Shooting the Messenger?
At issue is the Newman Society's criticism of three BC professors — bioethics professor Father John Paris and law school professors Charles Baron and Milton Heifetz — for supporting the removal of the feeding tube of Terri Schiavo.
While Baron is quoted in the story explaining that a brief he filed in the Schiavo case dealt with “legal” and not “moral” issues, the substance of the complaints of the Newman Society is not addressed in the quotes from Boston College officials. Also, the tone of the Globe article is one of surprise that the college and its faculty have come in for questioning.
New Generation
As part of an extensive cover story on spirituality in America, the magazine reported that many young Catholics are not happy with “a less dogmatic form of faith” and the modern, “dispirited” liturgy that has marked recent decades.
Instead, “they're reviving old rituals,” such as the Rosary, in search of a more personal connection with Christ that is available through prayer, devotion and the sacraments, whose “nourishment comes daily.”
Truly Catholic
The former chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Asheville told the newspaper: “They told me they like to see Elms stay true to its core traditions, core values and offer a truly rich Catholic liberal arts education, true to … the Sisters of St. Joseph.”
Filling a Gap
One is sponsored by the Diocese of Phoenix and the other, the prospective College of John Paul in the Desert, a lay initiative that would feature “traditional Catholic values.”
Father Fred Adamson, vicar general for the diocese, said the lack of a Catholic college is a major gap for a city Phoenix's size, and that the region would benefit from Catholic higher education.
Top Rankings
Catholic colleges and universities fared best in the category of Best Universities — Master's. The category ranks schools with undergraduate and master's programs but few, if any, doctoral programs.
In this category, Villanova University in Pennsylvania topped the list in the North and Creighton University in Nebraska placed first in the Midwest.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: Politics and Corruption Merge in Catholic Philippines DATE: 09/04/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: September 4-10, 2005 ----- BODY:MANILA, Philippines — In her inaugural speech in July 2004, Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo laid out her “ten-point legacy” which she expected to leave behind after her term. One of them concerned the computerization of the electoral process. “Elections will no longer raise a single doubt about their integrity,” she promised.
Ironically, Arroyo is now embroiled in an election fraud scandal that threatens to bring her down. An audiotape of phone calls in which the president and a top election official allegedly spoke of vote padding has triggered a crisis and caused a widespread call for her resignation.
The election scandal, as well as accusations that Arroyo used illegal gambling money for her campaign, is acutely familiar to Filipinos who recall two recent presidents whose terms were characterized by widespread corruption and cut short by popular uprisings. Filipinos, in fact, regard politicians with disdain, abbreviating the term “traditional politicians” to “trapo,” the Spanish and Tagalog word for dirty rags.
‘People Power’
Arroyo's predicament comes after the political crises of the late president Ferdinand Marcos and former president Joseph Estrada.
In 1986, Marcos was ousted when Filipinos trooped to the streets in response to a call by Cardinal Jaime Sin of Manila, who died last June. The cardinal went on radio to gather support for top military officials who defected in protest of the Marcos dictatorship. The massive uprising, dubbed “People Power,” was the first peaceful “bloodless revolution” to depose a dictator.
In 2001, a second Church-backed uprising deposed Estrada, sweeping then-Vice President Arroyo to power. She served Estrada's remaining term and won the presidency in 2004 in the election she is accused of manipulating.
Shortly after her inauguration, Arroyo declared that graft and corruption can be eliminated “in a single stroke as a dragon could be killed with the swing of St. Michael's sword.”
Arroyo echoed these words more recently at the launching of a corruption prevention project.
“The winds of change are blowing in the Philippines,” she said. “And I am confident that they will sweep away the deep and corrosive effects of corruption that have crippled our nation for too long.”
The winds of change may, in fact, be blowing against Arroyo. Along with the allegation surrounding the controversial tape, Arroyo's husband and relatives have reportedly benefited from gambling syndicates and have been subjects of an investigation.
In an interview with the Register, Archbishop Oscar Cruz of Dagupan City discredited Arroyo's presidency.
Although, de facto, she is president and she has been proclaimed president. … I question how could you impeach a non-president,” he said.
He added, “I think there was cheating and vote buying especially through jueteng [illegal gambling] money. Payola was used by her for election purposes.”
Arroyo's supporters disagree. Juan Zubiri, a three-term congressman, defended Arroyo's actions in an e-mail response to the Register. “Although she has admitted making the alleged phone calls, she didn't make any insinuation of cheating. … It's really a question if the phone calls were unethical on her part. My personal opinion is that the mere inquiry of your [electoral] status and numbers does not constitute electoral fraud.”
The Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) issued a statement many perceive to be soft on Arroyo. The bishops called on the president to “discern deeply to what extent she might have contributed to the erosion of effective governance and whether the erosion is so severe as to be irreversible.”
The bishops added, “We do not demand her resignation. Yet neither do we encourage her simply to dismiss such a call from others.”
The call to step down was made by many political figures, including former president Corazon Aquino and 10 cabinet members who resigned after the scandal broke.
In a commentary published in the Philippine Star, Professor Alex Magno, a prominent political analyst, noted that “after the CBCP took a sober position, the groups that lined up for a resignation call have fallen into disarray.”
Archbishop Cruz acknowledged that the bishops' statement regarding Arroyo was “effective in precisely stopping people from throwing her out.”
Archbishop Cruz believes the corruption stems from the Filipinos' weakness in social doctrine. While the Church evangelized Filipinos with an inward-looking faith, “Filipinos are practically zero in translating their faith into life. Faith and life are disjointed,” he said.
Darlene Antonino-Custodio, a two-term opposition congresswoman who describes herself as a practicing Catholic, agreed.
“There is a problem in the moral fiber among Filipinos,” she said. “We have to change things so that we change the tolerance for immoral practices such as cheating.”
Some argue that Filipinos are more honest than not, pointing to a recent incident in which a poor cab driver returned 150,000 Philippines pesos (about $2,600) to a passenger who needed the money for her daughter's surgery. The Philippine Daily Inquirer also reported on a test wherein 85% of wallets containing 200 pesos (about $4) that were deliberately dropped around Manila were returned intact.
Roots of Corruption
So why does the Philippines, the most Catholic country in Asia, continue to face corruption and elected leaders on the verge of political collapse?
The Asia Times analyzed recent Philippine history in a five-part series. Citing various sources, the paper concluded that corruption has “swung like a pendulum.” As one group of elites gained predominant power, the newspaper said, “it would busily set about lining its own pockets, aware that in the next round its fortunes might well be reversed.”
The cause of this phenomenon, the Asia Times added, is steeped in Philippine history, which includes 330 years of Spanish colonization followed by 50 years of American rule. Neither regime left a workable home-rule structure.
The fact that the bishops' conference has not called for Arroyo's resignation in the present crisis does not mean that the bishops are remaining mute. Archbishop Cruz said that Filipinos have the right to ask and continue asking for her resignation.
Archbishop Cruz added, “They have likewise the right to seek other ways of making her leave the presidential office — on proviso only that none of the means employed is either violent and/or unconstitutional.”
Maria Caulfield, who was born in the Philippines, is based in Wallingford, Connecticut.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Maria Caulfield ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Back-to-School Bibliomania! DATE: 09/04/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: September 4-10, 2005 ----- BODY:It must be part of the job description.
Pope: Must love deeply and dearly the children and youth of the world. The qualified candidate will be ready to challenge young people to reach beyond their own wants, willing to trust them to carry out their mission as disciples of Christ, and able to articulate a vision of what their lives can be.
That's the only conclusion we can come to after seeing how Pope Benedict XVI picked right up where John Paul II left off, inspiring young Catholics by the hundreds of thousands at the 20th World Youth Day last month.
Meanwhile, we thought back to last year, when, in inviting young people to Cologne, John Paul proclaimed that Jesus is the rock upon which they must build their future and a world of greater justice and solidarity.
And then we looked even further back, to the time he pointed out the importance of a good education in ensuring the success of that mission.
“Hold school in esteem! Return to it joyfully!” John Paul urged one summer at Castel Gandolfo, as back-to-school time closed in. “The right to education,” he added, “is the right to be fully human.” (Source: For the Children: Words of Love and Inspiration From His Holiness Pope John Paul II. Scholastic, 2000.)
As another World Youth Day goes into the history books, and school time rolls around again, youngsters will be looking for diversions when the day is done and the homework completed.
Here's some suggested back-to-school reading that's as much fun as it is formative.
FOURTH GRADE IS A JINX …
ESPECIALLY WHEN YOUR MOM
IS THE TEACHER
by Colleen O'Shaughnessy McKenna
Scholastic, 1990
176 pages, $4.50
Available in bookstores
Starting the fourth grade at Sacred Heart Elementary excites Collette Murphy — that is, until her new teacher breaks her leg and is replaced by “Horrible Haversham.” Even Sister Mary Elizabeth, the principal, agrees that the mean substitute must go. Her solution, though, leaves Collette's head spinning. Mrs. Murphy — also known as “Mom” to Collette, Jeff, Laura and Stevie — will pinch-hit for the next week. What can go wrong does go wrong. Someone steals milk money, a science experiment goes up in flames, and classmates side with and against Mrs. Murphy. Funny, realistic and celebratory of virtue. Ages 8 to 12.
WEMBERLY WORRIED
written and illustrated by Kevin Henkes
Greenwillow, 2000
32 pages, $15.95
Available in bookstores
Wemberly worries about everything — big things, little things, in-between things. But her biggest worry of all is the first day of school, a world filled with “what-ifs.” “What if the teacher is mean?” “What if no one else wears stripes?” “What if I'm the only one who brings a doll?” Wemberly bravely heads to school and finds that she, of course, had nothing to worry about at all. Her loving teacher ushers her into a welcoming classroom and introduces her to Jewel, a fellow worrier who also brought a doll. Henkes nails the very real struggles that preschoolers face in making the transition to a classroom and gives them the hope of a happy resolution. Ages 3 to 8.
SISTER ANNE'S HANDS
written by Marybeth Lorbiecki
illustrated by K. Wendy Popp
Puffin Books, 2000
40 pages, $6.99
Available in bookstores
Not only is Sister Anne's habit black and white, but so is the lesson for second grader Anna Zabrocky. Sister Anne, the first African-American teacher at Anna's school, makes learning fun by having her students add and subtract by counting their teeth and the buttons on their clothes. The fun ends abruptly when a paper airplane glides past Sister Anne's head. Scribbled on its wing is a hurtful message about the color of the new teacher's skin. Sister Anne's wise response to it and the second chance she gives her students is inspiring. Some parents will recognize the setting, too: a time when “flowers had power, peace signs were in, and we watched The Ed Sullivan Show.” Ages 5 to 10.
TUCKER'S FOUR-CARROT SCHOOL DAY
written and illustrated by Susan Winget
HarperCollins, 2005
32 pages, $12.99
Available in bookstores
It's Tucker Rabbit's turn to go to school — and, frankly, he'd rather be anywhere else. Tucker shakes the first-day-of-school jitters when he meets an understanding teacher, makes new friends and receives encouragement from his family. A positive storyline and heartwarming illustrations will help the school-bound crowd to gain confidence and feel right at home. Ages 3 to 8.
THE KISSING HAND
written by Audrey Penn
illustrated by Ruth E. Parker
and Nancy M. Leak
Child & Family Press, 1993
32 pages, $16.95
Available in bookstores
Leaving home can be a teary-eyed event for everyone — even raccoons! When Chester Raccoon starts kindergarten, he learns the secret of the kissing hand, a special way to take the love of home to school and hold it close all day long. This story's reassuring message will comfort children and parents alike who are anxious about the temporary separation that school brings. Ages 3 to 8.
SAINT ELIZABETH ANN SETON:
DAUGHTER OF AMERICA
written by Jeanne Marie Grunwell
Pauline, 1999
126 pages, $7.95
To order: (800) 836-9723
or pauline.org/store
Catholic school students will find both a friend and a patron in this biography of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, founder of the first parochial school in the United States. A convert, wife, mother and, eventually, a religious sister, Mother Seton lived a life full of unexpected twists and turns. Like her students of long ago, today's readers will be inspired by her life of compassion, love and service. Ages 9 to 14.
IT'S GREAT TO BE CATHOLIC!
written by Susan Heyboer O'Keefe
illustrated by Patrick Kelley
Paulist Press, 2001
32 pages, $10.95
To order: (800) 218-1903
or www.paulistpress.com
No matter what school kids attend — Catholic, public, private or in their home — they take their faith with them. This picture book reminds children what a wonderful faith it is. It touches, for example, on our traditions (“Staying up for Midnight Mass / Long past the time for bed / Skipping meat on Fridays / To have grilled cheese instead”) as well as our belief in the Real Presence (“Hearing how he saved us / By dying on the tree / And now is always with us / As real as you or me”). Great illustrations show children in the settings in which we want them to feel at home with family and friends, and before the Blessed Sacrament. Ages 4 to 8.
Patricia A. Crawford writes from Winter Park, Florida.
Kerry A. Crawford writes from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Patricia A. Crawford and Kerry A. Crawford ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life --------- TITLE: Catholic Novels DATE: 09/04/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: September 4-10, 2005 ----- BODY:Autumn approaches, step by step.
It's a lazy evening and you're ready to relax. But wait! Before you grab for the remote and start channel-surfing, try picking up a book.
School has begun.
The due date for book reports approaches, step by step. Your high schooler is looking at a list of books he can choose from — and there are lots of reasons you wouldn't want him to choose a lot of them. Ask him if the teacher allows him to pick a book that's not on the list, and then see if he would like to do his report on a Catholic novel.
Catholic novels do actually exist, and they're fun to read. It's like a two-for-one deal: You can enrich your faith life and be entertained at the same time.
Here's a sampling of some of the excellent Catholic fiction that's out there. It was hard to choose the five on this list, but if you explore other titles by the authors, you'll find many new treasures, as well as connections to other great works.
Conceived Without Sin by Bud Macfarlane — You'll start this novel one evening, be unable to stop reading, and then finish at one in the morning. It's a dynamic story of friendship, faith and the things in life that really matter. What I love most about this book is its realness. The characters are everyday people: UPS driver, a computer entrepreneur and a secretary. But the genius of this book is that it takes those people and shows that no-one's life can ever be ordinary. The author understands well one of the central ideas of Pope John Paul II's papacy: the idea that life is not merely a timeline of events, but a drama between God and us with eternal significance. One copy of Conceived without Sin is available free through Saint Jude Media at www.Catholicity.com, so there's no excuse not to read this book.
Father Elijah: an Apocalypse by Michael O'Brien — Faith, conspiracy, love, hatred, and forgiveness are just a few of the themes Michael O'Brien's novel explores. He deals with the Catholic Church in an apocalyptic setting. A Jewish Carmelite priest, Father Elijah, has been called out of his monastery by the pope. The future of Catholicism will depend on whether he succeeds or fails in his mission. After I finished Father Elijah, I felt like I had returned from a long journey and would never be able to view the world in exactly the same way again. Although it definitely has “thriller” components to it, this work of fiction is so much more. It is well worth the investment of your time.
The Shadow of His Wings by Father Gereon Goldman — Though this book is autobiographical, it reads like a novel, and I couldn't resist sneaking it into this list. Father Goldman was a young German seminarian when World War II began and he was forcibly drafted into the SS. Through near-miraculous circumstances, he became ordained and ministered to Catholic German soldiers and citizens on both sides of the war; all the while trying to avoid death. This true story of heroism and faith will open your eyes to the way God works in your life through coincidences.
Citadel of God by Louis de Wohl — This historical novel tells the story of St. Benedict, but de Wohl's writing style is far from hagiography. Saint Benedict appears as a genuine person who struggles in the temptations and wickedness of Rome, then gradually becomes disgusted with the city's depravity. Citadel of God follows Benedict from his youth in turbulent Rome throughout his founding of the Benedictine order. Saint Benedict today is revered as the founder of Western monasticism.
Father Brown and the Church of Rome by G. K. Chesterton — “Has it never struck you that a man who does next to nothing but hear men's real sins is not likely to be wholly unaware of human evil?” So says Chesterton's famous detective, Father Brown. The book is a collection of short mystery stories featuring Father Brown. I'm not normally a big fan of whodunits, but the clever insights Chesterton slips in by way of his characters' dialogue make the mysteries much more than just an exciting puzzle.
Catholic novels teach us how to live our faith by using the best mode of communication — a story. If any of these volumes stir your interest, you can find all but Conceived without Sin through Ignatius Press. So what are you waiting for? Stop reading this article and go get one of these books!
Laura K. Cummings writes from Janesville, Wisconsin.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Laura K. Cummings ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Guarding the Flock DATE: 09/04/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: September 4-10, 2005 ----- BODY:EDITORIAL
If the words sound harsh, they shouldn't.
Archbishop Edwin O'Brien said, “I think anyone who has engaged in homosexual activity, or has strong homosexual inclinations, would be best not to apply to a seminary and not to be accepted into a seminary.” Does this mean that the upcoming visitation of seminaries that he heads will be anti-homosexual, intolerant or uncaring? Not at all.
It means the investigation will follow the Catechism.
“The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible,” says the Catechism (No. 2358). “This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided.”
Activist John McKellar, a Toronto homosexual, can explain how homosexuals can be treated justly even while their condition is recognized as a disorder. “I've always supported legislation to protect gays and lesbians from harassment and discrimination,” McKellar told the Register, “but same-sex ‘marriage’ purposely deprives children of either a male or female parent. That's an unconscionably selfish and socially harmful agenda.”
As a homosexual, he wants to be treated fairly. But as a citizen of Canada, he wants the marriage laws kept as they always have been, for the sake of his country. We can learn from his approach when we think of men with strong homosexual tendencies in the seminaries.
First, a distinction is important. There are men who have experienced what psychologists call “transient” experiences of homosexual feelings. Then there are men who have a much stronger inclination. Neither category of homosexual should face unjust discrimination. But what's prudent in both cases is different.
Men in the first category would not normally be considered homosexuals at all. The inclination never took root or defined them. They have simply moved on. This is no reason to keep them from pursuing a calling to the priesthood.
Men in the second category are those who identify themselves with reference to their homosexual inclinations, who can't escape it, who see it as part of the central meaning of their lives. These men will have a hard time coping with seminary life, no matter how pure their intentions are. And, as the Church's difficult recent experience shows, they may well have problems in their ministry, too.
A February 2004 report commissioned by the U.S. bishops' National Review Board noted that most victims of sexual abuse by clergy from 1950 to 2002 weren't children. They were adolescents and teens, and 4 out of 5 of them were male.
If you understand what the homosexual subculture is like, this will come as no surprise. In The Gay Report, by homosexual researchers Karla Jay and Allen Young, the authors report data showing that 73% of homosexuals surveyed had at some time had sex with boys 16 to 19 years of age or younger. From the Village People's song “YMCA” to the Showtime television show “Queer as Folk,” homosexuals have long celebrated sex with teens.
We should have our eyes wide open in our dealing with men who are part of the homosexual “scene.” Our culture often tries to tell us that these homosexuals are simply part of a persecuted group, and that their struggle for marriage rights is akin to the civil-rights movement. There's a quick way to see the difference between homosexual activists and civil-rights activists: Go to their parades.
Attend a Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade, for instance, and you're likely to see a grand display of African-American culture that will leave you more likely to want to support their cause. Attend a “Gay-Lesbian-Bisexual Pride” parade, and you'll find public nudity, simulated sex acts and a contempt for social norms that would turn off even the most progressive families.
In 2002, Pope John Paul II recognized the danger with this category of homosexual. “It would be lamentable if, out of a misunderstood tolerance” he said, “seminaries ordained young men who are immature or have obvious signs of affective deviations that, as is sadly known, could cause serious anomalies in the consciences of the faithful, with evident damage for the whole Church.”
His words echoed a 1961 Vatican instruction that said: “Advancement to religious vows and ordination should be barred to those who are afflicted with evil tendencies to homosexuality or pederasty, since for them the common life and the priestly ministry would constitute serious dangers.”
By keeping those with strong homosexual inclinations out of seminaries, the Church isn't unjustly discriminating. It's fulfilling its basic obligation to guard the flock.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Camp Called DATE: 09/04/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: September 4-10, 2005 ----- BODY:The Diocese of Duluth in northeastern Minnesota has come up with a winner for vocation outreach — youth camps combining outdoor recreation with discernment of God's call.
The three-day camps for boys between 11 and 16 focus on a specific theme designed to help young men live out their call as disciples of Christ, whether as priests or laymen.
The camps attract an average of 30 to 40 boys from Minnesota and surrounding states. Deacon Mike Knuth, the diocese's vocations director, organized the first camp in 1994 and has developed five themes that alternate each year.
This year's theme, “Knights of the Holy Altar,” is centered on serving God through chivalry, living a moral code, practicing obedience, purity and courage, and showing special honor to women, including the boys' mothers and sisters. Each camp also has a sacramental focus, a saint model, a series of talks, Mass, special devotions and outdoor activities.
Directed by seminarians, priests and teen counselors, the boys gain exposure to the ordained ministry in a setting other than church.
“The whole focus is to provide young men an opportunity to gather with other Catholics in a sound Catholic environment to recreate, pray and grow in their faith,” says Deacon Knuth. “Our kids have fun, but at the same time they're learning their faith and getting an opportunity to be quiet and hear God's call. Whether they go on to become priests, that's God's work — but at least we're providing the environment.”
Because of the instant popularity of the boys' camp, Deacon Knuth developed a girls' camp in 1997, which is directed by women religious from a variety of orders around the country.
Deacon Knuth said the camps allow mentors to raise vocational possibilities early, so there's plenty of time to explore them as the years go by. A number of camp participants have either entered the priesthood or are currently discerning the call, and nine women campers have joined religious communities.
As in many other dioceses, Duluth has seen an increase in vocations to the priesthood in recent years.
“This fall we will have 19 in the seminary, and we already have a number of young men who want to enter next fall,” says Bishop Dennis Schnurr, who attends the camps each year and is actively involved in other vocation initiatives.
One of the wonderful things about the camps, he adds, is the exposure of the young people to priests and women religious.
“In the past, we had the presence of women religious and priests in our Catholic schools, and that played a very important role in promoting religious vocations,” explains Bishop Schnurr. “When young people see other young people not much older than they, bearing witness to the faith and openly talking about the importance of holiness in their lives, they see the peace, the joy and the fullness that is in their lives — and that's very attractive.”
Holy Role Models
Adam Isakson, of Cloquet, Minn., 17, began attending camp when he was 13. This year, he returned as a teen counselor. He is considering the priesthood.
“The camp has shown me how to discern my faith and I've grown because of it,” he says. “I had a great time with the priests and seminarians, and I could tell how much they loved God. I wanted to be close to God like that. Even if I'm not called to the priesthood, this camp has shown me what it is to be a Catholic man and a man of God.”
Carly McKeown attended her first camp eight years ago as a shy 10-year-old. She said it was the first time she had seen young nuns in full habits — and they were so happy.
“It was a very attractive thing to me,” she recalls. “I didn't see a lot of religious life in southwestern Minnesota, where I'm from, so it was amazing to see so many sisters who were vibrant and willing to share their faith.”
McKeown attended this year's camp as a postulant with the Sisters of Reparation to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus in Steubenville, Ohio. Her 21-year-old sister, Tessa, has also entered the order and several friends are discerning religious life.
Deacon Knuth says consumerism, fear of commitment, a lack of good role models and lack of knowledge of the faith all pose obstacles to religious vocations — but, often, it's the parents who present the biggest obstacle.
“I see vocations all the time but they get cut off by families,” he says. “You watch the person and find that they're not happy, but they don't want to upset their parents. Parents are not always in tune with what's going on with their child.”
Generation Yes
Despite these hurdles, Bishop Schnurr remains optimistic. As chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' subcommittee on youth ministry, he has seen numerous sociological studies that show young people want more than what society is offering.
“They look at the world around them and they see the bad, the materialism, that it is morally bankrupting their lives and the lives of others,” he says. “They want to get back to a solid barometer. They're finding it in the Catholic faith.”
Two generations of poor catechetical instruction have also had an impact at all levels in the Church, he adds. “How can we approach young people with the concept of vocations when so little knowledge of the faith is coming through?” he says. “The catechesis has to take place before they ask the important question: ‘What does God have in mind for me?’”
Of his own five children, Deacon Knuth has four in religious vocations. They are part of what he calls “the John Paul II Generation.”
“Because of him, especially now that the seed has died,” he says, “we're going to see a growth in vocations, holy families and some real rebirth occurring in the Church.”
Barb Ernster writes from Fridley, Minnesota.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Barb Ernster ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Duties Deliver DATE: 09/04/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: September 4-10, 2005 ----- BODY:FACTS OF LIFE
Giving your preschooler jobs around the house may help him perform better in school as well as make new friends — and rewards may not be necessary. A new study shows that children whose mothers assign them meaningful tasks in kindergarten were better off socially and academically in third grade.
Source: WebMD, Aug. 5
Illustration by Tim Rauch
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Tim Rauch ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: Prayer Wars Fought on the Home Front DATE: 09/04/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: September 4-10, 2005 ----- BODY:I don't know what to pray for. Our oldest son, Matthew — just 19 years old — is being deployed to the Middle East with the Wisconsin National Guard.
As we spend our last few days together as a family, I find myself swinging from one extreme to the other. At times, I look to the picture of our Blessed Mother and silently scream, “No way! I'm not doing this. The U.S. military can't have him.” At other times, I look into her loving eyes and say, “Of course. You gave your son over to God's will. How I can I not do the same?”
Meanwhile, through all the peaks, troughs and treacherous turns of this emotional roller-coaster ride, I'm surrounded by love. Many people have pledged their prayers and support for Matthew and the rest of the family.
People we've never even met are praying for us. Most offer to pray for his safety. I want to pray for that, too. But each time I begin, I stop. Somehow, it makes me feel selfish. The Blessed Mother didn't spare herself the anguish of surrendering her son to the will of the Father. Why should I think I'm any better?
Another thought creeps into my mind as I try to pray. Our family is abundantly rich with our Catholic faith. It permeates every aspect of our lives. For this we are truly grateful. Often I'll hear one of the children express sympathy for those who have no faith, nothing to hold onto in times like these.
When Matt leaves, his gear trunk will contain a Bible, prayer book, crucifix, picture of our Blessed Mother and other sacramentals that will nurture his attachment to Our Lord and his Church. More than that, wherever he goes, I know he'll carry his faith in his heart.
That's where I get stuck during prayer. If the situation should arise in which it's between my son losing his life and another young man who has yet to find Our Lord, is it right of me to ask God to spare my son? Wouldn't it be better to allow the other young man more time on this earth to discover Jesus' love? The mother's side of my heart wants to keep my son safe always. The disciple's side yearns for the salvation of all souls. How does one formulate that in prayer?
My husband Mark and I think often about Our Lord's agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. As God, he knew the suffering that lay ahead of him. As man, he could feel the fear and angst. Yet, in spite of his human side, he prayed, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me; still, not my will but yours be done” (Luke 22:42).
I can imagine that the Blessed Mother was going through a similar discourse of her own that night. She couldn't see the coming events as Jesus could, but she must have sensed that he was about to face calamitous suffering. Because she is his mother, she suffered with him. Because she is his chosen daughter, she uttered her perfect Yes to the Father's will.
I'm not so perfect. I'll probably remain on my emotional roller coaster while Matthew completes his tour of duty. The coming months will be difficult, but I'll have the consolation and example of Jesus and the Blessed Mother — neither of whom ever hesitated to say, “Thy will be done.”
Marge Fenelon writes from Cudahy, Wisconsin.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Marge Fenelon ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: 'The Most Incredible 6 Days of My Life' DATE: 09/04/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: September 4-10, 2005 ----- BODY:Many priests and religious of the Legionaries of Christ, and thousands of members and friends of the Legion's apostolate movement, Regnum Christi, were among the more than 1 million participants at Pope Benedict's World Youth Day in Cologne.
Regnum Christi members helped out in various ways: the Vocation.com coffeehouse near the Cathedral offered a number of musical performances, with all the performers urging their young audience to join in Eucharistic Adoration at the Vocation.com chapel and to go to confession.
Legionary priests heard confessions at the coffeehouse and joined other religious and diocesan priests at numerous sites throughout Cologne. Regnum Christi members also pitched in when needed elsewhere, including twice responding to emergency requests for help in distributing food to the massive crowd.
Father George Elsbett, born in London, raised in Germany, Canada and the United States, and now serving in Vienna, Austria, was among some 40 Legionary priests and religious who helped to serve the multitudes at World Youth Day. He recently spoke with Register correspondent Robert Francis.
How would you characterize the World Youth Day experience?
The most incredible six days of my life. To hear more than 1 million young Catholics shouting, “Benedetto, Benedetto!” and to see them falling on their knees during the consecration of the Blessed Sacrament at Mass. They were walking, singing, praying — interminable lines of youth from every possible corner of the world. There were 1,500 Catholic kids from Syria. Several kilometers of the autobahn were turned into a parking lot for buses.
Did World Youth Day have an impact on the people of Cologne who were hosting it?
Clearly, yes. The policemen were very strict on Tuesday morning, the first day in Cologne, when already 300,000 kids were in the city. But by the afternoon, the same police were sitting in a corner drinking a beer and greeting us with, “Hi, Father,” as they realized they would have almost nothing to do outside the massive events. The police and armed forces were dumbfounded, so were the journalists. They had no idea such a crowd of young people could be so well behaved.
We saw it too at the Senats Hotel where we had the Vocation.com coffeehouse. More than 17,000 youth visited the coffeehouse [more than 5,000 in one day alone]. We also received many priests and religious, who were invited to give their testimony or to offer information materials about their seminaries and religious communities. There were constant confessions, Eucharistic Adoration, Masses, witness talks, and music. We even saw a turnaround in the hotel staff: conversions, conversions, conversions!!!
Some groups tried to promote a secular agenda, passing out condoms and such things. How did the attendees react?
There had been plans to hand out as many as 1 million condoms by public agencies and non-governmental organizations. In modern, secular Germany, they provide this kind of “support” any time more than 100 young people are gathered for an event because they think it's “impossible that they keep clean.”
But the World Youth Day kids were throwing the condoms into garbage cans in front of journalists. I also know a 20-year-old man who teamed up with other lay people to produce a counter-poster against the “free sex” campaign launched by “Condoms4Life,” an affiliate of “Catholics for a Free Choice.” They printed posters showing a bride with bridegroom, and used sentences like, “Abstinence works” or “Free Catholics make a REAL choice.” And they did it all within 24 hours.
How busy were you with your priestly duties?
After the vigil with the Holy Father on Saturday, the adoration tent on Marienfeld — which could hold thousands — was totally overflowing. I started hearing confessions at 11 p.m. that evening and finished on Sunday at 4 p.m., and I wasn't the only one who had to do an extra shift, with only a short pause for breakfast and lauds.
It was flabbergastingly incredible. About 2,000 Regnum Christi members were also busy promoting confessions among other participants. God bless the lady who came by and distributed coffee to the priests confessing — at 3:00 in the morning.
Already on Thursday, I had made the “mistake” of doing my Eucharistic hour at midnight in the Cathedral after working in the Vocation.com coffeehouse. Even at midnight, the Cathedral was packed with kids, and I got swamped for confession. Tears come to my eyes just thinking about it.
It seems like the weather is almost always part of the adventure at World Youth Day, whether it's extreme heat or pouring rain. Was that the case this year?
The weather forecast for Saturday was thunderstorms and hail. All Bavaria was under water; all around Cologne it rained and poured.
But over the World Youth Day area there we felt hardly a drop of rain, and during hours even the clouds disappeared. At least during the day, it was nicely warm. The media spoke of the Pope's “weather angel.”
Two days after the event, I was on my way to serve as chaplain for a summer camp in Salzburg, Austria, but just a few hours away from Cologne I couldn't cross the highway bridge at Augsburg because of too much water from all the rain during the weekend.
Do you have any closing thoughts?
There are so many great stories, like the 60 Brazilian kids from a group that normally sends only three or four to World Youth Day. They explained, “We wanted to show that it's not about John Paul II or Benedict, it's about the Pope and about Jesus. That's what we wanted to show the Holy Father, that is why we came.”
I hope you all had the chance to read the speeches of the Pope [if not, check out vatican.va or zenit.org]. They were constantly interrupted by the clapping and the chanting of the young people, and they are well worth a profound meditation.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Robert Francis ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: A Girl Possessed - or a Director Obsessed? DATE: 09/04/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: September 4-10, 2005 ----- BODY:There are no spinning heads, projectile pea-soup vomiting or levitating beds in The Exorcism of Emily Rose (opening Sept. 9), starring Laura Linney, Tom Wilkinson, Jennifer Carpenter and Campbell Scott. Director Scott Derrickson and his co-writer Paul Harris Boardman made sure of that.
“When you make a movie with this subject matter, you've got to reckon with The Exorcist and what a popular film that is,” commented Derrickson, a devout evangelical Protestant, at a recent New York press conference the Register attended. “And I think that, in the writing of it, we both felt that we would get around that problem by making a much more realistic movie.”
The film is based on a true, tragic story of a pious young German woman named Anneliese Michel. In 1976 she starved herself to death after nearly a year of exorcism sessions, resulting in a criminal trial for the priests and her parents.
In the film, the story takes place in the United States, and the girl's name is Emily Rose (Carpenter). Whether the girl's demons are real or in her mind — and whether or not her sincere, devout priest (Wilkinson) is guilty of negligent homicide — are questions the film raises but doesn't answer definitively. Also in play are larger questions regarding the existence of spiritual realities and ultimately God himself.
Part of this open-endedness involved keeping it real — and doing the research necessary to do so.
“The research phase was horrible,” admitted Derrickson, “[and] pretty intensive. I probably read two dozen books on possession and exorcism, and viewed a lot of videotape of real exorcisms, and heard audiotapes of real exorcisms. … I'll never do that again … not again.”
What drew him to this material? Derrickson explained that it was the opportunity to bring spiritual concerns to the fore in a medium that has often ignored them.
“It's been tough for me to feel so passionate about my faith, to care so much about it … and to be a lover of cinema, and to have cinema be so void of good religious subject matter,” he responded. “I think [religion] tends in the modern era to be treated almost the way sex was treated in the '50s — it's like, if you just watched our movies, you wouldn't even know it was part of our culture.
“What I wanted to do was write something that wasn't propaganda, wasn't about trying to persuade people to think the way that I do, but recognize the fundamental importance of that question, the central question — does the spiritual realm exist? Is there a devil, and more importantly, is there a God? And if so, what are the implications of that?
“I don't care what you believe,” he added. “Those are questions to be reckoned with. Everyone has to answer that question. And in some ways everyone lives their life based on what they believe about that question.”
Linney, who plays the priest's skeptical defense attorney, acknowledged that the film raises important questions even as she struggled to address those questions herself.
“I think opens the big question,” she said. “Where does evil come from? Is it stuff in our brains? Or is it something outside ourselves? I don't know. I just honest-to-God don't know. I hope not. I hope not. And I do believe in something bigger than me, I do, I do, I do, I do. And this is where I get caught up. I don't know [about evil]. I hope not. I hope that evil is just a man-made thing.”
Linney's biggest concern was that the film engages its issues in an evenhanded way.
“I wanted to make sure that both arguments were fully and completely explored and that it was balanced,” she said. “I wanted to make sure the movie was not telling people what to think or believe, and that it presented two complete sides to the discussion.”
Does the green-lighting of this project reflect a new openness in Hollywood toward spiritual subjects?
“I can't speak for anyone, why they green-light a movie,” Derrickson said. “It was green-lit the weekend after The Passion [of the Christ] opened. But it also happened to be the weekend that the head of Screen Gems read the script.
“I was very fortunate, because Clint Culpepper, the head of Sony Screen Gems, is not scared of this material. He likes the fact that it has spiritual content. He appreciated that, and never made any attempt to back off from that in any way.”
While the film's spiritual content may be challenging to skeptics, believers may find themselves wrestling with the film as well. For one thing, Emily, a devout girl from a Catholic family and apparently guiltless, seems an unlikely candidate for possession. A pious soul in the state of grace might possibly experience demonic oppression — even direct physical abuse, such as that experienced by St. Padre Pio — but possession, demonic powers speaking and acting through a person, is another story.
Derrickson approached this question gingerly.
“I do not believe that a spirit-filled Christian can become demon-possessed,” he acknowledged. “However, what I will say is that for every one of those theological rules that we like to systematically create, there are often exceptions. I don't believe that God will tell me to go commit a sin, but he told Abraham to murder his son. I think that there are sometimes exceptions to the rule …
“The movie is intended to stretch and provoke everyone who sees it, including Christians, including believers. It did that to me. That's one of the reasons why I thought it was a worthwhile story. When we got into the making of the movie, I thought, there is a way to construct this thing so that there's just no easy wrapping this movie up — for anyone.”
Boardman concurred. “It's not like The Exorcist, where they go back to the explanation [of] the more typical thing of you playing with … Ouija boards,” he said. “It's not as simple as that. There are things you don't know.”
Derrickson also admitted that, as an evangelical Protestant he is challenged by the Catholic milieu represented in the film, which includes an apparent encounter with the Virgin Mary.
“I am a Protestant. There are specific reasons I'm not Catholic — but I'm pretty close,” he allowed. “One of my closest friends, [Register columnist] Barbara Nicolosi [of Act One: Writing for Hollywood], always teases me that I'm one Chesterton book away from crossing over. Chesterton is my favorite writer. Orthodoxy is the greatest book I've ever read. I have a lot of appreciation and a lot of personal affinity for Catholicism, and aesthetically I have much more appreciation for it than the Presbyterian denomination.”
Stay tuned for The Exorcism of Emily Rose — and for the spiritual development of its director.
Steven G. Greydanus is editor and chief critic of DecentFilms.com.
----- EXCERPT: A glimpse inside The Exorcism of Emily Rose ----- EXTENDED BODY: Steven D. Greydanus ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: THUNDER DOWN UNDER DATE: 09/04/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: September 4-10, 2005 ----- BODY:COLOGNE, Germany — “I am pleased to announce that the next World Youth Day will take place in Sydney, Australia!”
With these words, Pope Benedict XVI, speaking in front of an estimated 1 million pilgrims at the end of the World Youth Day Mass in Cologne, confirmed weeks of speculation that the next World Youth Day in 2008 would be held in Sydney.
Immediately after the announcement, strategically placed Australian pilgrims revealed T-shirts with the words “Come to Australia!” emblazoned on them.
Commenting after the announcement, Cardinal George Pell of Sydney declared that the choice was a “great privilege,” and that everybody was welcome to experience the beauty of the city and the country.
“World Youth Day is about bringing the face of Jesus Christ and the reality of God's love to the youth of the world,” Cardinal Pell said, adding that he hoped that WYD 2008 would strengthen participants' faith and reinforce values like “social justice, solidarity, family life and respect for life.”
Church-State Cooperation
The choice of Sydney resulted from an organized bid on the part of both the Australian Church and government officials. Said Cardinal Pell, “The partnership with governments was clearly a key factor in the success of the bid.”
This cooperation was reflected in the inclusion of Sandra Nori, minister for tourism for the state of New South Wales, as part of the 25-member Sydney Observation Team that went to Cologne to learn first-hand how to organize everything from the spiritual and liturgical program down to the logistics of transport and food distribution.
Commenting after the event, Nori said that she had never witnessed an event like World Youth Day.
“Hundreds of thousands of young people moving about the city, participating in the events, happy, positive, joyous and absolutely well-behaved — it is uplifting to see,” she said.
Back home, Australia's Prime Minister John Howard extended congratulations to the Catholic community in Australia for the “great compliment” the Pope paid by announcing Sydney as the host city. Howard also pledged to work closely with the Church “to make World Youth Day in Sydney a truly memorable event.”
The reaction from Australian pilgrims in Cologne was exuberant, with some seeing the hand of Providence in their country's selection.
“The Pope chooses places for World Youth Day where he knows that it is needed — he knows what he is doing,” said Anne Coles from Brisbane in Queensland. “Sydney's culture is secular but the witness of World Youth Day cannot be avoided. It will show that the Church is not out of date and that there is more to life than the annual Mardi Gras party.”
The Secular Challenge
As in other Western countries, the Church in Australia faces the challenges of secularism and post-modernism. Catholics hope that the witness of the hundreds of thousands of young people who will attend the mega-event will have a positive impact on their culture.
“Australia is a secular culture, and the Church has had to face both this cultural relativism externally and dissent internally,” said Rachel Byrnes, a World Youth Day pilgrim from Toowoomba in Queensland. “However, there are now signs of renewal in Australian Catholicism. The seeds of John Paul II's New Evangelization are beginning to take root.”
Citing new vocations to the priesthood and the growth of new lay movements in the Church, Byrnes suggested that contemporary Catholicism in Australia reflects the “creative minority” that Pope Benedict XVI has proposed for Catholic communities in relativistic secular cultures.
Father Anthony Denton, vocation director and chaplain to the Catholic Youth Ministry in Melbourne Archdiocese, said that the biggest problem facing Australian Catholicism is a crisis of faith. But World Youth Day can help transform Sydney and the country as a whole, he predicted.
“Hearts will melt when people see the young pilgrims, just as they have in every city where World Youth Day has been held,” Father Denton said. “Christianity is joyful, and that joy is evident in all those who attend World Youth Day.”
Father Denton was not fazed at the thought of the challenges facing the Church in Australia in organizing the 2008 gathering.
“It will be the best World Youth Day ever,” he said. “Sydney has experience in hosting global events like the Olympics, and we have coped well.”
The experience of those who have participated in previous celebrations will be vital, Father Denton added. “A lot of time and effort has gone into the formation and training of young Australian pilgrims who have attended past World Youth Days,” he said. “The knowledge they have gathered will help them become the key leaders and planners of World Youth Day 2008.”
Distance No Barrier
Despite the great distances involved, the Aussie contingent in Cologne had little concern that there might be a low turnout for the 2008 event. Australian pilgrim Peter Pfeiffer said that since the official announcement he has received lots of interest from pilgrims from other countries as well as pledges of attendance.
“People have a lot of questions about Australia and want to know more about it,” he said. “It is a place many people want to go to, and this will give them a great opportunity to visit. It will also be easier for young people from Asia to attend.”
Added the young Australian Catholic, “It will be a great World Youth Day, one of the best ever.”
Patrick Kenny writes from Dublin, Ireland.
----- EXCERPT: Sydney Chosen as the Site of World Youth Day '08 ----- EXTENDED BODY: Patrick Kenny ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: U.S. Bishops to Begin Inspecting Seminaries DATE: 09/04/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: September 4-10, 2005 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON — The bishop overseeing a Vatican-ordered inspection of U.S. seminaries said there is no room there for men with strong homosexual inclinations. And an apostolic visitation that begins this month will seek to determine whether seminaries are enrolling them.
“I think anyone who has engaged in homosexual activity, or has strong homosexual inclinations, would be best not to apply to a seminary and not to be accepted into a seminary,” Archbishop Edwin O'Brien, who's coordinating the visits of more than 220 seminaries and houses of formation, told the Register.
Archbishop O'Brien, who heads the Archdiocese for Military Services USA, said even homosexuals who have been celibate for 10 or more years should not be admitted to seminaries.
“The Holy See should be coming out with a document about this,” Archbishop O'Brien said.
The visitations were sparked by the sexual abuse scandal that hit the U.S. Church in 2002.
In a 2002 speech, Pope John Paul II linked the abuse scandals with seminary instruction and called for the exclusion of seminary candidates with observable “deviations in their affections.”
“It would be lamentable if, out of a misunderstood tolerance, they ordained young men who are immature or have obvious signs of affective deviations that, as is sadly known, could cause serious anomalies in the consciences of the faithful, with evident damage for the whole Church,” the Holy Father said.
His words echoed a 1961 instruction to the superiors of religious communities on “Careful Selection and Training of Candidates for the States of Perfection and Sacred Orders.”
That document states: “Advancement to religious vows and ordination should be barred to those who are afflicted with evil tendencies to homosexuality or pederasty, since for them the common life and the priestly ministry would constitute serious dangers.”
A February 2004 report commissioned by the U.S. bishops' National Review Board noted that 81% of the reported victims of child sexual abuse by clergy from 1950 to 2002 were boys. The findings strengthened the argument made by many observers that at the heart of the sexual abuse problem was a strong presence of homosexuals in the priesthood.
In his address to U.S. cardinals called to a special summit on abuse at the Vatican in 2002, Pope John Paul II said Catholics “must know that bishops and priests are totally committed to the fullness of Catholic truth on matters of sexual morality, a truth as essential to the renewal of the priesthood and the episcopate as it is to the renewal of marriage and family life.”
The U.S. bishops have directed that the visitations pay special attention to areas such as the quality of the seminarians' human and spiritual formation for living chastely and of their intellectual formation for faithfulness to Church teachings, especially in the area of moral theology.
The Vatican Congregation for Catholic Education, which oversees seminary formation around the world, has appointed 117 bishops and seminary personnel as visitors — all from the United States. They are to visit each college- or theology-level institution, working in teams of three for smaller programs or four for the larger ones.
Pittsburgh Bishop Donald Wuerl called the new visitation's focus on celibacy a “significant difference” from the last such visitation in 1981.
Writing in America magazine when the new visitation was first proposed in 2002, Bishop Wuerl cited the abuse charter that directs bishops: “These new visits will focus on the question of human formation for celibate chastity based on the criteria found in Pastores Dabo Vobis (1992).”
Wrote Bishop Wuerl: “It is clear that the visitation will not encompass all the areas recognized in Pastores Dabo Vobis as points of development: intellectual, pastoral, spiritual and human formation,” as the last one did. “Rather this visitation will address human formation for celibate chastity.”
The de-emphasis on chastity in the 1981 visitation led some to call it a “whitewash.”
Archbishop O'Brien disagreed. He participated as a visitor in the '80s, while serving as rector of the New York archdiocesan seminary, St. Joseph's in Yonkers, and said it was a net plus for participating seminaries.
“Probably the most valuable work is done in preparation for the visit,” Archbishop O'Brien said. “Seminaries know what the Holy See is looking for, and they have ample time, if they're not meeting some of the standards, to make those standards a reality, and that's what happened in the '80s. Once the visits took place, most things were in place.”
Archbishop O'Brien said that in the new visitations, interviews will be conducted on an anonymous basis in order that truth can be told without fear of retribution.
“The seminarians themselves will be key players to this whole thing,” Archbishop O'Brien said. “They'll be questioned individually, and if we get 50 out of 60 saying this was the case when I came in and this is the way it is now, there's reason for credibility there.”
Ultimately, the visits and individual reports will culminate in a final overview report that will be published by the Congregation for Education and the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life. Archbishop O'Brien said the final report may come several years after the visits are completed.
Archbishop O'Brien said neither he nor the rectors will see the individual reports from the seminaries going to the Vatican.
He then added, “Rome will review it, and if they have concerns they'll be in touch with the bishop or the religious superior about it.”
Wayne Laugesen is based in Boulder, Colorado.
Seminary Visitations: Who, What, When
Timetable. The visits will begin in late September and continue through early May of 2006. Each visitation team will draw up a report on each visit, based on interviews with seminarians, rectors and priests who have been away from the seminary for no more than three years. The reports will go to the Vatican's Congregation for Education.
Seminaries. Last year there were 229 U.S. seminaries or formation houses at the college or theology level. They had a total of 4,556 students — 3,308 at the theology level and 1,248 in college.
A seminary covers all aspects of formation, including the academic. For students in a house of formation, the academic program is run by a neighboring college, university or theological consortium.
Seminarians. About one-third of U.S. seminarians in graduate studies are preparing to be priests in religious orders; the other two thirds will be parish priests attached to dioceses.
Visitors. Archbishop Edwin O'Brien was named coordinator of the visitations last year but will not be a visitor. He was rector of the North American College, the U.S. seminary in Rome, from 1990-1994. For five years before that and two years after, he headed the New York archdiocesan seminary. A New York archdiocesan priest, he was ordained a bishop there in 1996 and became head of the military archdiocese the following year.
In selecting the visitors, the congregation consulted with the Conference of Major Superiors of Men and the Committee on Priestly Formation of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Objectives. The visitation objectives designated by the education congregation have two main functions:
“ Ensure celibacy is properly taught. “To examine the criteria for admission of candidates and the programs of human formation and spiritual formation aimed at ensuring that they can faithfully live chastely for the Kingdom.”
“ Ensure seminaries teach the authentic Catholic faith. “To examine other aspects of priestly formation in the United States. Particular attention will be reserved for the intellectual formation of seminarians, to examine fidelity to the magisterium, especially in the field of moral theology, in the light of Veritatis Splendor,” Pope John Paul II's 1993 encyclical on Catholic moral teaching.
Catholic News Service contributed to this report.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Wayne Laugesen ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: God Loves a Cheerful Giver DATE: 09/04/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: September 4-10, 2005 ----- BODY:FAMILY MATTERS
We're one of those families who give less than 1% of our income to the Church and other charities. We've read what you have to say about tithing and really would like to give more. How do you get started when you're barely making ends meet as it is?
You're about to embark on a great adventure! Tithing has a way of changing our perspective on money matters in a way few other things can.
In Paul's Second Letter to the Corinthians, he provides instruction regarding how the people of Corinth should implement a collection for the needs of the Church. We can learn from these passages.
“And in this matter I give my advice: It is best for you now to complete what a year ago you began not only to do but to desire, so that your readiness in desiring it may be matched by your completing it out of what you have,” he writes in 2 Corinthians 8:10-12. “For if the readiness is there, it is acceptable according to what a man has, not according to what to what he has not.”
Contrast this with 2 Corinthians 9:6-8, where he says, “The point is this: He who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must do as he has made up his mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that you may always have enough of everything and may provide in abundance for every good work.”
You can see how Paul provides a balance between prudence and generosity. There is no one right answer for all situations. But, generally speaking, I would encourage you to take a two-pronged approach.
On the one hand, increase your charitable giving by an amount that “stretches” you today. This may mean increasing your giving from 1% of your income to 3% immediately. You'll want to keep a full tithe as a goal to be achieved in the near future (one to two years isn't an unreasonable time frame).
On the other hand, you should combine your increase in giving with a basic review of your spending habits.
Take a hard look at your budget for expenses that can be reduced or eliminated. This review may show misguided priorities (high entertainment or automobile costs, for example) — and may show where you might draw from.
My prayer is that, as you work to more effectively integrate your financial priorities with Christian teaching, you'll experience the joy of being “a cheerful giver.” God love you!
Phil Lenahan is director of finance at Catholic Answers in El Cajon, California.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Phil Lenahan ----- KEYWORDS: Culture of Life -------- TITLE: LETTERS TO THE EDITOR DATE: 09/04/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: September 4-10, 2005 ----- BODY:The Truth Is Out There
The Catholic New Service report “Bosnian Church Official Sees Slight Change in Ethnic Attitudes” (Aug. 7-13) is horribly misleading, misinformed and full of fiction perpetrated by the likes of the Clinton administration, their Bosnian allies and the United Nations.
From the excellent journalism of Bill Schiller (Toronto Star), Tim Butcher (London Daily Telegraph), Charles Krauthammer (Newsweek) and Jared Israel (emperors-clothes.com) the truth can be known: The United Nations was allowing Islamofascist Bosnians to use “safe zones” like Srebrenica, Tuzla and Sarajevo for staging areas of mass murder on innocent civilians.
Under the guidance of SS- and Gestapo-trained Alija Izetbegovic, and carried out by a true war criminal, Nasir Oric, neo-Nazis — backed by the United States, United Nations and NATO — committed unspeakable atrocities against non-combatants. Serbian general Mladi's protests of the “safe zone” misuses were ignored and he warned of a military response. With this knowledge, Oric took his forces, which included Islamic terrorists from all over the region, out of Srebrenica. The Bosnian Muslims who remained were left believing that the United Nations would protect them. The U.N. conspired with the Bosnian government to allow the city to be undefended against attack, thus increasing world sympathy for the Bosnians.
General Mladic had the women and children of Srebrenica evacuated before taking the city; then he engaged the remaining Muslims in battle. Some of these Muslims retreated and were killed by Oric's forces on the outskirts of the city for not staying and fighting. Of the 8,000 supposed “massacred,” only 2,000, some 10 years later, have been found and many of these were likely killed by Oric before the Srebrenica battle and during their retreat.
Secretaries Christopher and Albright, Ambassador Holbrooke and others were well aware of the truth of Srebrenica, which is why they lobbied so hard to convince people otherwise. Europe's real “worst atrocity since World War II,” Krajina, destroyed the lives of 250,000 Serbs, prompting Croatian leadership to gleefully declare the city free of the Serbian “cancer in the heart of Croatia.”
Why did the United States, United Nations and NATO conspire with these Islmamofascist neo-Nazis? Only God knows the answer to that.
The Serbian Orthodox Church should be reluctant to admit to falsities. Either the Serbian Archdiocese has political motivations for playing along with these lies or they have been fooled like most of the unwitting world. Take your pick. Regardless, it is shamefully un-Christian to continue to perpetuate such lies.
ERIK RICHARDS
Coldwater, Michigan
The Real Roberts?
I was glad to see Andy Schlafly's commentary “Will Roberts Judge Amorally?” in your Aug. 14-30 edition.
Ann Coulter, a conservative columnist, has taken a position similar to Schlafly's regarding Roberts' nomination. She has criticized his lack of public controversy that typically arises over moral issues. She has pointed out that non-controversial judges appointed by Republican presidents in recent history have disappointed conservatives.
In the early '90s, when the legalization of physician-assisted suicide was under consideration in Oregon, the state's medical society took a “neutral” stance, obviously to avoid controversy. It wasn't long before physician-assisted suicide was legalized in Oregon. Recently, in California, attempts to legalize physician-assisted suicide failed. Unlike Oregon, the state's medical society opposed its legalization. “Neutrality,” then, is really baseless — and therefore dangerous.
If Roberts doesn't stand against evil, then he will actually be voting for it. Our society cannot afford any more judges who will avoid controversy at any cost.
DEBORAH STURM, RN
Aliquippa, Pennsylvania
Tainted Television
Pertinent to: “Teens Imitate TV Sleaze, Says Study” (August 21-27):
A recent episode of “The Simpsons,” offered on primetime Sunday evening for family and children viewing, featured a Catholic school that Bart Simpson was attending. I immediately thought this New York-based show was going to slam the Catholic faith. I was not wrong.
It did not take 10 seconds before nuns, priests and Catholic beliefs were under attack. I watched the show just to see where it was going with this theme. After 28 minutes of slamming every belief, including the pope, confession and just about everything else Catholic, the last two minutes were devoted to the fact that we all come from different beliefs — Protestant, Jew and Catholic — but that we should live together and tolerate different beliefs.
This show was a blatant attempt to undermine the Pope's visit to Germany, where hundreds of thousands of youth displayed their Catholic beliefs for all the world to see — including the uninformed and immature writers of “The Simpsons.”
RICHARD A. ECKERT
Ocean Springs, Mississippi
God's Hand and Evolution
Regarding the Catholic News Service story “Church's Stand on Evolution Gains Notice” (August 7-13):
Vatican documents do not at all say that “the scientific evidence supporting an evolutionary of life is overwhelming.” Either Catholic News Service got it all wrong, or the Register mistook the CNS report.
Science has never succeeded in fashioning life from a bionic soup — and don't hold your breath, because it never will. It is absurd to expect that what is non-living can elevate itself into living plants or animals. Only God's creative hand can bring about what nature cannot do on its own.
The Vatican document of 2004 cited by CNS actually denies the possibility of an evolutionary origin of life: “It follows that the message of Pope John Paul II cannot be read as a blanket approbation of all theories of evolution, including those of a neo-Darwinian provenance which explicitly deny to divine providence any truly causal role in the development of life in the universe.” CNS (or the Register) turned the Vatican document on its head.
The faithful who accept evolution, including myself, must keep their head on their shoulders. That includes belief in at least five creative interventions on the part of God as I see it: 1) creation of the “Big Bang”; 2) creation of plant life; 3) creation of sentient life; 4) somehow God nudges nature into a design (flowers produce nectar, bees produce honey, human taste buds savor honey's sweetness); and 5) creation of man (each of us individually).
FATHER ANTHONY ZIMMERMAN, STD
Nagoya, Japan
Welfare Alternatives Work
Recent letters have suggested that politicians who support family caps on welfare payments are not pro-life (“The President Is Not Pro-Life,” Aug. 7-13, and “Life and Taxes,” Aug. 14-20). This is a non sequitur. Many such politicians, including those named by the writer, support alternatives to unlimited cash payments to welfare recipients. These alternatives encourage expectant mothers to keep their babies.
An example is funding for community-based charitable organizations that serve these women and their children. In addition to preventing abortions, such alternatives promote subsidiarity. Furthermore, they help curtail fraud and abuse, which are rampant in systems involving government transfer payments to individuals.
CHRISTOPHER J. MATTIA
West Bloomfield, Michigan
Atomic Argument
The problem I see with your editorial “After Hiroshima” (Aug. 21-27) is that you do not seem to have a concept of war. Decisions have to be made for strategic reasons, and military people do not have the time to consult Vatican officials or St. Thomas or St. Augustine. War by its definition is to break things and kill people — therefore, it is irrational. A nation is entitled not to put its own people in harm's way.
Dropping the atomic bombs was hardly a gratuitous act. We were the attacked. The bloodshed to the Japanese in city-by-city fighting would have been as severe as the bomb, and prolonged. We, as the wronged, or sinned-against (using theological terms), did not need to sacrifice our military people. Our president would have faced impeachment, were it known that he had the resources to prevent untold deaths of our own military persons. It would have been an impeachable crime.
The problem you have is that you are applying rational thought to an irrational situation, one called war. The result is ridiculous. This is why you had the upset readers. You, in this editorial, or with the Pakaluks' commentary, are full of pontifications, as opposed to reality. Facts always trump the great and lofty pontifications in war. This would require real thought.
MARY L. GILBERTSON
Franklinville, New York
We would remind those who have contacted us about this topic that there are three relevant moral principles in the Catechism that must be grappled with:
1. You can't do something wrong, even if you expect a good result to come from it: “A good intention (for example, that of helping one's neighbor) does not make behavior that is intrinsically disordered, such as lying and calumny, good or just. The end does not justify the means. Thus, the condemnation of an innocent person cannot be justified as a legitimate means of saving the nation” (No. 1753).
2. You can't target civilians in war: “Non-combatants, wounded soldiers, and prisoners must be respected and treated humanely” (No. 2313).
3. The Church has authoritatively taught, through a Church council and through the Catechism, that the use of the atomic bomb was wrong: “Every act of war directed to the indiscriminate destruction of whole cities or vast areas with their inhabitants is a crime against God and man, which merits firm and unequivocal condemnation. [Cf. Vatican II, Gaudium et spes 80, 3.] A danger of modern warfare is that it provides the opportunity to those who possess modern scientific weapons — especially atomic, biological, or chemical weapons — to commit such crimes” (No. 2314).
That said, the United States didn't need to consult theology books or Vatican officials about the atomic bomb. Our country's own proud tradition is that it's wrong to target civilians — a tradition we adhere to in Iraq.
Japan's war tactics were cruel. The Nazis' concentration camps were inhuman. We're not like that. Our greatest generation sacrificed more than we can imagine ridding the world of those evil ideologies so that our better way would prevail. Part of our better way is our recognition that there are lines we must never cross.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Opinion -------- TITLE: Fervor and Fidelity in South Florida DATE: 09/04/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: September 4-10, 2005 ----- BODY:Disregard the hurricanes that marked the start of the 2004-05 school year and the physical complications of educating 310 students in temporary facilities, and the second year of Ave Maria University in Naples, Fla., starts looking like a success.
After all, the average SAT score of its incoming freshmen class rose from 1,100 to nearly 1,200, the number of undergraduate students tripled, and this May the school held its first commencement exercises for 23 graduating seniors.
Ave Maria University President Nick Healy say the challenge facing the school now is continuing to integrate its strong academics, faithful Catholicism and vibrant student life while making do at a temporary location: The permanent campus won't open until 2007.
“All of that takes ongoing attention and effort,” says Healy. “To continue building the community of the university is a great challenge, but one that I think is of utmost importance.”
When its doors opened in 2003 with a $200 million donation from Catholic tycoon Tom Monaghan, Ave Maria University welcomed 100 undergraduate students, 75 of them freshmen. There were detailed plans for a 1,000-acre campus and a 4,000-acre European-style town centered on a large oratory constructed mainly of glass. The first phase was slated for completion by 2006.
But plans changed. The church was downsized and redesigned. Difficulties with permits pushed construction on the campus back by one year.
On the academic and student life side, however, the changes were mostly positive. By last fall, 310 students had enrolled at Ave Maria. They came from 42 states and 10 foreign countries. Most of the 40 faculty members held doctorates, and students could choose from nine majors and four graduate programs, including a Ph.D. in theology.
Even an ongoing dispute over the fate of Ave Maria College in Michigan — also founded by Monaghan — seemed to approach resolution as Ave Maria University established itself as a wholly separate institution.
Last December, Ave Maria obtained pre-accreditation status by the Board of Trustees of the American Academy for Liberal Education. The school will also apply for accreditation from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.
Community life started to take shape. Students organized and participated in medieval dances and touch-football games. They made first forays into organized competitive sports, setting the ground for a sports program that Healy hopes will qualify for inclusion in Division II of the National Collegiate Athletic Association.
The university's ultimate vision, according to its literature, is to be “an institution of Catholic higher education that would be faithful to the magisterium, and could produce the future faithful educators, leaders and mentors that our challenged society needs.”
Or, as professor James Peliska explains it, it's not just about equipping students with the technical expertise of their subject area but also with the ethical framework in which to practice it.
Peliska, professor and chairman of the biology and chemistry departments, points to the pre-med program as one place this duality occurs.
“We don't just provide the coursework that's required,” he says. “We instill within that seminar speakers and physician mentors who address issues related not necessarily to the science itself but concerning ethics and morality and issues surrounding things like human suffering.”
Vocational Vitality
As the first major Catholic university founded in this country in 40 years, Ave Maria's Catholic identity is central to its mission and vision. The school adheres to the principles set forth in Ex Corde Ecclesiae and all theology faculty take an oath of fidelity to the magisterium.
The university also focuses on vocation discernment. Its pre-theologate program and Center for Discernment provide male students the opportunity to discern their vocations to the priesthood, religious life or the laity. Last year, 32 men participated in the pre-theologate program; this fall, Healy said he expects up to 40.
There is a comparable program for women operated by the Servant Sisters of Hogar de la Madre with help from a group of Benedictine sisters.
Of the first graduating class, three students entered the priesthood or religious life.
Outside of formal discernment programs, students engage in their own faith-based activities. Last January, a group raised the money for airfare to attend the March for Life in Washington, D.C. Students participate regularly in Eucharistic adoration, daily Mass, Rosary recitation, sidewalk counseling outside abortion clinics and works of mercy in nearby Immokalee, home to many migrant and immigrant workers.
For the future, Healy looks toward the opening of the permanent campus and an enrollment that should grow from 600 students in the first phase to about 5,000 when the campus is complete. The curriculum will expand to a full range of traditional liberal arts, sciences and engineering programs.
‘A Great Mission’
Meantime, Healy admits to foreseeing formidable challenges even with the new campus. Real estate prices in Florida are rising quickly, and he said the university is committed to making sure that faculty and staff can afford to live within the new town of Ave Maria.
Without committing to any specific strategy, Healy says other schools in high-price areas around the country have used subsidized mortgages, shared-equity arrangements and low-cost loans for down payments to assist their employees.
For faculty, the move to the new campus 20 miles away from their current space means more than just new professional facilities.
“For many faculty and staff, it's going to mean uprooting their families, selling their homes, and moving to a whole new town,” says Healy. “That, too, needs a lot of tender loving care. “
Sophomore and classics major Matt Grady admits that the transitive nature of the campus can lead to a feeling of being in exile, but that it also builds anticipation of something great.
“I chose Ave Maria because I see a great mission, a bright future for our Church and our world from a truly Catholic education with high standards,” he told the Register. “My experience at Ave Maria so far has been in accord with these aspirations.”
Dana Lorelle writes from Cary, North Carolina.
Information
Ave Maria University
naples.avemaria.edu
Law School Makes Grade
The Ave Maria School of Law announced Aug. 8 that it has received full accreditation from the American Bar Association (ABA).
The law school, which first opened for classes in 2000 in Michigan and received the bar association's provisional accreditation in August 2002, was granted full accreditation in its first attempt — and in the shortest time frame possible.
----- EXCERPT: Ave Maria U. heads into its third academic year in the Sunshine State ----- EXTENDED BODY: Dana Lorelle ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: Battle for Marriage Heats Up in California DATE: 09/04/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: September 4-10, 2005 ----- BODY:SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Five years after California voters approved Proposition 22 — the initiative declaring marriage to be between only a man and a woman — state officials are challenging that decision.
The state's Supreme Court Aug. 22 ruled that children can have two lesbian mothers, and A.B. 849 — a bill that would legalize homosexual “marriage” — is poised to come before the state Assembly.
In June, Democratic Assemblyman Mark Leno's bill A.B. 19 — a bill calling for the legalization of homosexual “marriage” — failed to pass in the Assembly by three votes and was thought to be dead for the year. However, Leno, of San Francisco, used a parliamentary strategy known as “gut and amend” to bring the bill back before the Assembly for another vote. Leno borrowed a fellow legislator's bill dealing with marine fisheries research, gutted its contents and inserted the language of the failed A.B. 19 bill.
The Senate Judiciary committee voted 4-1 to pass A.B. 849, and the bill was expected to pass in the state Senate the week of Aug. 29. However, the bill faces a tough fight in the Assembly, and if it does pass, it is uncertain whether Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will sign it into law or veto it.
But Leno said the bill is worth the fight. According to Leno, the bill is “a very serious civil rights issue.”
“These are people [homosexual couples] who have been sharing their lives together without the benefit of the law for years and decades. There are so many rights and privileges that come with a civil marriage license. As a legislator, I feel it's my responsibility to make sure families, children, that everyone is treated equally under the law.”
Leno likened his bill's intent to gain equality for homosexual couples to the state Supreme Court's 1948 act of overturning the ban on interracial marriage.
‘Discarding Wisdom’
But Bill May, chairman of Catholics for the Common Good, contended the bill would undermine both traditional marriage and the family unit.
“The reason we have laws for marriage is to protect the family,” May said. “If this bill passes, it takes children, mothers and fathers out of the equation. Marriage becomes just a contract between two consenting adults.” Moreover, “if the law changes,” he said, “that's what will be taught in school. Marriage is no longer about mothers and fathers. It's just a lifestyle choice, equivalent to cohabitation.”
May lamented the lack of media coverage of the bill. “This bill is moving through without high public awareness,” he said. “It's important for people to contact their legislators.”
He added that research shows children do best with a mother and a father—not two “parents” of the same sex.
Matt Daniels, founder and president of the Alliance for Marriage, has pointed out that research shows a strong relationship between the percentage of fatherless families and the rate of violent crime in a community.
Ned Dolejsi, executive director of the California Catholic Conference expressed opposition to the bill. “We believe the most optimum experience for children is to have marriage defined as between a man and a woman,” he said. “Homosexual marriage weakens society.”
In a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Catholic Conference stated that “the author's [Leno's] arguments, based solely on personal liberty and ‘equal protection’ do not begin to justify discarding thousands of years of human wisdom. Instead of exhibiting deep concern for the common good, the well-being of the society, and the general welfare of children, the argument seeks to fulfill the desires of a discrete group who want to gain society's imprimatur for their relationships.”
Marriage Amendment
Even if the bill passes in the Assembly, Schwarzenegger, who has shown no interest in legalizing homosexual “marriage,” might still sign it into law. Leno admits that it's “anybody's guess” what the governor would do. “We have a 50/50 fighting chance,” Leno said.
Meanwhile, two groups are pushing for their own versions of a state constitutional amendment that would define marriage as being between one man and one woman.
ProtectMarriage.com has gained the support of organizations like Focus on the Family, Family Research Council and Concerned Women for America while Randy Thomasson, president of Campaign for Children and Families, is spearheading VoteYesMarriage.com.
Liberty Counsel, on behalf of VoteYesMarriage.com, filed a lawsuit against California Attorney General Bill Lockyer, who is in favor of homosexual marriage, for using what it called biased language in the title and summary of VoteYesMarriage.com's proposed amendment. Judge Raymond Cadei Aug. 18 granted Liberty Counsel's request to invalidate the summary but not the title.
The title reads: “Marriage. Elimination of Domestic Partnership Rights.”
The court instructed the attorney general to work with Liberty Counsel lawyers to draft a new ballot summary. He said it should specify, for example, that the initiative would affect only a couple's community property rights, not all property rights.
In a press release, Mathew Staver, president and general counsel of Liberty Counsel, stated, “We are pleased that the court has protected the integrity of the amendment process. The attorney general failed to carry out his duty to prepare a neutral, factual title and summary, which would have prevented a fair vote on this important issue.”
Martin Mazloom is based in Los Angeles, California.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Martin Mazloom ----- KEYWORDS: News --------- TITLE: WHAT THE CHURCH DID DATE: 09/04/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: September 4-10, 2005 ----- BODY:Thomas E. Woods Jr. has written a challenging and indeed almost defiant book.
A professional historian with degrees from Harvard and Columbia, he systematically explains to a reading public that has largely lost its historical memory How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization (Regnery Publishing, Washington 2005). In this new volume, Woods follows up on his recent best seller The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History (2004), also available from Regnery.
To a degree, he traces the footsteps of best-selling author Thomas Cahill, who has written a series of books over the years on topics such as How the Irish Saved Western Civilization (New York, Doubleday, 1995, see review on my website FrMccloskey.com). However, Cahill writes from a heterodox Christian perspective more dependent on Scripture “scholars” than on historical fact or Church teaching.
Woods' approach is both religiously orthodox and more trustworthy historically, as signaled by the excellent bibliography and ample scholarly footnotes that establish scholarly credentials.
When a noted Stanford historian such as Paul Legutko praises publicly such a book, you know that you are not reading a biased reactionary polemic.
During the Great Jubilee year, John Paul II issued a famous “apology” or act of contrition on behalf of the entire Catholic Church for the serious sins committed by its members over its almost 2,000 years of history.
In doing so, he wished the Church to enter the new millennium with the slate wiped clean, allowing it to speak to and dialogue freely with the great world religions, cultures and nations from a position not only of longevity but also of moral and religious authority, having acknowledged in specific ways the crimes, sometimes horrendous, committed by its human elements throughout history.
Interestingly enough, these apologies were barely acknowledged, and reciprocal apologies for sins committed against the Church and its members have not been forthcoming.
From a Catholic point of view, the Church presents two aspects: One representing its divine nature as the spotless body of Christ, and one focusing on the vulnerabilities of the Church's human members wounded by sin, which does not preclude it from dispensing God's mercy through the sacraments, however saddened it may be by the sins of its members.
The Pope's apology applied to the Church understood in this second sense.
That millennial apology is a perfect set-up for Woods' splendid account of the many ways in which the Catholic faith created what we call Western Civilization.
Reaching bookstores almost simultaneously with the end of John Paul's magnificent pontificate, Woods' book establishes with sober confidence that the great majority of the institutions that define the West and that are increasingly exported throughout the world are the product of Catholicism and believing Catholics.
Today, there are increasing signs that the Europe described by Woods — which grew out of barbaric tribes largely evangelized by English and Irish monks, was maintained by Benedictine monasteries in the first millennium, blossomed into what we know as “Christendom” in the first half of the second millennium, and entered into a gradual 500-year descent following the great crack-up of European Christian unity beginning in 1517 — now appears headed for extinction due to demographic suicide, Islamic immigration, and mass apostasy from Christ and his Church.
In all likelihood, the Church's role in the coming generations will be to develop this culture outside of Europe, most prominently in Africa and Asia, the site of current rapid growth.
Woods acknowledges, “In our media and popular culture, little is off-limits when it comes to parodying the Church. Students, to the extent that they know anything at all about the Catholic Church, are typically familiar only with alleged instances of Church “corruption,” cited repeatedly in tales of varying credibility from their high school teachers. The story of Catholicism, as far as they know it, is one of ignorance, repression, and stagnation.”
But Woods notes, “Western civilization stands indebted to the Church for the university system, charitable work, international law, the sciences, and, important legal principles. … Western civilization owes far more to the Catholic Church than most people — Catholic included — often realize. … The Church, in fact, built Western civilization.”
Woods breaks the history of the Church and Western civilization into chapters that treat the Church from its beginning through the so-called Dark Ages up to the present day. He demonstrates that Western institutions, though often originating in Athens and Jerusalem, were developed into a Catholic culture in a process that accelerated from the early Middle Ages right up to the time of the Reformation and the Enlightenment.
At that point, the progenitors of these distinct rebellions against the Church began using Western institutions for their own particular purposes, growing out of but foreign to their Catholic origins.
Our world is fascinated and driven by technological progress, so readers are likely to find especially interesting Woods' explanation of how modern science gained its original impetus from Catholic theology. Woods writes:
“The Catholic Church's alleged hostility toward science may be her greatest debit in the popular mind. The one-sided version of the Galileo affair with which most people are familiar is very largely to blame for the widespread belief that the Church has obstructed the advance of scientific inquiry. But even had the Galileo incident been every bit as bad as people think it was, John Henry Cardinal Newman, the celebrated 19th-century convert from Anglicanism, found it revealing that this is practically the only example that ever comes to mind.”
Woods convincingly argues that modern experimental science started in the late Middle Ages due to the Christian belief that God created the world ex nihil (from nothing) and that there is an “order” in the universe that can gradually known by men.
The chapter on “The Church and Economics” should also draw special attention due to the increasingly hedonistic and market-driven nature of our culture. Woods' expertise in this area shows in his recent book The Church and the Market: A Catholic Defense of the Free Economy (Lanham, Md.; Lexington Books, 2005).
In this chapter, Woods points out that noted economic historian Joseph Schumpeter not only acknowledges the contributions of the late Scholastics to modern economics, but says “it is they who come nearer than any other group o having been ‘founders’ of scientific economics.”
Another great 20th-century economist, Murray Rothbard, devoted a lengthy section of a critically acclaimed history of economic thought to the insights of the late Scholastics, whom he described as brilliant social thinkers and economic analysts. He made a compelling case that the insight of these men reached their culmination in the Austrian School of Economics, an important school of economic thought that developed in the late 19th century and continues today. A distinguished member of the school won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1974.
Some commentators have seen a connection between the Austrian school's emphases on the subjective in judging economic value and John Paul II's use of personalist philosophy in his magisterial teaching.
However, the roots of the Catholic contribution to market economics go even farther back. Jean Buridan (1300-1358), for example, who served as rector of the University of Paris, made important contributions to the modern theory of money.
Instead of viewing money as an artificial product of state intervention, Burden showed how money emerged freely and spontaneously on the market, first as a useful commodity and then as a medium of exchange. In other words, money emerged not by government decree but out of the process of voluntary exchange, which people discover to be dramatically simplified by the adoption of a useful and widely desired commodity.
Of course, realizing that modern economics owes much of its basic understanding to Catholic thought can encourage society to pay greater attention to the papal teachings on social justice, ranging over the course of a century from Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum to John Paul II's Centesimus Annus.
This perspective is particularly important given our increasingly rapid transition to a global economy. Woods proceeds to examine the work of the late Scholastics (writing in the 15th and 16th centuries) on inflation, the foreign exchange market, the value of money, just price interest rates, etc. Their thinking on economics was insightful and strikingly modern, especially since they were writing long before the 18th century appearance of the Scottish Enlightenment and Adam Smith
Thomas Woods' new book could well take its place in any standard high school or university course on Western civilization — that is, any course taught by someone willing to honestly acknowledge that the modern world and its institutions did not appear spontaneously through some type of “punctuated evolution,” a la the late Stephen Jay Gould, but owe their existence to men and women deeply influenced by Catholic doctrine and moral teachings, as revealed through Scripture and Tradition.
This rediscovery can be of enormous importance, as we may well be seeing the disappearance of the West as a geographical entity.
The rapid growth of the Church today — and its seeming center of dynamism in the South and East — brings new challenges of inculturation and new opportunities to transmit its thought and institutions.
Read together with Triumph (Three Rivers Press, New York, 2001), Harry Crocker's recent history of the Church, Woods' book will fascinate, delight and instruct in a manner worthy of the 20th-century Catholic historian and polemicist Hilaire Belloc, showing us how to look backwards to transform the future.
Father C.J. McCloskey III is a Research Fellow at the Faith and Reason Institute in Washington, D.C. (FrMccloskey.com)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Father C. John McCloskey ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: Bishops in Phoenix and La Crosse Scrutinize Speakers DATE: 09/04/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: September 4-10, 2005 ----- BODY:PHOENIX, Ariz. — When speakers withdrew from a Church-hosted memorial for victims of a recent heat wave, it put Bishop Thomas Olmsted of Phoenix in the hot seat.
The controversy, sparked by a report in the Arizona Republic, put the spotlight on a diocesan policy to shun people who have views contrary to Church teaching from speaking at Church-related events or on Church property. That policy was enacted last year.
While the Diocese of Phoenix denied that anyone was excluded, and subsequent reports failed to identify anyone who was barred from speaking, the newspaper's report has raised again the controversy surrounding a policy that makes several local politicians and political activists, including Gov. Janet Napolitano, unwelcome.
Napolitano is outspoken in her support of abortion. Others may be barred for support of same-sex “marriage” or euthanasia. Each is feeling the impact of Phoenix's attempt to implement “Catholics in Public Life,” the guidelines for speakers and guests, published last year by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
The brief statement called on all Catholics to teach clearly the Church's commitment to the legal protection of human life from conception to natural death, and persuade public officials to support the protection of life through “effective dialogue and engagement.”
The bishops wrote, “The separation of church and state does not require division between belief and public action, between moral principles and political choices, but protects the right of believers and religious groups to practice their faith and act on their values in public life.”
Therefore, Catholics should uphold these principles by not supporting or honoring political figures “who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles. They should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions.”
Ron Johnson, executive director of the Arizona Catholic Conference, said it's up to the local pastors and schools to decide, “but there is certainly a primacy of issue of concern to the Church, with the sanctity of life at the top of that.”
He said, “For these issues, it doesn't matter what faith you are, or whether you're an elected official or not, these matters are intrinsically evil and it's our intention not to give a platform to those who have publicly stated a position that supports evil.”
Varying Policies
Although Napolitano, a Methodist, was forbidden to speak at a Scottsdale Catholic Church last October, the governor's spokeswoman, Jeanine L'Ecuyer, felt it was a small matter.
“The governor thinks it's unfortunate, but the Church has the ability and the privilege to make its own decisions,” L'Ecuyer said.
Ultimately, L'Ecuyer said, the public votes for or against an elected official on a variety of issues, “which, regardless of faith, people can agree upon.”
While Bishop Gerald Kicanas, in the adjacent Diocese of Tucson, has allowed the governor to speak, he said his diocese's position is not at odds with the Diocese of Phoenix.
“Each bishop has the responsibility to determine who can speak in Catholic institutions,” Bishop Kicanas said. “However, Bishop Olmsted and I work together to address issues in the state of Arizona.”
Diocese of Tucson spokesman Fred Allison said the governor was allowed to speak at a Catholic church for the 15th anniversary of the Pima County Interfaith Council, and again at the memorial service for a Pima County deputy sheriff, killed in the line of duty, but, in both cases, she spoke in her official capacity as governor.
“To characterize their policies as being opposed to each other would be unfair,” Allison said.
Uniform Approach
He said implementation of the bishops' conference statement still varies widely, from Bishop Lawrence Brandt of the Diocese of Greensburg, Penn., who issued a detailed statement on criteria for speakers, to Bishop Jerome Listecki of the Diocese of La Crosse, Wis. who requires prior approval for any speaker, to the positions taken by Bishops Kicanas and Olmsted.
Because a more uniform approach is needed, Allison said this is expected to be a major topic of discussion at this year's meeting of the bishops' conference.
The La Crosse policy, issued July 25, requires prior approval of the bishop for “any person under consideration to lecture, present a workshop, give a retreat or otherwise speak or give an address on faith and morals on diocesan property.”
“There's been a great deal of confusion experienced by a number of dioceses around the country” on the issue, Bishop Listecki told Catholic News Service. “Various Catholic speakers are given a platform by some local churches and institutions, and some of the speakers hold positions contrary to the Catholic teaching. At times this is not always obvious, and when it's discovered it becomes a source of embarrassment to the Church and at times a misunderstanding to the Catholic faithful.”
In order to get the bishop's approval in La Crosse, the host organization must provide documentation on the proposed speaker for the bishop to review. A form must be submitted with the documentation, which is to include a curriculum vitae; a letter establishing that the proposed speaker is a Catholic in good standing; for priests, a “celebret,” which shows that he has permission to celebrate the sacraments outside his diocese; and for college and university professors, a “mandatum” from their bishop if they have one.
Deeply Divided
For non-Catholics, the curriculum vitae must be accompanied by written assurance that a speaker's presentation will not conflict with Catholic teaching.
If the bishops are talking, Catholic colleges are still deeply divided, with many in defiance of the bishops' statement, said Patrick Reilly, president and chief executive of the Cardinal Newman Society, which has taken on dissenting Catholic colleges in a series of public protests.
Reilly said, “Our mission is renewal of Catholic identity at Catholic colleges.” He said the colleges are often centers of public dissent, either through advocacy of positions contrary to Church doctrine or “inviting speakers to public events that create scandal.”
He said, “Although the argument from the colleges is, ‘Why not let everyone speak,’ their position suggests that the Church doesn't take the actions of public officials seriously, which is wrong.”
Even if John Kennedy said in 1960, “I do not speak for my Church on public matters and the Church does not speak for me,” Reilly said the Catholic Church “does tell us what to do. I think that was one of Pope John Paul II's greatest contributions, making the distinction between personal and political authority.”
He said, “The Church doesn't make day-to-day decisions for us on political issues, but there's a responsibility to adhere to Catholic teaching, because the Church does have moral authority.”
Philip S. Moore writes from Vail, Arizona.
Catholic News Service contributed to this report.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Philip S. Moore ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: National Media Watch DATE: 09/04/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: September 4-10, 2005 ----- BODY:Archdiocese Ends Lease to Homosexual Church
The 45-member Metropolitan Community Church of Greater New Orleans, which was founded a few decades ago to serve homosexuals, thought it had found a home for the next year when it moved into the Project Lazarus complex in the spring, the Times-Picayune reported. Project Lazarus provides hospice and palliative care to AIDS patients, many of whom are homosexual.
“This particular group blesses gay unions, which we do not support,” said Father William Maestri, a spokesman for the archdiocese.
He said the archdiocese had to act after it learned of the Metropolitan Community Church's teachings. Continuing to lease to the church might give the impression the Catholic Church is in support of same-sex “marriage,” which, he said, “we are not.”
St. Joseph and the Real Estate Bubble
NEWHOUSE NEWS SERVICE, Aug. 22 — Does St. Joseph know something we don't about the future of the real estate market? Some in the field think he might.
Sellers of St. Joseph statues and “St. Joseph kits” — which typically include a 4-inch plastic statue, a burial bag for the statue, prayers and other instructions — say sales of the kits are up by as much as 50% this year.
“People who are having a harder time selling their home are resorting to the statue,” said Phil Cates, owner of Modesto, Calif.-based stjosephstatue.com. “It is an indicator of what's out there.”
Cates, who is also a real estate broker, said the increase in statue sales is an early indicator of cracks in the residential real estate market.
Many Catholics and non-Catholics swear by the practice of burying a statue of the saint head-down in a plastic bag in the ground near their “For Sale” sign to help sell their homes.
However, Thomas Farrell, owner of Our Daily Bread Catholic supply store in Sayville, N.Y., said he frowns upon the practice because it has crossed the line into superstition and mysticism. Instead, he counsels customers to recite a heartfelt prayer asking St. Joseph's intercession in selling their homes.
In a ‘Loving Relationship With Christ’
Judith Stegman, 49, of Haslett, Mich., is one of at least 160 women in the United States who are consecrated virgins in the Catholic Church, the Detroit Free Press reported.
“I'm not remaining a virgin because I'm repressing some part of sexuality, or giving everything to my work, or refraining from loving relationships,” Stegman told the paper. “I'm invited to a loving relationship with Christ.”
Consecrated virgins pursue a spiritual vocation but are not part of any religious order. They must support themselves financially, the newspaper noted. They follow a life of prayer and are “mystically betrothed to Christ,” in the words of canon law.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: La Conquistadora,s Home Quarters DATE: 09/04/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: September 4-10, 2005 ----- BODY:In the center of Santa Fe — that's Spanish for “Holy Faith” — amid fashionable boutiques, history museums, Native American jewelry counters and innumerable tourists, sits a great cathedral.
How great is it? So great that, in July, Pope Benedict XVI raised it to the status of minor basilica.
The locals weren't altogether surprised. The Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi, a towering sandstone structure, is arguably the most prominent, storied and beautiful man-made structure in the state.
The sandstone edifice's blend of French-Romanesque and Southwestern architecture is believed to be one-of-a-kind.
And so is its history. Four earlier churches on the same site preceded this one. Its construction began in 1869, led by Jean Baptiste Lamy, the first bishop of the Santa Fe diocese, which then included all of New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado.
The soaring house of God stands as a testament to the durability of the Catholic faith, which has been growing in this region since the arrival of the first Spanish Catholic settlers in 1610.
As a member of this parish, I am awed to be part of a congregation that spans more than 10 generations.
Threshold to Beauty
Bishop Lamy left the unmistakable imprint of his native France on his cathedral. Its sturdy bell towers, vaulted ceiling and stone construction are more common to Europe than the Americas.
The brilliant stained-glass windows were made in Clermont-Ferrand, France, and are unique to this church. The Four Evangelists and Jesus' apostles let in light along either side, with Sts. Francis and Clare to the right and left of the altar. A magnificent rose window radiates from above the front door.
I learned recently that building materials and money ran out before the intended pair of spires was completed; by the time the construction was possible, the squared-off outline of the cathedral had become familiar and beloved. The pair of steeples that rise to a flat finish just higher than the peak of the roof remain as testimony to the difficulties, physical and financial, that the 19th-century Catholics of Santa Fe faced. A sketch of the intended design shows steeples continuing upwards at least 80 feet above their present height.
If you've been to Rome, you'll recognize a familiar feel to St. Francis' heavy front doors. They have the same type of bronze, bas-relief panels that compose the doors of St. Peter's.
The much briefer story of the Catholic Church in the Southwest fits on the two doors that were installed in 1986. The first panel depicts a Franciscan priest in 1539 explaining the faith to the American Indians.
From behind the altar, a modern reredos (altar screen) complements the 19th-century decor. A 1717 statue of St. Francis is enshrined in the center niche. Surrounding St. Francis are 12 saints of the Americas, painted in the bright colors of the local retablo (Spanish paint-on-wood) style.
The greatest treasure of the cathedral basilica rests quietly above a side altar. This statue of Our Lady, named La Conquistadora, has been enshrined, with a brief exile, in Santa Fe since she first arrived from Spain in 1625. Following an Indian revolt in 1680, the church's sacristan rescued the statue as he and the other Spaniards fled to what is now El Paso, Texas. For 13 years they remained there, until Gov. Don Diego de Vargas decided that the faith must return to Santa Fe.
A cart in which La Conquistadora was carried had a place of honor in the traveling procession. As the travelers stopped just outside the city, de Vargas led them in prayers to Our Lady asking that they be permitted to return to their city in peace. He promised a great, annual fiesta in her honor if their prayer was answered. Indian messengers then came out to greet the Spaniards and allow their safe return into the city.
Our Lady had re-conquered the city without the battle for which de Vargas had been prepared. Underneath the Spanish title, her name in English reads, “Our Lady of Peace.”
Passing the Torch
Today this statue emerges from the cathedral twice yearly. In June, she is carried at the head of a public procession beginning a novena of Masses to Our Lady in remembrance of the prayers of 1693 that ended in the peaceful return of the Catholic faith to Santa Fe.
The entire city welcomes La Conquistadora in September as she leads the procession beginning the week-long fiesta, still celebrated in honor of de Vargas's promise. The side altar in which she is otherwise found is the remnant of a church that was first built in 1717. The oddly angled, lumpy, adobe walls testify to the age of this part of the structure. Overhead, the carved wooden beams of the original ceiling are trimmed with spiraled wooden molding, the shape of the Franciscan cincture, and often seen in their old churches.
As La Conquistadora approaches her 400th birthday, her modest place in the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis is the oldest Marian shrine in the United States.
Before I left the church one recent afternoon, I spent a few moments in prayer at the feet of this centuries-old image. The bright blue of her new dress struck a sharp contrast next to the worn wood of her face. Like the church around her, she is a blend of age and youth.
My prayer was one of thanksgiving and petition. I offered thanks for the missionaries who brought the faith to this desert so long ago — and I asked that the faith grow strong in the heart of my baby daughter, recently baptized in this cathedral.
Emily G. Ortega writes from Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Planning Your Visit
This year's fiesta, celebrating the cathedral-basilica's greatest treasure — an old, humble statue of Our Lady under the title La Conquistadora — runs Sept. 3-11.
For Mass schedules and other info, call (505) 982-5619 or visit archdiocesesantafe.org on the Internet.
Getting There
From Albuquerque, take I-25 south and exit at St. Francis Drive. Turn right on Paseo de Peralta, then left on East Alameda. Those attending Mass are granted free parking at the city lot on West Alameda.
----- EXCERPT: Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi, Santa Fe, N.M. ----- EXTENDED BODY: Emily G. Ortega ----- KEYWORDS: Travel -------- TITLE: Iraqi Catholics Tangle With Protesters DATE: 09/04/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: September 4-10, 2005 ----- BODY:CAREY, Ohio — Every August, thousands of Catholic pilgrims converge on this rural community in northwest Ohio to honor the Blessed Virgin Mary on the feast of the Assumption.
This year, however, a confrontation between some of the pilgrims and a group of Protestant protesters disturbed the peace of the celebration, ending in the arrest of eight pilgrims for disorderly conduct.
The pilgrims are Iraqi Chaldean Catholics, for whom Aug. 14 is a special day to gather in Carey with family.
“It's a feast day,” said Conventual Franciscan Father John Hadnagy, pastor of Our Lady of Consolation, “but also for them it is family reunion time.”
In a scene that has been repeated annually since 1875, pilgrims come from Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania to Our Lady of Consolation Basilica and National Shrine for Masses in four languages, confession and devotions. Chaldeans have a special devotion to Mary, Father Jacob Yasso, pastor of Sacred Heart Chaldean Parish in Detroit, said, and revere her “more than usual.”
But since the Street Preachers' Fellowship has been coming to Carey, tension has been building between the Protestant group and the pilgrims. On Aug. 14, while Father Hadnagy was leading afternoon devotions in the basilica, a crowd of pilgrims tried to force the street preachers out of the area around the shrine.
Carey Police Chief Dennis Yingling said about 18 street preachers had begun pontificating on three street corners in the area.
“Within about seven or eight minutes,” he said, “we estimated 250 to 300 people — young males — came at them to remove them from the area.”
Police, who were already there for crowd control, responded by getting the street preachers out. The melee was over 20 minutes later, ending with the arrests of eight pilgrims on misdemeanor charges. All were released on bond.
When it was all over, several of Father Yasso's parishioners were among those arrested. Father Hadnagy said many of them are Iraqi Catholics who fled religious oppression in their native country.
“They come here expecting religious freedom and they encounter this, and they take it as religious oppression,” he said.
Father Hadnagy said he believes the street preachers come to disrupt the observance and to antagonize pilgrims.
“They hand out their literature, but they also have placards with ‘You're going to hell’ written on them,” he said. One parish staff member reportedly heard a protester call Mary “a whore,” Father Hadnagy said. “That got some of our pilgrims inflamed, and some of the young people got very angry, and that's basically what set off the incident,” he said.
Ron McRae, director of Street Preachers' Fellowship, agreed to answer questions about the incident via e-mail, but did not return responses to them.
But McRae told Dave Hartline's Catholic Report news website that the street preachers “never had time to say anything to anyone.”
“They were viciously attacked before they could get 10 seconds of quoting the Bible out of their mouth,” McRae said. “We do believe that Catholicism is contrary to the Holy Bible and preach that Catholics just like Muslims, Baptists, Methodists, Mormons, or any other religion need to repent of their sins and turn to Jesus Christ alone for salvation, or they all will go to hell.”
He said no one from the fellowship has ever claimed the Virgin Mary was a whore. “We do preach that the Mary of the Catholic Church is not the one of the Gospels, and as Rome attributes to her as being the ‘queen of heaven,’ such is condemned in Jeremiah 44.”
The Street Preachers' Fellowship, based in Johnstown, Pa., has come to Carey for the last five years to carry signs and hand out leaflets objecting to Catholic devotion to Mary.
According to the fellowship's mission statement, members “preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ in the open air, in strict obedience to the Scriptures.” The group also has appeared at such events as a National Organization for Women march in Washington, D.C.; Mardi Gras in New Orleans and the 2004 Super Bowl in Houston.
Chief Yingling said the street preachers were acting within their rights and always abide by rules that allow them to be on the sidewalk outside the church as long as they don't block pedestrian traffic.
He said the protest group had met with police this year in hopes of avoiding trouble.
“We asked them to do that after last year,” he said. “They never get out of line. Street preachers are very intelligent and educated. They realize what they're allowed to do and not allowed to do and they obey the law. And they are very polite and supportive of law enforcement. They never give us any trouble at all.”
Father Hadnagy said of the protesters, “These people are not peaceful people. They're being painted by the authorities as being peaceful people. They're not. These people have everybody running scared.”
The Assumption observance in Carey begins with a novena nine days before the feast. With each successive day, the crowd builds until 8,000 to 10,000 are gathered for the Aug. 14 evening candlelight procession from the basilica to an outdoor shrine, where Mass is celebrated.
In Carey, members of the Street Preachers Fellowship claimed that Catholics worship Mary and that the dogma of the Assumption is contrary to the Bible.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church (No. 971) states that devotion to Mary is not the same as the adoration given to God.
“The Church's devotion to the Blessed Virgin is intrinsic to Christian worship,” it says. “The Church rightly honors the Blessed Virgin with special devotion. From the most ancient times the Blessed Virgin has been honored with the title of ‘Mother of God,’ to whose protection the faithful fly in all their dangers and needs. This very special devotion differs essentially from the adoration which is given to the incarnate Word and equally to the Father and the Holy Spirit, and greatly fosters this adoration.”
Furthermore, although the Bible uses symbolic language about the assumption (see Revelation 12) , Jason Evert of Catholic Answers points out that this does not mean it didn't happen. Other instances of bodily assumption, such as that of Enoch and Elijah, are in the Bible, but not every historical event that occurred while the Bible was being written is included in its pages, he said.
Catholic author Patrick Madrid said the Street Preachers group tries to disrupt public events by practicing what they regard as free speech. “They would say their aim is to try to get people to convert,” he said, “but their tactics essentially are harassment, bullying, name-calling and sloganeering.”
Judy Roberts is based in Graytown, Ohio.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Judy Roberts ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Roberts' Wife 'Off-Limits' in Court Fight DATE: 09/04/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: September 4-10, 2005 ----- BODY:WASHINGTON — In 1995, Jane Sullivan walked into the Washington office of Feminists for Life, a pro-life organization that had recently re-located.
Today Jane Sullivan is better known as the wife of Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr.
“She sought us out,” Executive Director Serrin Foster said of the young attorney. “She wanted to do some pro-bono work, so she contacted me. We didn't have any money.” The organization, founded in 1972, wanted not only to enact legal protections for the unborn but also to eliminate the causes of abortion.
After the two talked that night for about an hour, Sullivan agreed to become the executive vice president of the organization's board. For the next four years, Sullivan worked on a variety of issues, many of which were humdrum, such as trademark protection for the group's “Women Deserve Better than Abortion” campaign.
However, Sullivan also worked on some that were not, such as fighting a successful attempt by Congress in 1996 to reduce payments to mothers who bear children while on welfare.
Jane Sullivan Roberts, who is 50, has been profiled by a number of national media outlets. Yet despite being a clear supporter of restoring legal protection to the unborn — she currently serves as the organization's legal counsel — Jane Roberts has attracted virtually no criticism from pro-abortion senators or organizations.
In her case, the personal is not considered political.
“She said that Judge Roberts' wife is not an issue,” David Sandretti, spokesman for Sen. Barbara Boxer, a pro-abortion California Democrat, said.
Sen. Edward Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat, was quoted in a July 22 story in The Christian Science Monitor saying that Jane Roberts' views “ought to be out of bounds.”
“I don't know that Jane Roberts' opinions or philosophy have anything to do with her husband's,” said Olga Vives, executive vice president for the National Organization for Women, which is better known as NOW. “He is the one we have to worry about, not her. She stands on her own.”
In the late 1960s and early '70s, NOW helped popularize the phrase “the personal is political.” The idea, among other things, was that personal factors shape a person's public actions. In October 1991, at a Senate hearing into whether high court nominee Clarence Thomas had sexually harassed former colleague Anita Hill, the phrase was used as a way of opposing Thomas' nomination.
The reluctance to weigh in on Jane Roberts may stem partly from uncertainty about her influence over the nominee.
“I have no idea. It would be very presumptuous for me to say,” Linda Greenhouse, the longtime Supreme Court reporter for The New York Times, said, adding she has never met Jane Roberts.
Even pro-life supporters expressed reluctance about the matter, though many considered Jane Roberts an indication that the nominee opposes legal abortion.
“Jane offers assurance to pro-lifers,” Hadley Arkes, a professor of political science at Amherst College, said, describing her as “deeply thoughtful and principled.” “My sense is that they share a serious Catholic perspective. Even if he listened to her” about abortion, he said, “it's not clear to me how he would rule on the court.”
The recent historical record about Supreme Court justices offers contradictory clues as to how family members shape their thinking about abortion.
According to The Brethren, a 1979 book by Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong, Justice Potter Stewart was partly influenced to vote in favor of liberalizing abortion laws because of his daughter Harriet. At the same time, Justice Anthony Kennedy in 1992 is said to have voted to uphold Roe v. Wade despite the opposition of his wife.
In the absence of tangible evidence of Jane Roberts' influence, Feminists for Life has been one beneficiary of positive media portrayals. Since President Bush nominated Judge Roberts July 19, the organization has been winningly profiled in The New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times.
“It's been a remarkable experience for me,” Foster said. “A lot of people predicated that the media would not be kind to our group. I talked to a lot of reporters … and this was the first time we were not characterized as opponents of abortion.
“We're getting a tsunami of calls,” she said, later amending the sentence with “avalanche. … This has totally blown the wind out of our sails, but it's a good wind.”
The favorable press coverage could boost the national image of pro-life groups. Only 42% of non-Catholic voters in 2004 had a favorable impression of such organizations, according to a March 2005 memo by Democracy Corps, a polling and consulting organization to Democratic candidates. The comparable figure for white Catholics was 49%.
In addition to her work for Feminists for Life, Jane Sullivan Roberts is a partner at Pillsbury, Winthrop, Shaw, & Pittman, a prestigious Washington-based law firm. She and her husband have two adopted children.
Mark Stricherz writes from Washington, D.C.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Mark Stricherz ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Weekly TV Picks DATE: 09/04/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: September 4-10, 2005 ----- BODY:SUNDAY, SEPT. 4
Something Beautiful for God
EWTN, 2 a.m.
This famous documentary from 1969 about the life, work and spirituality of Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta includes an interview of her by English author Malcolm Muggeridge. Re-airs Thursday, Sept. 8, at 1 p.m.
SUNDAY, SEPT. 4
In Performance at the White House:
The Congressional Picnic
PBS, 8 p.m.
Taped June 15, this event on the South Lawn of the White House features Shirley Jones, Tom Wopat and others performing for President and Mrs. Bush and members of Congress and their families. The program shows staffers preparing to stage the picnic.
MONDAY, SEPT. 5
Rome: Engineering an Empire
History Channel, 9 p.m.
This two-hour special focuses on the architectural and engineering advances that undergirded Rome's far-flung conquests from circa 55 B.C. to 537 A.D. Computer-generated images depict the Via Appia, the Pantheon, the Forum, the Colosseum, aqueducts and Hadrian's Wall as they might have appeared originally. Re-airs Friday at 8 p.m. and 12 midnight and Saturday at 5 p.m. Advisory: TV-PG.
TUESDAY, SEPT. 6
The Hobart Shakespeareans
PBS, 10 p.m.
Los Angeles inner-city teacher Rafe Esquith gets his fifth graders to perform “Hamlet” — with advice from actors Michael York and Sir Ian McKellen. Esquith's students meet the high standards he sets for them in English, math and literature.
WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 7
Julius Caesar's Greatest Battle
History Channel, 9 p.m., 1 a.m.
At Alesia in Gaul in 52 B.C., Julius Caesar defeated the chieftain Vercingetorix. Some estimates are that in eight years of war in Gaul, the ruthless Caesar destroyed more than 800 cities, killed a million people and captured a million more. Advisory: TV-PG.
SATURDAY, SEPT. 10
Criminal History:
Ancient Rome
History Channel, 3 p.m.
Rome's emperors committed their own crimes with impunity, but they did not extend that “privilege” to their citizens. This show uses re-creations to depict law enforcement bodies such as the Vigiles, the Urban Cohort and the Praetorian Guard. It also examines the place of gladiators in Roman crime and punishment. Advisory: TV-PG.
SATURDAY, SEPT. 10
EWTN Bookmark
EWTN, 8 p.m.
Host Doug Keck interviews EWTNews Director Raymond Arroyo about his new book, Mother Angelica: The Remarkable Story of a Nun, Her Nerve and a Network of Miracles.
SATURDAYS
Sermon on the Mount
Familyland TV, 5:30 p.m.
Host Lew Sterrett, a horse trainer, uses his faithful mounts to illustrate lessons from the Bible.
Dan Engler writes from Santa Barbara, California.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Arts -------- TITLE: Vatican Media Watch DATE: 09/04/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: September 4-10, 2005 ----- BODY:Jewish Leader Asks Pope to Open Vatican Archives
Welcoming him on a historic visit to a synagogue in Cologne, Abraham Lehrer told the Holy Father he had a special responsibility to open files that critics say would show how much Pope Pius XII knew about the Nazi slaughter of Jews.
The Pope's visit was laden with emotion and widely judged a success. In the audience of dignitaries before him were death camp survivors, including Vera Lehrer, the mother of the community leader Abraham.
Rabbi Netanel Teitelbaum, his voice breaking, said, “A lady with numbers on her arm, given to her in Auschwitz, could never have dreamed in 1944 that in 2005 her son would be greeting a German Pope at a German synagogue.”
Pope's Warnings on Terror and Anti-Semitism Hailed
ASSOCIATED PRESS, Aug. 23 — Pope Benedict XVI yesterday won praise from Jews and respect from some Muslims for his blunt warnings about the rise of anti-Semitism and terrorism during his first foreign trip as Pope, the Associated Press reported.
Benedict condemned the “insane racist ideology, born of neo-paganism” that inspired the Holocaust and warned about the new rise of anti-Semitism — comments that drew praise from Jewish leaders around the world.
He seemed to harden his stance on terrorism when he spoke to Germany's Muslim community a day later, warning that terrorism risks exposing the world “to the darkness of a new barbarism” and urged them to join Christians in fighting terrorism.
Saying that Benedict's comments were a “new season,” in Christian-Muslim relations, Magdi Allam, Italy's leading Islamic commentator, told the Associated Press, “Finally a Pope who, before a Muslim delegation, condemns Islamic-rooted terrorism without exception.”
Threats Against the Vatican Investigated
AKI, Aug. 24 — Spanish police are investigating a fax signed by al-Qaeda and containing veiled threats against the Vatican that was sent to TVE state television Aug. 22 and to the daily newspaper ABC Aug. 23, reported the Italian news agency Ad Kronos International.
The three-page Arabic missive accuses the Vatican of having supported the Nazis and the Iraq war: “In the war in Iraq, the Vatican has supported capitalist countries who are just interested in Iraq's oil. The people in charge will pay for what they have done. Hitler, who was hand in hand with the Vatican, murdered 44 million people in order to steal their wealth,” the fax stated.
The report said Spanish police are “exhaustively” analyzing the fax, which they believe was authored by an al-Qaeda sympathizer rather than a cell member. Islamist terror experts believe they have “quite reliable indications” of who could be behind the fax, based on the place it was sent from — a state office in Catalonia, in northeastern Spain.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: Vatican -------- TITLE: Video Picks ... Passes DATE: 09/04/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: September 4-10, 2005 ----- BODY:Toy Story: PICK
(1995: 10th anniversary DVD)
The Exorcist: PASS
(1973/2000)
To Kill a Mockingbird: PASS
(1962: special DVD)
THE EXORCISM OF EMILY ROSE comes to theaters almost on the five-year anniversary of the 2000 reworking of The Exorcist, a box-office smash of nearly unprecedented levels in 1973, still widely considered one of the scariest movies ever made.
Even jaded, sophisticated 1970s audiences were rattled by the film's stark, horrifying vision of absolute evil in all its obscenity and banality — and its unapologetic context of institutional religion, in the form of the Catholic Church, as the framework in which to understand and combat evil.
Catholic writer E. Michael Jones has connected the fascination of horror to the debunking of Enlightenment rationalism, and The Exorcist certainly supports his case. Modern areligiosity, the decline of marriage, casual dabbling in such occult phenomena as Ouija boards and the therapeutic culture are all indicted in this horrifying tale of a bubbly, increasingly troubled young girl whose single mother turns for help to doctors, tests and prescriptions.
“You just take your pills and you'll be fine, really,” Mom promises, but pills aren't the answer to everything, and faith and religion may have answers science doesn't.
Very strong obscene and profane language and imagery make The Exorcist a shocking, harrowing experience, but arguably the film's most damning factor is the lack of true redemption in the twist ending, which resolves the demon possession without allowing the Church to triumph over evil.
In Terence Fisher's Hammer horror films in the '50s and '60s, the power of the cross or holy water over satanic powers was absolute. Not here: The demon isn't ultimately expelled by God's power, but induced into departing. Christian novelist Stephen Lawhead argues that the film depicts evil as powerful, but good as merely “lucky,” winning by a “surprise tactic.” That's not good enough.
Another film celebrating an anniversary — with a new 10th-anniversary DVD this week — is the original Toy Story, the first all-CGI animated film and Pixar's first masterpiece. It's a breathtakingly perfect blend of wide-eyed childhood wonder and wry adult humor, yesteryear nostalgia and eye-popping novelty, rollicking storytelling and touchingly honest emotion.
First-time feature director John Lasseter brings a sure hand to a tale that takes us back to a time when playthings seemed as real to us as other people, and a beloved teddy bear, doll or stuffed dog was almost as important a fixture in our world as our parents or siblings.
For young Andy, the sun rises and sets on his lanky Sheriff Woody doll. And Andy is just as important to Woody (Tom Hanks). But the status quo is upset by the arrival of Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen), a flashy new action figure who doesn't realize he's a toy.
Also debuting this week in a special-edition DVD is the classic To Kill a Mockingbird, Robert Mulligan's faithful adaptation of Harper Lee's semi-autobigraphical, Pulitzer Prize-winning tale of life in the rural South. Gregory Peck gives his signature performance as Atticus Finch, a deeply principled, widowed attorney and father of two young children whose decision to defend a black man against the accusations of a white woman makes him a target of epithets and potentially violence.
CONTENT ADVISORY: The Exorcist contains very strong obscene and profane language and imagery, and is not recommended. Toy Story contains some scenes of menace and mildly scary imagery, and is fine for kids and up. To Kill a Mockingbird contains courtroom references to sexual assault, attempted seduction and domestic abuse, and is fine for teens and up.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Steven D. Greydanus ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Counted Out DATE: 09/04/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: September 4-10, 2005 ----- BODY:BAGHDAD, Iraq — The upcoming referendum on Iraq's draft constitution could have a profound effect on Iraqi Christians — especially if it allows Islamic law to flourish.
Iraqi expatriates — most of whom are indigenous Christians — will be closely watching as events unfold. But they will not be voting.
The head of the U.S. bishops' Committee on International Policy, Bishop John Ricard of Pensacola-Tallahassee, Fla., said the United States must encourage Iraqi leaders to constitutionally guarantee religious freedom to minority religions, Bishop Ricard said the leaders should avoid the establishment of Islam as the state religion.
The bishop made the comments in separate, but identical, letters to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Stephen Hadley, national security adviser to President George W. Bush. The letters were dated Aug. 8 as Iraq's National Assembly was working on a draft constitution scheduled for an Oct. 15 national referendum.
The original deadline to finish the draft was Aug. 15, but that day the assembly extended the deadline to Aug. 22. Officials finally finished the new constitution Aug. 28, but the Sunni Arab negotiators rejected it.
The Iraqi Electoral Commission announced Aug. 2 that those living abroad will not be allowed to participate in the Oct. 15 referendum.
Many Iraqis and foreign observers are concerned both about the possibility of Iraq's adoption of a constitution that could allow for Shari'a (Islamic law), and the effects of the exclusion of the mainly Christian expatriate community from voting on the draft document.
Shari'a “means future fuel for fanaticism and fundamentalism,” explained Bishop Bawai Soro of the Diocese of Western California of the Assyrian Church of the East from his home in San Jose, Calif. The Assyrian Church of the East is a long-established Church in Iraq and other parts of the Middle East.
“It would affect [not only] the human rights of the Christian community but also the very fabric of society. Without separation of church and state, democracy has no chance,” Bishop Soro said.
Christians make up approximately 3% of Iraq's population.
Leaders and bishops of nine Christian denominations in Iraq — including the Catholic Chaldeans — wrote to the framers of the Constitution on July 14 asking them to grant “equality, freedom and equal opportunities, and the prevention of racial, religious and denominational discrimination.”
While the Transitional Administrative Law currently in place in Iraq allows for Islam to be a source of Iraqi law, the draft constitution's Article 2 adds that it will be “the official state religion” and “a basic source” of legislation and prohibits any laws which contradict Islam. But it adds that no laws may contradict democracy or the rights and freedoms guaranteed in the constitution. It also claims to guarantee religious freedom.
Depending on the interpretation of those potentially contradictory guarantees, there is some fear that the new Iraq may resemble Iran — not a Western-style democracy.
“The draft constitution is just trying to please everyone, and there are many conflicting things in it,” said David Leidan, a researcher for Barnabas Fund, a London-based watchdog group that seeks to protect the human rights of Christians. “It spells trouble eventually.”
Trouble in the form of Shari'a would be a disaster for Iraq, said Iraq-born Peter BetBasoo, director of the Chicago-based Assyrian International News Agency. The news agency opposes the current draft constitution because it says it lacks transparency.
“Under Shari'a law, non-Muslims face institutionalized discrimination and automatically become second class citizens. The constitution must be purely secular,” BetBasoo said.
But even a secular constitution might not be a real guarantee.
“They could start with more secular laws and then Islamicize,” Leidan said. “It depends entirely on whether the secular opposition is able to mount serious opposition. So far they haven't.”
The Iraqi Electoral Commission wouldn't answer the Register's questions about the constitution and the vote. But an official with the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom — who spoke on condition of anonymity — told the Register that if Shari'a becomes law “judges will be able to bring in Shari'a and impose punishments not actually in the law, and the government will be able to restrict women and other religions by a simple majority in parliament.”
Patrick Sookhdeo is international director of Barnabas Fund. Sookhdeo believes expatriates are being excluded from the vote because of the overwhelming influence of Iraqis living abroad that occurred immediately after Saddam fell. That, he said, alienated many in Iraq.
But whatever the reason expatriates are excluded, the effect is the same.
“The consequence is harmful,” Bishop Soro explained. “One third of Iraqi Christians will now be deprived of voting.”
And expatriates would be a moderating voice.
“Definitely, the expatriates would want a constitution that is more open to human rights,” according to the official at the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.
By most estimates 40,000 Christians have fled the violence and a piecemeal persecution in Iraq that has included church bombings and acid attacks on women not wearing the hajib (veil).
Sookhdeo recently returned from Iraq.
Pointing out that Christian minorities were slaughtered wholesale in the 1920s and 1930s, Sookhdeo said that should Shari'a become the law of the land, “we must realize that another genocide of ethnic Christians would be a distinct possibility.”
Andrew Walther is based in Hamden, Connecticut. CNS and RNS contributed to this story.
----- EXCERPT: Iraq Vote Cuts Off Expatriate Christians ----- EXTENDED BODY: Andrew Walther ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Despite Improvements, Hope Comes Hard in Iraq DATE: 09/04/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: September 4-10, 2005 ----- BODY:During a brief visit to London, Auxiliary Chaldean Bishop of Baghdad Andreas Abouna talked to Greg Watts about the future for the estimated 800,000 Christians in Iraq.
How will the constitution protect the rights of the Christian minority?
This is the first time in Iraq that the people have had the opportunity to discuss their future. At the Chaldean synod of bishops in April we spoke about the new constitution and what we wanted from it. The constitution should represent all the people of Iraq and provide for freedom of religion, education and social life and respect for human rights. We don't want special concessions for Christians. We don't want any religion or part to dominate Iraq. We have focused on the word citizenship. Religion and politics should not be mixed together.
Have you had meetings about the constitution with Muslim leaders?
Yes, and many agree with us that religion and politics should be separate. There are many secular parties. But some Muslim parties want Shari'a [Islamic] law to be the only source of law. The Koran should only be one of the sources of law. Along with the other Chaldean bishops, I have met both the Iraqi prime minister and president to congratulate them on their posts.
What was it like returning to Baghdad after being chaplain to the Chaldean community in London for 12 years?
It was a shock at first. Insurgents from outside are now everywhere in Iraq, especially in Baghdad.
What is life like on a day-to-day basis?
The electricity stations have become targets. Most people only have electricity for a few hours a day. In the patriarchate, we have a generator, so we are lucky. When you don't have electricity, you have problems with water and petrol stations. If there is no electricity, you have to queue for a long time. Often at night you hear a lot of explosions across the city.
People don't stay out late. Baghdad is a big city, and some parts are safer than others.
How do you travel around Baghdad?
I usually drive. You can't let fear overcome you. But I try and make sure that I am not driving near American Army vehicles, as that is very dangerous. I feel God is with me. I could die anywhere, not just in Baghdad. I don't feel frightened.
Have you seen any bombs or serious incidents in the streets?
Yes, in front of the Church of Our Lady of the Assumption in Mansour, where I celebrate Mass every day. We had about 100 children there for catechism. After the class finished, they went outside to play in the courtyard. It was about 12:30 p.m. I don't know why, but I told them to get into their buses and go back home. Usually, it's at 1 p.m. “Oh, Father, we have plenty of time. We want to play here,” they said. “No, it's time to go,” I said, and they got into the buses. I left the church and then, suddenly, I heard a huge explosion behind me. A bomb had exploded at the government building next to the church. I ran back, because there were around 50 young people still inside the church. I thanked God that the young people were unharmed. There were pieces of shrapnel strewn across the garden of the church.
But worst of all was seeing the head of the bomber lying on the floor. It was all burnt. A policeman had also been killed.
I still don't know why I told the children to leave before the usual time. Maybe it was God who told me to do it.
Have there been many attacks on Christians?
The attacks aren't aimed specifically at Christians. They are aimed at everyone.
When you walk through the streets, you don't know who might be there. Mar Elya's church was badly bombed last year. One of the young men there was killed.
He went up to a car parked between the church and the mosque and then the bomb exploded. It was very sad. The bombers targeted the church, but ended up also killing the mullah at the mosque. But the church has now been repaired.
The church beside the seminary was bombed and half of the seminary destroyed. One time, I was at the seminary when someone shouted that there was a bomb beside the wall. I immediately called the Army, who came and disabled it. If it had gone off, it would have destroyed the building.
How big a problem is kidnapping?
Kidnapping is a problem for everyone. Nobody can control it. But there are less kidnappings than last year, but killing is a bigger problem.
Kidnappings are carried out for money. The Syrian archbishop of Mosul was kidnapped last year, but was released.
How good are relations between Christians and Muslims?
Despite the situation, the bonds are still close between Christians and Muslims.
Last Christmas, a Shia and Sunni representative came to the patriarchate and gave us a Christmas tree. I was so happy. “Where are the decorations?” I asked jokingly. “I forgot,” he replied. “Don't worry, you can bring them next year,” I said.
Have you had much help from the Church around the world?
We have received a lot of aid from Europe. The Italian bishops provided us with funds to build an extension to St. Peter's seminary. And we have received support from the English and German Catholics for our orphanages, including the one in Karada run by the Missionaries of Charity.
Has anything changed for the better since the invasion of Iraq?
There are a lot of positive things happening in Iraq. The salaries are very high now. And even retired people get good salaries. But people are very frightened. When they leave to go to work in the morning, they don't know if they will come back home safely. Al-Dora, where Babylon College is located, is a very dangerous area of the city. It's much safer in the north because the Kurds control it. Five-star hotels are being built around Arbil.
Christians are treated well there. Five Christians were elected to the assembly.
What about the media in Iraq?
There are many Iraqi TV stations now. But the media must be responsible.
It can help to promote violence or peace. They often only mention killings and bombs and ignore the good things that are happening.
Do you see any signs for optimism for the Church?
The faith amongst Christians in Iraq is now stronger than before. All the churches at Easter were packed, and since then more and more people have been coming each week. At Our Lady of the Assumption, so many people turned up that they had to stay outside. Vocations are on the increase. At Babylon College this year we will have 52 Chaldeans, 17 Syrians and 10 Assyrians.
And the college now has professors from Syria and Lebanon. The hope for the Church is with the youth. Most of the 40 Chaldean priests in Baghdad are young. Last year we had six priests ordained in Iraq.
What is the Church doing for the youth?
Each church has its own groups of young people. We are currently looking for a place where they can all meet together. Once we have a donor, we just need to find a safe area in the city and then we can build a large youth center. Around 1,000 young people turned up for a conference we held to coincide with World Youth Day in Cologne.
What would you say is the priority for the Church?
Education is one of the most important things. We want to start Catholic schools again. A primary school is being built in the parish of Mar Elya.
It won't just be for Catholics. It will be for everyone. It is through education that the Church can influence Iraqi society. Our problem is not finding buildings but the salaries for teachers.
How optimistic are you about the survival of Christianity in the Middle East?
The situation for the Christians in the Middle East is very serious. In 20 years there might be no Christians left. The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem has said this. We hope that once peace and stability comes to Iraq the Christians will stay. The big danger for Christianity is emigration. Many Christians are leaving, especially the young. But some might come back if the situation in the country improves. We have to have hope.
Greg Watts is based in London.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Greg Watts ----- KEYWORDS: Inperson -------- TITLE: Youth in Germany Offer a New Springtime of Hope DATE: 09/04/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: September 4-10, 2005 ----- BODY:Register Summary
Pope Benedict XVI met with 7,000 pilgrims in Paul VI Hall for his general audience on Aug. 24. Following the custom of his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, he devoted the audience to an evaluation of his first apostolic trip outside of Italy to his native Germany for World Youth Day.
Dear brothers and sisters!
Just as our beloved John Paul II used to do after every apostolic pilgrimage, today I too would like to review with you my time in Cologne for World Youth Day. God in his Providence willed that my first pastoral trip outside of Italy would be to the country of my birth and that it would be to that great meeting of young people from around the world, World Youth Day, some 20 years after my predecessor, whom we shall never forget, instituted it with prophetic intuition.
Heartfelt Thanks
After my return, I thank God from the depths of my heart for the gift of this pilgrimage, of which I have fond memories. We all felt it was a gift from God. Of course, many people collaborated in it, but in the end the grace of this meeting was a gift from the Lord above.
At the same time, I am grateful to all those who, with commitment and love, prepared and organized every aspect of this meeting, starting with Cardinal Joachim Meisner, archbishop of Cologne, Cardinal Karl Lehmann, president of the bishops' conference, as well as the bishops of Germany, with whom I met at the very end of my visit.
I would also like to thank the civil authorities, organizations and volunteers who made their own contributions. I am also grateful to those people and communities throughout every part of the world that supported this meeting through their prayers, as well as to the sick, who offered their suffering for the spiritual success of this important meeting.
God Is With Us
My wonderful time with the young people who were taking part in World Youth Day began upon my arrival at the Cologne-Bonn airport, and became even more charged with emotion as I sailed on the Rhine from the Rodenkirchenbruecke pier to Cologne escorted by five other vessels representing the five continents.
My stop at the Poller Rheinwiesen wharf, where thousands upon thousands of young people were already awaiting me, was very moving. I had my first official meeting with them, which was appropriately called a “welcome festival” and which had as its motto the words of the Magi: “Where is the newborn King of the Jews?” (Matthew 2:2a)
Indeed, it was the Magi who were the “guides” for those young pilgrims to Christ. How significant it is that all this took place as we move toward the conclusion of the Year of the Eucharist that John Paul II desired so much! The theme of this meeting, “We Have Come to Worship Him,” invited everyone to follow the Magi and, together with them, to undertake a journey of inner conversion to the Emmanuel, the God-with-us, in order to know him, meet him, adore him, and after meeting and adoring him, to depart once again, bearing in spirit — in the depth of our being — his light and joy.
In Cologne, young people had numerous opportunities for deeper reflection on these spiritual themes, and felt as though the Holy Spirit was moving them to be witnesses of Christ, who has promised to remain truly present among us in the Eucharist until the end of the world.
I fondly recall the different moments that I had the joy of sharing with them, especially the vigil on Saturday evening and the concluding celebration on Sunday. Thanks to the providential links through radio and television, millions of other young people from all corners of the Earth joined us during these very thought-provoking demonstrations of faith.
However, I would like to recall here one special meeting—my meeting with the seminarians, those young men who have been called to follow Christ, who is our Teacher and Shepherd, in a more radical way.
It was my desire to have a time that was specifically devoted to them in order to highlight the vocational dimension that is characteristic of World Youth Day. During the past 20 years, many vocations to the priesthood and to consecrated religious life have blossomed during World Youth Day, which are special occasions when the Holy Spirit makes his call heard.
The ecumenical meeting with representatives of the other churches and church communities was well placed within the rich context of hope during my time in Cologne. Germany's role in the ecumenical dialogue is important, both because of its sad history of divisions and the significant part it played on the path of reconciliation.
I hope, moreover, that this dialogue, this mutual exchange of gifts and not just of words, will contribute towards the growth and maturity of the order and harmony of this “symphony,” which is catholic unity. From this perspective, World Youth Day is a solid ecumenical “laboratory.”
And how can I not relive with emotion my visit to the synagogue in Cologne, where the oldest Jewish community in Germany has its headquarters?
With our Jewish brothers and sisters, I remembered the Shoah and the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps. In addition, this year marks the 40th anniversary of the Vatican II document, Nostra Aetate, which inaugurated a new season of dialogue and spiritual solidarity between Jews and Christians and of esteem for other great religious traditions.
Among these, Islam, whose followers worship the one God and who go back to the patriarch Abraham, holds a special place. For this reason, I wanted to meet with representatives of some Muslim communities, to whom I expressed my hopes and concerns for this difficult moment in history that we are experiencing, with the desire that fanaticism and violence will be uprooted, and that we will be able to collaborate together in defending the dignity of the human person and in protecting his fundamental rights at all times.
An Explosion of Love
Dear brothers and sisters, from the heart of “old” Europe, which in the past century, unfortunately, has lived through horrendous conflicts and inhumane regimes, these young people launched in a new way and to men and women of our time the message of hope that does not disappoint us because it is founded on the Word of God made flesh in Jesus Christ, who died and rose for our salvation.
In Cologne, these young people met and worshipped Emmanuel, God-with-us, in the mystery of the Eucharist and came to a better understanding that the Church is that great family through which God creates a space of communion and unity among all continents, cultures and races, a “great group of pilgrims,” so to speak, guided by Christ, the radiant star who sheds his light on history.
Jesus becomes our travel companion in the Eucharist, and, in the Eucharist — as I said in the homily at the closing celebration, borrowing a well-known image from the realm of physics — brings about a “nuclear fission” in the most hidden depths of a person's being. Only this deep explosion of goodness that overcomes evil can give life to the other transformations that are needed to change the world. Let us pray, therefore, that the young people will carry forth with them from Cologne the light of Christ, who is Truth and Love, and spread it everywhere.
In this way, we will be able to witness a springtime of hope in Germany, in Europe and throughout the whole world.
(Register translation)
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News -------- TITLE: Moms, Kids and the Real 'Real World' DATE: 09/04/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: September 4-10, 2005 ----- BODY:PLEASE DON'T DRINK
THE HOLY WATER!
by Susie Lloyd
Sophia, 2005
200 pages, $14.95
To order: (800) 888-9344 or sophiainstitute.com
Attention home schooling moms: How on earth are your kids going to make it in the “Real World”? That's the question Susie Lloyd takes on in her whimsical, yet wise, book Please Don't Drink the Holy Water! Home school Days, Rosary Nights and Other Near Occasions of Sin.
A home schooling mom of five girls, Lloyd — a frequent contributor to the Register's sister publication, Faith & Family magazine — always wondered what the term “Real World” (note the initial caps) meant. After probing a little, she found out that the “Real World” is, according to the “experts,” a place where “any child brought up in Shelterhaven would immediately die of shock. Therefore, parents should send their kids into it as soon as possible, especially if they show unhealthy signs, like getting too attached to their mother in preschool.”
Shelterhaven, by the way, is her term for that “dangerous place where Catholics who take seriously the admonition to be in the world but not of it live.”
Not satisfied with that answer, Lloyd takes us along for a tour of the joys and trials to be found in the real world of a real Catholic family: her own.
Although targeting a home schooling audience, Lloyd relates her series of genuinely funny anecdotes that any mother of a large Catholic family can relate to.
“People with large families are doomed to watch reruns,” she writes. “The dialogue in these reruns goes, ‘Better you than me’; ‘So, are you done?’ and ‘You have your hands full.’
“No matter how many times your ears have heard these comments, you have to humor these people because they really do innocently think that they are being original. You know this because their eyes are bugging out and they are gasping as if in shock.”
The content is not just amusing. It's useful, too. For example, maybe you're having a hard time trying to fit the family Rosary into your everyday routine. Not a problem. Susie shows you how to do it. She calls her version the “rosarius rapidus.” Can't sleep at night? Perhaps a good confession will cure your insomnia. “Catholics go to confession,” she writes. “Other people buy Nyquil.”
Please Don't Drink the Holy Water! will bring comic relief to any mother suffering from maternal overload. As I settled down in bed after putting my own six children to sleep, my husband could always tell that I was reading the book just by my repeated laughs. It's the perfect book to read after a long day of diapers, dishes and discipline.
Women who have large families, along with and including those who home school, can often feel isolated in a world that undervalues and ridicules both. We often doubt ourselves and the choices we've made, wondering if our kids really are missing something out there in the “Real World.”
Nothing can bring a sense of calm and reassurance than to know that others share in your struggle and believe in your values. It's good to be reminded, by such enjoyable means, that this path we've chosen is the better way — and that, ultimately, it will help lead us and our families to the real Real World.
Veronica M. Wendt writes from Steubenville, Ohio.
----- EXCERPT: Weekly Book Pick ----- EXTENDED BODY: Veronica M. Wendt ----- KEYWORDS: Education -------- TITLE: No Outlawing Hate DATE: 09/04/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: September 4-10, 2005 ----- BODY:Specifically, Blair spoke of deportation and exclusion on the grounds of “fostering hatred, advocating violence to further a person's beliefs, or justifying or validating such violence.”
Responses within Britain have ranged from applause for Blair's “daring” move to condemnation of his “neo-McCarthyite hectoring.”
Debate is a good thing. In times of crisis like that which Britain is experiencing, there is always a danger of overstepping boundaries and unnecessarily curbing hard-won civil rights like free speech or freedom of association.
On the other hand, for the sake of the common good, public authorities must take vigorous steps to ensure the safety of their people, and visitors must be willing to comply with the reasonable regulations of their host nation. Open debate helps to strike the right balance.
Yet despite good intentions, hastily crafted, imprecise language can befoul the whole enterprise. “Fostering hate” and “advocating violence” are not the same thing and should not be treated as such. Speech or actions intended to incite others to violence or sedition differ radically from criticism of others or their actions that can easily be construed as hate speech.
Moreover, loose language about “fostering hatred” also smacks of ill-begotten hate-crime legislation that has plagued the United States in recent years.
At first blush, hate-crime and hate-speech legislation seem like praiseworthy ideas. Racism, sexism, jingoism and a host of other “isms” grounded in hate are great moral and social evils, and legislation designed to eradicate the root cause holds tremendous appeal. As Americans, we tend to gravitate to legal solutions for social ills.
But in this case, “There oughtta be a law” just doesn't work.
Four specific problems come to mind.
The first concerns the limits of law. Civil legislation exists to promote the common good, in part by prohibiting certain actions that are harmful to the public order. It is beyond the competence of the law to judge the interior of man and his intentions, or to oblige citizens to love their neighbor, as desirable as this would be.
Hate signals a deep human and moral problem, but only becomes a criminal problem when one's behavior contravenes the law. True, we do investigate motive and premeditation, but only to ascertain guilt and the level of personal responsibility involved in a given act. The matter of criminal law, however, is not internal dispositions but external activities.
Second, why single out hate crimes among all possible crimes of passion? Hate is a terrible passion, but then again so is anger. Must we also draft ad-hoc legislation for envy crimes, greed crimes, and lust crimes?
Nothing seems to indicate that hate crimes are intrinsically more evil than crimes motivated by pride, jealousy, anger or any other passion of the human heart. In addition, many wicked deeds are motivated by a combination of these passions and elude categorization altogether. Defining crimes by the underlying passion is an exercise in futility and arbitrariness.
Third, hate-crime legislation implies not only the motivation of hate, but hate toward some abstract “class” of persons, determined by race, religion, sexual orientation or some other distinguishing trait.
According to proposed legislation, it is not enough that a criminal “hate” the person assaulted, murdered or robbed; he has to hate the entire category of persons to which that individual belonged. By this rationale, if I kill my neighbor because I hate him as a person, somehow it would be less grave than killing him because he is Jewish, or Asian or gay.
Yet how is hatred for a group worse than hatred for an individual? And who will decide which categories of people are to be included in the catalogs of those not to be hated? Such legislation exacerbates rather than alleviates our obsession with “classes” and undermines the democratic ideal of judicial impartiality.
Fourth, not all hatred is evil. We rightly hate pedophilia and prostitution and bigotry. Without the hatred of racism we would have had no civil rights movement. The law is ill equipped to judge the reasonableness of one's hate, but can only judge its consequences when a person allows himself to be carried by it to criminal activity.
Moreover, hate-crime legislation cannot possibly distinguish between hatred of the person and hatred of actions. In June of last year, Pastor Ake Green of Borgholm Pentecostal Church in eastern Sweden was sentenced to a month in prison for preaching against homosexuality. He didn't advocate aggression towards homosexuals, but restated the biblical understanding of homosexual activity as evil.
Yet according to the democratic ideal, rooted in our Judeo-Christian heritage, hate of persons is evil, but not all hate of actions or ideas is irrational or wrongheaded. A woman who kills a male chauvinist is guilty of murder, but her crime was not her hatred of sexism, but her chosen method of combating it. Her punishment should reflect the evil of her action, which is neither aggravated nor attenuated by her righteous hatred of chauvinism.
Combating terror means combating the purveyors of terrorism and cutting off seditious activity at the root. Yet to do so effectively we must carefully delineate what sort of activities will not be tolerated.
Anger, greed and hate will always harbor in the human heart and no amount of legislation will completely remove them. Incitement to violence against the innocent for any cause, righteous or unrighteous, must be unambiguously opposed.
Legionary Father Thomas D. Williams is the dean of theology and professor of ethics at the Regina Apostolorum University in Rome.
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: Father Thomas Williams ----- KEYWORDS: Commentary -------- TITLE: World Media Watch DATE: 09/04/2005 12:00:00 PM CATEGORY: September 4-10, 2005 ----- BODY:Human Eggs for Sale on the Internet
BBC NEWS, Aug. 22 — An Internet site that gives infertile women the opportunity to buy human eggs online has been launched in the United Kingdom, BBC News reported.
The website, called WomanNotIncluded, is believed to be the first of its kind. It is a sister-site to the existing ManNotIncluded, from which potential parents can buy sperm. So far, 40 donors have signed up to the site from the UK and France.
Women looking for an egg donor will pay the site a subscription fee of around $261 and between approximately $1,080 and $2,160 extra for each search of the database and introduction they receive.
Nuala Scarisbrick, of the British pro-life organization Life, said, “These sites are encouraging people to act without any dignity or respect for human life. We are talking about the trade of human eggs and sperm — let us not forget that.”
Priest Is Charged in Bishop's Murder
Bishop Locati, of the Diocese of Isiolo, was gunned down July 14 while walking with a guard to his house in an impoverished area of central Kenya where he had worked for decades.
Court documents allege that Father Guyo Wako Malley wanted to kill the 77-year-old bishop to ensure that funds coming to the diocese passed through his office rather than the bishop's.
Senior State Counsel Jacob Ondari charged Father Malley and the others with murder. All six pleaded not guilty. The suspects were ordered held until Sept. 7, when the court will set a trial date.
Colombian Rebels ‘Regret’ Killing Priests
ASSOCIATED PRESS, Aug. 21 — A leftist rebel group acknowledged Aug. 20 that its fighters killed two Catholic priests last week, but said the killings were a mistake and promised to punish those responsible, the Associated Press reported.
The two priests, Fathers Vicente Bayona and Jesus Mora, were killed Aug. 15 along with two construction workers when gunmen ambushed their car on a remote country road in northeast Colombia.
“We are aware of the irreparable damage that this act has caused,” the National Liberation Army, known by its Spanish acronym ELN, said in a statement. “We regret it deeply and ask for forgiveness.”
In the statement, the ELN's central command blamed the killings on an “operational error” and said those responsible would be “tried with full rigor.”
But Msgr. Hector Henao, who mediated in peace efforts during Colombia's 41-year civil war, told the Associated Press the rebel apology was insufficient.
He said, “I think the ELN should pay for their mistake not just by asking for forgiveness, but by opening a peace dialogue.”
----- EXCERPT: ----- EXTENDED BODY: ----- KEYWORDS: News --------