Archbishop Chaput Weighs In...

Archbishop Chaput of Denver wrote a column in his diocesan newspaper yesterday clarifying the position of the U.S. Bishops with respect to the current Obamacare baby-killing governmental power grab:


The Church in America opposes it, unambiguously and for several reasons.  Read all about it.

Dear Young People

Here is an excerpt from a simple speech of the late Holy Father, John Paul II of venerable memory. I love this one:

Dear young people, many false teachers point out dangerous ways that lead to fleeting joys and satisfactions. Today expressions of our culture are mired in superficiality... Refuse to sell your dreams too cheaply! Dream, but in freedom! Plan, but in truth!

The Lord is also asking you: "Will you also go away?" Answer with the Apostle Peter: "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life" (Jn 6,68). God alone is the infinite horizon of your life. The more you know him, the more you will find out that only he is love and an inexhaustible source of joy.

But to enter and remain in contact with God it is indispensable to establish a deep relationship with him in prayer. When it is genuine, prayer spreads divine energy in every context and at every moment of life. It makes us live in a new way. Is it not prayer that made Francis a new man and Clare a source of light?

I love that speech to the second international meeting of "Young People to Assisi". You can read the whole, brief thing by clicking here. The quotation from St. John's gospel is among my favorite. It's a great one for prayer when I am tired of following Jesus sometimes, or feel like giving him an ultimatum to do things my way. "Jesus, you better... or else I'll walk!" So many times the words of Peter have drifted back into my heart and mind at those points. "Fine. I guess I'm still yours, thick or thin."

At this time of the year, we do especially well to reinvest ourselves in Jesus, who is the source and summit of authentic human happiness, and to ask him with renewed fervor to reinvest Himself in us.  Come, Lord Jesus!

Strategies for a Pro-Life America

Here's the beginning of a paper that I recently wrote about the general approach of our bishops to overturning Roe v. Wade and creating a culture of life:

In January of 2008, Georgia Catholic Bishops Kevin Boland and Wilton Gregory announced that they would not lend their support to the Georgia state human life amendment that many pro-life leaders were pushing. Why would two Catholic bishops refuse to back a bill that sought to defend life from the moment of conception? In order to understand the pro-life position today and the various strategies that are promoted in the movement, it is first necessary to review the impact of Roe v. Wade. This paper will first review the Court’s decision in Roe and analyze the past pro-life strategies for overturning it. It will investigate the two predominant “camps”—those who seek state constitutional amendments and those who favor an “incrementalist” approach—and detail how each envisions bringing about a pro-life legal system and culture. Lastly, the brunt of this paper will evaluate the state human life amendment approach and show how it is fraught with theological, philosophical, legal, and political
misunderstandings.

Click here to read the rest of the paper...

Watch Chris Matthews Be Rude As All-Hell to a Bishop

But I warn you, I was greatly irritated by the whole thing. If you watch this, promise to email Chris Matthews and tell him to let his guests get a word in edgewise.

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Matthews didn't beat Bishop Tobin of Providence, RI in a debate; he just beat him up - and not with reasons, but with rudeness, interruptions, and haranguing. I am surprised that the bishop even agreed to go on the show. The people who are fighting us on this do not fight fair. That much should be clear to everyone by now.

Bishop Tobin Lays the Smackdown

The Most Reverend Thomas Tobin, by the Grace of God bishop of Providence, has just given Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) a beat-down like he has perhaps never before received. The two have been quarreling about what it means to be Catholic. Apparently, Congressman Kennedy thinks that having a famous uncle or grandfather, or having been baptized as an infant, means that nothing one can do can make one "less of a Catholic." His shepherd disagrees and is unafraid to go at it with him.

Good for you, Bishop Tobin! God bless you for your charitable forthrightness, clear shepherding, and defense of the flock and its faith. May God bless you a hundredfold for ever curse hurled at you by enemies of Holy Church and our holy religion.

There's no need to go picking fights with people, but this bozo congressman picked a fight with the Church for saying that hey, maybe, just maybe, we shouldn't be eagerly supporting health care reform that funds the butchering of children.

Read the most reverend bishop's letter by clicking here. It is available online now, and will appear in print in Thursday's edition of the local Catholic paper. Between Bishop Tobin's stern (and sometimes eye-popping, to be frank) words to the congressman under his care and the words Archbishop Dolan (of New York City) to the New York Times, we are starting to see some bishops unafraid to brawl in public.

In With the Old

Archbishop Raymond Burke is the head of the Apostolic Signatura, the Church's highest court, subject in law only to the Holy Father himself. On last Sunday, Oct 18, 2009, he sang the Tridentine Mass according to the 1962 Missal of Bl. John XXIII in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. It was the first time the High Tridentine Mass was sung in Latin in St. Peter's for forty years.

In her blog, Mary Ann Kreitzer points out that forty might not be a coincidence. In biblical thought, it is the number signifying penance, conversion, and waiting for God. Forty is the number of days of rain in Noah's day; of days spent sitting in the ark waiting for the world to dry; of years wandered in the desert; of days til Nineveh be overthrown; of days our Lord spent fasting and praying. The thought is hers, and I got the beautiful picture (at right) from her as well.

I will not go nearly so far as to say that the Church has been in exile away from the true Mass, and now we've got it back. That's all bosh. Where the bishop is, there is the Church (according to St. Ignatius of Antioch); when the Pope speaks, Peter has spoken (according to St. Augustine of Hippo). The Church has given us a new liturgy, the Liturgy of 1971 of Paul VI. According to our Holy Father, that is and will remain the ordinary ritual for the Mass in the Latin ("Roman") church.

But I will go this far: I think the Church is waking up. I think we are finally starting to wander out of the desert of our own denseness. I think those who are daily deciding to stick with her come what may, have counted the cost, are counting the cost, and have a better sense of what we are doing. Fewer and fewer remain who do so only because everybody else is doing so. Just a couple generations ago, so many Catholics had memorized answers that they did not understand, felt they mustn't question or probe, and were mostly content not to do so. The faith of those who remain is harder won, and we may yet be made to fight harder still to continue in the race of faith. Sincere seekers are asking questions with an openness to answers, and they are being answered by knowledgeable Christians who are open to questions. I do not dare say that the Church has been chastened, but I think it is clear that we are being chastened. And we are waking up.

Click the picture for thoughts about Rev. Mr. Fernando Saenz' first mass as deacon

We will bring that wakeful alertness with us wherever we go. We will bring those questions, and those answers, to the world. We will bring our understanding with us when we go out, because God is giving us a new heart for Him. And we will understand what God is doing even when we do not understand the language of the liturgy in which He is doing it. From October 6 to 15, while traveling in Italy and Germany, I had occasion to attend Mass twice in English, once in Italian, and twice in German. The German sounded a LOT like English, and phrases here and there had refreshingly similar sounds, but I understood hardly any of it. I know more Italian than German, but the Italian sounded even stranger - singsongy and light. At one English-language Mass the microphones were turned down a bit low, so I missed most of it. "Why not Latin?" I thought, "Just as easy to understand!" The other English-language Mass was beautiful, quiet, with an air densely packed by prayer; that was the Mass in which my newly-ordained friend preached for the first time. Seven or eight of us filled up half the chapel. Several Italians, mostly young and presumably understanding only a little, popped in to take up the empty pews. They didn't know it was the day after Fernando's ordination. They didn't know English. We did not know Italian. But somehow, in that place, praying privately together, publicly as a community of new acquaintances and strangers except for Christ, we knew exactly what we were doing. The Mass is the Mass is the Mass, the same in every language and in every place. We knew exactly what we were doing. We were awake.

Somehow, I sense that the growing urge within the Church for the Tridentine liturgy, even if we experience it only periodically, is a sign that we are coming awake.

Open Letter of the CMA on Health Care Reform

You know that I try to avoid, though sometimes give myself into the purely political. The difficulty is that so much that is political is also moral, these days. I mean, face it, we are rarely arguing about where to put a highway or whether to enter a trade treaty on fishing with the Danish. Wouldn't it be nice if those were our major political concerns?

Now a number of our Catholic organizations have given us precious little guidance about health care reform. After simply noting that health care is a "right" (whatever that means) they say something to the extent that any reform is better than no reform, leaving the implication that we should support whatever the President proposes. These premises are all questionable.

The first is questionable if only because the idea of a "right" is now so vague in our society as to be almost meaningless. It is certainly becoming confused with "entitlement". Reading the Bill of Rights, one will note that all the rights enumerated can be rephrases as something like, "The government will stay the heck out of..." my house, my saying what I please, associating with whomever I please, owning the weapons that people me, etc., etc. Nowadays, though, many "rights" do not seem to be expressible in such formulas. Nowadays, they have to be reworded something more like, "The government will give me..." which is to say, "Everyone else will give me..." That shift strikes me as dangerous.

The second is questionable simply because change can always be change for the worse.

The last is questionable simply because our president has proposed in the past some questionable propositions.

The Catholic Medical Association, though, has put together an open letter explaining the parameters of discussion as they see it: health care reform in general, a Catholic's perspective on it, and how we should engage the broader society with our ideas. Click the picture, or here, to read it. Would that more of our Catholic organizations were helping us to question critically what is being presented to us for a rubber-stamping.

Those Were Different Days, Huh?

Check out Archbishop Sheen on a quiz show!

Each of us...

"Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary,"
Pope Benedict XVI.

The Bishop of Bayonne Roars

Consider the policy of His Grace, (Catholic) Archbishop Vincent Nichols of Westminster, regarding organ donation, which is uncritical and careless at best. Click here to read. His attitude shows a clear lack of the sort of cautious discernment manifest in the Catechism, for instance.

Contrast this attitude with that of Msgr. Marc Aillet, Bishop of Bayonne, to another part of the Brave New World agenda. He has been gaining notoriety in France for his outspoken opposition to actions the French government, most recently the Gay Pride event hosted by a city in his diocese. Click here to read.

It is interesting to note that in England, the Church has legal freedom to preach its conscience on any matter, whereas in France it is illegal for the Church to speak on issues considered (by whom? the Government?) to be purely political. I suppose it is natural that we Christians sleep when left alone, but wake up when prodded and persecuted. We have to pray for our bishops hard, because it is their job to wake the rest of us up!

Signs of the Times

It is not terribly shocking to hear that Fr. Alberto Cutié has decided to defect from the Catholic Church, and go to one (the Episcopal - that is, Anglican-in-America) in which things will be more to his liking. For one, they don't mind his inability or lack of ongoing commitment to celibacy. Fair enough - they don't require or esteem celibacy in the first place. More intriguing is the fact that they don't mind that he is an oath-breaker. He made solemn promises of obedience and celibacy, and now has unilaterally dodged them both in one fell swoop. They don't suit him anymore. One would think that Fr. Cutié's new superior would at least want to be sure that he can stick to a vow, no?

Well, it's perhaps fitting, after all. After all, the Anglican Communion was founded when an oath-breaking king became tired of his promises regarding sexuality, and decided to put away his first wife for another. And another. And another. One wonders how many churches Fr. Cutié will put away to suit his evolving tastes before the whole thing is done. It's a little known fact that England and her kings were legal vassals (governmental subordinates) of the Pope until Henry VIII broke his forefathers' faith. In most of Europe, the Pope could take up special collections and so forth; in England, he could collect taxes and call for soldiers. Henry VIII would rather have things his own way, though, rather than honoring the promises of his fathers. Now that Fr. Cutié has broken with Rome, one must wonder if he will really let himself be governed by another master, or if he will be his own... if perhaps he is already his own master. That's the devil's motto, in Milton's Paradise Lost: "I will not serve." That and his television show frankly smack of a towering pride.

Meanwhile, our President has named an ambassador to the Holy See: Miguel Diaz. He is Catholic, in the way that the Sandinistas are. He is "pro-Life," in the way that Douglas Kmiec and the President are. He publishes on presses that call themselves Catholic but are either notorious for dissent, uncommitted to the teachings of the Church, or flat out deny the entirety of Christian revelation. Like Fr. Cutié and the President, he is young, good looking, smooth, and charismatic. He has a track record of supporting social justice issues for the poor and weak (except for, as one commentator has pointed out, the poorest and weakest, i.e., the unborn). He is suave and probably very convincing, and will probably be charged by the White House with getting the Vatican to believe that white is black and black is white, that good is evil, and evil good.

And against these slicksters, whom can Holy Church send forth, tattered and bruised by her own conduct as much as by that of her enemies? The likes of this man:

Now, don't get me wrong. Archbishop Favalora of Miami is likely a very competent administrator, strong shepherd, and loving father. He has enormous responsibilities of which, dear reader, you and I cannot even dream. I wouldn't criticize a bishop to save my life, I hope. I used to, but I'm done with that. It just helps out our enemies. And His Excellency's words regarding Fr. Cutié strike me as very well chosen. Still, looking at him and hearing his words will not be very convincing to most Americans - Catholic or otherwise - when the likes of Fr. Cutié or Prof. Diaz is sitting on the opposite side of the talk-show host. The Archbishop certainly has authority over both them (well, over Diaz only indirectly, since Diaz doesn't live in his diocese), and his reasoning is doubtless sounder than that of Cutié. All the same, I have a sickening feeling in my gut that many, many of the priest's fans, preferring to have their ears tickled, will choose him over Jesus' plump, wrinkly old vicar in Miami.

"For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander into myths," 2 Tim 4:3-4.

A close friend of mine is being ordained a priest this weekend in Burlington, Vermont. Several more friends from my time in seminary will be ordained priests and (transitional) deacons in the next few weeks. They are young. Some are more charming and charismatic than others, but they are all very good men and that shines through. They believe in Jesus. They love and obey his Church. They defend life. I couldn't close without pointing out a few stars amid the dark night sky.

The Teacher, the Lawgiver, and Notre Dame

Bishop D'Arcy is the diocesan bishop of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Indiana, the diocese that includes the University of Notre Dame among its local Catholic institutions. Notre Dame decided some time ago to invite our nation's president to speak as commencement speaker and receive an honorary juris doctorate. In the resulting flurry of fury, laity have formed petitions, bishops have written positions, and Notre Dame has gone on the defensive. The university's president has tried some Nancy Pelosi-style scheistiness, i.e., redefining terms and pretending to teach the teachers of our Church.

Here is Bishop D'Arcy's response to Notre Dame's actions, firstly, its awarding of an honorary law degree of a man who advocates maintaining and advancing laws to permit and enable the murder of babies (and God knows who else) under the pretext of personal autonomy; secondly, mouthing off to our nation's bishops and telling them, in essence, that they didn't know what they meant when they wrote the document "Catholics in Political Life," regarding the relationship of Catholic institutions with political personalities.

Firstly, Bishop D'Arcy reminds Fr. Jenkins, president of Notre Dame, that according to canon law and the entire tradition of the Church, the local diocesan bishop (Bishop D'Arcy) and no other is the authoritative teacher and lawgiver, and thus interpreter of laws, for everyone in his diocese. Only to Rome can appeal be made. And the opinions of whatever canonists and bishops Jenkins claims to have consulted, well, are simply irrelevant. Bishop D'Arcy then recognizes that Notre Dame has pulled off a fait accompli without so much as consulting him, and officially advises the university that he isn't happy about it. At all. He lastly notes that a serious rift has developed between Notre Dame and the Church, a rift that is primarily Notre Dame's responsibility to heal.

The kicker in all this, it strikes me, is that the Democrats have been DYING to get someone in Catholic officialdom to support them so they can claim the moral highroad, or something. (I think, frankly, that their consciences eat at them, and they are desperate to soothe them.) Think of Nancy Pelosi trying to get a photo-op with the Holy Father, who very skillfully denied her the opportunity to appear with him in public. Now Notre Dame, one of the most prestigious Catholic universities in the world and certainly the country, has given this morally depraved rascal an honorary degree of law - which can be seen as nothing, if not an approval of his way of legal thinking.

The New Man in Town

His Excellency, Timothy Dolan, was installed as the new archbishop of New York City, metropolitan bishop to the dioceses of New York state.

He is, by all accounts, a big man with a big heart, a sharp wit, and a passionate love of Jesus Christ and His Holy Church. He will be missed in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, where he has served the last several years, and where he did some pretty amazing things to repair harm done to Christ's flock there. His new see will provide him with a pulpit from which to preach to all of America, and put him on the front lines of some of our day's most important cultural battles. Given his history, we can be sure that he will provide excellent leadership and help to reinvigorate the Church in New York, on the East Coast, and in the USA as a whole.

Read his homily here.

God bless the Archbishop.

Resquiat in Pacem, Cardinal Dulles

The Reverend Father Avery Cardinal Dulles (b. August 24, 1918; d. December 12, 2008) passed to his eternal reward yesterday. If you haven't heard of Cardinal Dulles, he was a remarkable man for his brilliance and sanctity. The Wikipedia article on him is gives a nice summary. Fr. Dulles was created a cardinal in 2001 by Holy Father John Paul II, in view of his immense theological contribution to the Church and for his personal role in drawing together diverse factions within the Church. He died on the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. I bet he'd like that.