4:47 PM 2/1/2010 —

[Well, sort of. A friend of your PP sent along this, which he found on someone else's blog. Unfortunately, he has a habbit of cutting and pasting stuff into his e-mails without providing any info about the source; but, it's too good to leave off. —PP]

We did not know until this week that the word "blog" was in the Holy Father's vocabulary, but there it is—tucked away in his message for World Communications Day.
     The Pope writes: "Priests can rightly be expected to be present in the world of digital communications as faithful witnesses to the Gospel, exercising their proper role as leaders of communities which increasingly express themselves with the different 'voices' provided by the digital marketplace. Priests are thus challenged to proclaim the Gospel by employing the latest generation of audiovisual resources (images, videos, animated features, blogs, websites) which, alongside traditional means, can open up broad new vistas for dialogue, evangelisation and catechesis."
     The secular media have interpreted this as a papal invitation to priests to "get blogging". We suspect they are right. Pope Benedict XVI is unlikely to spend much of his day online, but he is almost certainly aware that blogging has become a powerful phenomenon in Catholic circles. Many of the world's most engaged Catholics visit blogs several times a week, to pick up information and rumours about the Church, and also to air their views. One might protest that some of the information is inaccurate, that some of the rumours are false and that some views aired are contrary to Church teaching—but the fact remains that blogs fill a vacuum created, in part, by ecclesiastical structures that have lost the knack of communicating with the laity.
     It is no accident that among the most successful blogs are those run by individual priests, rather than dioceses. Not only do the faithful like to know what their parish priest is up to, but a seasoned and witty evangelist can build a cyber-parish that extends for thousands of miles.
     Many priest-bloggers are conservative in their liturgical preferences; but there is room in cyberspace for clerical writers who embody many different authentic Catholic approaches. The internet can empower priests who have felt their influence decline as vocations and congregations decline. Indeed, it has the ability to reverse these trends.
     We should therefore welcome it for what it is: a gift to the Church.

posted by Priestly Pugilist

4:12 PM 2/1/2010 — You may have noticed, in watching the news, that atheist groups recently have been ratcheting up their attempts to convince us all that there is no God. They point to things like the earthquake in Haiti, and they say that a God such as we believe in would not allow such things to happen; therefore, there is no God. They set up a litmus test for God, and then dismiss him when he doesn't fit their requirements.
     Real faith in God requires that we believe in him simply because he is God, not because he has proven himself to us. A lot of people approach the whole question of God the same way they would approach a political election: they listen to what a candidate has to say, and if he says enough things that they agree with, then they vote for him. But God isn't running for anything, and he does not require our votes in order to exercise his office. So often a priest will meet someone in confession who has been away from the sacraments for a long time because something terrible happened to them—they lost a spouse or a child or had to suffer some terrible illness; and this shook their faith in God, as if, somehow, God let them down. "I lived a good life, so why would God let this happen to me?"
     I always recommend them to read the book of Job; and many of you have heard me preach from it at funerals. It begins by saying how there was no man in all the world more pleasing to God than Job, and how God allowed Job to be tested by Satan by having everything taken from him, including his children, and finally being afflicted with a horrible chronic illness. And his wife thinks he's crazy because he continues to praise and worship God. And Job's response to her is probably the most famous verse in the Old Testament: "Naked I came forth from my mother's womb, naked I shall return. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord."
     Now, we don't see that kind of faith very often, do we? Our faith is not unconditional like Job's. We put in the hours by living a good life, then we expect God to pay the wage—in spite of the fact that Jesus told us, on more than one occasion, that reward and punishment are not in this life, and that God allows it—to use our Lord's own words—to “rain on the just and unjust alike.” But we ignore all of that. We still believe that God should reward us for our good life now; and, if he doesn't then there's something wrong with him.
     That's part of the message of the Second Sunday of the Triodion in which we read the parable of the Prodigal Son which is so familiar to us. Yes, it is a story about forgiveness; and we should feel comforted by the fact that God is always willing to forgive as long as we are willing to repent. But there's a lot more to the story than that. We often overlook the fact that in having the father in the story react the way he does to the older son, Jesus has completely thrown out every notion of human justice there ever was.
     We always overlook the older son in this story. We always focus on the younger son, the prodigal son. But the older son is important, too. He's the one who comes to his father and says, "What the heck are you doing? This son of yours takes your money, wastes it on high living and loose women, then when he's broke comes crawling back asking for mercy; and you give him more than you've ever given me, who never once disobeyed you my entire life. It's not fair!" And he's right! In doing what he does for the prodigal son, the father is unfair; he has done a gross injustice to the older son. And isn't the reaction of the older son exactly how we react to God when we think he's been unfair to us? We lose a loved one to death, for example—a child or a spouse or a parent—and we don't care that God has taken that person to himself; we only care what we think he's done to us. Or we or someone we love is forced to suffer a long or painful illness.... We don't care that he's given that person a great opportunity to avoid Purgatory by allowing them to sacrifice here on earth; we only want him to be nice to us now.
     The use of this familiar parable as the Gospel lesson of today's Liturgy gives us an opportunity to reflect on the fact that God doesn't deal with any of us according to the rules of human justice. God owes us nothing. And even if we live a perfect life of perfect virtue, God owes us nothing. Living the way God wants us to live is what we owe to God; and, salvation—which is the only goal of the Christian’s life—is a gift; it is not payment for services rendered.
     So let us use the opportunity of this Divine Liturgy to reflect on whether we have placed conditions on our love and worship of God. Let us look at the cross, on the body of our Lord, unjustly murdered for sins that we committed, and then ask if it is ever possible for God to be unfair.

by Father Michael Venditti

3:51 PM 1/10/2010 — We can breath a little more easily now, that most of the holiday activity is behind us. The Liturgy of the Church changes, too. Having presented to us the great mysteries of faith—the incarnation, the nativity, the Theophany of the Lord—now we see the focus of the liturgical texts change in character, as the lessons begin to present to us an account of what Jesus said and did. St. Matthew, in this morning’s Gospel lesson, gives us just one more dose of the theological—by reminding us of some of the Old Testament prophesies which Christ fulfilled—before leaving all that behind with the very down-to-earth and matter-of-fact statement, “From that time on, Jesus began to preach....”
     And what did he preach? “Reform your lives, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.” With this simple message, the public ministry of Jesus of Nazareth begins. What is worthy of our reflection today, as we struggle to recover from the turmoil and hyperactivity that the holidays impose upon us, is the brevity and practicality of our Lord’s message. The Immaculate Conception, the Nativity, the Theophany, the Circumcision.... Contemplating these lofty truths of the faith taxes our intellects to the point that we might mistake Christianity for an esoteric collection of theological dogmas about the nature of the Christ, with our principle duty being to believe in them. But who and what Jesus is, is meaningful only in the context of what it is he does; and Christianity, while it certainly contains a set of dogmatic truths to which our minds must conform, is much more than that: it is also a way of life, to which our lives must conform. One is not a Christian simply by reason of what he believes, but by reason of how he lives.
     We can venerate the Mother of God as she receives from the Angel the Divine commission to be the portal of salvation; we can adore the Infant in the cave at the Nativity; we can marvel and rejoice at the appearance of the dove and the announcement of the Father’s approval at the glorious Theophany of Christ. But the Gospel doesn’t stop there, and neither must we. Having experienced all of these things, bringing them about by his Divine will, Jesus the man now puts sandals on his feet, throws a pack on his back, and begins to trudge the width and breadth of Galilee preaching the evil of sin and the need to do good. And if we want to be counted as his followers, which we must, then we have to go along. The word, “Christian,” doesn’t mean “believer in Christ,” although that is implied; what it really means is “follower of Christ.” And one cannot follow simply by believing and standing still. Following requires movement; it requires doing; it requires living.
     To believe is easy. It doesn’t cost anything simply to believe. The Disciples of the Lord were all too eager to believe in him in the beginning. Having lived all their lives in subjection and destitution with nothing to give them hope, he could have told them he was Popeye the Sailor Man and they would have believed him. But there’s an interesting thing that happens in chapter six of St. John’s Gospel. Jesus begins there to go into some detail about what following him will entail, and outlines exactly what the consequences are for choosing to follow him, as he speaks about his own death and the persecutions to come. St. John sums up the whole episode with his characteristic and poetic economy of words, saying, “Many who had followed him, followed him no longer.”
     That’s a temptation that we all share. We can come here Sunday after Sunday, Holy Day after Holy Day, chanting beautiful hymns to God, performing glorious and complicated rituals, swearing to everything believed and taught by the Church of Christ, and all the while thinking that these are the things that make us Christians. But how are we living? What is it that we do when we’re not here? Do we actually live the way Jesus showed us and taught us to live—the way his Church continues to show us in his name through the Apostles? Are we really followers of Christ, or are we simply spectators in the bleachers, watching the world go by, contenting ourselves with the false security that we believe in all the right things?
     The world in which we live does not make it easy to be a follower of Christ. Maybe we’re not under threat of being arrested, tortured and executed like our Lord’s own disciples were;—like all Christians were for the first 300 years of Christianity—but certainly the values our Church believes and teaches, and the way of life we are supposed to follow as Christians, are not the values and the ways of the world around us. Christ asks us to live in the midst of this world without being a part of it; and that’s not easy. We are tempted every day, and often we fall. The Lord’s first words as a preacher should ring as clearly for us now as they did over 2000 years ago: “Reform your lives, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.”

by Father Michael Venditti

10:15 AM 1/9/2010 —

Most Rev. Robert Vasa is the Bishop of Baker, Washington. His column appeared in the Catholic Sentinel, the oldest Catholic newspaper on the West Coast, and is dated January 7th. —PP]

During the course of this past year there have been a number of occasions when bishops have hinted to laity that being Catholic involves a bit more than claiming the title. This has been done, in particular, with regard to politicians who may, in their own way, love Jesus, who may attend Sunday Mass and who do identify themselves as “faithful” Catholics. The press usually hints at the big “E” word, excommunication. The question of when a Catholic should be excommunicated has even been asked quite frequently and very seriously. While bishops are extremely reluctant to take the seemingly dramatic step of excommunication, I think there is very good reason for us to explore more thoroughly what excommunication really means and why it might be considered in certain circumstances.
     The press would undoubtedly accuse Bishops who talk or even think about excommunication as being tyrannical power mongers but this is unfair. Excommunication is a declaration, based on solid evidence, that the actions or public teachings of a particular Catholic are categorically incompatible with the teachings of the Church. It is intended primarily as a means of getting the person who is in grave error to recognize the depth of his error and repent. A second reason, while somewhat secondary but no less important, is to assure the faithful who truly are faithful that what they believe to be the teaching of the Church is true and correct. Allowing their faith to be shaken or allowing them to be confused when Catholics publicly affirm something contrary to faith or morals, seemingly without consequences, scandalizes and confuses the faithful. This is no small matter. The Church, and particularly bishops, have an obligation to defend the faith but they also have an obligation to protect the faithful. We do not generally see the dissidence of public figures as something that harms the faithful but it has a deleterious effect upon them.
     I find, very frequently, when I speak a bit more boldly on matters of morality or discipline, there are a significant number of the faithful who send messages of gratitude and support. It is their gratitude which stirs my heart for it makes me realize how much there is a need to support and affirm the clear and consistent teachings of our Catholic faith for the sake of the faithful. While the press may caricature such bishops in rather uncharitable fashion, I trust that they are men devoted to true compassion and to the truth itself. Their compassion extends to those who are misled and to those who, while not misled, are discouraged when their faith is attacked without rebuttal. This discouragement of the faithful is not insignificant. When we look at the word itself we see that its root is “courage” and allowing someone’s courage to be dissipated, or “dissed” as the young might say, is harmful to the person. En-couragement, by contrast, builds up the courage of the faithful and increases their strength for doing good. It is life giving and revitalizing. Allowing error, publicly expressed, to stand without comment or contradiction is discouraging.
     When that moral error is espoused publicly by a Catholic who, by the likewise public and external act of receiving Holy Communion, appears to be in “good standing” then the faithful are doubly confused and doubly discouraged. In that case, the error is certainly not refuted. Furthermore, the impression is given that the error is positively condoned by the bishop and the Church. This is very discouraging to the faithful. In such a case, private “dialogue” is certainly appropriate but a public statement is also needed. In extreme cases, excommunication may be deemed necessary.
     It seems to me that even if a decree of excommunication would be issued, the bishop would really not excommunicate anyone. He only declares that the person is excommunicated by virtue of the person’s own actions. The actions and words, contrary to faith and morals, are what excommunicate (i.e. break communion with the Church). When matters are serious and public, the Bishop may deem it necessary to declare that lack of communion explicitly. This declaration no more causes the excommunication than a doctor who diagnoses diabetes causes the diabetes he finds in his patient. The doctor recognizes the symptoms and writes the necessary prescription. Accusing the doctor of being a tyrannical power monger would never cross anyone’s mind. Even when the doctor tells the patient that they are “excommunicated” from sugar it is clear that his desire is solely the health of his patient. In fact, a doctor who told his diabetic patient that he could keep ingesting all the sugar he wanted without fear would be found grossly negligent and guilty of malpractice.
     In the same way, bishops who recognize a serious spiritual malady and seek a prescription to remedy the error, after discussion and warning, may be required to simply state, “What you do and say is gravely wrong and puts you out of communion with the faith you claim to hold.” In serious cases, and the cases of misled Catholic public officials are often very serious, a declaration of the fact that the person is de facto out of communion may be the only responsible and charitable thing to do.
     Failing to name error because of some kind of fear of offending the person in error is neither compassion nor charity. Confronting or challenging the error or evil of another is never easy yet it must be done.
     The adage usually attributed to Edmund Burke was correct: All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.
     The Lord has called bishops to be shepherds. That shepherding entails both leading and protecting. In an era when error runs rampant and false teachings abound, the voice of the Holy Father rings clear and true. The teachings of the Church are well documented and consistent. Bishops and the pastors who serve in their Dioceses have an obligation both to lead their people to the truth and protect them from error.

by Bishop Robert Vasa

12:02 PM 1/8/2010 — The reason there aren't daily updates on Priestly PUgilist is because your PP doesn't like to chime in unless he has something to say;—that, and the fact that I have a day job—otherwise this would be just like every other self-serving blog, with the blogger posting anything resembling an idea that happens to occur to him. Today, however, I'm going to break that cautious rule, and post something that just occured to me.
     I was reading the CNN web site, and came across the following sentence in a story:

With up to half a million football fans expected to visit South Africa for the World Cup, and up to half of South Africa's prostitutes carrying the HIV virus, there have been calls for the country to decriminalize prostitution to help tackle the spread of HIV.

I've re-read it about 12 times. There has to be something I'm missing, right?

by Priestly Pugilist

11:02 AM 1/6/2010 — This week we celebrated the Feast of the Theophany, as you know. There is probably no feast on our Byzantine calendar more loaded with mystery than the Theophany. There’s certainly nothing else like it in Christendom. The feast goes far beyond just the commemoration of our Lord’s baptism: it is a mystical celebration of the very essence of Christianity, using the event of our Lord’s baptism as a launching pad from which to contemplate all of the spiritual and theological consequences of the incarnation of God into Man.
          Today, however, it’s enough to concentrate on what this feast should mean for us as Eastern Christians; which, all by itself, is a tall order. I don’t think you could say everything there is to say about this feast anymore than you could say everything there is to say about God himself, only because everything there is to know is infinite. But we can say what we know as long as we never forget that it is the nature of mystery to never be fully understood.
          The word Theophany is Greek and means “the showing of God,” or, to put it more precisely, “God showing himself.” In the Gospel account of our Lord’s baptism by John, after the baptism, there is an announcement from heaven which is heard by everyone present: “This is my beloved son...” Here, God the Father shows Jesus to be his Son, thus showing him to be God as well. The Holy Spirit is also seen in the form of a dove, so it is also the first public appearance of the Holy Trinity together in one place. It is God showing himself to man. The Theophany. And from its earliest days the Church, particularly in the East, began to express this in a liturgical way. At the beginning of our Liturgy, when the Royal Doors are opened, it is a symbol of the Theophany: the opening of the doors opens the barrier between heaven and earth and reveals the Holy of Holies where God lives. The priest walks through the Royal Doors in order to proclaim the Gospel, which symbolizes God showing himself to us in order to deliver to us his word. Just before Holy Communion, the priest stands at the threshold of the Royal Doors, holds up the chalice and sings “Approach with fear of God and with faith.” It is God showing himself to us in his own body and blood in the Eucharist. When the priest turns to give a blessing, he doesn’t simply stand at the altar and turn around and bless, but he walks down through the Royal Doors to give the blessing, because even the blessing is a symbol of God showing himself to man.
          Theophany means that the veil that hides heaven from us is taken away and we see God as he is. Of course, on this side of the grave none of us has a true vision of God—we only get that on the other side of the grave—so, we have to see God through the eyes of our faith; and during the Divine Liturgy, while we are singing together the Creed, the priest holds up the Aer or large veil and waves it over the gifts because our vision of God in this life is veiled; but when the creed is almost complete he removes the veil and sets it aside because it is through the profession of our faith that we can see God face to face even in this life. When a priest dies, just before the service ends the bishop pours oil over the face of the priest and then covers it with the Aer or large veil, only this time the veil faces the other way ‘round from the way it is usually held up during the creed, because the priest who has died is now on the other side of that veil and sees God face to face.
          So, you see how the Theophany has effected so much of what we do in the Eastern Church. In fact, the Theophany is really what our religion is all about. When Christ was born, God became man ... it was a Theophany. When Christ rose from the dead he appeared to his disciples ... it was a Theophany. The feast of the Theophany is really every other feast of the Church rolled into one. It could just as easily be called the feast of Revelation itself. And it is symbolized in that one event which the Church presents to us today: when God, in the person of Jesus, went to the River Jordan and was baptized by John, and the Father announced his love for the Son, and the Holy Spirit appeared as a dove. But it is not simply the one event of our Lord’s baptism that is being celebrated. It is the whole phenomenon of God showing himself to man: in his birth, in his life, in his passion, in his death, in his resurrection, in his Church, in his Holy Mysteries, and most particularly in the Holy Eucharist.
          In the early Church, in the East, it was on Theophany Day that converts were baptized, inspired by the example of our Lord’s own baptism by John. And to this day we mark the feast of the Theophany with the blessing of water. The priest blesses the church and then blesses us with the water, then we take the Theophany water to our homes as a means of taking God with us into our lives. But that water is not meant to be some kind of lucky charm that we take home to protect us from evil. That would not be faith, that would be superstition. We take the water home with us as an expression of our desire that God make his home within us, which only happens when we live Godly and holy lives. Being blessed with the water of the Theophany does not make us holy. It’s being holy that makes the blessing with the water of the Theophany mean something. The whole idea is that, since God has shown himself to us in all these different ways celebrated by our Church, we will now go forth and show God to everyone we meet through living holy Christian lives.

by Father Michael Venditti

1:03 PM 1/5/2010 — It’s been a number of years now since Pope John Paul II issued his important clarification regarding the so-called Persistent Vegetative State, to wit, that food and water are always to be cosidered Ordinary Means regardless of how they are administered, and may not be withheld from any patient, even if requested by the family or indicated in a “living will.” His statement, which was issued, in his words, “with the full weight of my authority” (the "full weight" of the Pope's authority being infallibility), didn’t make much news at the time, since the Terri Schiavo case had already passed out of the news cycle.
          This story is old (from November 23rd, 2009), but is important for obvious reasons. It’s authored by Allen Hall, and was posted on the web site of The UK Daily Mail. It speaks for itself.

A car crash victim diagnosed as being in a coma for the past 23 years has been conscious the whole time. Rom Houben was paralysed but had no way of letting doctors know that he could hear every word they were saying. "I dreamed myself away," said Mr Houben, now 46, who doctors thought was in a persistent vegatative state. He added: "I screamed, but there was nothing to hear."
     Rom Houben was trapped in a coma for 23 years and had no way of letting anyone know he could hear what they were saying (picture posed by model). Doctors used a range of coma tests before reluctantly concluding that his consciousness was "extinct". But three years ago, new hi-tech scans showed his brain was still functioning almost completely normally. Mr Houben described the moment as "my second birth". Therapy has since allowed him to tap out messages on a computer screen. Mr Houben said: "All that time I just literally dreamed of a better life. Frustration is too small a word to describe what I felt."
     His case has only just been revealed in a scientific paper released by the man who "saved" him, top neurological expert Dr Steven Laureys. "Medical advances caught up with him," said Dr Laureys, who believes there may be many similar cases of false comas around the world. The disclosure will also renew the right-to-die debate over whether people in comas are truly unconscious. Mr Houben, a former martial arts enthusiast, was paralysed in 1983.
     Doctors in Zolder, Belgium, used the internationally accepted Glasgow Coma Scale to assess his eye, verbal and motor responses. But each time he was graded incorrectly. Only a re-evaluation of his case at the University of Liege discovered that he had lost control of his body but was still fully aware of what was happening. He is never likely to leave hospital, but as well as his computer he now has a special device above his bed which lets him read books while lying down. Mr Houben said: "I shall never forget the day when they discovered what was truly wrong with me—it was my second birth.... I want to read, talk with my friends via the computer and enjoy my life now that people know I am not dead."
     Dr Laureys's new study claims that patients classed as in a vegetative state are often misdiagnosed. "Anyone who bears the stamp of 'unconscious' just one time hardly ever gets rid of it again," he said. The doctor, who leads the Coma Science Group and Department of Neurology at Liege University Hospital, found Mr Houben's brain was still working by using state-of-the-art imaging. He plans to use the case to highlight what he considers may be similar examples around the world. Dr Laureys said: "In Germany alone each year some 100,000 people suffer from severe traumatic brain injury. About 20,000 are followed by a coma of three weeks or longer. Some of them die, others regain health. But an estimated 3,000 to 5,000 people a year remain trapped in an intermediate stage—they go on living without ever coming back again."
     Supporters of euthanasia and assisted suicide argue that people who have lain in persistent vegetative states for years should be given the opportunity to have crucial medical support withdrawn because of the "indignity" of their condition. But there have been several cases in which people judged to be in vegetative states or deep comas have recovered. Twenty years ago, Carrie Coons, an 86-year-old from New York, regained consciousness after a year, took small amounts of food by mouth and engaged in conversation. Only days before her recovery, a judge had granted her family's request for the removal of the feeding tube which had been keeping her alive. In the UK in 1993, doctors switched off the life support system keeping alive Tony Bland, a 22-year-old who had been in a coma for three years following the Hillsborough disaster.
     Dr Laureys was not available for comment yesterday and it is not clear why he thought Mr Houben should have the hi-tech screening when so many years had passed.

          I thought the last line of Mr. Hall's article was interesting: he seems to be somewhat indignant that Dr. Laureys would interfere in this way. As for the assisted suicide crowd, I would suggest that the "indignity" of someone's supposed "vegetative state" doesn’t compare to the indignity of death. Just ask Mr. Houben. He seems expressive enough now to comment on the situation. Perhaps that’s why this story was so long in making it onto the page of any newspaper.
          So, what's your guess? Is this new, expensive high-tech screening—available three years ago but only now being revealed to the public—going to be available in the Obama plan? One thing Dr. Laureys said sticks in my mind: "Anyone who bears the stamp of 'unconscious' just one time hardly ever gets rid of it again." Is this the road we are now traveling? that being uncoscious is now a stigma—like being black in Alabama in 1930—that can get you killed if you're not lucky?
          But there's something else that this story brought to mind: a question that's been bothering your PP for some time now. Back when Terri Schiavo's life was being debated (and she was not unconscious, by the way), her husband, who had been in court trying to kill her, was already "keeping house" with a girlfriend whom he married in the Catholic Church within weeks of his wife's death. Yet, the Code of Canon Law clearly states:

Can. 1090 §1 One who, with a view to entering marriage with a particular person, has killed that person's spouse, or his or her own spouse, invalidly attempts this marriage.
     §2 They also invalidly attempt marriage with each other who, by mutual physical or moral action, brought about the death of either's spouse.

The bishop of Palm Springs said a lot of stupid things leading up to Mrs. Schiavo's murder, then bolted to Sri Lanka during Holy Week, probably at the demand of the Holy See before he got anyone else killed. But I'm surprised he let this marriage take place. Oh well.... Should the marriage not work out, Mr. Schiavo and his new bride will have ample grounds for that annulment.

by Priestly Pugilist

10:42 PM 1/4/2010 — It's certainly a bad omen to have to include an obituary so early in the new year, but.... The following story appeared today on AsiaNews. There is no byline. I have cleaned up the translation a bit, and corrected some punctuation errors common in this particular news source.

Beijing (AsiaNews) — Coadjutor Bishop Leo Yao Liang of Xiwanzi, Hebei province, died in hospital Dec. 30 at the age of 86, almost one year after his release from a 30-month detention. Authorities have tightened security ahead of his funeral.
      Meanwhile, the Ordinary, Bishop Hou Jinli, 93, is quite ill, suffering from diabetes. Both prelates are not recognized by the government-sanctioned open Church in China.
      The death of Bishop Yao has left 94 bishops alive in mainland China—38 from the underground and 56 from the official Church, according to Anthony Lam, senior researcher of Holy Spirit Study Centre in the Hong Kong diocese. Speaking to AsiaNews, he adds that seven bishops in China—three from underground (including Yao) and four from the official Church—passed away, in 2009.
      Despite heavy snow in northern China, thousands of local Catholics are expected to attend Bishop Yao’s funeral Mass at Xiwanzi town church, Chongli county, Hebei province, on Jan. 6. Local sources say public security has been tightened, preventing people from outside the county from attending the funeral.
      Government officials only recognized Bishop Yao as a priest and, as such, will only permit the funeral for a priest and not for a bishop. Only three priests of the diocese are allowed to celebrate the funeral Mass, and local Catholics are not allowed to issue a Church obituary on the prelate.
      Bishop Yao was arrested in July, 2006, along with 90 other Catholics from the underground Church, and was returned to the church on Jan. 25, 2009, the Chinese New Year's Eve, after a 30-month detention. Since then, the prelate had been under close surveillance. Bishop Hou in near by Zhangbei county is also closely monitored. Despite this, Bishop Yao had started to build a church in Xiwanzi, and its foundation has just been laid.
      Born in 1923, Yao was ordained a priest in 1948 and clandestinely ordained coadjutor bishop in 2002. His body will be buried in the clergy graveyard, about 10 minutes from the Xiwanzi church, in which the last Bishop, Melchior Zhang Kexing of Xiwanzi, who died in 1988, and other priests were buried.

For those who are not regular readers of Priestly Pugilist, we occasionally focus on news items from Catholic China for personal reasons.¹ The "underground Church" referred to is the Catholic Church in China which remains in union with the Holy See. It is now outnumbered by the Catholic Patriotic Association, a rival Church set up by the Communist government, and led by priests and bishops who have elected to acquiesce to the regime's insistance that all Catholics in China renounce their allegiance to the Pope, and take no stand against the country's birth control and abortion policies (which means they probably share the same moral outlook as about 60% of the Catholic Church in the U.S.).
          May God grant to his faithful servant, the Bishop Leo, blessed repose and eternal memory! "Well done, good and faithful servant."

by Priestly Pugilist

---

¹ See last year's post, "The palaces of kings are built on the ruins of the bowers of paradise (remembering June 4th, 1989)."

7:04 PM 1/7/2010 — As usual, this story highlights the courage of Chiniese Catholics in displaying the love of their faith and the love for their bishops who suffer the prison stripes for the faith. And, unfortunately, just as usual, the leadership of the Catholic Church remains totally unmoved, and continues to play the world's game according to the world's rules.

Xiwanzi (AsiaNews) — Some 4000 believers, under the snow and polar temperatures (-30°), yesterday morning attended the funeral of Mgr. Leo Yao Liang, coadjutor bishop of Xiwanzi, who died on 30 December. Bishop Yao spent 30 years in prison for not joining the Patriotic Association. From 2006 to 2009 he was again arrested by the police for the same reason.
     People participated in the mass despite prohibitions and restraints by public security which for days has stopped people from outside the county coming to town and take part in the funeral. As the bishop was an underground pastor, he was not recognized by the government, thus local authorities obliged no use of Episcopal insignia in the Church ceremony, and to refer to the deceased prelate only as "Pastor Yao" not "Bishop Yao". But at the time of burial in the cemetery of Xiwanzi, and in the days leading up to the funeral, the faithful always prayed for "Bishop Yao”. According to witnesses, during the burial one of the faithful inserted the Episcopal insignia of the bishop into the coffin. The ordinary bishop of Xiwanzi, Mgr. Hou Jinli, 93, being very sick, could not attend the funeral. Out of about 15 priests of the diocese, only 3 were allowed to celebrate mass.
     A woman who attended the funeral of the bishop, told AsiaNews: "Our faithful loved Mgr. Yao for his dedication to God and the Church. He often told us that his greatest suffering during the long years of imprisonment were not the hard, physical labour, but the pain of not being able to lead his flock". Sobbing with emotion, she says, "Bishop Yao was a really great personality. We all want to follow in his footsteps and continue his work, especially finish the construction of the church". Months ago Mgr. Yao blessed the first stone of a church in the town of Xiwanzi and its completion was one of his greatest desires. To clear the path many local faithful shovelled the abundant snow fall of recent days all the way from the church to the cemetery (a 10 min walk), to ease the path of the coffin.
     The faithful say there has been no message of condolence from the Vatican. So far, Osservatore Romano has not published any obituary about the deceased bishop. Bishop Yao was born in 1923, he was ordained a priest in 1948, and from 1958 to 1984 he was jailed for his refusal to join the official Church. The Patriotic Association is a control body of the Communist Party, which wants to build a Church independent from the Holy See. Bishop Yao was clandestinely ordained underground bishop coadjutor in 2002. He was seized by police in July 2006 and was able to return to his church January 25, 2009, after 30 months of captivity. His body was buried in the cemetery for priests in Xiwanzi.

When corruption infects even the highest authority in the Church to the point that political correctness outweighs truth, then we are all lost. As for the faithful Catholics in China who cling to the true faith, I guess they're just inconvenient, and too ignorant to understand the complexities of diplomacy. Note to our bishops here in the U.S.: Want your faithful to love you? Try placing yourself on the line for the truth of the faith rather than for what some editorial page will think and for what one of you called recently "the realities of the modern information age." Sure. Had Bishop Leo behaved as you do he wouldn't have spent most of his priesthood in prison. Likewise, had Jesus behaved as you do, he wouldn't have died. Then, we wouldn't have been redeemed.
     Well, at least we can say we've found a bishop who actually behaves like Christ. We had to go halfway around the world to find him; but at least we found him. Now, we'll see if Pope Benedict takes time out of praising environmentalists and pretending he's still a college professor on an intellectual adventure to acknowledge that such a bishop ever existed. Meanwhile, the cause for the beatification of Pope John Paul II, who also seemed embarrased by the Christ-like behavior of faithful priests and bishops in China (and who was equally embarrased by the existence of the Eastern Catholic Churches during his attempt to woo the Orthodox), barrels ahead at full steam. As for whether the Congregation for the Causes of Saints has started a file on Bishop Leo Yao Liang...who am I kidding? What did Bishop Leo ever do for the public image of the Church in socialist Europe's secular press? For goodness sake! He didn't even have an advanced degree, and looked awful on TV (or would have had he ever been on TV). All he did was put his life on the line for the souls of the faithful entrusted to his care. You don't see any bishops around here doing that, do you??? Cripes, he didn't even own a suit! Thank God we don't live in the third world. We've got real bishops! They look good on TV. And they never offend the press or the government.

by Priestly Pugilist

3:18 PM 1/3/2010 — If you have cable TV then I'm sure you're familiar with some of the many Christian evangelists who ply their trade there on the various channels. It seems that whatever your tastes or inclinations or opinions may be, there's a TV preacher for you. And you don't even have to believe in anything in particular: if you look hard enough you'll find one that will seem to be saying what you want him to say, or think you want him to say.
          This situation is nothing new in the history of religion. In fact, this sort of thing was going on full force at the time Jesus began his public ministry. Palestine, at the time of our Lord, was a hot bed of holy men, so much so that the commander of the Roman Legion in Jerusalem once remarked that if he had as many troops in his legion as there were prophets and saints running around in the desert, he could conquer the whole world. I'm certain that that's an exaggeration on his part.
          Knowing this history should give us a different kind of perspective when we read our Gospel lesson; because, it alerts us to the fact that when John the Baptist—and, later, our Lord—appear on the scene and begin their preaching, they are not unique, at least not in the fact that they are in the desert preaching. The Palestinian Jews and their Roman guests were well used to seeing wandering prophets in the desert. This was a fairly common phenomenon. It should give us pause to think about it because, if itinerant holy men were so much a part of every day life, and if the people were so used to seeing them, then what was it that made John the Baptist stand out so clearly in history? He isn't just mentioned in the Bible: the Jewish historian Josephus, who wrote a history of the Jewish people during the reign of Claudius, mentions John quite prominently, and also our Lord. For some reason, John made an impact, so much so that he was arrested—something that had never happened before—and was ultimately executed, as the Holy Gospel testifies.
          What made John stand out from among the ranks of Palestine's corps of desert preachers was what he had to say. Most of the desert prophets spent a lot of their words addressing the situation at hand, namely, Roman occupation. Some of them even had bands of followers committed to various political agendas formed around the preaching of their chosen prophet. Judas Iscariot, so the Gospel tells us, was a member of one such group before he met our Lord. Normally, these kinds of people focused on the problem of the military presence in what the Romans called the province of Galilee. But John was different. He didn't talk about the Romans, or about freedom for Israel, or about liberation from military rule. Instead, he preached that people should repent of their sins and change their lives. His message did not address the global situation such as it was, but the situation within each man, the state of his soul, how he stood personally before God. And he targeted the leaders of his own religion, not because he challenged their authority, but because he felt they had, themselves, focused so exclusively on the political situation that they had neglected the spiritual realities which he believed were so much more crucial. His baptism of repentance became a symbol for those who had cast aside the affairs of this life to focus on what our Lord would call, a couple of years later, the "one thing necessary;" the state of one's soul before God. And the reaction of many of these people to John's preaching is typical, and we often see remnants of it today, especially when someone criticizes the religious point of view as trite, or some "pie in the sky" stuff that is not relevant to the modern situation nor answers the needs of today. And for those who could not see beyond the practical concerns of life, John's preaching was very confusing. They did not understand it; and, typical of men in authority, what they don't understand or can't figure out they ultimately begin to fear as a threat. This is what led to John's death, and what ultimately contributed to our Lord death on the cross three years later.
          And as we celebrate this Sunday Before Theophany, the life and death of the Baptist is a good subject for our meditation. We know that the Theophany is the beginning of our Lord’s public life;—his active presence among men—and, in celebrating it, we must be mindful of preparing ourselves for the second coming of our Lord as the divine judge who will separate forever the living from the dead. The coming feast is designed to remind us that, as we prepare ourselves to celebrate Christ’s first Theophany, so we should prepare our souls to receive his second. And this means making ourselves right with God; and, making ourselves right with God means going to confession, where, in the person of the priest, Christ hears our sins and gives us forgiveness.
          Very soon we will begin the Triodion, that brief period before the Great Fast which eases us into the rigors of Lent; and the words of the prophet Isaiah, quoted to us by Mark in today's Gospel lesson, make a perfect motto for us during this time: "Prepare a way for the Lord. Make straight his paths." Prepare for him a way into our souls. Make straight for him a path through the hardness of our hearts. For he is, indeed, far greater than we. Are we yet worthy to lose the straps of his sandals?

by Father Michael Venditti

12:52 PM 1/2/2010 — Ha! Last year Father Venditti showed me up by posting his homily for the Sunday before Theophany before I got a chance to post anything for the new year. So, even though I've nothing at the moment to say, your PP snags the first post award at last. It gives me the chance to engage in the usual New Year's set of disclaimers, which all of you—all seven of you (yes, I've decided this year that I have seven readers rather than just six)—should know by heart:
          First of all, the posts from 2009 are not gone; take a look at the box at the bottom of the page and you'll see a link to them. Of course, as the page gets longer and longer as the year goes on, that box gets further and further down; and a lot of my seven readers forget it's there. So, in some future post, when I say "Refer to last year's post entitled blah blah blah," that's where you go. You may recall that when the previous post referred to is on the current year's page, I provide a convenient link; but when it's from a previous year, I make you go there and search for it. That's because I don't know how to provide a link to a post in another page. I suppose I could study up and find out. Yes, I suppose I could do that. The fact that I could does not mean that I will.
          As the seven of you may have noticed, at the very end of last year, I retooled the links in the title box above; so, to get to a post from there, you click on the date, not the title. That was the result of a suggestion of one of you that the titles be dated. I'm not sure why that was important to him, but I did it and I like it so that's the way it is. Last year I codified the color scheme for the posts, with frames in purple, red, green and blue for anything from me, and all of Father V's homilies framed in gold. That scheme continues this year (I had experimented briefly with orange, but it hurt my eyes so I dropped it.
          Now for the important part: Your Priestly Pugilist will be away for most of January, starting the second week of the month. Vacation times for priests come few and far between, due primarily to the fact that, when you're stationed by yourself, you can't go anywhere unless you have someone to take your place. Getting a priest to cover for you is a lot more difficult for priests in an Eastern Catholic Church, since you just can't get any priest to fill in for you. It has to be a priest who (1) has faculties to function in the Constantinopolitan Rite; and (2) has faculties to minister in your particular Eparchy, since the universal faculties enjoyed by Roman Catholic priests do not extend into other Catholic jurisdictions. In other words, an opportunity came up because a priest was available; so I took it. Since all the site updates are made by me for the moment, you'll be deprived of Fr. V's homilies as well, at least until I come back. But that doesn't mean we will leave you with nothing to do here.
          Toward the end of November, we introduced The Priestly Pugilist Radio Theater. I say "we" because it pleases me to have you picture your PP behind an aircraft carrier-sized desk surrounded by a bevy of pretty and totally inefficient secretaries. To date, we have received absolutely no feedback of any kind about the PPRT, which leads us to believe that it's so popular that no one can bring himself to put his praise into words. So, during our absence, we'll leave you with a whole series of yarns from one of the best detective radio dramas ever made. They'll be posted before we leave.
          So, have a happy new year and a grace-filled Theophany. Why not make a New Year's Resolution to get a friend to read Priestly Pugilist? You know, if each one of you got just one friend, that would make 14 readers. Never forget: Truth over tranquility! Faith over fellowship!

by Priestly Pugilist