.
Some of these things are simple, like a fence around a yard. Children with autism have a tendency to wander, and a fence might be just a nice thing for some people, but it's an absolute necessity for a family with an autistic child. Hannah has a special bike she uses and loves. It cost around $500. Most families can't just go out and spend that. So Charlie and I started talking about a foundation.
After his recovery from the gastric bypass surgery it really got going. Now we have full support of Notre Dame, which is great.
What has Hannah taught you?
People with special needs are God's teachers on this planet. Hannah came into my life and into my husband's life and put everything in perspective for us. When we might've been a little bit selfish, we had to put somebody else before us. Hannah makes us realize what's important in life. She taught us to have faith in God. I learned everything from Hannah.
Theresa Thomas is based in Elkhart, Indiana.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Theresa Thomas ----- KEYWORDS: Inperson -------- TITLE: Weekly TV Picks DATE: 08/07/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 7-13, 2005 ----- BODY:SUNDAY, AUG. 7
EWTN New Series Preview
EWTN, 4:30 a.m., 6:30 p.m.
Debuting in September, a dozen brand-new series feature Fathers Andrew Apostoli, Alberto Cutie, C. John McCloskey and John Wauck, other priests and lay experts on subjects such as St. John's Gospel, good and evil, Christ-centered marriage, Catholic social teaching, the Vatican, Catholic literature, young catechists and our fellow Catholics who are under persecution.
SUNDAY, AUG. 7
Medal of Honor
Military Channel, 6 p.m., 7 p.m.
Since its inception in 1861, the Medal of Honor has been our country's highest decoration for valor on the battlefield. The first of tonight's two hour-long segments covers recipients from the Vietnam War. The second deals with holders of the medal from World War II, the Korean War and, again, the Vietnam War.
MON.-FRI., AUG. 8-12
Classroom: The Great Ships
History Channel, 6 a.m. daily
“… all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,” wrote English poet John Masefield in “Sea Fever.” And what more could we ask than this stirring five-part documentary as it takes us aboard riverboats, pirate ships, schooners, windjammers and sailing racers?
MONDAY, AUG. 8
The Secret Life of …
Food Network, 10 p.m., 10:30 p.m.
In these two episodes, host Jim O'Connor delves into the “secrets” of chewing gum — the average person chomps 350 sticks per year, we're told — and pretzels. Re-airs Saturday at 3 p.m.
THURSDAY, AUG. 11
Life on the Rock
EWTN, 8 p.m., live
Father Francis Mary's guests are the Sisters of Mary Mother of the Eucharist.
THURSDAY, AUG. 11
Tommy Fleming
— A Voice of Hope
PBS, 10:30 p.m.
“Breathtaking,” “spectacular” and “like none other” go the reviews of Irish balladeer Tommy Fleming's voice. Here he sings hymns to Our Lady of Knock in the Basilica at Knock (Cnoc Mhuire) in beautiful County Mayo. Note: Not shown in all areas; check local listings.
FRIDAY, AUG. 12
Generation RX: Reading, Writing and Ritalin
A&E, 11 a.m.
This “Investigative Reports” installment cites grim statistics about the millions of children who are given the drug Ritalin every morning at school.
SATURDAY, AUG. 13
The Era of Ara
ESPN Classic, 9:30 a.m.
Ara Parseghian coached Notre Dame's football team from 1964 through 1974. His Fighting Irish lads won national championships in 1966 and 1973 and would have won in 1964 but for a season-finale narrow loss that many say featured suspect penalty calls.
Dan Engler writes from Santa Barbara, California.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Dan Engler ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Vatican Media Watch DATE: 08/07/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 7-13, 2005 ----- BODY:Newspaper Decries Homosexual ‘Marriage’ in Canada
ASSOCIATED PRESS, July 21 — The Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano called Canada's legalization of homosexual “marriage” a distortion of God's plan for the family, Associated Press reported.
Canada became the fourth nation to grant full legal rights to same-sex couples when the Supreme Court's chief justice signed legislation July 20.
“The distortion of God's plan for the family continues,” said the Vatican daily. “In Canada, homosexual unions have become equal to marriage.”
International Cooperation Urged to Combat Terrorism
AGENZIA GIORNALISTICA ITALIA, July 12 — “Joint international efforts” are needed in the face of the aggressive terrorist onslaught, according to the Vatican's UN delegate during talks on illegal arms trading in New York.
Agenzia Giornalistica Italia quoted Bishop Celestino Migliore saying the fight against “terrorism, organized crime and human trafficking” requires a common approach. Apart from “illegal arms trading, we should be looking into the causes of such demand.”
What's needed is a concerted effort aimed at “establishing the culture of peace.” The Vatican also highlighted the human rights side of conflicts and the need to “safeguard child-soldiers.” This requires “long-term strategies” and “investments towards prevention, peacemaking, peacekeeping and peace building.” The Vatican also emphasized its open support of “a binding international arms trade convention.”
Vatican Praises Kingdom of Bahrain
Archbishop De Andrea presented the Official Medal of the Pontificate of the late Pope John Paul II to former Islamic Affairs Undersecretary Khalifa bin Hamad Al Khalifa. Khalifa played a key role in organizing the first Islamic-Christian dialogue held in Bahrain in 2002. He is the first person from the Middle East to receive the honor.
Archbishop De Andrea said in a letter of commendation, “It is not only a memento of John Paul, whom the whole world admired, but an enduring token of the profound and fraternal respect and appreciation we have for Shaikh Khaifa.”
Italy Increases Security Around Vatican
ASSOCIATED PRESS, July 11 — Police stepped up the alert level around the Vatican, subway workers removed trash bins and an around-the-clock security monitoring system was installed at Italian airports after the London bombings, Associated Press reported.
Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu convened top security and law enforcement officers for a second day of talks July 8 and “particular attention” was paid to the possible threat to Italy and preventive measures that had to be taken, a ministry statement said.
Reforms Minister Roberto Calderoli said, “It's evident that after New York, Madrid and London, Italy represents the most probable next objective of the terrorists. The time has come to begin to think also about our house, and to use the same resources currently committed in Iraq to prevent and combat possible attacks on our territory.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: A Prequel That's Equal to the Task DATE: 08/07/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 7-13, 2005 ----- BODY:SOPHIA HOUSE by Michael D. O'Brien Ignatius, 2005 488 pages, $24.95
To order: (800) 651-1531 or ignatius.com
In his sixth novel, Michael D. O'Brien captures a deeply Catholic vision of the workings of the human heart — and spins an irresistible yarn in the process.
Pawel Tarnowski is a bookseller who lives and works at his shop in Warsaw, Poland, in the early 1940s. Outside his doors, the city is occupied by the Nazis. Although he is young, Pawel moves like an infirm old man. He has been injured by life, physically, emotionally and spiritually. Yet still he harbors a glimmer hope in his heart, longing to truly know — and be known by — God.
One day a young Jewish boy named David Schäfer tears into the shop, running from the police. Although Catholic Tarnowski wishes to stay out of trouble, he sympathizes with the boy's predicament and agrees to hide him.
Although only 17 years old, Schäfer, strikes Tarnowski as wise beyond his years. Tarnowski laments: “[I]t is a grief to me that this best of souls — the fruit of all that is good in Judaism — is dependent on one such as me, a most disordered representative of Christianity. What, really, is God doing here?”
With Warsaw being all but deserted, the two find themselves in a sheltered pocket of a dark world. They have much time to discuss God, love and suffering. Through these talks, as their friendship deepens, Tarnowski finds that it is only through suffering that one can truly love. And true love suffers for the loved. He quotes the Song of Solomon: “I sleep, but my heart is awake.”
(The cover art, an original painting by O'Brien titled “The Rescuer,” expresses this insight visually: It depicts a man holding back the flames of death in order that many souls may be freed from them.)
As the characters develop and the plot spreads out in unexpected directions, O'Brien explores a couple of themes that will resonate with Catholic readers. One is the loss of spiritual fatherhood as one of the most pernicious problems facing the West today. The other is the hope we have in our Father in heaven and how he alone can restore the rightful role of human fatherhood in society.
As with all O'Brien's novels, the balance of the world hangs on seemingly small decisions made by common folk: people like you and me. The motifs are sweeping and ambitious, but the details and the dialogue ring true as everyday life.
Some readers may find the storytelling a bit slow in places, but then O'Brien is after more than just page-turning entertainment. He's got his mind set on exploring the destiny of man as it's been understood and taught through 2,000 years of Catholic faith and living. Naturally, setting up a fictional universe with that kind of breadth takes a little doing. Those who spend the time to carefully read and digest these pages will come away refreshed and fed.
Sophia House can be read and enjoyed as a stand-alone story, but those who read O'Brien's first novel, Father Elijah, will recognize David Schäfer. I won't give away more than that here; suffice it to say that, while Sophia House focuses on the interior conversion of Pawel Tarnowski, hints of Schäfer's destiny abound.
If you're looking for a summer read that provides more than a quickly forgotten diversion, here it is.
Joy Wambeke writes from St. Paul, Minnesota.
----- EXCERPT: Weekly Book Pick ----- EXTENDED BODY: Joy Wambeke ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: World Media Watch DATE: 08/07/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: August 7-13, 2005 ----- BODY:Minister at Ease With Faith in Politics
Delivering the keynote address at St. Thomas More's Forum in Canberra, Abbott said politicians should not shrink from their religious beliefs.
“We shouldn't be embarrassed or mealy-mouthed about our faith,” he said. “If it's okay to be up-front about ethnicity and, in the eyes of some, sexuality, why not be proud of religious affiliations?
The report said Abbott repeated his determination to reduce the number of abortions through education and counseling.
Archbishop Urges Cancellation of Debts
ALLAFRICA, July 19 — Archbishop John Onaiyekan of Abuja, president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria, implored world leaders to respect the dignity of every human being and cancel the total debt of the economically strapped African nations.
“There is misery all over Africa, and God did not want it to be so,” Archbishop Onaiyekan said, according to AllAfrica. “He created every man equal.”
He was addressing Catholic faithful from more than 15 African countries July 17 in Abuja. He welcomed the development that creditors had began addressing poverty and under-development in Third World countries, but said much more needed to be done beyond partial debt relief.
Nigeria recently received a debt relief package from its Paris Club creditors that waived about 60% of the $32 billion debt burden.
Church Clashes With Venezuela's President
REUTERS, July 18 — A Venezuelan archbishop told President Hugo Chavez he had failed to behave like a head of state by using a state television broadcast to berate a cardinal who called him a dictator, Reuters reported.
Chavez, who has clashed in the past with high-ranking Catholic critics of his self-styled “revolution,” called retired Cardinal Rosario Castillo a coup-mongering “bandit” after the cardinal referred to Chavez’ rule as a dictatorship.
Speaking out in defense of Castillo, Archbishop Roberto Luckert said Chavez had insulted the cardinal while failing to answer his criticisms of the president's six-year-old rule over the world's No. 5 oil exporter.
“He should give an example of respect if he wants to be respected,” Archbishop Luckert said. “If you disagree with the government, you are immediately dismissed … as a coup-monger, a terrorist.”
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