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"The Crisis of Faith" by Fr. John Hardon, S.J.

The Crisis of Faith | By Father John Hardon, S.J.

Every rational human being believes. When we believe we accept the word of another person. Someone knows that something is true, either from experience or reason, and we accept what he tells us because we trust that he knows what he is talking about and is not deceiving us.

On this basis the only unbeliever would be a person who is completely out of his mind. We believe that the persons whom we call our father and mother are our parents. We believe that what we are buying is what the store tells us is worth paying for. We believe that the lessons we learned in childhood are true. Who would even enter marriage unless both partners believed in the spouse with whom they were entering matrimony?

In a word, faith is part of our very nature as rational human beings. However, it is one thing to believe in other people and something else to believe in God. To believe in what people tell us is called human faith. To believe in what God has revealed is called Divine faith. To be still more clear, Divine faith properly so called is the assent of our intellect to what God has revealed, not because we comprehend what God tells us it true, but only because we accept a truth on His authority who can neither deceive, or be deceived.

God cannot deceive because He is all good and therefore cannot tell a lie. He cannot be deceived because He knows all things and therefore can never be wrong.

St. John the Evangelist raises one of the most embarrassing questions in the Bible. How is it, he asked, that we who are so ready to believe in men are so slow to believe in God? The answer is painfully obvious. We are so slow to believe in God because what He demands of us is nothing less than to accept incomprehensible mysteries which are beyond our human capacity even to conceive before they are revealed, and beyond our grasp to fully penetrate even after they are revealed.

We see that faith and revelation are related as cause and effect. God reveals Himself, who He is and what He wants; if we respond we believe.

All of this has been a prelude to the real message of this article, for the present crisis in the Catholic Church is really a crisis of faith.

What is the Crisis?

The Lasting Legacy of Cardinal Daniélou

The Lasting Legacy of Cardinal Daniélou | Rev. Brian Van Hove, S.J. | Catholic World Report

Reviled by his more progressive contemporaries, Jean Daniélou accurately diagnosed many of the problems that continue to trouble the Church today.

The August 7-11 meeting in St. Louis, Missouri of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious reminds us of the sober words of Cardinal Jean Daniélou, SJ in 1972. The LCWR featured a keynote speaker whose theme was “Conscious Evolution,” which is as removed from the Pope and the Magisterium as science fiction is from Albert Einstein.

In the National Catholic Reporter on August 6, 2012 Alice Popovici wrote of the LCWR keynote speaker: “Barbara Marx Hubbard, an evolutionary thinker who is to speak this week before the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, is not Catholic or part of any mainstream religion. But she says she has faith in the future.”  

By sharp contrast, Daniélou warned in an interview on Vatican Radio on October 23, 1972:

One of the greatest threats to religious life today is the mass of disputable theological opinions. In minimizing the supernatural aspect of God’s gift, in minimizing everything that pertains to the action of the Spirit, it destroys the very base on which the religious life is built. That is why it is important today to seek out spiritual directors and theologians from those who represent the true thinking of the Church. There must be a care to have a deep unity with the sovereign Pontiff and with the orientations given by him the Sovereign Pontiff, in particular those which concern religious life.

As to a union with the Sovereign Pontiff, the LCWR rejected even the presence of the canonical pontifical delegate:

Archbishop J. Peter Sartain of Seattle, who has been charged by the Vatican with responsibility for supervising a reform of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), has been told by the group’s leaders that his presence ‘would not be helpful’ at the LCWR’s annual assembly this week.

On the subject of the crisis in religious life, again in 1972 Daniélou spoke thus:

Vatican II declared that human values must be taken seriously. It never said that we were entering in to a secularized world where the religious dimension would be no longer present in civilization. It is in the name of a false secularization that religious men and women give up their religious habit and abandon the adoration of God for social and political activities. And this is, furthermore, counter to the spiritual need manifested in the world of today. (Why the Church?, p. 166-167)

Robert A. Connor succinctly summarizes the cardinal’s lifetime work:

After his short spell as a military chaplain ended with the fall of France in 1940, he devoted himself to the study of the Fathers of the Church, and with Fr. Henri de Lubac was one of the founders of Sources Chrétiennes, a popular yet scholarly series of key writings from the patristic period. Over the years, Daniélou produced a flow of books and articles on the worship and theology of the Early Church. Such was his reputation and influence that Blessed Pope John XXIII named him as a theological expert for the Second Vatican Council. In 1969 he was made a cardinal by Pope Paul VI, and elected to the Académie Française.

Why would a patristics scholar of Daniélou’s stature get involved in current Church events at such a popular level?

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

Lord of the Dance

Lord of the Dance | John B. Buescher | Catholic World Report

Grounded in Gnosticism, dubious historical scholarship, and hyper-individualism, liturgical dance is by its nature unsuited to Catholic worship.

“Medicine-man, relent, restore—

Lie to us,—dance us back the tribal morn!”

—     Hart Crane, “The Bridge: The Dance”

Please take “Lord of the Dance” out of your hymnbooks, assuming you don’t attend a Gnostic church.

Sydney Carter wrote it in 1963, based on the apocryphal, second-century Gnostic Acts of John, where Jesus is supposed to have led his disciples in a round dance before his death. As the Lord of the Dance, he was simply an avatar of a cosmic principle.

In line with Gnostic thought, Jesus was not both true God and true man, but only a kind of pure spirit, who disguised himself in a cloak of matter. Because he wasn’t really a man, he couldn’t really be killed. So, for Gnostics, some kind of trick occurred at the crucifixion: some taught that a switch was made, so that a surrogate or disguised stand-in (some said Joseph of Arimathea) was crucified instead, while Jesus watched from far off.

Other Gnostics made Jesus’ body a kind of puppet that appeared to undergo torture and death, while in fact the “real” Jesus, residing in pure spirit, laughed at their foolishness, and eventually sprang away from the cross. (“I am the dance, and the dance lives on.”) This Jesus, a sort of cosmic trickster and shape-shifter, is captured in the Acts of John.

The round dance and its little song were supposed to be part of an initiation ceremony after the Last Supper, in which Jesus, standing in the middle of a circle, sang in order to achieve an ecstatic separation from his body in preparation for his Passion (thereby “supplementing” Matthew 26:30: “And when they had sung a hymn, they went out into the mount of Olives”). This is the Gnostics’ secret teaching on the Last Supper, assumed by them to have been kept out of the Gospel accounts because it was the true heart of the events described, and could not be told to the unworthy.

Dancing in the sanctuary?

In Exodus 15, “Miriam the prophetess, Aaron’s sister, took the timbrel in her hand, and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dancing.”  In 2 Samuel 6:1-5, David “and all the house of Israel,” as the Ark of the Covenant was being rolled into Jerusalem, celebrated “with all their might before the Lord, with songs and lyres and harps and tambourines and castanets and cymbals.” And in Psalms 149 and 150, we read that “they shall dance in praise of his name, play to him on tambourines and harp!” and, “Praise God in his holy place…Praise him with tambourines and dancing.” This might in theory be an inspiration for dance as part of worship in His holy place, which is to say (in line with Exodus 32:19, in which the Jews dance before the idol of the golden calf), in the place where worship is directed to the true God. Nevertheless, there is no evidence that dancing was ever a part of Temple worship.

There was dancing at annual Jewish religious festivals (outside the Temple itself), and done in groups separated by gender. Certainly people danced after weddings, just as we do today (Matthew 11:16-17 says, “But to what shall I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the market places and calling to their playmates, ‘We piped to you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn’”). Then there was the banquet celebration for the Prodigal Son’s return. And, of course, there was what Salome did for Herod, but that would hardly qualify as something to inform Christian worship. Apart from the spurious round dance in the Acts of John—that’s it, for dancing.

In medieval times and later, there was folk dancing at festival celebrations outside churches, drama reenactments of miraculous scenes in the lives of the saints or of Bible stories, and mystery plays. And there were pilgrimage processions, such as the Corpus Christi procession or the touring of neighborhoods by decorated statues or relics brought from churches, sometimes done with participants coordinating their steps or other movements, with everyone having a joyful time.

This is all quite robustly Catholic. But none of this dancing actually intrudes into the sacred liturgy of the Mass itself, just as dancing was not part of Temple worship in ancient Israel. Until recently, Catholics had always saved their dancing for outside the church—or at least not during the liturgy itself.

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

What Cardinal Martini Said, and What He Didn’t Say

What Cardinal Martini Said, and What He Didn’t Say | Russell Shaw | Catholic World Report

The late cardinal’s controversial interview was less interesting than what some progressive Catholics have tried to make of it.

Let’s face it—there are times when matters that exercise Catholics in their intra-Church dogfights look rather small in comparison to the great themes of faith. As I was reading some of the whooping by progressive Catholics that greeted the posthumous publication of an interview by Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini of Milan, I thought of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s description of what he found at Union Theological Seminary in the early 1930s:

In New York, they preach about virtually everything; only one thing is not addressed, or is addressed so rarely that I have as yet been unable to hear it, namely, the gospel of Jesus Christ, the cross, sin and forgiveness, life and death.

The Tablet of London, which along with the Corriere della Serra of Milan was one of the first periodicals to receive and publish the Martini interview, probably wasn’t thinking of that when it welcomed this short document as “a sweeping indictment of the last two papacies.” Yet the late Cardinal’s remarks are in reality rather small beer, while the “indictment,” such as it is, is one Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI could have adopted, at least partly, as their own.

At the start, let us recognize that Cardinal Martini, who died August 31 at the age of 85 after a long struggle with Parkinson’s disease, was a man of stature and, by all accounts, a conscientious pastor of his huge archdiocese. A Jesuit and a Scripture scholar, he’d served as rector of the Pontifical Biblical Institute and, briefly, of the Gregorian University before Pope John Paul tapped him for Milan in 1979. This appointment did honor to appointee and appointer alike since it illustrated John Paul’s self-confident willingness to provide prominent platforms for talented churchmen whose views he by no means always shared. And predictably, long before retiring in 2002, the cardinal had become the leader of the loyal opposition in the College of Cardinals.

His newly published interview was given shortly before his death to an Austrian Jesuit colleague and a woman friend. Its most-quoted passage is this:

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

SNAP: Support for Abuse Victims or Anti-Catholic Politicking?

SNAP: Support for Abuse Victims or Anti-Catholic Politicking? | David F. Pierre, Jr. | Catholic World Report

Conference speakers indicate a larger political agenda.

Anyone who has watched the Catholic Church abuse narrative unfold in the media over the past several years has likely encountered SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, a body which bills itself as the “largest, oldest, and most active support group” for clergy abuse victims. The organization has been quite successful in building its presence and influence in the media, as journalists and writers often turn to the group when seeking a voice critical of the Church for its handling of abuse cases.

Barbara Blaine, a woman who claims to have been abused by a priest as a teenager, founded SNAP in 1988. The group convened its first meeting in 1991, and David Clohessy, a Missouri man who has also claimed abuse by a priest, joined the group in a leadership role a year later. Prior to joining SNAP, Clohessy worked for nearly a decade for the now-disgraced, radical activist group ACORN.

However, while SNAP’s stated mission is “to provide support for men and women who have been sexually victimized by members of the clergy,” the group’s leadership has allied itself with a progressive social agenda and a full-scale assault on the teaching authority of the Catholic Church.

The real agenda at play?

This past March in Washington, DC, SNAP President Blaine appeared as a featured guest at a high-voltage conference called “Women Money Power,” hosted by Feminist Majority, a very influential pro-abortion lobbying group. At the conference Blaine was joined noted activists Eleanor Smeal, Sandra Fluke, and Dawn Laguens (a vice president at Planned Parenthood) for a panel discussion titled “Bishops, Politicians, and the War on Women’s Health.”

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

Ending the USCCB’s Path to Progressive Politics?

Ending the USCCB’s Path to Progressive Politics? | Anne Hendershott | Catholic World Report

John Carr’s tenure at the USCCB ended on a note quite different from that of several former colleagues.

After 25 years of faithful service, John Carr, executive director of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Department of Justice, Peace, and Human Development, retired last month. In a personal note circulated among his colleagues—which was later posted online—Carr wrote that he was “leaving the USCCB, not to end my service to the Church, but to serve in new ways—to help form, convene, and encourage Catholic lay men and women to take up their unique task of bringing Catholic social and moral teaching to community and political life.”

Throughout the last year of his tenure at the USCCB, Carr was under siege from the secular left because he has supported the bishops in their lawsuit against the HHS mandate to provide contraceptive care—including abortifacients and sterilization services—to employees of Catholic institutions. Carr has responded to these attacks courageously.

This fall, Carr will begin a fellowship on faith in public life at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government—a position that will give him some time to decide where he will bring his passion for social justice to “form, convene, and encourage” the Catholic laity. But the choice of the Kennedy School reveals that Carr may already have chosen to continue the path to progressive politics chosen by so many of his predecessors when they left the USCCB. In fact, the USCCB has provided a kind of training ground for many progressive Catholics currently working to help elect liberal-leaning candidates for office—including candidates who support policies that will expand abortion availability and same-sex marriage.   

Sara Morello, executive vice president of Catholics for Choice, worked for the USCCB prior to her current position at the pro-abortion organization founded by self-described “former nun” Frances Kissling. According to the Catholics for Choice website, Morello—who holds a licentiate in canon law from the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC and a bachelor’s degree in theology from Creighton University—“brings her expertise in canon law, theology, church structure and governance to inform CFC work as well as that of its partners and colleagues.” In other words, Morello is using her graduate degree from Catholic University and her experience at the USCCB to provide canon law cover for Catholics who wish to support abortion with a clear conscience. 

Throughout her long tenure at Catholics for Choice, Morello developed many of the organization’s core publications.

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

Protocols and Theologians

Protocols and Theologians | Russell Shaw | Catholic World Report

What the USCCB's new protocols for reviewing theological works aren't about.

News that the doctrine committee of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops last year adopted protocols to guide its procedures and those of its staff set the juices predictably flowing at the National Catholic Reporter. An overwritten story on the NCR website let readers know that this particular USCCB committee was “tasked with enforcing church doctrine.”

Enforcing? How do you do that with doctrine? This is the way we journalists talk when we don’t like something and want you not to like it either.

The description of the doctrine committee on the USCCB website says nothing about enforcing doctrine. The committee’s main task is providing theological input to other USCCB committees and staff. In recent years, it has published critiques of books by two women theologians, Sister Elizabeth Johnson of Fordham and Sister Margaret Farley, emerita of Yale—but most of its work appears to be of the in-house variety. (The current chairman is Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington. The executive director is Father Thomas Weinandy, O.F.M. Cap.)

Observers rather more dispassionate than the National Catholic Reporter see three questions raised by the protocols flap.

• Why this fuss about some protocols?

• What difference does it make what the USCCB doctrine committee says?

• When, if ever, will academic theologians recognize that bishops face a huge pastoral problem which theologians of the not-so-distant past helped cause and which most academic theologians of the present are doing little or nothing to help solve?

Let’s take those questions one by one.

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

Doctrine, Dissent, and the Eucharist

A Scriptural Reflection on the Readings for August 26, 2012, the Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time | Carl E. Olson

Readings:
Jos 24:1-2a, 15-17, 18b

Ps 34:2-3, 16-17, 18-19, 20-21

Eph 5:21-32 or 5:2a, 25-32

Jn 6:60-69

“Through the centuries,” notes Fr. James T. O’Connor in The Hidden Manna: A Theology of the Eucharist (Ignatius Press, 2005, 2nd ed.), “the Church has consistently refused to mitigate the shock contained in the words of the Lord at Capernaum.” He explains that “dissent to the Church’s teaching is not only a phenomenon of the twentieth century; it has always existed.” 

Today’s Gospel reading, from the conclusion of John 6, records how dissent from the teachings of Jesus took place in the very first century. This,
revealingly, is the only instance in the Gospels of disciples leaving Jesus over a matter of doctrine.

There is little doubt that St. John, in describing that tense scene, also had in mind Christians of the mid and late first century who struggled to accept the shocking words of the Lord. It is sometimes tempting to think of the early Christians as a homogenous group of loyal heroes and willing martyrs. But they, like those of us living in the twenty-first century, struggled with doubts, fears, and temptations. We all know that polls indicate many Catholics today either doubt or even reject the Church’s teaching that “under the consecrated species of bread and wine Christ himself, living and glorious, is present in a true, real, and substantial manner: his Body and his Blood, with his soul and his divinity” (CCC 1413).

Jesus’ teaching that his followers must eat his flesh and drink his blood is indeed a hard saying. Who can accept it? The answer to this vital question is, simply, every man who accepts God’s gift of faith. Just as baptism and entrance into the kingdom of God comes by being “born of water and the Spirit” (Jn. 3:5), so faith in the mystery of the Eucharist comes from the Spirit and the Father. The Father sent the Son and testified on his behalf (cf. Jn. 5:31-32); the Son sent the Holy Spirit, who also testified on his behalf (cf. Jn. 15:26).

Jesus posed two questions to those struggling with doubts: “Does this shock you?” and “What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?” The first question, I think, is somewhat rhetorical in nature. Jesus knew his words were shocking, but he wanted the disciples to know that he meant them to be shocking. He had not misspoken, nor had he resorted to hyperbole.

The second question harkens back to when Jesus first met Nathanael and promised him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man” (Jn. 1:51). The Ascension helped the disciples comprehend both the Incarnation and the Eucharist, in part because it showed that Jesus’ glorified body is not constrained by normal physical limits. Yes, it is flesh and blood, but it is also glorified and transformed; it is, in short, beyond our comprehension, and we must not force God into a box of materialist assumptions.

There are two other important questions in this reading. After some of the disciples had left, Jesus asked the Apostles: “Do you also want to leave?” Just as Joshua, many centuries before, had asked the people of Israel to renew their covenantal vows and swear allegiance to the Lord, Jesus asked the future leaders of the New Israel, the Church, to show their loyalty and commitment to the Kingdom. It was, without question, a great test of faith. Peter, as he had at Caesarea Philippi (cf. Matt. 16:16-20), spoke for all of them, answering with his own rhetorical question: “Master, to whom shall we go?”

Indeed, to whom? What are the options? The novelist Walker Percy once wrote that when he was ever asked why he became Catholic, “I usually reply, ‘What else is there?’” Who else has the words of eternal life? Who else can give the Spirit and life? Who else has descended from heaven, died on the Cross, rose from the dead, and ascended back to heaven?

(This "Opening the Word" column originally appeared in the August 23, 2009, edition of Our Sunday Visitor newspaper.)

Related IgnatiusInsight.com Articles and Book Excerpts:

• The Eucharist and the Rule of Christ | Fr. James T O'Connor
• The Eucharist: Source and Summit of Christian Spirituality | Mark Brumley
• The Spirit of the Liturgy page
• For "Many" or For "All"? | From God Is Near Us: The Eucharist, the Heart of Life | Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
• Foreword to U.M. Lang's Turning Towards the Lord: Orientation in Liturgical Prayer | Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
• Music and Liturgy | From The Spirit of the Liturgy | Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
• The Altar and the Direction of Liturgical Prayer | From The Spirit of the Liturgy | Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
• Benedict and the Eucharist: On the Apostolic Exhortation, Sacramentum Caritatis | Carl E. Olson
• Abbot Vonier and the Christian Sacrifice | Aidan Nichols, O.P.
• The Meaning and Purpose of the Year of the Eucharist | Carl E. Olson
• The Doctrine (and the Defense) of the Eucharist | Carl E. Olson
• Walking To Heaven Backward | Interview with Father Jonathan Robinson of the Oratory
• Rite and Liturgy | Denis Crouan, STD
• The Liturgy Lived: The Divinization of Man | Jean Corbon, OP
• The Mass of Vatican II | Fr. Joseph Fessio, S.J.

Whence Come These Puppets of Doom?

Call to Action closing liturgy, 2008.

Whence Come These Puppets of Doom? | John B. Buescher | Catholic World Report

“Liturgical puppets” have shown up in churches for years, but aren't limited to Catholic venues—they have long been used as agents of iconoclasm and revolutionary agitprop.

“We sit by and watch the Barbarian, we tolerate him; in the long stretches of peace we are not afraid. We are tickled by his irreverence, his comic inversion of our old certitudes and our fixed creeds refreshes us; we laugh. But as we laugh we are watched by large and awful faces from beyond: and on these faces there is no smile.”

— Hilaire Belloc, This That and the Other (1912)

I, for one, hesitate to welcome our new puppet overlords.

They visited the 2008 West Coast Call to Action Conference closing liturgy, the video of which the proprietors of the Orate Fratres blog have linked under the title “Mr. Potato Head Concelebrates the Holy Mass?”

Other recent sightings (among many) are documented on the web, showing one puppet floating through a nave at a Minneapolis church’s Palm Sunday Mass, and several puppets pausing for a few moments from Speaking Truth to the Man to pose with their human wards, stimulating the owner of the Bad Vestments blog to ask, “What is up with leftists and giant papier-mâché puppets of doom?”

Sightings of the large, sad variety of “liturgical puppets” go back some years, and are by no means limited to Catholic venues. Episcopalians, unsurprisingly, have paraded them down the aisle of St. John the Divine Cathedral. And St. Michael’s Episcopal Parish in Litchfield, Connecticut supports the Colossal Puppet Theater Company. In recent years, puppets have appeared in many denominations’ services.

All of which has elicited enraged incomprehension in some quarters—what is the point of these visitations into the sanctuary?

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

Refilling the Empty Pews: NFP and Evangelization

Refilling the Empty Pews: Can an NFP course be an agent of evangelization? | John F. Kippley | Homiletic & Pastoral Review

The problem of the rare use of NFP is not a lack of information. The basic problem is a two-fold lack of faith, and faith-based love. Catholics may never hear this teaching from the pulpit, or see it in the parish bulletin. But the main issue is that most Catholics today simply don’t believe the teaching.

While visiting the Twin Cities in June 2011, I learned that my home parish is slated for closure in mid-2012.  The Church of the Visitation in southwestMinneapoliswas created in 1946 because married couples were having babies.  It was carved out of Annunciation Parish, our former home, and Incarnation Parish, each about a half mile from the new church.  Fortuitously, in that June visit, I met a former pastor who agreed with me on the root cause for the closure: contraception.  To be sure, in the last 65 years there have been some changes in demographics, but the area is still middle-class, with the homes well-kept.

In the spring of 2009, Father Timothy Sauppe, pastor of St. Mary’s Church in Westville, Illinois, a rural parish in the far west of the Diocese of Peoria, was forced by economics—too few children—to close the parish school.  He wrote to Bishop Daniel R. Jenky, C.S.C., to his parishioners, and posted on the parish website, that the root cause of the closure was the practice of contraception, including sterilization.

Over the last decade, I have read several articles accusing the users of natural family planning for the empty pews, but that is simply not the case.  The 2010 statistics make it clear that less than 2 percent of church-going Catholics are practicing any form of systematic NFP. But, those numbers do not take into account couples at the time of the survey, who were already pregnant, breastfeeding, or just accepting babies as they came. 1  With appropriate adjustments, it appears that the statistics are really saying that at least 90 percent of fertile-age, church-going, Catholics are using unnatural forms of birth control.  Statistics from once-Catholic countries in Europe indicate birth rates well below replacement levels, except among Muslim immigrants.  The Catholic Church in the West is closing its schools and churches.  In short, it is contracepting itself, either out of existence, or into a minor sect.

No one who cares about the Church, as the visible body instituted by Christ for the salvation of the world, can be happy about this.  In fact, no one who appreciates the great contribution to the public square made by well-formed Catholics can by pleased by this self-destructive diminution of its influence.

Continue reading at www.HPRweb.com.

The Catholic Con Continues

The Catholic Con Continues | Anne Hendershott | Catholic World Report

Many left-wing Catholic political organizations use Soros funds and misuse social doctrine to promote anti-magisterial, pro-abortion messages

One of the ways you can tell it is a national election year is that left wing Catholic political organizations re-emerge with new strategies, new funding, and sometimes even new names.  But, while the organizational names may change, the players stay the same as the agenda remains to elect Democrats who will expand the progressive economic agenda, strengthen the power of the unions, and increase women’s access to comprehensive health services—including abortion. 

This con game began during the 2004 presidential campaign with the creation of the Catholic Voting Project.  The founders claimed they simply wanted to “promote the US Catholic bishops’ 2003 document Faithful Citizenship: A Catholic Call to Political Responsibility” and “encourage a dialogue which would allow Catholics to learn how their political views matched up to those of the bishops.” But the reality was that the Catholic Voting Project was always a front for electing pro-choice Democrats.

Catholics United and Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good

After Senator John Kerry lost his presidential bid, Chris Korzen, one of the leaders of the Catholic Voting Project blamed the defeat on Kerry’s messaging problems about abortion.  A master at sophistry and community organizing (formerly an organizer for SEIU) Korzen realized that the cover had been blown on the Voting Project and disbanded—but kept the same agenda and leadership—reconstituting the Catholic Voting Project under the new name, Catholics United—a 501C-4.  That same year Korzen also teamed up with left wing Catholics to help found the George Soros-subsidized Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good—a 501C-3.  The two organizations shared staff members (Korzen’s 2007 salary of $84,821 as Executive Director of Catholics United was paid out of Catholics in Alliance donations). 

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

The "crazy" rhetoric of Michael Sean Winters

Being called "crazy" by Michael Sean Winters is like being called a "heretic" by his employer, the National Catholic Reporter—if that particular publication ever admitted the existence of heresy. Such accusations lack gravitas and authenticity; they also come across as a bit, well, crazy:

Those who are prone to conspiratorial explanations of phenomenon tend to be, well, a little bit crazy. And, their craziness is not only intellectual, it is moral.

How else to explain this bizarre article at the Catholic World Report anout the "Nuns on the Bus" tour being linked with financier George Soros. Soros, you see, gave money to the Center for American Progress. The Center for American Progress played a role, not clear what role from this diatribe, in the foundation of the group Faith in Public Life. The group Faith in Public Life apparently was one of the groups that the nuns at NETWORK met with when the idea of having a bus tour was hatched. Q.E.D. Sr. Simone might as well have been caught sitting in Soros' lap! And all for the sake of publicity! The horror. Except that, in a democracy, publicity is not a bad thing, is it? What is so different about the bus tour from the pamphlet "Common Sense"? And, in American democracy today, the idea of trying to garner publicity for the plight of the poor by means of a bus rental is almost quaint, at least when compared to the gobs of money making its way onto the airwaves via the SuperPACs.

And, so what if Sr. Simone had cashed a check direct from Soros? Where did this demonization of Soros begin? I may not agree with all of his politics, but the man has used a considerable amount of his considerable fortune to promote civil society and democratic norms and independent journalism in the countries ravaged by Communism. Is that such a bad thing? I deplore some of his positions, especially his support for euthanasia, but that cannot undo all the good he has done. Ignoring the good, and only emphasizing the bad is, tarring everyone with an association with an indictment, this sort of conpiratorial think is, as I say, crazy.

Folks can read my post and judge its level of intellectual and moral craziness for themselves. For my part, I'm unclear what Winters means by "moral craziness"; is he actually accusing me of a specific depravity, evil, and sin? Or inclination to the same? (I know he believes in sin: it is any action or thought issuing forth from what he calls "Catholic neo-cons".) Perhaps I missed the memo about going easy (as the mainstream media does) on an atheist billionaire who has been convicted of insider trading in France, and who supports a number of dissenting, progressive Catholic groups, some of which are openly pro-abortion, such as Catholics For Choice. And how, for goodness sake, does my post qualify as "conspiratorial"? Especially since Soros's political and social stances are fairly well-known and his support of causes and groups in opposition to Church teaching and authority are equally evident?

Well, I would spend more time analyzing it, but over the years I've learned that analyzing the "logic" of Winters' posts and articles is like looking for a melody and a sax solo in a Sex Pistols "song". Besides, it is obvious Winters knows that his core readership of catechesis-challenged Catholics will dutifully come running when he throws out the "crazy" label. Having penned the post, "Conspiratorial Craziness" (see above) about myself and CWR on July 11th, he quickly followed up with a post titled "More Conspiratorial Craziness" on the same day:

Continue reading on the CWR blog.

"Humanae Vitae": 44 years later, it continues to challenge us to love, trust, and sacrifice

My most recent late night post on the Catholic World Report blog:

The encyclical, Humanae Vitae, was promulgated 44 years ago today, on July 25, 1968. The word often used to describe Pope Paul VI's encyclical is "prophetic". It is one of those rather rare cases in which such a daunting, loaded, and strong adjective is exactly on the mark. Being prophetic, in the biblical and apostolic tradition, involves far more than some sort of foretelling of future events. It is, first, a forthtelling of truth, a proclamation of the Word of God. As such, it requires courage and a willingness to be rejected, mocked, and even vilified.

All of that happened to Paul VI, and the case can be made (and has been made many times over) that Humanae Vitae and the immediate response to it—harsh, mocking, dismissive, angry—marked a pivotal moment in the Church's life in the modern era in the West. There was talk then, as there is even today, that the deep divide over the teachings of Humanae Vitae and the subsequent, related teachings by Blessed John Paul II and Benedict XVI might lead to a divided Church. But viewing it in such a way is rather misleading because, first, the Church is One, and as such, cannot be divided into two (or more) bodies. "Unity", the Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us, "is of the essence of the Church" (par 813). There are wounds to the unity of the Church, and these take the form of "rifts", "serious dissensions", "ruptures", and "heresy, apostasy, and schism" (par 817).

It's hardly a news flash, of course, that there are many who have separated themselves from full communion with the Church because of Paul VI's clear teaching that contraception is sinful and contrary to God's plan for marriage, procreation, and family life. I have no doubt that many Catholics who use contraception are ignorant of what the Church teaches—and why she teaches it. Yet there are those who knowingly, willfully, and without shame insist that they and their convenient (and supposedly perfect) consciences have found the Church's teaching to be inadequate, inconvenient, and incorrect. Taken to its logical, if not altogether comfortable, conclusion, this approach assumes that God himself upholds the dissent founded upon their (poorly formed) consciences.

In other words, if final, definite authority is ascribed to one's conscience, then what it says is "true" must, when push comes to shove, be what God also says is true (unless one is willing to say God can hold contradictory moral beliefs). Yet this is nonsensical. On this feast of St. James, such a faulty, narcissistic approach brings to mind this passage of Scripture:

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Blithe Christianity and the Last Free Election

Blithe Christianity and the Last Free Election | Fr. James V. Schall, S.J. | Catholic World Report

I. 

Bruce Fingerhut in South Bend called my attention to Father George Rutler’s essay in crisismagazine.com (July 13), entitled. “Post-Comfortable Christianity.” Father Rutler is the well-known pastor of the Church of Our Savior in New York City. He is a man of many, many talents, a witty and insightful lecturer, often on EWTN. With his Scot origin, he has been known to appear in the kilt version of the Roman Collar at the Highland Games. Rutler is a convert Episcopal priest who speaks the King’s English, speaks it well and clearly.

The title, “Post-Comfortable Christianity,” Rutler explains, is not used in place of “Post-Christian,” since “nothing can come after Christ,” a profound theological observation in itself. We have lived as Catholics in relative peace in recent times. We think we belong and are accepted by this culture. Indeed, we have sometimes bought an easy version of our faith that requires little sacrifice and no Cross. 

We have not had to worry, or so we thought, about ourselves being discriminated against or persecuted. Such despicable activities were, we thought, against the law. They were events that happened “elsewhere.” We never thought that our law could itself be “against the law.” The Third Millennium began with fireworks and Ferris wheels, Rutler commented, but is now “entering a sinister stage.” We have not anticipated that so many Catholics, often public leaders, when it came to a choice between God and Caesar, would opt for Caesar in his worst form.

Rutler introduces his comments by recalling Father Bernard Bassett, S. J., on his death-bed. He told Rutler that, if he (Bassett) had to do life over, all he would do is read St. Paul. Rutler quips that for most of us “God gave us the Apostle of the Gentiles in order to have second readings at Sunday Mass, usually unrelated to the first reading and the Gospel.”

But here Rutler is initially concerned with Paul’s encounters with Roman procurators, who were often enough decent men, stronger, it always seemed to me, than Pilate, one of their predecessors. Paul dealt with Antonius Felix, Procius Festus, and Junius Gallio; he handled those men shrewdly. They often protected him. How often in Christian literature, however, are we warned about what to say before “judges and governors?” Paul himself, when necessary, had no hesitation to appeal for protection to Caesar, to the Roman law, as was his by right of birth. But Nero, Decius, Marcus Aurelius, and Diocletian represented the same law that did not always protect Christians

However, today, Rutler remarks, “the Christian veneer of American culture has cracked and underneath is the inverse of the blithe Christianity that took shape in the various enthusiasms of the nineteenth century and ended when voters were under the impression that they finally had a Catholic president.” “Blithe Christianity” is an amusing term. Yet, it is this “inverse” and “sinister” turn that Rutler is concerned to describe.

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Sister Pat Farrell, president of the LCWR, deflects, blames, and otherwise obfuscates

National Public Radio recently interviewed Sister Pat Farrell, the current president of the LCWR (Leadership Conference of Women Religious): 

Farrell tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross that the leadership organization is currently gathering the perspectives of all of its members in preparation for its national assembly in August.

"We're hoping to come out of that assembly with a much clearer direction about [the Vatican's decision], and that's when the national board and presidency can proceed," she says.

Among the options on the table, she says, are fully complying with the mandate, not complying with the mandate or seeing if the Vatican will negotiate with them.

"In my mind, [I want] to see if we can somehow, in a spirited, nonviolent strategizing, look for maybe a third way that refuses to define the mandate and the issues in such black and white terms," she says.

In other words, let's sit down and talk about having further dialogue that will point us in the direction of additional conversations, which in turn will open up new vistas of vague and non-distinct paths ushering in an even more rewarding round of discussions, etc., etc. Frankly, this is what it is like sometimes dealing with my seven-year-old son, who is verbally skilled, sometimes manipulative, very adept at deflection, and usually refuses to back down when caught breaking rules, telling lies, or stealing sweets. A "third way"? That's simply grown-up talk for "one more chance". Refusing to define issues in such "black and white terms" is a variation on "why do you always have to be so strict about X, Y, and Z?" The key to this approach is being willing to outlast—often through endless talk!—those in authority. It also helps to be able say one thing while claiming to say another.

But, first, how about a little dose of deflection?

"The question is, 'Can you be Catholic and have a questioning mind?' That's what we're asking. ... I think one of our deepest hopes is that in the way we manage the balancing beam in the position we're in, if we can make any headways in helping to create a safe and respectful environment where church leaders along with rank-and-file members can raise questions openly and search for truth freely, with very complex and swiftly changing issues in our day, that would be our hope. But the climate is not there. And this mandate coming from the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith putting us in a position of being under the control of certain bishops, that is not a dialogue. If anything, it appears to be shutting down dialogue."

First, begin with a nonsensical question (my son, caught watching a television channel he knows is off limits, says, "Why does my sister get to watch whatever shes wants to?" Well, she doesn't. But he's not interested in the answer, is he?) Does Sister Farrell really ponder, with all seriousness, the question, "Can I be a Catholic and have a questioning mind?" Uh, the fact that a Catholic can even ponder such a question indicates the obvious answer: "Yes!" Crack open the Summa Theologica, one of the seminal theological and philosophical texts in the Tradition, and what do you find? Questions! Hundreds of 'em! Because we were made to question, ponder, contemplate, and wonder. But what is really being asked is this: "Can I be a Catholic and reject certain Catholic teachings?" The giveaway is in the term "complex and swiftly shifting issues in our day". The next part of deflection, of course, is blaming someone else. In this case, it's the CDF and the bishops appointed by the CDF: "But the climate is not there." Yes, that's right: the forecast for the LCWR is stormy weather, not smooth sailing.

Another tactic employed by the wayward child is claiming he or she knows better than the backwards, mean-spiriited parent. If only Mom or Dad would see how smart and enlightened little Johnny really is! Then they would admit the error of their cruel and unfair ways. The adult variation is more sophisticated, of course, but not any more convincing:

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The Profession of Journalism and Professions of Faith

I've been having a daydream about calling The Washington Post and complaining about how the Catholic Church expects Catholics to actually believe Catholic teaching. One version goes like so:

Me: Hello! I'm a Catholic who feels led by the Holy Spirit to reject certain teachings of Church leaders.

WaPo: Oh, really? Cool—er, I mean, how interesting. Are you opposed to the Church's rigid stance against reproductive justice? Its bigoted refusal to give women positions of power? Its mindless rejection of contraception and complete disregard for women's health issues?

Me: Oh, no. Nothing silly like that. No, I'm good with all of that stuff. Actually, I'm talking about the Church's emphasis on helping the poor, acting charitably toward my neighbors, supporting the disadvantaged and downtrodden, taking care of orphans, and so forth. Boring. Can't be bothered. And it's so old-fashioned, don't you think? Oh—and I'm also fed up with the Church's teaching about respecting governmental authority, being a good citizen, and doing all I can for the common good. And I'm—

WaPo: Uh. One second. Huh. Aaaah, are you serious?

Me: What? Really? Are you doubting my ability to feel the Holy Spirit prompting me in this way? Are you calling into question my sacred and infallible conscience? Because my conscience is clear about these things.

WaPo: Well...um...that's a bit different than what we're used to, uh, hearing. Ahem. We're all for helping the poor. And—

Me: But I saw your article about the Sunday School teachers in the Diocese of Arlington who have resigned because they won't sign a Profession of Faith, and I thought my situation was rather similar. But I'm sensing that you have some sort of litmus test of your own for what is moral and right. Does this mean that you believe we should help the poor, treat others well, and obey the law?

WaPo: Sure. Of course. That's just part of being an adult and a citizen of the United States. Everyone has certain responsibilities as well as rights. So I—

Me: Unless they are Catholics?

WaPo: What do you mean?

Me: Your article, "Arlington Diocese parishioners question need for fidelity oath" (July 11, 2012), made it sound as though Catholics should have the right to reject various Church teachings while also having the right to teach Church teachings in parishes. Where is the responsibility in that? Your reporter, for example, wrote: "But for some, particularly more liberal Catholics, the oaths are an alarming effort to stamp out debate in the church at a time when it is bleeding members and clergy in the West." Yet it's not as if Church teachings about ordination, contraception, and other matters of faith and morals have been top secret over the centuries. I assume you've heard of the CCC?

WaPo: Uh, sure I have. Isn't that the abbreviation for "Customized, Cafeteria Catholiciism"?

Me: Good one! [Fake laughter] By the way, I want you to know that everything I said about rejecting Church teaching about the poor and needy was just talk—I don't actually give assent to any of it. But I figured you wouldn't be bothered by me giving lip service to something I don't actually believe since a July 12th post on your blog stated, "The oath goes beyond requiring Catholic religious educators, who are church volunteers, to teach official church doctrine; it requires them to affirm that they believe it."

WaPo: But that's misleading! You sai—

Me: I merely took the position advocated by your blogger: I said something but without actually believing it. Complain to her, not to me.

Alas, it's merely a dream. However, on the plus side, the newspaper did post a piece, "On Catholic oath of fidelity", by a seminarian, Bill Erwin. He makes several good points, including this:

Continue reading on the CWR blog.

Someone buy Melinda Gates a copy of the "Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church"!

Do you think Melinda Gates has enough money to buy a copy of the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church? If not, perhaps those professors at Georgetown who took it upon themselves to send a copy to Rep. Paul Ryan a couple of months ago could gift her one as well. You'll recall that the 90 or so faculty members included the Vatican-published volume with a letter lecturing Ryan about his supposed "continuing misuse of Catholic teaching to defend a budget plan" they deemed contrary to Church teaching:

“Your budget appears to reflect the values of your favorite philosopher, Ayn Rand," says the letter, which the faculty members sent to Mr. Ryan along with a copy of the Vatican’s Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church — “to help deepen your understanding of Catholic social teaching.”

They could simply rework that letter and say to Mrs. Gates:

“Your budget appears to reflect the values of Margaret Sanger rather than the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and so we are sending the Compendium to help deepen your understanding of Catholic social teaching.”

Not that any such thing will happen, of course, as Georgetown professors, in general, don't have a good record of upholding and defending the Church's teaching about contraception and related matters. In a recent interview with CNN, Gates once again displayed the tired combination of serene cluelessness and convinced arrogance that is, sadly, all too common for Cathoilcs who talk endlessly about "social justice" without demonstrating a basic grasp of Catholic social teaching in general or justice in particular:

"Part of what I do with the (Gates) Foundation comes from that incredible social justice I had growing up and belief that all lives, all lives are of equal value," said Gates during a recent interview with CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

About the flak over her Catholicism she said: "We're not going to agree about everything, but that's OK."

Gates is promoting an ambitious family planning program -- which includes raising billions of dollars to provide contraceptives to 120 million women worldwide -- at the London Summit on Family Planning July 11.

Alas, the "incredible social justice" that Gates learned at a Catholic high school is far more in keeping with the beliefs of Kathleen Sebelius and Nancy Pelosi than anything taught by the Catholic Church. First, however, notice that Gates employs a series of rhetorical tactics that play well with the Contraceptive News Network and those dwelling in the sterile confines of the contraceptive echo chamber:

Continue reading on the Catholic World Report blog.

Mormon author: "I’m perfectly happy not being a Christian."

David V. Mason, an associate professor at Rhodes College and author of My Mormonism: A Primer for Non-Mormons and Mormons, Alike, let's it fly in a recent op-ed for The New York Times:

This is the so-called Mormon Moment: a strange convergence of developments offering Mormons hope that the Christian nation that persecuted, banished or killed them in the 19th century will finally love them as fellow Christians.

I want to be on record about this. I’m about as genuine a Mormon as you’ll find — a templegoer with a Utah pedigree and an administrative position in a congregation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I am also emphatically not a Christian.

For the curious, the dispute can be reduced to Jesus. Mormons assert that because they believe Jesus is divine, they are Christians by default. Christians respond that because Mormons don’t believe — in accordance with the Nicene Creed promulgated in the fourth century — that Jesus is also the Father and the Holy Spirit, the Jesus that Mormons have in mind is someone else altogether. The Mormon reaction is incredulity. The Christian retort is exasperation. Rinse and repeat.

The theologically astute reader will note a significant problem: orthodox Christians do not believe "that Jesus is also the Father and the Holy Spirit", as that is not what the Nicene Creed states. The Son is "one in being with the Father", but he is not the Father, nor is he the Holy Spirit, as they are three divine Persons. The Athanasian Creed states, "For there is one person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Spirit. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit is all one, the glory equal, the majesty coeternal."

Small potatoes? I don't think so—if only because it suggests that Mason hasn't considered such matters very well or carefully—but Mason apparently thinks that such doctrines are essentially metaphysical puzzles that have taken up too much time and energy over the centures:

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What To Do About GU?

What To Do About GU? | R. Michael Dunnigan | Catholic World Report

Some are ready to declare canonical penalties against Georgetown “dead on arrival.” They shouldn’t be.

“The report of my death has been grossly exaggerated.”  — Mark Twain

Father Michael Orsi argues in a June 4, 2012 article for Crisis that, although Exorcist author William Peter Blatty’s contemplated canonical action against Georgetown University “is both noble and correct,” it nonetheless “will be dead on arrival.” Father Orsi does well to point out some of the hurdles that an action like this one faces, but in the final analysis, his judgment is too defeatist and too pessimistic. Blatty’s Georgetown action is by no means “DOA.”

To begin, in the interest of full disclosure, I should say that I am a canonist and have consulted with some of the organizers who are assisting Mr. Blatty. However, I have never spoken with Mr. Blatty and have not been asked to represent him.

Last month, Blatty—a writer and filmmaker who graduated from Georgetown in 1950—launched a website devoted to collecting signatures for a petition expressing “grave concerns” about the university’s “twenty-one year refusal to comply fully with the law of the Church through the implementation of the general norms of Ex corde Ecclesiae and its eleven year non-compliance with certain particular norms adopted for the United States.” Blatty also posted a letter on the site stating that he is looking into canonical penalties against Georgetown “that will include, among others, that Georgetown’s right to call itself Catholic and Jesuit be revoked or suspended for a time.”

I believe that any judgment on Blatty’s action against Georgetown is premature for the simple reason that there is no such action yet. He is indeed contemplating a canonical procedure against Georgetown, but his public letter makes clear that a formal petition is only a possibility at this point (“We may choose to file…” [emphasis added]). Moreover, that public letter also suggests that Blatty is willing to engage in a dialogue with Georgetown about the issues. In fact, I suspect that he greatly would prefer, not to deprive Georgetown of its Catholic identity, but rather to see his alma mater once again embrace that identity with affection and ardor.

Why do some Georgetown students and alumni believe that their university has compromised its Catholic identity? One could point to several recent events that mark the nation’s oldest Catholic university as more of a counter-witness than a witness to its faith:

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“The Biggest Distortion of All”

“The Biggest Distortion of All” | Catholic World Report | Ann Carey

Bishop Leonard Blair of Toledo responds to distortions about the CDF assessment of the LCWR.

Bishop Leonard Blair of Toledo has issued a letter, “Reality check: The LCWR, CDF and the doctrinal assessment” (Catholic Chronicle, June 8, 2012), responding to public “distortions and misrepresentations of the facts” related to the doctrinal assessment of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF). Bishop Blair’s letter comes in response to an avalanche of highly critical and often grossly erroneous reports and articles about the assessment that have appeared in the mass media. 

Bishop Blair was appointed by the Vatican in 2008 as the apostolic delegate to conduct the doctrinal assessment of the LCWR for the CDF. This year he was appointed to assist Archbishop Peter Sartain of Seattle in overseeing the renewal of the LCWR.

“The biggest distortion of all is the claim that the CDF and the bishops are attacking or criticizing the life and work of our Catholic sisters in the United States,” Bishop Blair wrote. He went on to explain that the CDF action concerns only the LCWR, and while LCWR members lead most of the religious sisters in this country, “that does not mean that criticism of the LCWR is aimed at all the member religious communities, much less all sisters.”

The word “investigation” is often used to characterize the CDF assessment, Bishop Blair noted, but he explained that word implies an attempt to uncover unknown matters. In this case, he said, the doctrinal assessment was “an appraisal of materials which are readily available to anyone who cares to read them on the LCWR website and in other LCWR published resources. The assessment was carried out in dialogue with the LCWR leadership, both in writing and face-to-face, over several months.”

Bishop Blair went on to explain that the “fundamental question” posed by the CDF to the LCWR leaders was why the “LCWR constantly provides a one-sided platform—without challenge or any opposing view—to speakers who take a negative and critical position vis-a-vis Church doctrine and discipline and the Church’s teaching office.”

He cited these examples:

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