2:32 AM 7/4/2009 —

Brethren, my hearts desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved. For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For they, being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. ¹

9:56 PM 7/1/2009 —

For more than a decade, thousands of older women undergoing in-vitro fertilization have relied on an expensive embryo-screening procedure to boost their chances of getting pregnant.

Thus begins a cautionary story in the Wall Street Journal. But soon you realize that the real problem is not only getting pregnant but staying pregnant—that is, 1) avoiding miscarriage and 2) having a pregnancy that the mother won't choose to abort. Read on:

Most medical experts agree that embryo screening can significantly reduce the risk of serious chromosome-related illnesses, such as Down syndrome.

There's no risk that the mother will contract Down syndrome. It's a chromosome disorder. The mother's chromosomes were set for life some years ago: back when she was an embryo. The Journal account doesn't quite explain who faces the risks of illness—it would be impolite to talk about the baby, at a time when the mother still might decide not to continue the pregnancy—but of course it's the embryo.
          For women, embryo screening has offered two benefits: it helps them determine whether they will be able to continue the pregnancy, and whether they want to continue the pregnancy. For embryos, the procedure never offered any benefits at all. Just risks. The risk of contracting a chromosome disorder that will cause miscarriage. The risk of contracting Down syndrome, which will cause a restricted life. And the risk of becoming unwanted.
          Now the doctors tell us that the screening process can help identify chromosome disorders in embryos, but it might also cause chromosome disorders in embryos. So it's not at all clear that there's any benefit to would-be mothers. For embryos, the cost-benefit analysis hasn't changed.

by Diogenes at CatholicCulture.org

3:18 PM 7/1/2009 — Sam Miller is a prominent Cleavland businessman. He is also Jewish. His essay was sent to me by a friend who didn't give any information about where he found it.

Why would newspapers carry on a vendetta on one of the most important institutions that we have today in the United States, namely the Catholic Church?
     Do you know—the Catholic Church educates 2.6 million students everyday at the cost to your Church of 10 billion dollars, and a savings on the other hand to the American taxpayer of 18 billion dollars. Your graduates go on to graduate studies at the rate of 92%, all at a cost to you. To the rest of the Americans it's free.
     The Church has 230 colleges and universities in the U.S. with an enrollment of 700,000 students. The Catholic Church has a non-profit hospital system of 637 hospitals, which account for hospital treatment of 1 out of every 5 people—not just Catholics—in the United States today.
     But the press is vindictive and trying to totally denigrate in every way the Catholic Church in this country. They have blamed the disease of pedophilia on the Catholic Church, which is as irresponsible as blaming adultery on the institution of marriage. Let me give you some figures that you as Catholics should know and remember. For example, 12% of the 300 Protestant clergy surveyed admitted to sexual intercourse with a parishioner; 38% acknowledged other inappropriate sexual contact in a study by the United Methodist Church; 41.8% of clergywomen reported unwanted sexual behavior; 17% of laywomen have been sexually harassed. Meanwhile, 1.7% of the Catholic clergy has been found guilty of pedophilia. 10% of the Protestant ministers have been found guilty of pedophilia. This is not a Catholic problem.
     A study of American priests showed that most are happy in the priesthood and find it even better than they had expected, and that most, if given the choice, would choose to be priests again in face of all this obnoxious PR the church has been receiving.
     The Catholic Church is bleeding from self-inflicted wounds. The agony that Catholics have felt and suffered is not necessarily the fault of the Church. You have been hurt by a small number of wayward priests that have probably been totally weeded out by now.
     Walk with your shoulders high and your head higher. Be a proud member of the most important non-governmental agency in the United States. Then remember what Jeremiah said: "Stand by the roads, and look and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is and walk in it, and find rest for your souls." Be proud to speak up for your faith with pride and reverence and learn what your Church does for all other religions. Be proud that you're a Catholic.

by Sam Miller

As to Mr. Miller's original question, your PP has his own theory about why the journos are out to stick it to the Church: orgasms. The supposed right to unrestricted sexual gratification in any way and with anyone one chooses explains everything. According to the Church, marriage is forever; sex is for the married only, and has as it's primary purpose the transmission of human life, and is available to two people of the opposite sex by God's design; and any diliberately persued sexual gratification outside of the married covenant, with oneself or another, is a disorder, as is any sexual gratification which excludes the possibility of the transmission of human life. How dare the Church tell me how to live! As one recent commercial for one of those penis enlargement pills recently stated: "Why would you want to compromise on one of the most important parts of life?" Why, indeed? As everyone knows, without a big penis that performs on demand, life just isn't worth living, is it? Pancriatic cancer kills more people than AIDS, but is entitled to only a fraction of the money spent to cure it because—obviously—no form of cancer is contracted by the persuit of orgasms, mankind's most basic human right.
          So, if you can catch a Catholic priest—who has dedicated his life so completely to a cause outside of himself to the extent that he sacrifices the comforts of family life and the gratification of his sexual desires—with his pants down, that's big news! It validates every nasty thing we've ever thought about Catholics: they're evil because they want to deny me my orgasms! And we can prove it because 1.7% of those weird priests abused a kid. The fact that nearly ten times that many married Protestant ministers have been caught suffering from the same moral weaknesses is not news because the Proestant Churches—for the most part—don't care how or where I get my orgasms.
          As long as the Catholic Church refuses to acknowledge that orgasm is a basic human right, it will always be evil; and anti-Catholicism will always be the last acceptable bigotry of the enlightened intellectual.

by Priestly Pugilist

12:43 PM 6/29/2009 — So, what have we learned in two millennia?...

The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance (Cicero, 55 B.C.)

...Evidently, nothing.

by Priestly Pugilist

9:21 AM 6/29/2009 — "Not even in Israel have I found such faith!" With those striking words our Lord surely must have stunned his disciples. He, after all was a Jew, and all his followers were Jews, and those that believed in him surely believed him to be the the Messiah promised by the prophets, who were also Jews. Rome, remember, was the enemy; and this Roman, a worshiper of false gods and idols, an officer in the Roman Legion occupying Jerusalem, had more faith in our Lord than all of them combined, or so our Lord says. How is that possible?
          Well, it’s possible because faith is a gift. God can give it to whomever he chooses. To be sure, it was the leaders of our Lord’s own religion who delivered him over to death, not the Romans; Pilate, remember, wanted to let him go, and acquiesced only because he feared a riot instigated by the Synagogue leaders. And just to make sure that the lesson is not lost on his disciples, our Lord says it very bluntly: "Many will come from east and west and sit at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven."
          “Many will come from East and West.” There is no geographical boundary to salvation. It is faith—not location, race, national origin, or political allegiance—which determines favor in God’s eyes. The centurion. after all, wasn’t a Jew or a Christian. He was just a man with a problem; and he took that problem to our Lord with faith and humility. He wore the uniform of Rome, and probably sacrificed to the Roman Gods; but it was in a moment of crisis—the pending death of someone close to him—that the truth of his character became apparent.
          The shame, of course, is that it had to come to that. So often it’s the case, isn’t it? It takes some kind of crisis to bring us to our spiritual senses. Of course, it means that the faith is there to begin with, but we hide it. Maybe we’re embarrassed; maybe we’re lazy; maybe we’re just having too much fun to pay much attention to our interior life or the obligations of our faith. In another parish where I was once pastor there was a young woman who’s husband passed away very young. They weren’t chruch goers. And it wasn’t until after her husband’s death that she started coming to church weekly, which is good. But why did it have to take a tragedy?
          What we have to be conscious of is the fact that the Lord wants us. And he’s not going to let us get away that easily. We’re always free to reject him if we want. But most of us don’t reject the Lord outright: we just put him on the back burner; we hold him in reserve until we need him. And when we do that it is almost certain that the Lord is going to arrange for us to need him, because he wants us. And whatever it takes for us to realize that we need him is really up to us. The harder the nut, the bigger the nut cracker. Take the case of Lazarus. Our Lord admits to his disciples that the reason he delayed to go to his friend Lazarus when he was sick was to bring people to the faith. Now, we can say that it’s cruel for him to have allowed his friend to die just so he could raise him from the dead and convert some people; but what price do you put, then, on faith?
          If we are people of faith, as surely we must be—otherwise, why are we here?—then we must place some kind of value on our faith. And when we face a crisis in our lives, and we don’t know the reason for it, it might be just that: that we have not yet learned to trust the Lord as we should. And some people can’t learn to trust the Lord until everything else they trust has been taken from them.
          Our goal, of course, should be to have a faith and a trust in Christ that doesn’t require a crisis to make it first in our lives. But if we should fall short in that regard, and a crisis does befall us, it is wise to remember that there is a reason for everything. It may not be the reason we think, and it may even be a reason that we refuse to see because it concerns a shortcoming in our lives that we’re not willing to admit;—it is, after all, common for people in a crisis to blame everything and everyone other than themselves—but it is for a reason that Christ sometimes calls us his children; and you often must force a child to do things he doesn’t want to do precisely because he doesn’t see the need to do them.
          It took a crisis for our Lord to bring the centurion to faith. But when he did, the faith of that centurion was greater than that of all his disciples. Let’s pray that it won’t take such a crisis to bring us to the realization of our faith; but, if it should happen, let’s also resolve that we won’t turn away from him in bitterness, but rather turn to him in gratitude and need. Faith, indeed, is a gift; and it’s such a great gift, that some people have to be forced to accept it. But there is nothing that we have and nothing that we love that is more important.

by Father Michael Venditti

2:56 PM 6/23/2009 — As you should know by now, here at Priestly Pugilist we not only like to expose the weaknesses of bishops who betray the faith by their constant apologies and promises to "work with" a manifestly anti-Christian government, but also like to blow the trumpet for those who know how to stand up to one. And one such man—it's always nice to know there are still some men in the episcopacy—is the young Bishop of Bayonne, Lescar and Oloron in the Basque region of France (I thought it was tough being pastor of two parishes. How would you like to be bishop of three dioceses?). Here is a letter His Excellency wrote to the Mayor of Biarritz prior to that city's "Gay Pride" event which occured recently:

Mr. Mayor,
     Having recently learned through families living in Biarritz of the forthcoming "Gay Pride" affair, I would just like to express my profound incredulity. It is yet another official offence aimed at the Catholic Church to believe the announced presence of the "Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence” virulently displaying their anti-Christianity.
     I cannot even imagine how Muslims and Jews would react if the symbols of their religious traditions were used in this way....
     The disruptive protests made by groups who are for the most part outsiders in the city of Biarritz do not represent, by far, the deep conviction that homosexual persons feel. One need only read some of their particular testimonies to understand how these are suffering.
     Besides the fact that young people, particularly children, did not need to see these protests so aggressively displayed, such sexual license exposed on city streets can only have a negative effect on social morality and the common sense of the majority of our citizens.
     I wanted to share with you these few simple thoughts. You have, Mr. Mayor, the assurance of my prayers and my sentiments dedicated to Christ and his Church.

Before you read the Mayor's response, it's important to note what the Bishop does not say in his letter. He does not condemn homosexuality, nor even the idea of the "Gay Pride" event. In fact, he points out that one particular group invited by the city from outside to participate far from represents the "deep convictions" of the city's homosexual community;—with which, I repeat, the Bishop has not taken issue here—and refers to some explicit, anti-Catholic liturature published by it.
          Keeping that in mind, now enjoy the Mayor's response. It is the perfect example of someone responding to a letter which he has, obviously, not bothered to read:

Monsignor,
     I cannot hide the fact that I was ashamed to read your letter of June 18. It is obvious that you are not familiar with the laws of the Republic. That is unfortunate. As a politician I do not meddle in the affairs of the Church and I advise you to do the same concerning the affairs of City Hall. As for other things, we do not share the same concept of freedom, including that of speech and public demonstration. It is, nonetheless, a basic right in all democratic countries. Please accept, Monsignor, the assurance of my highest consideration.

Is it just me, or does anyone else question his "highest consideration" for the Bishop when he has obviously failed to even read the Bishop's letter before firing off a response to it? Then, again, as we've pointed out here many times, it is the particular penchant of liberals to accuse conservatives of doing exactly what they, themselves, do. He scolds the Bishop for "meddling" in the affairs of City Hall; but, when he invites to his city a group specificially known for their anti-Catholic demonstrations,—which include, among other things, the desecration of the Blessed Sacrament—does he seriously believe that he does "not meddle in the affairs of the Church"?
          Like any good liberal, he concludes by appealing to the Obamaesque non sequitors of democracy and free speech, the former he betrayed a long time ago when he decided to run for mayor of Biarritz as a Socialist, and the latter he is prepared to offer to anyone who agrees with him, but certainly not the Church; since, as everyone knows, the Catholic Church is evil.
          As for the Bishop's observation regarding how "Muslims and Jews would react if the symbols of their religious traditions were used in this way", the Mayor simply ignores it; since it's clearly a point against which no reasonable man could argue. Better to pretend it doesn't exist.
          The Bishop's carefully worded yet still forceful letter is a masterpiece of craftsmanship, even in an English translation; the Mayor's response...well...let's just say it isn't. But the Mayor gets away with it in the French press because—just like in the American press—anti-Catholicism is the last acceptable bigotry of the "enlightened" intelligencia.

by Priestly Pugilist

2:31 AM 6/22/2009 — The difficulty with finding a relevant meaning from some of these Gospel passages has a lot to do with the art of translation. Matthew’s Gospel is a problem in particular, because it’s the only book of the Bible written in what is now a dead language. The other Gospel’s were written in Greek; Matthew’s was written in Aramaic, the common Hebrew dialect spoken by our Lord.
          The word in question, which causes the difficulty in this passage, is the one which our own Gospel book has translated as “money;” the actual word is mamon; and while it’s almost always translated as “wealth” or “money,” it means something more than that. One of the frustrations in trying to learn some of these ancient languages is that there are so many different words which the Lexicon translates in the same way, because each of them connotes something unique. So, in your Bible the word reads as “money,” and in English money is money. But in Aramaic you may have 12 different words that mean money, and each one says something different about it or the person who owns it or uses it...all contained in the single word. Mammon is wealth or money, but with a certain quality of personification. When it’s used as the object of a sentence, it implies some kind of reciprocal human-like relationship to the subject of the sentence. So when one possesses mammon, one not only possesses money but is also possessed by it. And all of that is known simply by looking at the one word, mammon.
          Which kind of sums up our Lord’s whole point, doesn’t it? St. John Chrysostom explains for us exactly how the choice of this word defines the whole meaning of our Lord’s narrative. It’s not the possession of the wealth that’s the problem; it’s the possession that the wealth holds over us that’s the problem. The Greek and Aramaic languages give you the option of speaking about inanimate objects as persons because it is a fact of life that such objects can become virtual “persons” to those who desire them. Money becomes mammon when obtaining or preserving it becomes the focus of your life, a relationship which should exist only with another person. It’s all right to focus on your husband or your wife, it’s all right to focus on your children, it’s all right to focus on God; but to focus on something that is not a person is wrong. It robs all the other “persons” in your life of their humanity. You end up giving human dedication to something that is not human, thus making all the other people in your life less than human by subordinating them to an inanimate object.
          And this, I think, is a very good way to understand the point our Lord is making. There are all kinds of things we need to fulfill our obligations to the people whom we love. One of them is money. You can’t feed a family or put a roof over their heads without it. But every month you’re handed that pay check, it isn’t the number of digits on the check that should give you satisfaction; it’s what that number should represent to the person who has his life well-ordered: the meeting of his responsibilities to those who depend on him.
          The ancient Desert Fathers we remember as the supreme teachers of holiness. But in another sense we have to recognize that, spiritually speaking, they took the easy way out. By forsaking all material possessions and retreating into the solitude of the desert, they isolated themselves from everything that could possibly come between God and themselves. We don’t have that luxury. We depend on others and others depend on us, in marriage, in the priesthood, in any number of situations in which we may find ourselves. They were like alcoholics who completely gave up drink; we are more like compulsive overeaters who can’t give up food, but must try somehow to live with it in a modified and detached way; which, when you think about it, is a much more difficult thing.
          We can, therefore, presume that our Lord used the word that he used very deliberately. It isn’t a question of how much, but a question of why? When two people get married and look forward to a family, they’re concerned with creating a home and an environment in which a family can flourish. But as the years pass that focus can get lost. We become so immersed in the various activities that keep the check coming in, that we forget the reason for it all. Work and job, then, become foci in themselves, not that we consciously make them so; but that through years of going through the motions we have forgotten what it’s all for.
          And this is true not only in reference to our families but most especially in reference to God. After all, just as material wealth exists for the benefit of our families, so our families are really nothing more than a means to bring ourselves and others closer to Christ. That’s why marriage is a sacrament. It is a way to God. One gets married precisely because two souls seeking perfection have a much better chance of success than one soul alone, because they temper each other, and limit each other, and motivate each other to do what is right. Otherwise, she exists only to please me, and I exist only to please her, when the reality should be that we both exist to help one another please God. And this is self-evident: how many people are there in our own parish who would not be here except for the fact that, somewhere along the line, they married someone who went to church on Sunday? How many couples are there who honestly know that they would not be here were it not for the fact that they needed a baby baptized, or felt guilty about not raising a child in a religious environment. And while some might question the purity of such motives, the fact is that it’s exactly this sort of thing that marriage and family are for.
          The longer I live the more I’m convinced that everything we do has some kind of ulterior motive; but that’s OK just so long as that ulterior motive is a positive one, and not mammon. In the end, no matter what we do, no matter what reason we think we have for doing it, it must be something that will lead us to God. And it will be, as long as it’s not mammon, as long as we can see the will of God in every task of life. And that happens when we train ourselves to see, in everyone who depends on us, the face of Christ.

by Father Michael Venditti

3:01 PM 6/15/2009 —

[Yes, it's been a slow week for updates. Not making an excuse. Just stating a fact. —PP]

05:42 PM 5/18/2008 - It is one of the forgotten teachings of our faith is that everyone is called to be a saint. Of course, it was Our Lord who first said that. We don't respond to it because of the way we've mystified the saints. We romanticize their lives so much that we almost turn them into gods and goddesses to worship instead of examples to follow. But the message of the Gospel is that we are called to be saints. Holiness is for everyone: the father and husband as well as the priest, the wife and mother as well as the nun. There is no one who is not meant by God to be a saint.
          Not too many years ago our late Holy Father, John Paul II, canonized a man whom I think is one of our Church's greatest saints, Msgr. Josemaría Escrivá, founder of the lay organization Opus Dei, whom you’ve heard me quote several times. He was a priest, but he dedicated his life to showing lay people how to become saints. And it's a hard thing to do, because so many people think that in order to be holy you have to be stuffy, boring, grave, prudish, and basically strange. Even piety by itself has little to do with genuine sanctity ... people who spend their time beating their breasts, or pining away in front of icons, or praying endless Rosaries are not necessarily holier thereby. Those things can be aids to holiness, certainly; but holiness itself is something much more substantive. Living the Gospel, bearing witness to it by example ... prayer, yes; but not prayers rattled off by rote; prayer to achieve union with God, prayer that focuses on the Eucharist as the center of our lives. Most important of all, the realization that God wants us to perform the tasks of our state in life as a means of sanctifying the world.
          One of the greatest victories of the Devil in our time was convincing people who are inclined toward religiosity that they achieve holiness either by some sort of volunteerism or by persuing a psudo-clerical "ministry," as if good works by themselves constitute holiness. If we want to serve the Church in holiness it is by participating in it's mission to sanctify the world by fostering an interior life, by going to confession frequently, by learning to unite ourselves to our Lord in prayer, by constantly seeking out the Blessed Eucharist as a source of grace and an amour against imorality, and by fulfilling all the obligations of our state in life: by keeping a Christian home, by raising children in the faith, by becoming living examples of the Gospel at home, in the place where we work, among our friends. This is service to Christ and His Church, and this is holiness.
          So, let us approach this Sunday of All Saints with the realization that we, ultimately, are supposed to be one of them, always remembering that, while it is important to pray for the intercession of the saints, it is more important to follow their example.

by Father Michael Venditti

12:38 PM 6/5/2009 —

"Everybody’s watching what’s going on in Beijing right now with the Olympics. Think about the amount of money that China has spent on infrastructure. Their ports, their train systems, their airports are vastly the superior to us now...." (Barak Obama).

"Society in every state is a blessing; but government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil, in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamities are heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer! Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built on the ruins of the bowers of paradise" (Thomas Pain).

Knowing that June 4th was approaching, your PP knew he wanted to post something about this significant anniversary; but, it's an emotional commemoration for me due to the fact that I have personal acquaintance with a number of people directly or indirectly associated with the event. Regarding that latter point, I won't go into detail since maintaining the mirage of anonymity, lame and futile as it may be, continues to provide your PP with at least a fiction of plausible deniability. Suffice it to say, your PP is a true cosmopolitan, with personal ties much farther East than being a priest of an Eastern Catholic Church would suggest.
          During the time of the Beijing Olympics, when President Obama said he wanted the United States to emulate China, there may have been a smattering of gasps from some thinking people, but not nearly the public outcry there should have been. For most Americans, I fear that things like June 4th, and China's "one child" policy, are concepts they're unable to process mentally. After all, when American liberals latch on to fictions like over-population and global warming, meeting someone who left family and home and everything familiar to come here because she didn't want her baby aborted would be an event not easily processed.
          We Christians, of course, claim that family is important to us; but with the large percentage of Catholic married couples practicing artificial contraception, maybe meeing people who left their country for the right to have children—and the stories of those who died for it—might be instructive. Rather that pontificate further, I'll just get on with it.
          The following picture is probably the only image most Americans have of June 4th, 1989. China's state-run media shut down all foreign coverage after this point...;

...but, because the whim of chance threw your PP into personal friendship with people who were there, I have access to other images, some of which may be around on the internet, but most of which you'll not find anywhere. Some of these images are quite graphic. In selecting which of the many images provided to me, I decided to choose a few which seemed to me the most personal. If you are able, try to keep in mind that most of the people you're looking at are dead. Rather than just throw them up, I've included an AsiaNews story by Gianni Criveller about an interview with the former Archbishop of Hong Kong, Joseph Cardinal Zen:

Hong Kong (AsiaNews) — “It is truly sad that 20 years have passed [since the Tiananmen massacre] and the tragedy still hasn’t been recognised by the government as an error and a crime.... Deng himself took full responsibility when in the days immediately after the massacre he went personally to congratulate the soldiers. He gave the order. But now Deng is long dead: is it really possible that years on justice still has not been served for fear of a person who died years ago?”.
          Card. Joseph Zen, Archbishop emeritus of Hong Kong, champion of democracy and religious freedom, expresses in these terms his displeasure and wonder at the Chinese government’s refusal to admit the error of Tiananmen. In an interview with AsiaNews—which will be published in full in coming days—he affirms that at the origins of this “rejection” is the Chinese dictatorial system, a system that it is time to change. “[The Chinese] system depends on one person. That person has been forward looking and intelligent on certain issues, but that person could not stand democracy, as he considered himself an emperor. Recently someone said: but how can we rehabilitate that movement [Tiananmen]? We would have to blame Deng Xiaoping! But that is impossible! So I ask: and why can we not blame Deng Xiaoping? He did something enormous. Mao was blamed for the cultural revolution, so why shouldn’t we blame Deng too? We must, absolutely, change this dictatorial, imperial system, which is the root cause of this vast tragedy”.

          The prelate—who twenty years ago was a simple priest—recalls the participation of the people of Hong Kong in the Tiananmen movement and their pain for the massacre. “That year [1989] gave birth to a new awareness and sensitivity among the people of Hong Kong: we are Chinese, we are part of this great nation. Up until that point we believed we were only people from Hong Kong. But on that occasion we all felt truly Chinese”. “At the time I was the religious director of the Salesian school of Aberdeen, superior of the community and school supervisor. Because the events took place on a Sunday, the following Monday, when we all gathered in the school, we spoke with tears in our eyes, because we felt Chinese and we shared in the emotions and fate of those young people who had the courage to come out and ask for a reform of their homeland. I remember in the aftermath of the massacre I made two speeches, and then we held a commemorative service for those heroes who died on that square and in the surrounding streets”.
          “In particular I remember the day of the great march when a million citizens here in Hong Kong took to the streets in prayer and song. It was a truly unique experience, something I will remember for the rest of my life”. From ‘89 on, every year in Hong Kong on June 4th, a great vigil is held to recall the dead of Tiananmen. Held in Victoria Park, thousands gather together. As bishop of Hong Kong, card. Zen always took part in the prayer vigil that preceded the gathering. “I remember a few years ago, during one of the prayer vigils I was asked if I would return the following year and I replied: next year I hope we will be here to celebrate a victory that is the recognition of the martyrs of Tiananmen as patriotic heroes and the government’s admission of its error in suppressing them”.

          “It is truly a sad thing that 20 years have gone by and the government still refuses to recognise its mistake and its great crime. But [for us], after 20 years nothing has changed, we still feel the profound ache of the loss of that youthful passion that was tragically wasted”.
          In recent days the Chief of the Hong Kong Executive, Donald Tsang, stated that the Tiananmen massacre had to be “left to history” and be forgotten, and he asked the people of Hong Kong to instead appreciate the “excellent economic results” achieved by Hong Kong and China in the aftermath of the massacre. Card. Zen replies: “That comment is not of his own making, it is simply official policy: by repressing that movement stability was gained and from it prosperity. But that is nonsense, pure nonsense. No-one can prove that stability grew from the repression of that movement, and in any case, success and prosperity can never, ever, justify such a terrible use of violence”.

[ In the aftermath of June 4th, the Red Army executed many of those who survived. Click here for a more graphic view of the above. ]

So, how far are we willing to go to fight for our freedom in the face of one man when, in the words of Cardinal Zen, "That person has been forward looking and intelligent on certain issues, but that person could not stand democracy, as he considered himself an emperor"? The young people slaughtered on June 4th, 1989, and those executed afterward, where never charged with treason; they were acused of attempting to deny to their fellow citizens the health care, economic prosperity and equality that the government provides. It should make us wonder: how many Americans regard Thomas Pain's words, "Give me liberty or give me death", as the words of a patriot, or the words of an extremist, right-wing kook?

by Priestly Pugilist

12:56 PM 5/11/2008 —

[Father Venditti indicates that this homily is essentially a repeat of last year's, but we include it here so that the cycle of his homilies remains unbroken.
     The icon of Pentecost shown here is typical; some icons of this event show the Mother of God present in the Upper Room, while others do not. The figure at the bottom of the icon does not represent anyone in particular, but a symbolic figure, dressed as a king, known as "Cosmos." King Cosmos, as his name suggests, represents all those who have placed their hopes in the comforts of this world. He holds in his hands a hamper or bag which contains his riches and worldly prossessions, all of which will be useless to him in the life to come. The void in which he finds himself is jet black because, having placed his faith in material concerns, the light of Christ and the grace of the Holy Spirit given at Pentecost cannot reach him. He grips his worldly possessions tightly, which is what holds him down in the void. Only by releasing his grasp on them can he ascend out of the void into the light of new life.
     More tidbits for the unenlightend: The liturgical color for Pentecost in the Byzantine Tradition is green, not the red that became popular in the Western Church in the Middle Ages. Green is the color of Spring and new life, just as the Church is infused with new life by the coming of the Spirit. It joins the Christian celebration of Pentecost to the Jewish feast of the same name, which concluded a 50 day celebration of the harvest that began at Passover. In fact, even in the West green was the color of Pentecost for centuries; a reminder of this remains in the Roman Church through the use of green during what is now called "Ordinary Time," which is actually a remnant of the old "Sundays after Pentecost" which are retained in the Byzantine Tradition today. While the use of green is prescribed only during the Octave of Pentecost, it has become customary in many parishes to continue to use it until the Feast of the Apostles Peter & Paul, or until the beginning of the Apostle Fast, during which the altar may be vested in red. —PP]

5:38 PM 6/1/2009 —

[Most of you have probably already read this article by Stanislav Mishin. Ir originally appeared on his blog, Mat Rodina, but was thrust into the public eye by being reprinted in the English language version of Pravda. The Drudge Report linked to it, and Rush Limbaugh read the first half of it out loud on his radio program.
     Your PP is reproducing it here simply because, even if one person not familiar with those sources sees it here, it will be worth it. Please give attention to my notes at the end of the article. —PP]

It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American decent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people.
          True, the situation has been well prepared on and off for the past century, especially the past twenty years. The initial testing grounds was conducted upon our Holy Russia and a bloody test it was. But we Russians would not just roll over and give up our freedoms and our souls, no matter how much money Wall Street poured into the fists of the Marxists.
          Those lessons were taken and used to properly prepare the American populace for the surrender of their freedoms and souls, to the whims of their elites and betters.
          First, the population was dumbed down through a politicized and substandard education system based on pop culture, rather then the classics. Americans know more about their favorite TV dramas then the drama in DC that directly affects their lives. They care more for their "right" to choke down a McDonalds burger or a BurgerKing burger than for their constitutional rights. Then they turn around and lecture us about our rights and about our "democracy". Pride blind the foolish.
          Then their faith in God was destroyed, until their churches, all tens of thousands of different "branches and denominations" were for the most part little more then Sunday circuses and their televangelists and top protestant mega preachers were more then happy to sell out their souls and flocks to be on the "winning" side of one pseudo Marxist politician or another. ¹ Their flocks may complain, but when explained that they would be on the "winning" side, their flocks were ever so quick to reject Christ in hopes for earthly power. ² Even our Holy Orthodox churches are scandalously liberalized in America. ³
          The final collapse has come with the election of Barack Obama. His speed in the past three months has been truly impressive. His spending and money printing has been record setting, not just in America's short history but in the world. If this keeps up for more than another year, and there is no sign that it will not, America at best will resemble the Wiemar Republic and at worst Zimbabwe.
          These past two weeks have been the most breath taking of all. First came the announcement of a planned redesign of the American Byzantine tax system, by the very thieves who used it to bankroll their thefts, loses and swindles of hundreds of billions of dollars. These make our Russian oligarchs look little more then ordinary street thugs, in comparison. Yes, the Americans have beat our own thieves in the shear volumes. Should we congratulate them?
          These men, of course, are not an elected panel but made up of appointees picked from the very financial oligarchs and their henchmen who are now gorging themselves on trillions of American dollars, in one bailout after another. They are also usurping the rights, duties and powers of the American congress (parliament). Again, congress has put up little more then a whimper to their masters.
          Then came Barack Obama's command that GM's (General Motor) president step down from leadership of his company. That is correct, dear reader, in the land of "pure" free markets, the American president now has the power, the self given power, to fire CEOs and we can assume other employees of private companies, at will. Come hither, go dither, the centurion commands his minions.
          So it should be no surprise, that the American president has followed this up with a "bold" move of declaring that he and another group of unelected, chosen stooges will now redesign the entire automotive industry and will even be the guarantee of automobile policies. I am sure that if given the chance, they would happily try and redesign it for the whole of the world, too. Prime Minister Putin, less then two months ago, warned Obama and UK's Blair, not to follow the path to Marxism, it only leads to disaster. Apparently, even though we suffered 70 years of this Western sponsored horror show, we know nothing, as foolish, drunken Russians, so let our "wise" Anglo-Saxon fools find out the folly of their own pride.
          Again, the American public has taken this with barely a whimper...but a "freeman" whimper.
          So, should it be any surprise to discover that the Democratically controlled Congress of America is working on passing a new regulation that would give the American Treasury department the power to set "fair" maximum salaries, evaluate performance and control how private companies give out pay raises and bonuses? Senator Barney Franks, a social pervert basking in his homosexuality (of course, amongst the modern, enlightened American societal norm, as well as that of the general West, homosexuality is not only not a looked down upon life choice, but is often praised as a virtue) and his Marxist enlightenment, has led this effort. He stresses that this only affects companies that receive government monies, but it is retroactive and taken to a logical extreme, this would include any company or industry that has ever received a tax break or incentive.
          The Russian owners of American companies and industries should look thoughtfully at this and the option of closing their facilities down and fleeing the land of the Red as fast as possible. In other words, divest while there is still value left.
          The proud American will go down into his slavery without a fight, beating his chest and proclaiming to the world, how free he really is. The world will only snicker.

by Stanislav Mishin

---

¹ Can you say, "Notre Dame?" I knew you could. I'll bet you can say "Georgetown", too. Maybe even "Fordham". —PP

² Case in point, the USCCB, which has obfuscated any concern for spiritual realities in its struggle to attain a seat at the table in the making of secular policy, albeit about issues they claim touch on spiritual matters. Hence, the Conference sacrifices whole forests full of trees to churn out document after document on matters such as immigration reform, economic policy, health care reform, etc., etc., while church attendance dwindles into nothing, priests sit in empty confessionals, half of all Catholic marriages end in divorce and most married Catholics commit the mortal sin of artificial contraception (having been misled by the common-stock and erroneous notion of conscience that no single Catholic bishop in this country has ever corrected). On the other hand, a document by our bishops on something like birth control or confession might be worse than the lack of one, since it would be so full of apologies, mitigation, compromises, and so thoroughly outmaneuver itself to avoid offending anyone, that it would end up teaching nothing and inspiring no one.
     No one doubts that some of the issues the bishops do write about touch on Catholic moral and social principles;—that's not the problem—but when the bishops decide for the rest of us that it's wrong to deport illegal aliens and that universal health care is a good thing in principle, they are assuming an authority neither Christ nor His Church have bestowed on them. For example, as an American citizen, I believe anyone who commits the crime of entering this country without permission should spend a couple of years in chains picking up garbage off our nations highways before being sent back to where they came from; as a priest, I see no reason to address this issue one way or the other in the pulpit, since it has nothing whatsoever to do with the spiritual welfare of the souls entrusted to my care. That's they way I was trained back when we had real seminaries. What makes your PP angry is that the bishops of this country don't govern their tongues by the same ancient rule. They will argue that their office as bishops gives them a particular responsibility to teach the faithful in a way that an ordinary priest does not. This may be true as far as it goes, but begs the question what it is they should be persuing in their teaching: the reform of secular society or the salvation of souls? The Gospel and the lives of the saints teach us, without question, that there's no persuing both. —PP

³ I should like every Eastern Catholic priest who thinks he's being "Eastern" by emulating the laxity of the OCA regarding who can and cannot received Holy Communion to consider what Mr. Mishin says here. If you think the the OCA's liberal attitude toward oikonomia represents the traditions of Orthodoxy, think again. —PP

3:16 PM 5/29/2009 — Regular readers of Priestly Pugilist—all six of you—know that we don't just trash spineless bishops here, but go out of our way to praise those with onions who do the right thing. Today's I've-got-marbles award goes to the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Miami, Most Rev. John C. Favalora, for his handling of—and statements concerning—the defection from the Catholic Church of Fr. Alberto Cutié.
          Father Cutié is—or was—a rather well known priest of the Archdiocese of Miami, who gained fame through his popular talk show on the Radio Paz Spanish language network, along with frequent appearances on Spanish language television programs. ...That is until he was caught canoodling—I've been dying to use that word again—with a half-naked woman on the beach. Or was it Father Cutié who was half-naked? I can't remember. Anyway, regardless of who was half-naked, it was pretty clear that they weren't there reading Plato's "Republic". As a result, Fr. Cutié was taken off the air and granted a temporary leave of absence from his priestly duties—at his own request—while he relfected and came to terms with his personal morals and obligations as a priest. Pretty generous on the Archbishop's part, I thought.
          What followed was a public outcry against priestly celibacy from the great unwashed, who knew only what the media chose to tell about the situation, and who have little—if any—appreciation for the whole concept of priestly celibacy in the Latin Church (that's the official name of the Roman Catholic Church for those of you west of the Rockies, not a reference to Latino Catholics).
          Now we find out that Father Alberto has decided to leave the Catholic Church and join the Episcopal Church. I suppose it shouldn't come as a surprise: thinking with the loins has been the number one reason for leaving the Catholic Church ever since King Henry VIII set the precedent in 1533. In his case, a whole plethora of theological fictions were invented to mask the fact that his lawfully wedded wife couldn't provide him with an heir while the prostitute he was canoodling with could (or so he thought, though it turned out that he couldn't provide himself with an heir). So, Father Alberto, faithful to a time-tested tradition, has suddently decided that the faith he preached for years on the radio and to which he had dedicated his life, is now all wrong; a theological revelation that came to him as a result of canoodling on a beach with a half-naked woman. So, once again we learn that, if Catholic devotion is born from the heart, Protestant devotion is born from the.... OK, we won't go there.
          The following story comes to us from the Catholic News Agency, and highlights brilliantly not only the patience of Archbishop Favalora and his love for his priests, but also his pastoral zeal and courage in finding a teachable moment in the most obtuse of circumstances.

Miami, Fla., May 28, 2009 / 05:42 pm (CNA) — Archbishop John C. Favalora of Miami made a statement on Thursday afternoon in which he revealed that he was kept in the dark about Fr. Alberto Cutié's decision to join the Episcopal Church. The archbishop also stressed that by his actions, Cutié has forfeited his rights as a cleric but is not dismissed from the promise of celibacy he freely made.
     “I am genuinely disappointed by the announcement made earlier this afternoon by Father Alberto Cutié that he is joining the Episcopal Church,” Archbishop Favalora began. The Archbishop of Miami then detailed the consequences of Fr. Cutié's action, saying that the priest had separated himself from the communion of the Roman Catholic Church “by professing erroneous faith and morals” and by “refusing submission to the Holy Father.” Father Cutié will no longer be allowed to legitimately celebrate the sacraments in the Archdiocese of Miami, and he cannot preach or teach on Catholic faith and morals. “His actions could lead to his dismissal from the clerical state,” the archbishop stated.
     Despite his decision to leave the Catholic Church, Archbishop Favalora pointed out that “Father Cutié is still bound by his promise to live a celibate life, which he freely embraced at ordination. Only the Holy Father can release him from that obligation,” he explained.
     The archbishop also addressed the impact of Fr. Cutié's actions on the faithful of the archdiocese. "Catholic faithful of Saint Francis de Sales Parish, Radio Paz and the entire Archdiocese of Miami, I again say that Father Cutié’s actions cannot be justified, despite his good works as a priest. This is all the more true in light of today’s announcement. Father Cutié may have abandoned the Catholic Church; he may have abandoned you. But I tell you that the Catholic Church will never abandon you; the Archdiocese of Miami is here for you. Father Cutié’s actions have caused grave scandal within the Catholic Church, harmed the Archdiocese of Miami—especially our priests—and led to division within the ecumenical community and the community at large. Today’s announcement only deepens those wounds,” said Archbishop Favalora.
     The head of the Catholic Church in Miami explained that when he met with Father Cutié on May 5th, “he requested and I granted a leave of absence from the exercise of the priesthood,” a request that was granted. However, since that meeting, the archbishop informed, “I have not heard from Father Cutié nor has he requested to meet with me. He has never told me that he was considering joining the Episcopal Church.”
     Adding salt to the wound was the fact that Episcopal Bishop Leo Frade of Southeast Florida also never spoke with Archbishop Favalora about the situation. “Bishop Frade has never spoken to me about his position on this delicate matter or what actions he was contemplating. I have only heard from him through the local media,” the Catholic prelate stated. The event has also caused a “serious setback for ecumenical relations and cooperation between the Catholic and Episcopal churches," Archbishop Favalora charged. He also noted that the “Archdiocese of Miami has never made a public display when for doctrinal reasons Episcopal priests have joined the Catholic Church and sought ordination. In fact, to do so would violate the principles of the Catholic Church governing ecumenical relations. I regret that Bishop Frade has not afforded me or the Catholic community the same courtesy and respect.”
     Referencing the Parable of the Prodigal Son, the archbishop told his fellow Catholics that, “If our brother comes home, let us celebrate with the Father.” The Archbishop of Miami finished by commending “the priests of the Archdiocese of Miami and all priests who faithfully live and fulfill their promise of celibacy. In our times so pre-occupied with sex, the gift of celibacy is all the more a sign of the Kingdom of Heaven where, as scripture says, there will be 'no marrying or giving in marriage.' I encourage all Catholics to pray for and support our dedicated priests,” he said.

The irony in this whole story, as your PP sees it, is that only one of the two clerics involved in this story is a man, and it's not the one with his fly unzipped. A real man, after all, is characterized by fidelity to his committments: to his faith, his family, his vocation (whether that be marriage or the priesthood or whatever). Any dog in the kennel can copulate with a bitch.
          It's no trick to get Catholic lay people to make a statement against celibacy in a pole question;—that is until they find out how much it will cost them—and there is no doubt that the former Father Alberto will continue his radio ministry; only now, instead of explaining the Catholic Faith he'll be enticing people away from it, inviting them to join, as he did, a Church that doesn't require it's members to believe in anything.
          As another priest I know recently put it, "When you think below the waist, all doctrine is fluid."

by Priestly Pugilist

6:48 PM 5/27/2009 — The following story is by Laurie Goodstein of the New York Times. Be advised that your PP never provides a link to the Times, Nor does he expend any effort to conform to the original source's rules for reproduction of material where the Times is concerned, since they don't deserve that kind of consideration.

Archbishop Rembert G. Weakland, the former head of the Milwaukee Archdiocese who has stirred up new controversy with his soon-to-be-released memoir about his decades in church leadership, his homosexual orientation and the scandal that forced his retirement, said on Tuesday that he had decided not to retire to St. Mary’s Abbey in Morristown, N.J.
          Archbishop Weakland had been the worldwide leader of the Benedictine Order and then archbishop of Milwaukee for 25 years until 2002, when he resigned amid revelations that he had used church money to pay a $450,000 settlement to a man with whom he had had a relationship years earlier.
          The archbishop, who is 82 and now living in a retirement community in Milwaukee, had been invited by the monks in Morristown to live out his days in their abbey. But, he said in an interview Tuesday, “they were getting very worried about the situation because of what they thought would be negative publicity. So I withdrew my desire to go there.”
          The Benedictine monks at St. Mary’s Abbey administer the adjacent Delbarton School, a Roman Catholic preparatory school for boys, where last year’s tuition was nearly $25,000. Archbishop Weakland said he had been told that the school was in the middle of a fund-raising campaign and that there was concern from lay people on its board about his retiring at the abbey.
          The Rev. Giles Hayes, the abbot, said on Tuesday no one at the [school] asked or pressured Archbishop Weakland not to come. “He’s a real gentleman,” Abbot Hayes said, “and he wouldn’t have wanted to hurt us.” A trustee, Thomas J. Walsh, said he had heard of no pressure from board members or parents to withdraw the invitation.
          The archbishop said he planned to stay in his retirement community but move from a house into an apartment building where he would have “a bit more protection” from the weather and the television cameras.

Four questions come to mind:

1. I'm not sure what meteorological phobias plague the archbishop, but if he's truely seeking protection against television cameras, why is he giving interviews and writing books about his gay canoodlings?

2. If Father Abbot is telling the truth, and his only concern is "nagative publicity" during a fund-raising campaign, and not the safety of the boys of the Delbarton school with the prospect of a notorious and famous homosexual living in their midst, what does that say about Father Abbot's priorities?

3. If the quoted trustee is telling the truth, and there was no pressure from board members or parents expressed, than from where did Archbishop Canoodle get his information that someone was becoming "very worried"?

4. Given the fact that Abbot Hayes is head of an abbey that runs a ritzy school for rich little boys, I should like more information about his rather interesting notion of what constitutes a "gentleman," since it obviously has nothing to do with living a moral life.

by Priestly Pugilist

1:17 PM 5/24/2009 — If you think back to Easter Sunday, you may recall me telling you the story of when I left my job to go to the seminary, and how a Buddhist man who worked with me gave me a going-away gift consisting of a book about Jesus written by his local Lama; and I mentioned that the book, although very beautiful and well written, completely ignored the fact that Jesus is God and not just a social teacher or philosophical guru. I don’t have the book anymore, but I held on to it for a long time; and, as the years progressed through the seminary, I began to realize that what this lama was saying in this book was very much the same thing that was being said back in the third century, that the Bishops of the Church met in Nicea in the year 325 to discuss: is Jesus just a social teacher, or is he God?
          That was the question that preoccupied a priest in Alexandria named Arius. Like many priests of his time—perhaps even of our time—he was looking for a way to make Christianity more palatable to the pagans around him; and he concluded that, if the Church could only see her way clear to presenting Jesus in the same way the Greeks presented their philosophers—like a philosophical teacher without all this religion stuff getting in the way—people would be more inclined to accept the Church’s message. If we could just leave out all that stuff about morality, and sexual purity, and all these complicated rituals and liturgies, and just preach Christianity as a philosophy of brotherly love, then all kinds of people would flock to the Church. Needless to say, Arius became very popular; and, for a while, his heresy, which became known as Arianism, was so popular that, at one point, most of the world’s bishops and priests believed and were preaching it.
          And for a while it worked: all kinds of people joined the Church once they were taught that, as a Christian, you didn’t have to really do or believe anything in particular: all you had to do was love one another. It worked, that is, until the first imperial persecutions came along; then everyone left the Church and went back to being pagans again. After all, you need to believe in some kind of God in order to be a martyr; no one’s going to give his life for a mere philosophy—unless you’re Socrates. And when the persecutions were over, and a lot of these people wanted to come back and join the Church again, the Church had a big problem on its hands. You see, the Christians who had remained faithful, who believed in Jesus as God, who lived a moral life, who had accepted torture and death because they believed, were reluctant to have these people back who didn’t really believe in anything and had left the Church at the first sign of trouble; and it was ripping the Church apart. So, the Emperor Constantine, newly converted to Christianity himself, called this council of the world’s bishops at Nicea in 325 to decide once and for all whether Jesus was merely a social teacher who should be followed, or was in fact a God who should be worshipped.
          I don’t have to tell you how it turned out, because we’re going to be singing the words of the Council Fathers later on in this Divine Liturgy: the Creed that we sing at every Divine Liturgy is the document that those Fathers produced in response to the Arian heresy; and they decreed that anyone who would call himself a Christian would have to say those words and mean them: “I believe in God, Creator of Heaven and Earth...in one Lord Jesus Christ who is one in essence with the Father...that he was present with the Father at the creation of the world...that he came down from heaven as a man, that he suffered and died and rose from the dead, that he ascended into heaven and will come again to judge me according to my deeds.” In our Byzantine Tradition, the Creed is part of the Liturgy of the Eucharist, not of the word: we sing it at the beginning of the great Anaphora which transforms simple bread and wine into the real body and blood of Jesus—and not just on Sunday but at every Divine Liturgy—because I have no right to receive him—nay, even to look upon him in that form—unless I truly believe.
          The sad fact is that Arianism never really died with the First Council of Nicea; and you know just as well as I that there are still people, both inside and outside the Church, who think that Jesus is primarily worth something only as a social teacher, that true Christianity means soup kitchens and concern for the homeless and caring about the poor, and has little to do with going to Church or living a moral life. That book that my friend gave me just before I left for the seminary I can excuse, because it was written by someone who was not a Christian; but, the fact is, that many people who are Christians—or who claim to be—could read that book today and not find a single thing wrong with it. And that is the reason we celebrate this particular Sunday; because in celebrating a Sunday dedicated to these Council Fathers, we reject the idea that Christianity is a social philosophy, reaffirm our faith in Christ the God-made-man, and rededicate ourselves to the reality that our religion is not only one of doing good deeds, but of living a good and moral life, and worshipping Christ as the God he truly is.

by Father Michael Venditti

11:35 AM 5/21/2009 — Your PP didn't weigh in on the Obama/Notre Dame issue for two reasons: (1) I like to wait until everyone else is finished shooting from the hip, and (2) because the whole thing made me so mad that I couldn't organize my thoughts into any coherent form.
          Bishops have been bending over backward to denounce the President being invited and receiving an honorary degree; but if you're expecting your PP to praise them for it, think again. Let's take the local bishop, Bishop D’Arcy, as an example. He's been very outspoken in his opposition to Obama speaking at Notre Dame; so, you may ask, why isn't the PP praising him? Because it's just another example of the Bishops' Disease: a lot of talk but no action.
          Now, I know exactly what the casuistic Canon Lawyers will say: The Holy Cross Fathers are a religious society of Pontifical Rite; they don't depend on the local bishop for their faculties; so, Bishop D'Arcy wasn't really in a position to order Father Jenkins, President of Notre Dame, to do anything. From a strictly canonical point of view, this is true, but lacks imagination. The fact is, there was a lot that Bishop D'Arcy could have done. He could have issued a decree informing the priests of the Holy Cross that they are not able to fuction as priests outside the boundries of the university—most of them, including Father Jenkins, probably have weekend assignments in local parishes, which are all under the direct authority of the bishop. As bishop, he has absolute and immediate jurisdiction over the sacrament of matrimony everywhere in his diocese, including the campus of Notre Dame; and I'm certain that graduating seniors at Notre Dame—like at all other big universities—like to get married there; he could have forbidden all marriages. Ultimately, he could have slaped a liturgical interdict on the university, forbidding the celebration of the Eucharist on campus, basically shutting down campus ministry. Pontifical Rite or no, these are all things the bishop could have done, but didn't. As to the argument that such actions would have punished the wrong people—we're talking about a Catholic institution being perceived as fuzzy on the issue of murdering innocent people! How far is too far to go? If there's even the remotest possibility that someone could come away with the idea that abortion is an issue on which faithful Catholics can dialog, can there be such a thing as colateral damage?
          A lot has been made of the US Bishops instruction which "asks" Catholic universities not to give honors to those who manifestly oppose Catholic moral teaching, specifically about abortion; but no one seems to have referenced the Holy See's decree that they may not do so. Bishop D'Arcy could have informed the Superior General of the Holy Cross Fathers that, if he didn't excersise his authority to order Father Jenkins to withdraw the invitation or transfer Father Jenkins to a new assignment, then the Holy Cross Fathers would be expelled from the territorial boundries of his diocese—both the bishop and Father General have this authority. When the board of directors of the university expressed their support for Father Jenkins, the bishop could have instructed his own priests to deny them Holy Communion in their respective parishes. Indeed, Pope Benedict could have stopped Obama's speech with a phone call, since his authority over everyone concerned is absolute; but he didn't.
          It's too easy to say that some of these possible solutions would constitute overkill. The real reason for all these things that could have happened but didn't stems from the general queeziness that Catholic churchmen seem to have when confronting problems within the realm of high academia; but, when it comes to saving the lives of unborn children, is there such a thing as overkill? Can there ever be an excuse for treading lightly—or respecting "academic freedom", or "agreeing to disagree"—when over one million people are being murdered every year in clinics and hospitals across this country?
          George Weigel is Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., whose columns are distributed by the Denver Catholic Register, the official newspaper of the Archdiocese of Denver, among other places. He is also a member of your PP's native parish, which is why your PP gets a signed copy of every new book he writes. He was very kind to my father before he died, and took time out to attend the funeral. While he doesn't offer the kind of solutions your PP just did, he is the first major Catholic thinker to actually address the issue of Notre Dame's relationship to the local Church in which it finds itself, which is why I reproduce his column below. The original text can be found on the Archiocese of Denver's web site.
          We have become so accustomed to pluralism in our soceity, that we actually have fooled ourselves into believing that you actually have to do something to commit a sin. Doesn't it occur to anyone that by simply holding an incorrect opinion on a crucial moral issue, you can exclude yourself from the Kingdom of Heaven? Does Father Jenkins actually believe that, simply because he's never actually helped someone to have an abortion, he can go to heaven when he dies? Does Bishop D'Arcy believe that, because he said all the right things with righteous indignation, Christ is pleased with him? Indeed, does anyone in the Church believe in heaven and hell anymore?

by Priestly Pugilist

Of all the commentary I’ve read on Notre Dame’s decision to invite President Obama to receive an honorary doctorate of laws as the university’s 2009 commencement speaker, the most disturbing came from Father Kenneth Himes of the Boston College theology department. In a Boston Globe story about Professor Mary Ann Glendon’s courageous (and correct) decision to decline Notre Dame’s Laetare Medal because the university had defied the U.S. bishops’ policy barring honors for pro-abortion politicians at Catholic events, Father Himes said this:

There are some well-meaning people who think Notre Dame has given away its Catholic identity, because they have been caught up in the gamesmanship of American higher education, bringing in a star commencement speaker even if that means sacrificing their values, and that accounts for some of this.... But one also has to say that there is a political game going on here, and part of that is that you demonize the people who disagree with you, you question their integrity, you challenge their character, and you brand these people as moral poison. Some people have simply reduced Catholicism to the abortion issue, and consequently, they have simply launched a crusade to bar anything from Catholic institutions that smacks of any sort of open conversation.

          I trust Father Himes is not referring here to Professor Glendon, or William McGurn of the Wall Street Journal, or Father Wilson Miscamble, CSC, of the Notre Dame faculty, or me, or other serious critics of Notre Dame’s decision. For if Father Himes is suggesting that any of us has demonized the president, branded him “moral poison,” reduced Catholicism to the abortion issue, or summoned a crusade to eliminate debate at Catholic colleges and universities, he is perilously close to committing calumny. Yes, there are self-serving nuts in the forest, some of whom have seized the Obama/Notre Dame issue for their own purposes. By why does Father Himes waste time bashing fringe crazies? Why not engage the arguments of the serious critics? Why not attempt a theologically coherent defense of what seems an incomprehensible decision—awarding an honorary doctorate of laws to a man determined to enshrine in law something the Catholic Church regards as a gross violation of justice?
          Another colleague (and Notre Dame grad), Professor Russell Hittinger, who holds the William K. Warren Chair in Catholic Studies at the University of Tulsa, clarified one key facet of this controversy in an e-mail. Notre Dame, he suggested, has adopted a “purely American low-church position of [institutional] autonomy,” by acting as if the local bishop, John D’Arcy, has nothing to say to which the university must pay serious attention—although Bishop D’Arcy, a longtime Notre Dame booster, was speaking for the settled position of the American episcopate in asking the university’s president, Father John Jenkins, CSC, to reconsider his decision to honor Obama. As Professor Hittinger continued, this fracas “has nothing to do with academic freedom nor with ecclesiastical supervision of routine academic procedures and judgments. It is ecclesiological all the way down—what Church is Notre Dame ‘in,’ if any? ... Notre Dame is speaking and acting as though it were not a member of the local Church, let alone Rome.”
          That’s exactly right. There’s also a high-stakes “political game” here, though not the one Father Himes suggests. The Obama administration is full of very smart political operators. Reading last November’s electoral entrails, they’ve sensed the possibility of driving a wedge through the Catholic community in America, dividing Catholics from their bishops and thus securing the majority Catholic vote Obama received in 2008. And they’ve shrewdly judged that the soft underbelly of Catholic resistance to the Obama administration’s radical agenda on the life issues is composed of Catholic intellectuals, their prestige institutions (like Notre Dame and Georgetown), and their opinion journals—the very people and opinion centers who claimed last year that Obama was the true pro-life candidate. It’s a clever move on the political chessboard, and barring extraordinary actions from the bishops, it will likely meet with considerable success.
          Politics aside, though, the crucial question remains this: just what Church are Notre Dame and its supporters “in,” anyway?

by George Weigel

1:47 PM 5/19/2009 — It may be said in all truth that the Church, like Christ, goes through the centuries doing good to all. There would be today neither Socialism nor Communism if the rulers of the nations had not scorned the teachings and maternal warnings of the Church. On the bases of liberalism and laicism they wished to build other social edifices which, powerful and imposing as they seemed at first, all too soon revealed the weakness of their foundations, and today are crumbling one after another before our eyes, as everything must crumble that is not grounded on the one corner stone which is Christ Jesus.
          This, Venerable Brethren, is the doctrine of the Church, which alone in the social as in all other fields can offer real light and assure salvation in the face of Communistic ideology. But this doctrine must be consistently reduced to practice in every-day life, according to the admonition of St. James the Apostle: "Be ye doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves."
          The most urgent need of the present day is therefore the energetic and timely application of remedies which will effectively ward off the catastrophe that daily grows more threatening. We cherish the firm hope that the fanaticism with which the sons of darkness work day and night at their materialistic and atheistic propaganda will at least serve the holy purpose of stimulating the sons of light to a like and even greater zeal for the honor of the Divine Majesty.
          Even in Catholic countries there are still too many who are Catholics hardly more than in name. There are too many who fulfill more or less faithfully the more essential obligations of the religion they boast of professing, but have no desire of knowing it better, of deepening their inward conviction, and still less of bringing into conformity with the external gloss the inner splendor of a right and unsullied conscience, that recognizes and performs all its duties under the eye of God.
          We know how much Our Divine Savior detested this empty pharisaic show, He Who wished that all should adore the Father "in spirit and in truth." The Catholic who does not live really and sincerely according to the Faith he professes will not long be master of himself in these days when the winds of strife and persecution blow so fiercely, but will be swept away defenseless in this new deluge which threatens the world. And thus, while he is preparing his own ruin, he is exposing to ridicule the very name of Christian.

from the encyclical, Divini Redemptoris, by Pope Pius XI

12:52 PM 4/26/2008 — When a person loses his sight late in life, or even sometime in childhood, he still retains in his memory images from the past. Even if it's been many years since he's been able to see, and his memory may be imperfect, there are still remnants of images locked in his mind: some memory which enables him to form some mental image of whatever may be described to him, even if it's just a shadow of what he once saw.
          But what about someone who has never seen;—someone born blind—how does that person comprehend what's described to him? If you know someone who has never seen, how would you describe to that person what a color is, for example? Here is something that doesn't change the shape or texture of a thing; and yet, it make's it, somehow, different. How would someone born blind conceive of that?
          Dr. Alice Von Hildebrand, in the introduction to her Philosophy of Religion, says that trying to explain faith to a person who has never had the experience of faith is like trying to explain color to a blind man: it's something one can't possibly know without experience.
          Our Lord knew that frustration. For three years he tried to free people from the blindness of sin. And this episode of the man born blind, so beautifully narrated by St. John, is full of the symbols of faith: the smearing of the clay on the man's eyes like the mud of sin which blinds us to the beauty of truth; then our Lord commanding the man to wash in a pool, the name of which means, "one who is sent." The waters of Saloam are like the waters of baptism and the cleansing wash of the Sacrament of confession, flushing away the clay of sin so that the eyes of faith can see clearly again.
          And then the persecution of the man after he's been cleansed. No one would accept him. They cast him out of the temple, all because the clarity of his sight revealed the beauty of what they have never seen. Such is the way for those of us who love and practice our faith, when so many of our friends and relatives may not. But it's just such as these that our Lord seeks out to be his special friends, just as he sought out the man who had been expelled from the temple and offered him his friendship as a reward for his truthfulness.
          I think that all of us, at some point in our lives, are that man born blind: those of us who practice our faith in the face of friends or even family members who don't understand, and who redicule those who do, sometimes asking questions impossible to answer. "If God is so good, as you say, why did he allow this to happen? Why did he allow that to happen?"
          "I don't know." Just like the man born blind: "I don't know who this Jesus person is; all I know is that I was once blind, and now I see." There will always be people in our lives who will try to pin us down because they cannot tolerate in us what they see lacking in themselves. This is the root behind the Pharisees' problem with the man born blind. He had been given a grace by God that these professional teachers of the law could only dream of; and they couldn't stand it. So they had to think up all kinds of stupid reasons why it wasn't what it seemed: "Well, maybe this isn't the guy, it just looks like him. Let's ask his parents. He did it on the sabbath so it doesn't really count."
          We must be convinced of what God has given us in our love for the Catholic faith and our Byzantine Tradition, and for the Eucharist which brings us here faithfully Sunday after Sunday: an intimacy with Christ which is beyond evaluation. Like all who have been baptized, we have been offered the love of Christ, and have responded by loving in return. And those among our friends or in our own families who may have chosen not to respond are always going to be jealous of us. They can either re-evaluate their lives, and take a new attitude; or they can respond by persecution.
          But there is a consolation here, as shown by St. John in this story. After the man born blind is thrown out of the temple, Jesus seeks him out and offers him his friendship. That doesn't make the man's life any easier, except that he knows that wherever he is, and in whatever he does, his divine friend will be with him. It's the same for us. Those who are still blind are there, taunting us with their laughter, saddening us with their rejection. But there is our Lord:

     "Do you believe in the Son of Man?"
     "Who is he, Lord, that I may believe in him?"
     "I who speak to you am he." And he worshiped him.

12:17 PM 5/14/2009 —

[President Obama's war against the Catholic Church in the US goes largely—actually, it's more like completely—unreported by the American media. His refusal to appoint an ambassador to the Holy See who is either a non-Catholic or a faithful Catholic, and his conviction that his new ambassador must be a lapsed Catholic who has rejected the Church's teaching on abortion, is a very deliberate symbol of his attitude toward the Catholic Church in this country. His Executive Order removing the protection of conscience for health care professionals who will not be involved in abortions, forcing them out of the medical profession if they choose to follow the teachings of the Church, was not at all symbolic.
     The following story is mild compared to what Obama has in store for Catholics in this country, but serves as a good illustration of what we have to look forward to. The original story is available from LiveSiteNews.com. Keep in mind that abortion was illegal in Colombia prior to the 2006 decision by the Colombian Supreme Court. —PP]

BOGOTA, COLOMBIA, Mary 12, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com)—The Colombian government has announced that it will fine a Catholic hospital for refusing to perform an abortion, according to local news reports.
          The Saint Ignatius University Hospital (Hospital Universitario San Ignacio), a Jesuit institution, was asked for an abortion in 2008 by a woman whose unborn child suffered from non-lethal defects, including hydrocephaly (an accumulation of water in the brain). They refused on grounds of "collective conscience." The woman, Yolima Bernal, ultimately received a late-term abortion in another hospital. After an investigation of the case launched last year, Colombia's health ministry has announced a fine equivalent to approximately $5,160.
          Monica Roa, a pro-abortion attorney who works with the UN-funded Women's Link Worldwide (WLW), praised the decision, stating that "it feels like a precedent for the country and makes it clear that conscientious objection in an institution is not permitted." Roa was the principal force behind the Supreme Court's 2006 decision striking down laws penalizing abortion in cases of rape or fetal deformity.
          Magaly Llaguno, Executive Director of Human Life International's Hispanic Division, told LifeSiteNews that, "It is shocking and a great cause for concern, that Colombia's Health Department considers the killing of an unborn child that has a serious medical problem, a 'service' that hospitals should be forced to provide." Regarding Monica Roa's statement that institutions should not be exempt for conscience reasons, Llaguno responded that, "In other words, like most abortion promoters, she supports 'the right to choose,' but only if you choose her way."
          Carlos Polo, Director of the Population Research Institute's Latin America Office, remarked that "it is clear that the Colombian government wants to coerce those who are able to show the fallacy of the arguments in favor of abortion in Colombia. A Catholic hospital with professional gynecologists could save both the mother and the child. That's why the government wants to impose itself on anything that might contrast with its pretended democratic image."
          Although Colombia's president Alvaro Uribe is reputed to be "conservative" because of his close relationship with former president George Bush, his administration has been threatening Catholic hospitals with reprisals for refusing to do abortions for the last year.
          The Catholic Church may soon face a similar conflict in the United States, where the Obama administration is reviewing regulations that exempt doctors in federally-funded hospitals from doing abortions on grounds of conscience.
          Approximately 219 abortions have been done in Bogota alone since the May 2006 Supreme Court decision.

By Matthew Cullinan Hoffman, Latin America Correspondent

4:00 PM 5/12/2009 —

[The following is reposted here with the kind permission of SodaHead.com, an online community dedicated to free speech and the sharing of ideas.
     David Kaiser is a respected historian whose published works have covered a broad range of topics, from European Warfare to American League Baseball. Born in 1947, the son of a diplomat, Kaiser spent his childhood in three capital cities: Washington, D.C.; Albany, New York; and Dakar, Senegal. He attended Harvard University, graduating there in 1969 with a B.A. in history. He then spent several years more at Harvard, gaining a Ph.D. in history, which he obtained in 1976. He served in the Army Reserve from 1970 to 1976.
     He is a professor in the Strategy and Policy Department of the United States Naval War College and has previously taught at Carnegie Mellon University, Williams College and Harvard University. Kaiser’s latest book, The Road to Dallas, about the Kennedy assassination, was just published by Harvard University Press. The article reproduced here is entitled: "History Unfolding." —PP]

I am a student of history. Professionally, I have written 15 books on history that have been published in six languages, and I have studied history all my life. I have come to think there is something monumentally large afoot, and I do not believe it is simply a banking crisis, or a mortgage crisis, or a credit crisis. Yes these exist, but they are merely single facets on a very large gemstone that is only now coming into a sharper focus.
          Something of historic proportions is happening. I can sense it because I know how it feels, smells, what it looks like, and how people react to it. Yes, a perfect storm may be brewing, but there is something happening within our country that has been evolving for about ten to fifteen years. The pace has dramatically quickened in the past two.
          We demand and then codify into law the requirement that our banks make massive loans to people we know they can never pay back? Why?
          We learned just days ago that the Federal Reserve, which has little or no real oversight by anyone, has “loaned” two trillion dollars (that is $2,000,000,000,000) over the past few months, but will not tell us to whom or why or disclose the terms. That is our money. Yours and mine. And that is three times the $700 billion we all argued about so strenuously just this past September. Who has this money? Why do they have it? Why are the terms unavailable to us? Who asked for it? Who authorized it? I thought this was a government of “we the people,” who loaned our powers to our elected leaders. Apparently not.
          We have spent two or more decades intentionally de-industrializing our economy. Why?
          We have intentionally dumbed down our schools, ignored our history, and no longer teach our founding documents, why we are exceptional, and why we are worth preserving. Students by and large cannot write, think critically, read, or articulate. Parents are not revolting, teachers are not picketing, school boards continue to back mediocrity. Why?
          We have now established the precedent of protesting every close election (violently in California over a proposition that is so controversial that it simply wants marriage to remain defined as between one man and one woman. Did you ever think such a thing possible just a decade ago?) We have corrupted our sacred political process by allowing unelected judges to write laws that radically change our way of life, and then mainstream Marxist groups like ACORN and others to turn our voting system into a banana republic. To what purpose?
          Now our mortgage industry is collapsing, housing prices are in free fall, major industries are failing, our banking system is on the verge of collapse, social security is nearly bankrupt, as is medicare and our entire government. Our education system is worse than a joke (I teach college and I know precisely what I am talking about)—the list is staggering in its length, breadth, and depth. It is potentially 1929 x ten. And we are at war with an enemy we cannot even name for fear of offending people of the same religion, who, in turn, cannot wait to slit the throats of your children if they have the opportunity to do so.
          And finally, we have elected a man that no one really knows anything about, who has never run so much as a Dairy Queen, let alone a town as big as Wasilla, Alaska . All of his associations and alliances are with real radicals in their chosen fields of employment, and everything we learn about him, drip by drip, is unsettling if not downright scary (Surely you have heard him speak about his idea to create and fund a mandatory civilian defense force stronger than our military for use inside our borders? No? Oh, of course. The media would never play that for you over and over and then demand he answer it. Sarah Palin’s pregnant daughter and $150,000 wardrobe are more important.)
          Mr. Obama’s winning platform can be boiled down to one word: Change. Why?
          I have never been so afraid for my country and for my children as I am now.
          This man campaigned on bringing people together, something he has never, ever done in his professional life. In my assessment, Obama will divide us along philosophical lines, push us apart, and then try to realign the pieces into a new and different power structure. Change is indeed coming. And when it comes, you will never see the same nation again.
          And that is only the beginning...
          As a serious student of history, I thought I would never come to experience what the ordinary, moral German must have felt in the mid-1930s In those times, the “savior” was a former smooth-talking rabble-rouser from the streets, about whom the average German knew next to nothing. What they should have known was that he was associated with groups that shouted, shoved, and pushed around people with whom they disagreed; he edged his way onto the political stage through great oratory. Conservative “losers” read it right now.
          And there were the promises. Economic times were tough, people were losing jobs, and he was a great speaker. And he smiled and frowned and waved a lot. And people, even newspapers, were afraid to speak out for fear that his “brown shirts” would bully and beat them into submission. Which they did—regularly. And then, he was duly elected to office, while a full-throttled economic crisis bloomed at hand—the Great Depression. Slowly, but surely he seized the controls of government power, person by person, department by department, bureaucracy by bureaucracy. The children of German citizens were at first, encouraged to join a Youth Movement in his name where they were taught exactly what to think. Later, they were required to do so. No Jews of course.
          How did he get people on his side? He did it by promising jobs to the jobless, money to the money-less, and rewards for the military-industrial complex. He did it by indoctrinating the children, advocating gun control, health care for all, better wages, better jobs, and promising to re-instill pride once again in the country, across Europe , and across the world. He did it with a compliant media—did you know that? And he did this all in the name of justice and...change. And the people surely got what they voted for.
          If you think I am exaggerating, look it up. It’s all there in the history books.
          So read your history books. Many people of conscience objected in 1933 and were shouted down, called names, laughed at, and ridiculed. When Winston Churchill pointed out the obvious in the late 1930s while seated in the House of Lords in England (he was not yet Prime Minister), he was booed into his seat and called a crazy troublemaker. He was right, though. And the world came to regret that he was not listened to.
          Do not forget that Germany was the most educated, the most cultured country in Europe . It was full of music, art, museums, hospitals, laboratories, and universities. And yet, in less than six years (a shorter time span than just two terms of the U. S. presidency) it was rounding up its own citizens, killing others, abrogating its laws, turning children against parents, and neighbors against neighbors...All with the best of intentions, of course. The road to Hell is paved with them.
          As a practical thinker, one not overly prone to emotional decisions, I have a choice: I can either believe what the objective pieces of evidence tell me (even if they make me cringe with disgust); I can believe what history is shouting to me from across the chasm of seven decades; or I can hope I am wrong by closing my eyes, having another latte, and ignoring what is transpiring around me.
          I choose to believe the evidence. No doubt some people will scoff at me, others laugh, or think I am foolish, naive, or both. To some degree, perhaps I am. But I have never been afraid to look people in the eye and tell them exactly what I believe—and why I believe it.
          I pray I am wrong. I do not think I am. Perhaps the only hope is our vote in the next elections.

by David Kaiser
Jamestown, Rhode Island

2:38 PM 5/10/2009 — In previous years, on this Sunday of the Samaritan woman, I’ve focused on the conversation our Lord has with her, on his ability to see the wretchedness of her soul, and the rather stern lecture he gives her about the immorality of the life she is living.¹ While we don’t know if she, in fact, experienced a complete conversion as a result of her meeting with our Lord, we do know that she gave witness about him to the Samaritans, causing many others to be added to our Lord’s disciples.
          But what was left unsaid about this particular Sunday was why it exists on our calendar at this particular time in the middle of Pascha, where it seems to be out of place. After all, there is no miracle here related to our Lord’s resurrection; there’s nothing in this episode to link it, directly or indirectly, with Easter. There is, of course, a reason, which I probably avoided in the past because the moral lesson to be learned from it, which we’ve spoken about several times, is much more practical. But at the risk of being dry or didactic, I do wish to speak about it today, if for no other reason than to avoid repeating myself.
          The reason for this Sunday being placed at this time—and for this gospel being read—is one of remarkable liturgical subtlety: the Wednesday prior to this Sunday is that very unusual feast which we call Mid-Pentecost, which marks the exact halfway point between Pascha and Pentecost; and it’s more than just marking time. In Chapter 7 of John’s Gospel, we read about Jesus going up to the Temple in Jerusalem “in the middle of the feast.” The feast being referred to is the Feast of Tabernacles, which was a Jewish agricultural feast. In this same passage, which is read during the Liturgy on the day of Mid-Pentecost, we are told that “Jesus, on the last and greatest day of the feast, stood up in the Temple and cried out, ‘If any man thirst, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, as the Scripture says, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.’ But he spoke of the Spirit which those who believe in him were to receive.” And here is where the link to the Sunday of the Samaritan Woman occurs, because our Lord says the exact same thing to her: “He who drinks this water will be thirsty again; but whoever drinks of the water I shall give, will never thirst again; for the water I shall give will become in him a fountain, springing up into everlasting life.”
          This week of Mid-Pentecost, culminating in the Sunday of the Samaritan Woman, leads us to Jacob’s Well, where Jesus announces for the first time the doctrine of Baptism, the sacrament of Water and the Spirit; which, incidentally, is what the whole Paschal cycle is about. Our Lord’s resurrection from the dead and his ascension into heaven—which we will celebrate next week—opened the gates of heaven and made salvation possible for us; and the feast of Pentecost, which ends the Paschal season, commemorates our Lord sending his Holy Spirit, which makes this sacrament of Baptism work in the first place. By receiving the Holy Mysteries of Baptism and Chrismation, we receive the same Spirit that Jesus gave to the Apostles in the upper room in the form of tongues of fire. Hence, we become a part of the body of Christ and heirs to the Kingdom of Heaven.
          So there’s a lot of theological depth in this Sunday of the Samaritan Woman which goes a lot deeper than the scolding that our Lord gives the woman at the well because of her immoral life. But that is not totally unrelated to it. Remember, the last time we looked at this Gospel, we reflected on the political situation between Judea and Samaria, and how our Lord even tells his own disciples not to the preach to the Samaritans because they’re not worthy of it. Our Lord breaks his own rule here; as a result, the woman goes and tells other Samaritans about him; and the Gospel ends with many of them becoming converts to the faith. And next week, when we celebrate the Ascension, we will hear our Lord say what? “Go forth and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,” thus giving the Church its missionary mandate. And this is where that rather awkward middle section of this Gospel comes into play: when the Apostles return from their shopping trip in town, they offer our Lord something to eat; and he refuses saying that his food is to do the will of his Father. What’s the will of his Father? To teach all the nations. They don’t understand what he’s talking about because they’re stupid; so he gives them this beautiful speech about how they will reap the bounties of what they did not sew, and gather a harvest they did not plant. They couldn’t have planted it because they didn’t die on the cross and rise from the dead; but they will, as the first bishops of the Church, gather the harvest of the countless souls who will be baptized and saved as a result.
          What does all this mean? It means that what we have received as Christians we must pass on to everyone we meet. Spreading the Gospel is not a choice, and baptism is not an option. The Church exists to spread the Gospel and extend itself to every nation on earth; because without the Gospel one does not know the truth, and without baptism one cannot be saved. That is very easy to forget in this age of celebrating diversity and respecting everyone’s religious sensibilities; and it seems, sometimes, that even priests and bishops and other leaders in the Church are just a little too anxious about not offending people who don’t share our faith. But the Gospel is quite clear; and our duty is quite plain. The old Latin maxim of the Fathers is still true, which is why it is still in the Catechism of the Catholic Church: extra ecclesia nulla salus—apart from the Church there is no salvation. That is not a statement of self-righteousness or arrogance, it is a warning; and it’s a warning not to non-Christians, but to us. If we do not teach all nations—if we do not baptize them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit—then we have failed to bring them the salvation that our Lord died on the cross to provide. We, then, become guilty of making our Lord’s death and resurrection irrelevant.
          Did our Lord insult the woman at the well and scold her for her immoral life because he wanted to offend her? No. Because he wanted to save her. Whether he succeeded we don’t know for sure. Probably he did; because we know she brought others to meet him, and they were converted; and we can be sure that counted in her favor. The question is, how many others have we brought to our Lord?

by Father Michael Venditti

---

¹ See last year's post, "The Woman at the Well."

5:12 PM 5/6/2009 — Is Rush Limbaugh a happy man? To some, the question may seem ridiculous, particularly to Rush; after all, this is the man who has everything. But to those of us who represent what can now only be referred to as the “old fashioned conservatives”—often misrepresented as “social conservatives” or “the religious right”—it is an obvious question; since it’s the person who has everything whom we instinctively recognize as having the most potential to be miserable.
          Who are we? We are the ones who have been married only once, and who had no sex before our wedding nights. We are the ones who believe everything our respective Churches teach us, not because we are not thinking people, but precisely because we are, and recognize that no one person can determine truth without some kind of Divine mandate. We are sinners who have frequently fallen and seen others fall; but who recognize in that nothing more than our common humanity, and don’t consider our faith discredited by the fact. We are the ones for whom frugality and simplicity of life are virtues in and of themselves, regardless of the economic circumstances. We are the ones who believe that the United States of America became a great nation because, for most of its history, most of its citizens were God-fearing people who lived their lives according to the Gospel, and who see its decline in fortunes directly related to the converse.
          And, perhaps most important of all, we are the ones who believe that “happiness”—however one chooses to define it—is the result of a well-ordered life lived in conformity with its own ultimate ends; which, for us, usually means the salvation of our own souls. So, I repeat the question: Is Rush Limbaugh a happy man?
          Yes, we love listening to Rush for the same reasons most people listen to Rush: because he gives voice to what we are usually thinking; but we have always had to hold our noses doing it. Yes, our hearts swell when Rush so accurately exposes how abortion is the seminal issue that has the potential to destroy that particular political party which typically represents our interests, how the “country club” set laments our very presence in that party because we would rather lose elections than betray our heartfelt beliefs. But as we listen, there is no escaping what’s always in the back of our minds: that our principle spokesman is divorced three times, and is now “keeping company”—yes, we still use terms like that—with an “event planner” from West Palm Beach (and most of us don’t even know what an “event planner” is). As the “church lady” says, “Now, isn’t that special.”
          When Rush announced his addiction to prescription pain medications, this was not a problem for us. We don’t like pain, either; and a lot of us know how easily such a thing can happen. We were universally outraged when a public prosecutor, running for reelection in a liberal county, became the first in the history of his profession to grant immunity to drug dealers in order to obtain evidence against an addict who became addicted through no fault of his own. And while we were objectively outraged when someone decided it was necessary to go public with the fact that a prescription for Viagra was obtained under an assumed name in violation of a plea agreement, we were still thinking, in the back of our minds: “What’s an unmarried man doing with Viagra?” Yes, that’s us! That’s who we are!
          Once again, Rush has announced that he’s giving us another three day week because “some golf buddies are coming into town.” Despite the fact that he’s said many times, “I’m not retiring until everyone agrees with me,” the suspicion that he’s weaning us for his eventual retirement looms like a cloud, and causes us to think about who his successor might be. Glen Beck comes to mind: he’s just as smart, just as funny, just as passionate; and has, for us, the added benefit of being a family man—no “event planners” to cause us to hold our noses while we listen.
          Be that as it may, whoever fills the EIB void when the time comes will have to be someone who does a little more than just hold and express the right opinions with passion; he’s going to have to be someone who walks the walk, not just talks the talk; someone whose rejoinder to the classic “your out of touch” argument is “No, I’m not. I’m one of you,” rather than, “Excellence...believe in yourself...I was fired seven times...you can do it, too!” as the “event planner” in the bathrobe chuckles in the background.
          Rush Limbaugh, living on a diet of Allen Brothers steaks, surrounded by opulence, is a classic case that we have seen many times: believing in all the right things but unable in integrate them into his own private life; the kind of soul ripe for a deathbed conversion. It’s just a shame that, in such cases, death—or the prospect of it—needs to be part of the conversion process.
          Toward the beginning of Barak Obama’s second term—and he will be elected again; the media will see to it, assisted by the blue-blood wing of the Republican party convinced that we must be ignored in order for them to win—he will announce the need for a Constitutional Convention. The wrinkled old document, written by slave owners encumbered by their own antiquity of thought, will no longer meet the needs of a new generation of Americans. In the new constitution, the government will no longer be a necessary evil which we tolerate for the sake of a well-ordered society and our mutual security; it will, instead, identify the government as the sole foundation of the nation. It will not be a document written by the people in which we tell the government what we, the people, will allow it to do for us; it will be a declaration by the government of what privileges will be bestowed upon the people as gifts. Among those gifts will be included anything and everything designed to keep the populace passive and the government in power: sexual license, free health care, guaranteed employment; with no one person being larger, greater, richer or more outstanding than another. We, of course, will be declared illegal, because we will advocate “hate.” Our children will be taken because we will choose to teach them that homosexuality is a perversion, abortion is murder, and freedom is more important than the common good—all things that Rush Limbaugh warned us about.
          Wouldn’t it be better if Rush Limbaugh were really one of us? Rush is right about one thing: freedom and greatness, like all ideas, are born of words; and he is certainly the “word king.” What he often fails to recognize is something all great thinkers and speakers forget: “It is not those who say, ‘Lord, Lord,’ who will enter the kingdom of heaven, but those who do the will of my father” (Matthew 7:21).
          Even in the new America Obama wants to create, we can be happy. Even in our prison cells we can be happy. Even on the scaffold we can be happy. The Matyrology is full of happy people because their lives—including the circumstances of their endings—were oriented toward that which they made the focus of their lives: the salvation of their own souls. I want Rush Limbaugh to know that happiness. He—like all of us—will need it when the time comes.

by Priestly Pugilist

2:05 PM 5/5/2009 — The Gospel lesson about how our Lord healed a man at the pool of Bethesda we’ve talked about before.¹ It is, among other things, a lesson in patience, particularly with regard to the example of the crippled man at the pool who never gave up hope despite the fact that he had been waiting for thirty-eight years. My admonition to you the last time this Gospel was read was to emulate the crippled man in the exercise of patience, especially in our prayers; to recognize that God owes us nothing in exchange for our prayers and sacrifices—they are things we owe to God simply because he is God—and to remember that our prayers and good works are not payment for services rendered or to be rendered. How long must we wait for an answer to our many prayers to God? The man in the Gospel waited thirty-eight years. He never gave up hope, never presumed he had been abandoned by God, and was grateful for what he received when he finally received it.
          What I wish to draw to your attention today is the reading from the Acts of the Apostles in which our Lord’s chief disciple, Peter, heals a crippled man and raises another disciple named Tabitha from the dead. This is extremely significant because, previously, this was something only God could do; and God did do it, on several occasions, in the person of Jesus. He raises his own friend Lazarus from the dead in that famous and dramatic scene we’re all familiar with; he also raised up the dead son of a widow while he was being carried to his grave—a Gospel which we read at the doors of the church at the conclusion of a funeral; he also raised up the daughter of synagogue official; and, of course, he raised himself from the dead after first descending into the realm of the dead to free the souls held captive there. But there is a sense in which—apart, of course, from our Lord’s own resurrection—this raising of Tabitha by Peter is the most important of all, simply by reason of the fact that it is not done by our Lord. For the Fathers of the Church this act had tremendous significance: it is the first indication of our Lord transmitting, if you will, his own divine power and authority over life and death to his Church in the person of Peter and the Apostles.
          Consider that our risen Lord had just ascended into heaven, just sent the Holy Spirit as tongues of fire to enliven the Apostles—an event which many point to as the actual birth of the Church on earth; and already he has given to them his own divine authority over life and death. They are able, in his name, to raise the dead to life. And it is further significant that this authority over life and death is exercised first by Peter, the head of the Apostles, as a way of indicating that there will be order in the Church. The Church will not be a free-for-all, a loose assembly of believers doing as they please; it will have structure and order, and be guided by authority. Even at the very birth of the Church at Pentecost, her structure begins to take shape.
          On the night before he died, during the Mystical Supper, our Lord gave to his Apostles the Blessed Eucharist for the first time, commanding them to do the same; he then breathed on them and gave them the power to forgive sin in confession; he sent his spirit to empower them to preach the Gospel to all nations; and, now, we see the extent of what he has given to his Church in the person of his chief Apostle; for what greater power does Christ possess than that over life and death? The lesson is clear: the Church is not simply a human institution preserving the traditions of an historical religion. What our Lord gave to Peter and his Apostles they, in turn, passed on to the priests and bishops of the Church in an unbroken line, for the sanctification of the faithful throughout the centuries until he, our Lord, should come again. To love the Church is to love Christ. To reject the Church is to reject Christ.
          In the Divine Liturgy, Christ comes among us disguised as bread and wine; but this does not happen on its own. It happens through the instrument of the Church, to whose priests our Lord gave this power. Certainly we can pray to Christ on our own; but we can only do so because Christ is already among us; and Christ is among us only because his Church is among us. No matter how good a life we live, no matter how sincere are our prayers, if we are separated from the Church we are separated from Christ.

by Father Michael Venditti

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¹ See last year's post, "The Pool at Bethesda."

12:55 PM 4/27/2009 —

[Mary Ann Glendon, a former Havard Law School professor who had served as President Bush's ambassador to the Holy See, is the current president of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences.
     She had previously served on the President's Council on Bioethics under George W. Bush, and is the author of Rights Talk; A Nation Under Lawyers; and A World Made New: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In 1994, she was appointed president of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences—the first woman to hold that position—a post she still holds. In 1995, she represented the Holy See at the international Beijing Conference on Women sponsored by the United Nations, where she was the lone voice in opposition to the conference's pro-condom declarations. Her nomination to serve as United States Ambassador to the Holy See was hotly contested by Demoracts in Congress, but was confirmed by the Senate on December 19, 2007. Her name appeared on President Bush's "short list" of possible Supreme Court candidates. In 1998, the National Law Journal named her one of the "Fifty Most Influential Women Lawyers in America." She was required to resign as Ambassador to the Holy See upon the election of Barak Obama.¹
     In a transparent attempt to deflect protests over their decision to invite Obama to address the graduating class of 2009 and bestow on him an honorary Doctorate of Letters, the University of Notre Dame announced it would award her the "Laetare Medal," the highest award the university can bestow. What follows is Ambassador Glendon's letter to Notre Dame's president, Father John Jenkins, concerning the potential award. Her letter is dated today. —PP]

Dear Father Jenkins,
          When you informed me in December 2008 that I had been selected to receive Notre Dame’s Laetare Medal, I was profoundly moved. I treasure the memory of receiving an honorary degree from Notre Dame in 1996, and I have always felt honored that the commencement speech I gave that year was included in the anthology of Notre Dame’s most memorable commencement speeches. So I immediately began working on an acceptance speech that I hoped would be worthy of the occasion, of the honor of the medal, and of your students and faculty.
          Last month, when you called to tell me that the commencement speech was to be given by President Obama, I mentioned to you that I would have to rewrite my speech. Over the ensuing weeks, the task that once seemed so delightful has been complicated by a number of factors.
          First, as a longtime consultant to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, I could not help but be dismayed by the news that Notre Dame also planned to award the president an honorary degree. This, as you must know, was in disregard of the U.S. bishops’ express request of 2004 that Catholic institutions “should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles” and that such persons “should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions.” That request, which in no way seeks to control or interfere with an institution’s freedom to invite and engage in serious debate with whomever it wishes, seems to me so reasonable that I am at a loss to understand why a Catholic university should disrespect it.
          Then I learned that “talking points” issued by Notre Dame in response to widespread criticism of its decision included two statements implying that my acceptance speech would somehow balance the event:

• “President Obama won’t be doing all the talking. Mary Ann Glendon, the former U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, will be speaking as the recipient of the Laetare Medal.”

• “We think having the president come to Notre Dame, see our graduates, meet our leaders, and hear a talk from Mary Ann Glendon is a good thing for the president and for the causes we care about.”

          A commencement, however, is supposed to be a joyous day for the graduates and their families. It is not the right place, nor is a brief acceptance speech the right vehicle, for engagement with the very serious problems raised by Notre Dame’s decision—in disregard of the settled position of the U.S. bishops—to honor a prominent and uncompromising opponent of the Church’s position on issues involving fundamental principles of justice.
          Finally, with recent news reports that other Catholic schools are similarly choosing to disregard the bishops’ guidelines, I am concerned that Notre Dame’s example could have an unfortunate ripple effect.
          It is with great sadness, therefore, that I have concluded that I cannot accept the Laetare Medal or participate in the May 17 graduation ceremony.
          In order to avoid the inevitable speculation about the reasons for my decision, I will release this letter to the press, but I do not plan to make any further comment on the matter at this time.

Yours Very Truly,
Mary Ann Glendon

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¹ Since requiring Ambassador Glendon's resignation, President Obama has since attempted to name four successive ambassarors to the Holy See. Each one was rejected by Pope Benedict because they were all Catholics who had publically stated positions in oppostion of Catholic moral teaching regarding abortion. The Holy See's position is that it will gladly accept an ambassador who is not a Catholic regardless of his or her positions; but, if a Catholic is appointed, that person must be a faithful Catholic. Speculation is that President Obama continues to attempt to appoint lapsed Catholics with pro-abortion positions to simply "rub it in the face" of the Holy Father, whom Obama sees as an obsticle to his attempt to persuade American Catholics away from the moral teachings of their Church. —PP

6:37 PM 4/25/2009 — A few weeks ago, on Flowery Sunday, we read about how the woman caught in adultery had anointed our Lord’s feet with expensive perfume, and how Judas complained about the waste of money. It was our Lord who pointed out at that time the parallel between what she was doing and the common ritual for the anointing of dead bodies just before burial. This Sunday’s celebration commemorates the completion of that burial ritual. Our Lord died in the afternoon; and there was no time to complete the anointing ritual since, according to Jewish custom, the dead must be buried before sundown. So, these women come to the tomb with the intention of entering it to complete the anointing.
          There’s a subtlety about Mark’s Gospel which is often overlooked, but which comes out somewhat in this passage about the women coming to the tomb to anoint the body of the Lord. It is in Mark’s Gospel—and to a certain extent in Luke’s—that we learn most about the women in our Lord’s life: not only the Mother of God and his aunt, Elizabeth, but Mary Magdalene, Salome, Mary and Martha the sisters of Lazarus, the mother of the Apostle James (whose name was also Mary), and other holy women only referred to in passing, who followed the Lord and his disciples from village to village caring for their needs as they preached the Good News.
          Setting aside the Mother of God because of her unique role in salvation, you would have to say the leader of this auxiliary of the Apostles would be Mary the sister of Martha and Lazarus, because she expresses most perfectly the spirit of true discipleship. Remember that incident when Jesus comes to their home to celebrate after the resurrection of their brother, Lazarus: Martha complains to Jesus that Mary isn’t doing her fair share of the chores, taking care of the guests who had come to hear and see our Lord. And Jesus commends Mary for choosing what he calls “the better part...[the] one thing necessary.” What he means by that is that Martha is all worked up about what she believes are her responsibilities as a host; while Mary, obviously realizing the significance of our Lord’s visit, ignores all of that and spends the whole time sitting at our Lord’s feet so as not to miss a single word. Mary’s negligence of her chores has become the archetype, if you will, of the interior life. Hundreds and hundreds of years later, Father Garagou-Lagrange, writing what remains the quintessential manual for the spiritual life, would begin his book by saying that the whole purpose of the Christian life is to pursue and attain the “one thing necessary,” obviously making reference to our Lord’s words to Martha about Mary.
          We don’t hear a lot about these women; and their activities are not recounted with much detail, probably because they were women and it was a man’s world. By contrast, what we know of the Apostles is very detailed, and for that reason much less flattering. The Apostles, themselves, were often concerned with impressing our Lord, trying to be his favorite, always arguing about who would be greater than whom in God’s kingdom. But the women, when they are included in the narrative, are never concerned with their status or position before him. Unlike the Apostles, they seem to know from the beginning what our Lord wants of true disciples: that humble and contrite heart that is receptive to God’s word and disposed to his will. And they never really cared what anyone else thought. Remember that time when Mary Magdalene washed our Lord’s feet and dried them with her hair, and the Pharisees got all bent out of shape because she was a prostitute and Our Lord was accepting this very profound display of respect from her. The truth is that all people are sinners, the Pharisee as well as the prostitute; but only Mary was willing to admit what she was while they were not.
          Whenever the Pharisees encountered our Lord, they would try to trip him up with complicated theological questions about the Sabbath or the resurrection from the dead or the Mosaic law, in a transparent attempt to justify themselves. But when our Lord encountered the prostitute in John’s Gospel who was in the process of being stoned—after he shames her accusers and sends them away—she makes no attempt to justify herself or her behavior; she simply asks for our Lord’s mercy. And she receives it precisely because she made no pretense at being innocent. It was being forgiven that was important to her, not being right.
          It wasn’t important for her, and it isn’t important for us. And it is no mistake or whim of chance that three of these women, Mary Magdalene among them, were the very first to see our Lord risen from the dead. In every respect, they were the most perfect followers of Jesus. The Apostles all ran away when he was arrested. Only one of them, St. John, stood at the foot of the cross as he hung dying. It was on the testimony of these women that John and Peter went to the tomb to verify that our Lord’s body was not there, and then they thought it had been stolen.
          The lesson for us is the spirit that these women embody, both during our Lord’s earthly life and after. Choosing the better part—the “one thing necessary”—is the secret of our life with Christ. More than anything else, it is our life with Christ—our interior life—that will determine our salvation: not only union with Christ in prayer and through the Holy Mysteries, but also in the way we live our lives, conformed to God’s will and purpose, with Christ as the first love of our lives. Commenting on the woman who anointed our Lord’s feet, St. Ambrose said,

It was not the ointment that the Lord loved, but the affection; it was the woman’s faith that pleased him, her humility. And you, also, if you desire grace, increase your love; pour over the body of Jesus Christ your faith in the resurrection, the perfume of the holy Church and the ointment of charity towards others.

2:43 PM 4/24/2009 — As far as your PP is concerned, if we're going to let the Obama adminstration label us as right wing extreemists and potential terrorists—so it seems the war on terror is still on; the government has simply switched sides—we might as well know something about the history of our movement and its symbols.
          The use of the eastern diamondback rattlesnake as a symbol of the American colonies can be traced back to the publications of Benjamin Franklin. In 1751, he made the first reference to the rattlesnake in a satirical commentary published in his Pennsylvania Gazette. It had been the policy of Britain to send convicted criminals to America, and Franklin suggested that they thank the British by sending rattlesnakes to England.
          In 1754, during the French and Indian War, Franklin published his famous woodcut of a snake cut into eight sections. It represented the colonies joined together, with New England as the head and South Carolina as the tail, following in order along the coast. Under the snake was the message "Join, or Die." This was the first political cartoon published in an American newspaper.
          As the American Revolution grew closer, the snake began to see more use as a symbol of the colonies. In 1774, Paul Revere added it to the title of his paper, The Massachusetts Spy, as a snake joined to fight a British dragon. In December 1775, Benjamin Franklin published an essay in the Pennsylvania Journal, under the pseudonym "American Guesser," in which he suggested that the rattlesnake was a good symbol for the American spirit:

I recollected that her eye excelled in brightness, that of any other animal, and that she has no eye-lids—She may therefore be esteemed an emblem of vigilance. She never begins an attack, nor, when once engaged, ever surrenders: She is therefore an emblem of magnanimity and true courage. As if anxious to prevent all pretensions of quarreling with her, the weapons with which nature has furnished her, she conceals in the roof of her mouth, so that, to those who are unacquainted with her, she appears to be a most defenseless animal; and even when those weapons are shewn and extended for her defense, they appear weak and contemptible; but their wounds however small, are decisive and fatal: conscious of this, she never wounds till she has generously given notice, even to her enemy, and cautioned him against the danger of treading on her. Was I wrong, Sir, in thinking this a strong picture of the temper and conduct of America?

          In fall 1775, the United States Navy was established to intercept incoming British ships carrying war supplies to the British troops in the colonies. To aid in this, the Second Continental Congress authorized the mustering of five companies of Marines to accompany the Navy on their first mission. The first Marines that enlisted were from Philadelphia and they carried drums painted yellow, depicting a coiled rattlesnake with thirteen rattles, and the motto "Don't Tread On Me." This is the first recorded mention of the future Gadsden flag's symbolism.
          At the Congress, Continental Colonel Christopher Gadsden was representing his home state of South Carolina. He was one of three members of the Marine Committee who were outfitting the first naval mission. It is unclear whether Gadsden took his inspiration from the Marine's drums, or if he inspired them himself.
          Before the departure of that first mission, the newly appointed commander-in-chief of the Navy, Commodore Esek Hopkins, received the yellow rattlesnake flag described above from Gadsden to serve as his distinctive personal standard. Gadsden also presented a copy of this flag to his state legislature in Charleston and was recorded in the South Carolina congressional journals:

Col. Gadsden presented to the Congress an elegant standard, such as is to be used by the commander in chief of the American navy; being a yellow field, with a lively representation of a rattle-snake in the middle, in the attitude of going to strike, and these words underneath, "Don't Tread on Me!"

Considered one of the first flags of the United States, the flag was later replaced by the current Stars and Stripes (or Old Glory) flag. Since the Revolution, the flag has seen times of reintroduction as a symbol of American patriotism. For instance, unofficial usage of the Gadsden flag by the U.S. Government has been seen, particularly in the wake of September 11, 2001, most notably by Customs and harbor patrol boats in U.S. ports and individuals serving abroad in the U.S. Military.
          The design for the first US Navy Jack was directly related to the Gadsden flag, displaying the snake and motto from the latter on a field of thirteen stripes; since the terrorist attacks on 9/11, it is flown on all active US Naval ships. The rattlesnake symbol is also part of the U.S. Army Drill Sergeant Identification Badge.
          A Gadsden flag was presented to the town manager of Killington, Vermont, by a representative of The Free State Project after that town's 2004 vote to pursue secession from Vermont. The Free State Project has also adopted a unique version of the Gadsden Flag as the flag of their organization. Their flag bears a porcupine rather than a snake, as the porcupine was chosen early on as a mascot of the Free State Project.
          On March 13, 2009, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) commissioned the Missouri Information Analysis Center (MIAC) to publish a report on its behalf concerning the guidelines by which law enforcement should determine whether a person may be a member of an extremist group. Included in this report is a line that specifically references those who display Gadsden's flag. Other signs that your milk man or baby sitter might be a possible domestic terrorist—according to DHS—would be if he's Pro-Life, has Conservative values, is concerned about the decline of America's economy and place as a Superpower, is a "Tea Party" protester, supports the Second Amendment, goes to church regularly, or if he has served in America's military. According to DHS, such people are Extremists that are in need of "being closely watched" by federal agencys such as the ATF, the FBI and others.
          Our Glorious Leader expects every American to do his duty! Snitch on your neighbor today—especially if he's been borrowing your power tools and not returning them—so you can help yourself and your country at the same time. Remember: if you see him going to church on Sunday, chances are he's got one of those manure bombs in his basement and is just waiting for the right opportunity to take out a Post Office.

by Priestly Pugilist

1:57 PM 4/18/2009 — The two Sundays which follow Pascha are dedicated to commemorating certain episodes related directly to the Resurrection of our Lord from the dead; and both of them, while they are clearly historical events, are packed with meaning and symbolism. Thomas Sunday, which we celebrate today, is really the first day of Thomas Week, a whole week focused on drilling into our brains the pragmatic implications of our Lord’s Resurrection. A glance at your bulletin gives a pretty good picture of what the Resurrection means to those who embrace it as fact and live their lives accordingly. Monday and Wednesday are the feast days of men who retired into solitude to live lives of extreme penance; Tuesday, Thursday and Friday are the feast days of martyrs, for whom the consequences of our Lord's divinity were worth their lives—one of them a bishop of the Church, and the other a Roman soldier whose feast is a Holy Day. Saturday is the feast of an evangelist who wrote a Gospel.
          Regarding Thomas himself, it is important to notice that our Lord does not blame Thomas for requiring proof of the Resurrection; after all, the other apostles were no less to blame, since the only reason they believed it was because they had seen our Lord. What’s interesting is that our Lord does not discourage the notion that faith needs to be based on some sort of credible grounds that make sense. When he appears to the apostle the second time, and Thomas is finally with them, while he does make the statement, “Blessed are they who have not seen, yet believe,” he still invites Thomas to touch his holy wounds. He’s willing to surrender the principle that faith should be blind. His statement presents the ideal, but the ideal is tempered by reality and an understanding of fallen human nature.
          One of the greatest joys of the priesthood is instructing converts in the faith—or at least it should be. Presumably one does not become a priest unless one is in love with the faith; and when one loves something, what greater joy is there than telling someone else about it? And there are two ways to go about it: you can take a didactic approach and just throw the truths of the faith out there, declare them revealed by God—which they are—and simply demand that the convert blindly accept them without question; but this is not what we do for the simple reason that this isn’t what our Lord did. Yes, he did say, “Blessed are they who have not seen, yet believe”; but he also spoke about the seed that falls into sandy ground, which sprouts up very quickly with enthusiasm, but is blown away at the first wind of trouble because its roots are not deep enough. When our Lord shows Thomas his wounds, he’s not compromising the truth; he’s just planting the seed in better soil; and, given the fact that Thomas, as a missionary, carried the Gospel farther than any other apostle, I don’t think any of us can find reason to quarrel with the results.¹

[ Thomas touching the wounded side of our Lord. From the Basilica of the Nativity in Bethlehem. ]

          Man is a divine being, created by God with an immortal soul; but that soul has been tainted with sin. Our fallen nature compromises our divinity. Our faith should be blind; but the simple fact is that it isn’t. Cardinal Newman, who was a convert himself, and who spent a lot of time working with converts, used to sum it up this way: “A hundred questions do not equal one single doubt.” After all, a person who outright doubts the faith is looking for a way out—he’s looking for a way not to believe because he doesn’t want to sacrifice the things that the faith will require from him—because a doubt does not seek an answer; it seeks an escape. But a person who questions is looking for a way in, because a question seeks an answer; and one cannot seek an answer sincerely without wanting to find it; and when he finds it, he conforms himself to it.
          Last Friday, at the conclusion of Solemn Vespers, just after we had processed with the shroud of our Lord and laid it in the tomb, I spoke to you about the phenomenon of so-called “Christians” who want Christ without his cross; and Sunday morning again I mentioned those who want to drink the honey of Easter Sunday morning, but not the vinegar of Good Friday afternoon. That theme carries over into Thomas week as well because of the manner which our Lord chose to strengthen the faith of Thomas: he doesn’t do card tricks; he doesn’t stand on his head; he doesn’t throw things around the room like a poltergeist—later, he would eat in the presence of his disciples to prove he was real; but he doesn’t even do that on this occasion. For the very first test of his Resurrection, our Lord simply shows Thomas the marks of his passion. That is significant. And the commemorations of Thomas Sunday and Thomas Week, right on the heals of Easter, are there to caution us against any presentation of the Christian message which seeks to eliminate the Cross and the crucifixion—against anyone who would try to soften and humanize Christ so that he becomes a mild and likable teacher of social principles; those for whom the mystery of the Cross and it’s implications in their personal and practical lives are too harsh; those for whom the repentance, asceticism and sacrifice for which the Cross stands are simply unacceptable. By showing his wounds to Thomas, Christ is warning us to reject the false “Christs” that these deniers of the Cross set up for us. Like Thomas, we insist on looking at and touching the wounds of our Lord; because we know that a “Christ” who does not carry the imprint of the nails is not authentic; and we shall reserve our adoration for the Crucified One alone. Only the Christ who shows us that the road to heaven is the Way of the Cross is the one to whom we shall say, “My Lord and my God.”

by Father Michael Venditti

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¹ Thomas is not mentioned in the Gospels following this event; thus, we know nothing for certain about his post-Resurrection activities. Nevertheless, according to ancient traditions, St. Thomas reportedly landed at Kodungalloor (Muziris) in 52 A.D., and founded seven churches in Southern India in what is now known as the province of Kerala: at Kodungalloor, Niranam, Kollam, Chayal, Kottakkavu, Kokkamangalam and Palayoor, preaching the Gospel to both the natives and the Jewish diaspora (there were Jewish colonies in South India before the Christian era, and these seven churches are at or near the sites of those colonies).
     The largest group of so-called "St. Thomas Christians" tracing their origins to the Apostle's activities in India is the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, a Major Archiepiscopal Church in full communion with Rome, which uses the Chaldean (Eastern Syrian) liturgical rite. Kerala remains today India's only province with a Catholic majority, and the only portion of India where the pro-Hindu government allows the making of converts to Christianity. Outside Kerala, Christians are subjected to legal—and often violent—persecution. While these persecutions subsided somewhat during the life of Mother Teresa, they returned full force after her death.
     A so-called "Gospel of Thomas" surfaced during Gnostic times; but the Church soon rejected it as a forgery; this did not prevent the Gnostics from using its heretical contents to try to disprove the divinity of Christ in the fourth and fifth centuries. Author Dan Brown used elements of this forged "gospel" in his novel, "The Da Vinci Code."

10:51 AM 4/14/2009 — For decades since Vatican II, Catholic leaders have insisted that Christian Unity must be persued come hell or high water. In it's name, we have been subjected to dialog after dialog, usually without any tangible results. Pope Paul VI gave us a Mass of the Roman Rite which contained elements of the Book of Common Prayer; the vernacular replaced Latin; Gregorian chant gave way to Protestant music; private devotions were branded as evil; all with the idea that, as a result, non-Catholics would flock to the Roman Catholic Church (oddly enough, the "ecumenism" sought after Vatican II was focused exclusively on American Protestantism with the whole spectrum of Eastern Christianity left out in the cold).
          On the Eastern Front, a similar campaign was waged: married priests were imported from Europe—there was no facility for training them here—; the heresy of oikonomia was embraced by many priests who secretly admitted divorced and remarried people to Holy Communion with neré a nod in the direction of the Tribunal; many even started sporting gray clerical garb and close-cropped beards in imitation of their favorite Orthodox Church; only to be met with continued jeers by the same Orthodox they thought were worthy of imitation.
          Therapists are now standing by to offer counseling, since the real secret to Christian Unity has been revealed by the two most important Christian leaders in the world—and it's not what everyone thought. We have Russia's Interfax news agency to thank for the shocking story (despite the fact that they are still having problems finding a good English translator):

[The] Refusal of Pope Benedict XVI to use politically correct language and offer compromise on traditional issues of Christian ethics has gained support [from] the Russian Orthodox Church.
     "The difference [between] this current Pope [and] his predecessor is that this Pope never watches for political correctness in his statements. This is the reason why his statements sometime produce [a] shocking effect on Western society: people there are not used [to hearing] the Church's Head voice a traditional standpoint of the Church," Bishop Hilarion of Volokolamsk, [the] new head of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Church Relations, said at a live broadcast of [the] "National Interest" program shown Saturday on [the] Rossiya TV Channel. That was [the] Bishop's comment o[n] criticisms aimed at the Pope, also by the French Ministry for Foreign Affairs, for his opposition to contraception.
     Bishop Hilarion continued that "we view this as a positive shift in the Catholic Church's position, because [the] head of the Church, in particular, [the] head of the largest Christian Church, should not adapt himself to any PC language, he should tell people what his Church teaches him to tell them."

Your PP found that last sentence interesting in that it betrays that Bishop Hilarion has a better grasp of the concept of Papal Infallibility than most Catholics. If it were better translated (and you can see that the translation must of been horendous), what His Grace probably said was, "...he should tell people what his Church has always believed as revealed by Christ." How many Catholics think that contraception is wrong because the Pope says so? How many actually understand that it's "wrong" because God, through the instrumentality of his creation, says it's wrong, and the Pope is just reporting the fact?
          When Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad was enthroned Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia last February, he specifically made mention of his "conservatism"—yes, sports fans, he actually used the "C" word—and most ecumaniancs assumed that that was the end of ecumenical dialog; after all, with unabashed conservatives running the operations on both sides, they'll never be able to compromise, right? Few people understood what Kirill and Benedict knew as fact: that it's not dialog and compromise that bring Christians together; it's the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the Tradition of the Apostolic and sub-Apostolic Fathers that cements all Christianity together.
          When your PP was a kid growing up in St. Jane de Chantal Roman Catholic Church, the Second Vatican Council was in progress. We used to do all sorts of things in conjunction with the local Baptist Church in town. But then ecumenism was invented; and all of a sudden we had to sit down and "dialog" about all sorts of things that neither of us at the parish level could have done anything about, such as inter-communion, and such. At that moment, all our common activities ceased; there was no time for our joint food drive or our annual passion play anymore; all we had time for was dialog—which did nothing but destroy the relationship between our two churches.
          Isn't it funny that today's ecumaniacs don't bother to take into account what the Prime Missionary of the Church had to say: "Preach the truth, whether convenient or inconvenient." Well, now we have two heads of two Churches who seem willing to do just that. I wonder what the ecumenists will do for a living now.

by Priestly Pugilist

1:50 PM 4/12/2009 —

In the past, the priests of our Eparchy were given a message from our bishop to read at this time; but, as you may have already seen, our Bishop has given us the option of reproducing his Paschal message in the parish bulletin; which means that this is the first time in many years that I’ve had an opportunity to preach on Easter Sunday. And in thinking about what might be said, I’ve settled on a somewhat bizarre plan of approaching the whole subject of the Resurrection by talking about death.
          When I graduated high school, I immediately went to college, like most folks in my class, but I didn't like it very well and wasn't all that good at it, so I dropped out. And it turned out to be a great thing to do: I worked, I made some money, I thought about what I really wanted to do with my life; and it was during that time that I decided to become a priest. So, it turned out to be a very formative three years.
          One of the fellows I was working with was a devout Buddhist. And when the time came for me to quit my job and go to the seminary, he gave me a gift. It was a book about Jesus, written by his local Llama—kind of like a Buddhist pastor. And it was a very beautiful book. It talked about all the wonderful things that Jesus said, all the wonderful things that Jesus did, together with some very practical meditations on how we could apply the message of Jesus in our own lives. What was wrong with the book was not what was in it, but what was not in it; and, what was not in it was the fact that Jesus is God.
          I've often thought of conducting an experiment: to take this book, erase the name of the author, replace it with the name of a Catholic Priest, perhaps a famous theologian, then give it out to Catholics and see how many of them would notice what's wrong with it; because, no matter how much you may know about the life of Christ, no matter how impressed you may be by the virtues of our Lord, if you don't believe that Jesus is God then you've missed the point, and you run the risk of becoming what I suppose we could call a "peace corps" Christian, someone who defines their “Christianity” by being nice to people and doing good deeds, but without believing in the truth, living the moral life or worshipping God as he deserves.
          There is a common scene which is repeated in almost every Catholic church rectory several times a year, in which someone who has just had a baby—and I’m not thinking of anyone in particular, just some imaginary person—wants some relative or other to be godfather to her child, except that this person she wants hasn’t been to church in years and is living with someone to whom he’s not married; and when you explain to her that this person is not qualified to be a sponsor for baptism, the response is always the same: “Well, he’s the kindest, most compassionate, most Christian person I know.” But she’s using the word “Christian” to mean some religion that she’s made up in her own mind, which apparently has nothing to do with what one believes or how one lives. In her mind, Christianity means being nice to people; and all that other stuff about morality and worship and sacraments...that’s all just stuff that somebody made up; it has nothing to do with Jesus.
          And that's why the resurrection of Christ is the central event of his life and of our Faith. If Jesus had come to earth and said nothing, and done nothing, taught nothing, cured no one, but had simply suffered and died and rose in total silence, our faith—our religion—would be essentially unchanged; because, our Faith is based only indirectly on the things that Jesus said and did on this earth. What our Faith is really based on is who he is; and who he is is God.
          Some time ago I had occasion to do a funeral for an old man who had grown up in the parish to which I was assigned at the time in New Jersey, but who had since moved to Florida, and who had wished to be buried from his old church. His only surviving relative was a daughter who was not Catholic. And she called me up three days before the funeral and wanted to meet with me so she could tell me about the life of her father, so I could preach about him. And I explained to her that in the Catholic religion it is not our custom to preach about the life of the deceased as in a Eulogy, but rather to speak about the resurrection of our Lord and the Pascal Mystery. And she had a very difficult time with this. For her, the funeral was a time to remember, which is not at all Catholic theology. Memories, after all, are dead things; they don't exist, they are simply in our minds; but the soul is immortal. It doesn't need anyone remembering it to live on; it lives on by it's own accord, either in eternal punishment or eternal reward. What the dead have done in their lives is over and done; our duty at the time of death is to pray for them, not to remember the details. So this woman, who practiced her Protestant faith devoutly all her life, like so many Christians before her, had missed the whole point: that Jesus is God, that he is risen from the dead, and that we, too, will live forever.
          Is this not the very point that Jesus tried, in vain, to communicate to the Twelve before they even went to Jerusalem? Think back to the Gospel passage with which we began Holy Week during the Liturgy of Presanctified Gifts on Tuesday evening. St. Matthew says: “From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things..., and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.
          “[And] Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, [saying], 'Never, Lord! This shall never happen to you!'
          “Jesus turned [on him] and said, 'Out of my sight, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men'” (Matthew 16:21-23).
          And I've wondered how many of us, when it comes time to attend the funeral of a loved one, are a stumbling block to Christ because we focus not on the things of God but on the things of men. Uncle Frank did this, Uncle Frank did that, a good husband, a concerned father, a hard working man, a pillar of society, none of which is important to us. It's important to Frank because it is the basis on which he will be judged by God; but it is not important to us, not anymore. What is important to us—and the only thing that is important to us—is the historical fact that Jesus Christ, the co-eternal Son of God, suffered, died, and rose from the dead. That is the only thing that is important to us at that moment. If it isn't, then we are not Christians; we are philosophers who have come to appreciate the "beauty of the Christian message," but we are not Christians, not if being a Christian means to believe that Jesus is the risen Lord and reigning God.
          “Christ is risen from the dead; by death he trampled death....” We will be singing this phrase over and over again all the way until Ascension Thursday; but what exactly does it mean? What does it mean to conquer death? Does it mean that, now, no one is supposed to die? If so, then something is terribly wrong. No. Nothing is wrong. Because that’s not what it means. The resurrection of Christ conquers death, not by making it so that no one dies, but by making death irrelevant. We pass from this world because this world is not our destiny. This is not where we are meant to be for eternity. That’s why the celebration of Pascha in our Church doesn’t end until the celebration of the Ascension. Just before Jesus ascends to his Father he tells his disciples, “Where I am going you cannot follow...yet...but one day you will, and I go to prepare a place for you.”
          So, when we are faced with death, whether our own or someone elses, our reaction to it is a measure of our faith. Do I live for this world or do I live for something higher, something better, something more worthy of me, something that was meant for me from the beginning?
          Last Sunday, I made very brief mention of the fact that Holy Week in our tradition begins with the commemoration of the raising of Lazarus, but I didn’t explain why. When Jesus visited the home of his friend Lazarus who had just died, he said to the dead man's sister, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will never die.” And then he asked her, “Do you believe this?” This is the ultimate question for all of us; because, whether Jesus is God, whether death has been conquered, whether this world is only a beginning, will decide how we relate to everything else that the Church believes and teaches. Because if it is not true, if it is all just symbolic, then we're free to pick and choose from the teaching of the Church as we please. So I can believe that life is a gift from God, but I don't have to believe that abortion is murder. I can believe that God hears my prayers, but I don't have to worship him on the Lord’s Day in church. I can believe that God forgives my sins—if I even admit I have any—but I don't believe I have to tell them to a priest. If Jesus isn't God, if it's all just a nice story, then I can believe as much of it as I want, and leave the rest.
          But remember what our Lord said: “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will never die.” And what that means is that you can be another Mahatma Ghandi, or another Martin Luther King, or another Albert Shwietzer, or even another Mother Teresa as far as deeds are concerned; but if you don't believe, then it's all a waste of time. I'm not saying that our good works are irrelevant. But it is the resurrection of Jesus from the dead and our faith in it that makes our good works pleasing to God, not the good works themselves; not just what we do but why we do it. And it is our willingness to share in the sufferings of Christ which makes us worthy to share in his resurrection. And our Lord knew that this was why many people, who were well thought of in this life, would not be saved. In Chapter Six of John's Gospel we see many people following Jesus on account of the many signs and wonders he had performed, the healings and cures; but as soon as he begins to teach about the cost of discipleship and the sacrifices that will be required of those who choose to follow him, as St. John so tersely put it, “Many who had followed him, followed him no longer.” How many of us are in that group, those "followers" of Jesus who want to eat the honey of Easter Sunday morning but will not drink the vinegar of Good Friday afternoon?
          Today, as we celebrate with joy the Resurrection of our Lord from the grave—as we pray that great prayer which turns bread and wine into his real flesh and blood—let us be certain of what we are celebrating, and truly celebrate it for what it is: that event without which we cannot be saved. And let us rededicate ourselves to following Christ, not because he is kind, not because he is good, but because he is God.

by Father Michael Venditti

10:37 PM 4/10/2009 — The event we remember this evening was not something that surprised our Lord, nor was it a disappointment to him. Many of his own disciples, we know, did not understand how what was happening was actually intended by our Lord. Peter, himself, the head of the Apostles, tried to prevent it in the Garden on the Mount of Olives as we read last night, until our Lord corrected him.
          Those of you who may have taken Latin in high school might remember this phrase...

Lustra sex qui iam peracta,
tempus implens corporis,
se volente, natus ad hoc.

It was a Latin poet, Venantius Fortunatus, in the Sixth Century, expressing the faith of the Church... se volente, natus ad hoc—"freely willed, born for this." Jesus wants this. He wants this cross. He wants this passion. He wants this suffering. Not because he's a masochist, but because he's a savior. This is the very reason he came to earth. And as our Lord gazed up along the way to the top of the mount of Golgotha, he saw it all, for he was God: he saw how the cross was to be loved and to be adored because he was going to die on it; he saw the witnessing saints who for love and in defense of the truth were to suffer a similar death; "he saw the triumph and the victories Christians would achieve under the standard of the cross. He saw the great miracles which, with the sign of the cross, would be performed throughout the world. He saw so very many men and women who, with their lives, were going to be saints because they would know how to die like him, overcoming sin."¹
          But, that's not all he saw. He saw a lot more. He saw the cross become an enigma once again. He saw future generations of men and women bearing his name—calling themselves "Christians"—paying lip service to the cross upon which he was about to die, trying to live their lives as if it never happened, latching on to this particular thing he said or that particular thing he did before his death, saying, "This is why he came. Live by these words, and you are a Christian." He saw that. He saw us thousands of years before we were born, trying so desperately to have him without his cross, trying to scull some meaning out of the story of his life which pays no reference to the reason for it.
          Some years ago, not long after I was ordained, I attended a debate at St. Vincent's College in New York between two very famous theologians. One was a priest by the name of Charles Curran. He was, at the time, a professor of moral theology at the Catholic University of America, before he was removed from that post by the Church. His opponent was one of his former pupils, and my former teacher, the late Msgr. William Smith. They debated many different points of Catholic moral theology, Msgr. Smith trying to defend the teaching of the Church and Fr. Curran trying to challenge it. And, as you can imagine, the debate finally got around to one particular moral issue which is very controversial. And Msgr. Smith gave a very able explanation of why the Church teaches what she does, and why it's important. And when he responded, Fr. Curran, instead of answering point by point the explanation that Msgr. Smith had given, simply said instead that many polls show that the vast majority of Catholics in our country disagree with the Church's teaching on this particular matter, and therefore the Church should rethink her "position." And that was all, and they moved on to other topics. At the end of the debate, there was an opportunity for the audience to ask questions. One of the persons who rose to ask a question was a very ordinary looking lay woman. And she asked Fr. Curran a two-part question. She said, "Father, you said that the vast majority of Catholics in our country disagree with Church teaching on this particular topic, and for that reason the Church should consider changing her teaching." And he acknowledged that that's what he had said. She then went on to ask, "Why is it, in your opinion, that Catholics disagree with this teaching? Is it because they have made their own study of history and theology and reached a conclusion that the Church's teaching is in error; or is it because they simply find it hard to live?" And he replied that it was because they found it hard to live. So, then she asked, "If, in your mind, this is unreasonable, then what is the meaning of the cross in the life of the Christian?" Fr. Curran was silent. He had no answer for her. And I can understand that because, in order for him to believe the way he does, he would have to believe that everything we commemorate here today never happened.
          The problem is that there's a little bit of Fr. Curran in each one of us. Not to say that we are openly denying the faith the way he did; but that we, in our own way, will often try to live our lives in the Church as if the cross never happened. So, Christianity becomes for us a philosophy of life in which it is necessary to be nice to each other and love one another, but sacrifice—intense personal suffering for the sake of the truth and as a means to achieving heaven—is not a part of our gospel; not that we deny it happened, but that we simply deny it a place in our lives. We may even acknowledge the truth of the Gospel openly, and venerate the tomb of our Lord with devotion as we will in just a few moments. But then, when the time comes to make a hard decision, whether it's in our marriage, or in our job, or in our family, or in our lives in general, all of a sudden that section of the Gospel we read today vanishes as if it never existed; and whatever we believe our Catholic faith to be, we say to ourselves, "It can't possibly mean that."
          This evening, as you approach to venerate the sacred wounds of our Lord with your lips, don't come forward because you think kissing the shroud is like some magic charm which will give you a blessing. Don't kiss the shroud because you think that by doing so you'll save your grandchildren from getting the flu, or that it will protect you from whatever "cooties" the evil spirits are throwing at you, or because it will help you win the lottery. Not that anyone here would do that. But as you kiss the wounds with your lips, embrace the wounds with your heart. Don't just venerate the shroud. Don't just embrace the historical cross upon which Jesus died. But when you venerate the sacred wounds, venerate as well whatever wounds you are carrying, in whatever form of suffering or difficulty the Lord—for whatever unknown reason—has allowed to come your way. And promise him that you will not try to deny it, because you understand that your cross, like his, is the door to heaven.

by Father Michael Venditti

---

¹ L. de Palma, The Passion of the Lord.

12:43 PM 4/8/2009 —

[Some time ago, your PP promised to weigh in on the flap regarding the Pope's comments on condoms which have been widely condemned as backward and stupid by just about everyone in every country. Instead, I'm going to let someone much more personally involved to do so.
     But before reading, consider the plight of the Holy Father. His job is to eludidate the teaching of Christ and his Church. It is not in his job description to acomodate the teaching of Christ to the sensibilities of the modern world. At some point, those of us who are Christians have to ask ourselves where our alegiences lie. After all, if Christ had said to himself, "Well, these Jews might be offended if I claim to be Son of God, so I'll backpedal on that for a while so no one is upset," then he wouldn't have been killed and we wouldn't have been saved. If the truth isn't worth dying for, then it's certainly not worth offending people.
     Chinwuba Iyizoba, an electrical engineer in Enugu, Nigeria, thinks the Holy Father's comments on condoms—that they are not helpful in the fight against AIDS—are right on, and suggests that rich, elitest white countries should try living in rural Africa for a while before blankenting the continent with condoms. His article, reproduced below with the kind permission of MercatorNet, should be read carefully by every lily white American Protestant who thinks the best thing we can do for the poor is help them not to breed is such unsightly numbers, and who believes the best weapon against disease is to eliminate the sick.
     After the article, I've provided some statistics to prove that Mr. Iyizoba is correct. —PP]

Sub-Saharan Africa has two-thirds of the world’s HIV/AIDS cases. So you would think that Western journalists and politicians might condescend to ask us what we think about how to fight AIDS. But they haven’t. A pity, because they would have found that many of us support Pope Benedict XVI’s scepticism about the effectiveness of distributing condoms.
          A few days ago, The Lancet, a leading British medical journal which regularly pontificates about public health, slammed the Pope for making “a false scientific statement that could be devastating to the health of millions of people”. I wonder if the editor of The Lancet has ever visited rural areas of Nigeria or South Africa. If he did, he would begin to see why fighting AIDS with condoms is like extinguishing a fire with petrol.
          First of all, many rural Africans are illiterate and proper use of condoms cannot be relied upon. In any case, many men think that it compromises sexual pleasure. “Would you eat sweets with a wrapper on?” is a common objection.
          Secondly, social organisation in rural Africa is quite unlike sedate suburban life in Sussex, or wherever the editor of The Lancet lives. In villages here there is often a low standard of moral behaviour. Men don’t get married but they do want children, so using condoms does not even come into their minds. They sleep with whomever they like until they are very old and need someone to cook for them. A man might be sleeping with six different women in a year. And the women often don’t mind whether a man will marry them or not.
          Day to day life is unlike the West. The huts are open and at night there is no electricity to supply light. Anything can happen. Thus rape of children as young as six is not uncommon. As most of these go unreported, the aggressors go scot-free. Even when the rapist is known, nothing much is done.
          In South Africa, which has some of the highest rates of AIDS in the continent, researchers claim that half a million women are raped each year. Journalist speak of a “rape epidemic”. More than a quarter of all the females can expect to be raped at least once in their life, even in infancy. Half of the victims are under 18. It is hard to get hard figures, because most attacks go unreported. Tell me, how do you persuade a rapist to use condoms?
          If condoms are so effective why is HIV still on the increase in Africa? One factor is certainly that people with condoms are emboldened to take more risks. Part of the counselling of people living with AIDS is “try not to spread it”—in a word, to live abstinence. But before they got the disease they were told “hey, no need to curtail your libido, just use condoms.” If personal control is not achieved before contracting HIV/AIDS it is often impossible afterwards. I overhead a chilling conversation once of a boy planning to sleep with a girl. “What if she has AIDS?” his friend asked. “Well then, I have seven years to live and I will enjoy myself to the limit,” he replied.
          There are even more basic obstacles. Many villagers are unschooled and know little about modern science. Poisoning or sorcery is suspected when people fall ill. Western medicine is often seen as a last resort after traditional healers have failed. So doctors find it difficult to explain to HIV/AIDS patients the cause of their illness. It is not uncommon for them to go to their graves with the stubborn belief that an enemy cast a spell on them. The more serious and "treatment defying" an illness is, the more it confirms the malignant power of the sorcerer.
          Villages are often cut off from distribution networks for goods and services because of difficult terrain. You can’t jump into your car and make a midnight trip to the pharmacist to buy a packet of condoms. In fact, you might be cut off from condom suppliers for weeks at a time. One doctor related to me a typical example. A youth in a village explained why he did not use condoms with his girl: “well, I had to convince and convince, and when she finally said yes, I could not risk going outside to buy condoms since she might change her mind before I came back.”
          And people are not just careless, they are ashamed. Here’s another story from the same doctor. A woman came to him for an antenatal check of her second child (the first was a year old). She discovered that she was HIV positive. She was terrified of what her husband would do to her. The doctors called the husband and tried to break the news gently. To their amazement he told them that he was HIV positive and had been on treatment for over a year—without telling his wife. Why? “Well, someone gave it to me,” he said. Many infected people deliberately spread the disease, thinking; “I can’t be the only one. Since someone gave me the disease, I will give it to someone else.”
          Plus, there are other means of transmission of AIDS which are unfamiliar in the West. One treatment you will not find in Cleveland is medical scarification. A traditional healer in a village will make an incision over the affected area to discharge fluid or blood. The healer uses the same implement to cut different people, leading to the spread of HIV/AIDS and other infections. Traditional scarification for aesthetic or cultural reasons also exists and is no more hygienic.
          It is true that in rural Africa HIV/AIDS spreads mainly through heterosexual relationships. But it is also transmitted by intravenous drug users. African villagers prefer injected drugs to tablets because, so they think, it is better value for money. So the local chemists (who are seldom trained pharmacists) oblige them. Sometimes they save money by reusing syringes and not swabbing the skin with disinfectant. The resulting infections sometimes create huge abscesses.
          The Pan African Health foundation (PAHF), a non-profit HIV/AIDS prevention charity, is building a factory in Nigeria with a capacity of 160 million syringes a year. This will supply 20 percent of Nigeria’s needs and, when fully operational, most of sub-Saharan Africa. Inexplicably, American and British foreign aid agencies which doled out lavish donations for condoms to fight HIV/AIDS were not interested in supporting the foundation. The local state government finally gave some funding.
          UNAIDS, the international agency which coordinates research and treatment for AIDS around the world, is a strong supporter of condoms. Its official position is that: “The male latex condom is the single, most efficient, available technology to reduce the sexual transmission of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections.”
          Note the stress on the word “technology”. The condom is just a technology. And technology is not much good for changing behaviour.
          The West is addicted to technology as a substitute for free will and moral effort. If you eat too much, you get gastric banding surgery. If you’re depressed, you take Prozac. If you’re a smoker, you wear nicotine patches. Here in Africa, this fantasy has collided with the reality of the AIDS crisis. There is no technology to tame sexual desire. There is only self-restraint and faithfulness to your partner. These will eventually rein in AIDS; condoms won’t.

by Chinwuba Iyizoba

In response, a "Freeper" provides the following statistics from two countries that have very different approaches to the AIDS epidemic, one Catholic and the other not:
          In 1987, the Philippines had 135 reported cases of HIV/AIDS, and Thailand had 112. The Philippines, a mostly Catholic country, responded with their "Abstinence" and "Be Faithful" campaigns. Thailand launched a massive campaign to encourage the use of condoms. In 1991, the World Health Organization, showing it's bias, predicted that the Philippines would have 80,000 to 90,000 reported cases, while it prdicted 60,000 to 80,000 in Thailand. They were wrong.
          By 1999, the Philippines had 1,005 reported cases of AIDS, while Thailand reported 755,000¹.
          Here are the current 2007 statistics²:

Philippines
Population: 91.4 million.
HIV/AIDS prevention program: "Abstinence" and "Be Faithful".
Reported cases of AIDS: 8,300.
Deaths from AIDS: less than 200.

Thailand
Population: 66.1 million.
HIV/AIDS prevention program: condoms.
Reported Cases of AIDS: 610,000.
Deaths from AIDS: 30,000.

Q.E.D.!

by Priestly Pugilist

---

¹ British Journal of Medicine, volume 328, April 10, 2004.
² United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS at UNAIDS.

11:57 AM 4/6/2009 — Liturgically, we look forward to the whole cycle of the Holy Week services, with all of their rich and profoundly moving symbolism, all culminating is the feast of feasts, the glorious Resurrection of Our Lord, God and Savior, Jesus Christ. The week, as we know, begins in a high note, with our Lord’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem. We bless and carry pussy willows and palms because, as the Gospel tells us, these things were thrown on the ground in the path of our Lord as he traveled into the city. Yet, woven through the services of this day, which on the surface seem so joyful, is an underlying tone of dread which gives clarity to the whole week and puts today’s celebration in perspective.
          Unlike in the Latin Church, the observance of Holy Week in the Byzantine Tradition begins with Lazarus Saturday and the raising of Lazarus from the dead. The spectical of Lazarus sister, Mary, washing our Lord’s feet and anointing them with oil is central to setting the theme for the week. She, after all, is the one who has “chosen the one thing necessary." When Mary anoints the feet of Jesus, seemingly out of love and devotion, we realize, as does our Lord, that she’s really anointing him in preparation for his burial, even though she doesn’t know this. And it becomes obvious that the triumpant procession we remember today is really a funeral procession, even though no one there at the time knew it except Jesus himself. They wanted to crown Jesus on this day and make him King; and, he would be King. But the crown he would wear would be a crown of thorns; and his reign as a king would begin with his death.
          Those people, lining the streets of Jerusalem throwing their palms—and let’s not forget they were, in all likelihood, the same ones shouting “Crucify him!” just a few days later—couldn’t have understood this, but we must. We must begin Holy Week with this perspective: that just as Jesus’ kingship is defined by his suffering and death—just as His power and reign as a king become real in the darkest moments of his passion—so Jesus is present for us even as we face the darkest moments of our lives. We can’t help, as we relive this week the sufferings of Christ, to think of our own sufferings. But it was through his sufferings that Jesus became a king and acheived the purpose for which he came to earth. Just so, no matter what we may be suffering through in our lives, if we unite that suffering to Christ’s, then it can raise us up just as it did him.
          It’s not easy to believe, sometimes, when we are suffering and feel abandoned. It’s not easy to think that it is precisely through our sufferings that we can receive the greatest graces and blessings; just as it wasn’t easy for St. John and the other disciples, watching Jesus die on the cross, to believe that their glory and the glory of the Church they would establish, was just beginning.
          So, as we relive today this complex scene—the parade of cheers that ends in death—let us contemplate our hardships and sufferings and thank God for them, and resolve to unite them to the sufferings of Christ, and so realize, in spite of how sorry we like to feel for ourselves sometimes, how richly blessed we are by the God who suffered for us.

by Father Michael Venditti

11:32 AM 4/6/2009 — Congressional Quarterly has posted a transcript of last week's “Fox News Sunday" interview by Chris Wallace with former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich. This is a portion of that transcript:

WALLACE: Mr. Gingrich, you have been a Baptist most of your life, and last Sunday you converted to Catholicism. Why, sir?

GINGRICH: I’m not talking about this much publicly, but let me just say that I found over the course of the last decade, attending the basilica, meeting with Monsignor Rossi, reading the literature, that there was a peace in my soul and a sense of well being in the Catholic Church, and I found the mass of conversion last Sunday one of the most powerful moments of my life.

WALLACE: You have—it’s no secret—been married and divorced twice. Will you be able to participate fully in communion and all the other rites of the Catholic Church?

GINGRICH: Yes, we have done everything within the law of the church, following all of the rules of the church over the last 10 years. And it’s been a process. It’s been a very long process and something which was deeply affected, in part, by Pope Benedict XVI’s visit and the opportunity I had to sit in—as you know, my wife, Calista, sings at the basilica every Sunday, and I was allowed as a spouse to be there as part of the vespers program when the pope came. It’s been a long process.

WALLACE: And if I might ask, just briefly, what is it about the pope’s visit that led to this?

GINGRICH: I really believe, first of all, seeing the joy in his eyes, listening to his message, and I really believe that his basic statement, Christ our hope, is right. And I think much of what’s wrong with our country and with the western world is a function of looking inside ourselves, not just looking at money or looking at our wallets.

By the way, the mention of Msgr. Walter Rossi, Rector of the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, provides another name-dropping opportunity for your PP, as we were in the seminary together. And, no, I was not in the seminary with everyone—just all the important people.

by Priestly Pugilist

2:57 PM 4/2/2009 —

[Your PP includes this item not only because it's "stand-alone" probative value, but also because it's so clear an illustration of the disease that infects us as a Church. I won't rehash the events of the situation concerned here, since Father Euteneurer does an excellent job of that himself; but compare this with the situation your PP commented on in the article I wrote below: "We have been placed on the Index of Forbidden Blogs." Neither Archbishop Wuerl nor Archbishop Fisichella believe abortion is justified—or are even "soft" on the issue; it's simply that they have the disease: when someone shoves a microphone or camera in their faces, or a reporter calls up and says, "I'm doing a story on...," their spines turn instantly to Jell-O. Remember, last year your PP speculated regarding what Archbishop Wuerl would do if some other bishop ever took him up on his offer to actually request that a subject be refused Holy Communion:

By ignoring Canon Law, Wuerl is looking for a public relations "out." If, for example, the Archbishop of Boston were to send him a letter saying that he does not want Ted Kennedy receiving Holy Communion, Wuerl would have no problem with instructing his priests to refuse the senator; this way, were someone to shove a microphone in his face and ask him about it, he could say, "It has nothing to do with me." It's not that he has a problem with human life issues or Church teaching; he just doesn't what the onus to be on him. He's a Tame.

Well, it seems your PP might have been giving His Tameness a little too much credit. Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City has, in fact, informed Archbishop Wuerl that he does not want Secretary of Health and Human Services nominee Kathleen Sebelius to receive Holy Communion, and His Tameness is dragging his feet. That request came weeks ago; and Wuerl, to date, has told his priests nothing. One is reminded of the remark by William Cardinal Levada, the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, about the unseemliness of what he called "territorial morality." Now, it seems, providing formal or material support for abortion is a mortal sin in Kansas City, but not in Washington, DC. But tell Wuerl that he's shooting holes all through the Gospel of Life, and he would probably behave like Robbie the Robot, complete with sparks flying out of his neck because his brain simply can't compute what you're saying. He's not a heretic; but the concern for a smooth public profile with no unsightly bumps just shuts down the whole system—kind of like a "general protection fault" that suddenly shuts down your Windows computer for cryptic reasons known only to Bill Gates.
     Archbishop Fisichella's problem is the same. He's not "soft" on abortion; but it's the classic hard case: a child pregnant from rape. In his heart of hearts, he knows the abortion was wrong; but excommunicating the abortionists, as Archbishop José Cardoso Sobrinho did, is a public relations nightmare...so, he pours water into the vinegar in an attempt to make the Church seem less of an unfeeling bully in the eyes of people who aren't going to look favorably on the Church no matter what she does; and in so doing, causes more harm than he could have imagined. I wonder what goes through his mind when he reads the words of St. Paul: "Preach the truth, whether convenient or inconvenient."
     Father Thomas J. Euteneuer is president of Human Life International, a Catholic organization which works to promote the Gospel of Life. —PP]

It is no secret that pro-lifers over the years have been greatly burdened by the general lack of support by many of the members of our clergy on life issues, but until now, we have been able to rely on the various Vatican offices for a clear, consistent and correct defense of life. A statement made two weeks ago by an official of the Vatican about an abortion case in Brazil, however, has raised more than a few eyebrows, and is causing grave concern for its potential impact on the Church's ability to defend life around the world. I am asking your prayers that the Holy See will clarify and correct this situation right away before further damage is done.
          The incident in question involves—unbelievably—the head of the Pontifical Academy for Life, Archbishop Rino Fisichella, who issued a statement on March 15th criticizing a bishop in Brazil for properly declaring to be excommunicated the doctors who performed an abortion on a nine-year-old girl who was pregnant from rape. The girl was pregnant with twins so the doctors aborted two babies. Despite her young age, she was not in any serious danger (according to the hospital), nor were the two babies she was carrying in any danger. Even if she would have been in danger, the abortion would have been immoral because the direct killing of the innocent never is allowed. It goes without saying that the Church condemns unequivocally the incestuous act committed against this young girl, however, the issue of excommunication of the perpetrators of the abortion stands on its own and deserves applause, not criticism by other prelates. Unfortunately, Archbishop Fisichella is not the only bishop to publicly criticize the decision of the Brazilian bishop in applying church law.
          The innocent little girl, thus, became the center of a perfect storm created by the abortion industry which capitalized on her victimization to promote abortion in Brazil where it is currently illegal. Unfortunately, Abp. Fisichella's intervention gave the impression of a quasi-doctrinal statement and played right into the hands of the abortion promoters by seeming to give permission for abortion in such a "hard case" scenario. Archbishop Fisichella was not condoning these abortions per se, but due to some unfortunate choices of words in his article, and predictably, on the very day that Abp. Fisichella issued his statement, the Associated Press picked it up and titled their own article, "Vatican prelate defends abortion for 9-year-old." The world is indeed watching and listening to what comes out of the Vatican because of the Holy See's immense moral and spiritual authority; hence the responsibility to be loyal without fault when speaking in the name of the Catholic Church.
          I applaud most of all the handling of this case by the local diocese in Brazil and pray that all bishops may take an example from this picture perfect handling of a difficult pastoral situation. Credit needs to go to Archbishop José Cardoso Sobrinho and several priests of his diocese for providing generous pastoral care to the family during this terrible crisis. Indeed, when the girl was transferred to a hospital 140 miles away from the parish, her priest travelled that distance every day to visit her and to assure the family that the Church would provide every possible care for the welfare of the three vulnerable children.
          The great irony in all this is that while we get little or no support from Church officials to correct bishops who are negligent in their duty to guard the faith and the flock, in this case, the local bishop did exactly the right thing in issuing this excommunication edict and he was slapped down by a Vatican official!
          The appearance of a Vatican compromise on this issue comes at the worst possible time in the cultural and political situation of Latin America. This Catholic continent is especially the target of attack by the aggressive forces of the culture of death, so the last thing we need is for the Church to look weak or divided about our teachings or our resolve to fight the purveyors of death to our brothers and sisters there. The Catholic Church, and her divine authority, is in many places the only shield that the unborn have to keep the abortionists' instruments of death from them. Let us pray that the Vatican will rectify this error and fortify that shield without delay. The unborn children of Brazil as well as all other parts of the world are counting on us!

by Rev. Thomas J. Euteneuer

12:53 AM 3/31/2009 —

[I was going to comment on this myself; but this is much better. —PP]

This Notre Dame business, I have to admit that I'm perplexed. Notre Dame is what? Notre Dame is the only university that I know of that has a giant mosaic of Jesus overlooking the football field, with arms up-spread as though Jesus is signaling touchdown. That's why they call it Touchdown Jesus at Notre Dame. They're a Catholic school. They have a tradition of inviting new presidents to deliver the commencement address—and so they invited, in the spirit of this tradition, President Obama. Now, as we know, the Catholic Church's official position on life is...LIFE. The official position on life is not abortion or "choice" or anything of the sort.
          I know this is going to perhaps be offensive to some of you who are new to the program, but the truth is the truth, and this program is about truth. We attempt to find the truth. We secure the truth on this program, and the truth is, that President Obama—by virtue of his votes, as a member of the Illinois Senate, and as a member of the United States Senate—is perhaps the most anti-life president. Well, there's no question. He is the most anti-life president we have had in American history. This is a man who three times voted for infanticide in Illinois. He tried to excuse it any number of ways, but this is a man who voted three times, that if a baby survives an abortion, it may still be killed because of the mother's original intent to abort it.
          If the abortion is botched, the doctor can go ahead and complete the job outside the womb. He voted for it three times. I don't care what your position on abortion is, but now we're not talking about abortion, not when the child has been born outside the womb and is alive. And Obama voted three times to support the notion of infanticide. The pro-abort crowd is a militant ideological group of people to whom abortion is a political advancement. It's a political achievement. It's rooted in feminism and liberalism, which is also inexorably linked. He has taken steps every chance he's gotten to make abortion easier.
          His nomination of Kathleen Sebelius...Well, his whole administration is made up of these people. I'm not Catholic, but I look at this and say, "This doesn't make any sense. This does not pass the common sense test." I understand the tradition of inviting newly elected presidents. I understand the historical nature of President Obama's election. I understand all of that. But do none of our institutions value their principles anymore or their core beliefs or their religious foundations? Are they so easily discarded for public relations or political correctness? You know what's even more stunning to me? This is—and I say this happily. What's even more stunning is the degree to which this is being protested there, by students.
          Now, some students are just upset that the whole commencement is going to become a circus because of this, but some of them are upset over the substance of it. There are a lot of Catholics who are upset about this. There are also a lot of Catholics who voted for Obama, knowing full-well everything that I just told you. But in an era where principles, core believes, and the essence of one's being are so casually discarded, it is a shock to me to see something as venerable at Notre Dame University cast theirs aside for reasons of comparatively no substance. Political correctness, tradition. Does not the tradition of having the newly elected president do your commencement address pale in comparison to the foundational building blocks of the university and the church on which it's founded? Are they going to have to cover up Touchdown Jesus the day Obama makes his speech? How could they not?
          One more thing about this Notre Dame business. You know, ladies and gentlemen, it's not just that Obama has the most outrageous anti-life record and agenda of any president in history, it is that they're going to give him an honorary degree. There are some people who wouldn't really care about the commencement, but the honorary degree, that's sending other people over the top. Of course, the honorary degree is automatic for a president showing up to do the commencement address. There's a lot going on behind the scenes at Notre Dame. Protests are being planned. Some faculty and former faculty are really mad about it, but they're not going public yet. Notre Dame is not backing down on any of this. The times when people stand to assert their principles just boggles my mind. Now, here's something else. For those of you—Protestants and Catholics alike, and even you Jewish people, I mean everybody, while all this is going on, you need to know that the Obama administration is now thinking of rescinding what's called the "conscious clause."
          Right now 15% of American hospitals are Catholic hospitals. Rescinding the conscious clause, this is currently under comment period 'til April 9th, of all days, that's Good Friday, or close to, bad Thursday, whatever. The comment period here going on until April 9th, if they rescind the conscious clause, if you've never heard of it, you'll understand what it is here in mere moments—rescinding the conscious clause would force Catholic and religious pro-life health professionals to seek other careers, possibly shut down Catholic hospitals that would refuse to provide abortion services. Rescinding the clause would require Catholic hospitals to perform abortions. Now, we wonder how this fits with the universal health care message. So while the Obama administration is actually thinking of rescinding the conscious clause—the conscious clause means that I can't willingly perform an abortion because of my conscience, I'm Catholic. Catholic doctors have an exemption right now in federally funded places. That's going to be taken away, they're thinking of taking it away forcing Catholic and religious pro-life health professionals, people, to seek other careers and maybe shut down some Catholic hospitals. All this and Notre Dame is not backing down. Notre Dame is holding firm to their invitation.

by Rush Limbaugh, www.RushLimbaugh.com

12:10 AM 3/31/2009 — The two separate and distinct Gospels we read on this day reflect the dual nature of this Sunday, dedicated to the memory of our Holy Mother Mary of Egypt. The account from St. John of our Lord and the woman caught in adultery is included because of Mary of Egypt, who began her life as a prostitute, but who, after her conversion, dedicated it to a life of solitary penance. The first Gospel of the two, however—the one from St. Mark—is the one I would like to focus on today, because I find it a very consoling Gospel of us during this Holy Season. You might find it a little odd that I would say that, since it portrays the Apostles in a very unfavorable light. First, as Jesus and his disciples are on the way to Jerusalem, it says that they were afraid because they pretty well new that, once they got to Jerusalem, Jesus would, at the very least, be involved in great difficulty; and some of them must have already suspected that an attempt would be made on his life there. Jesus confirms this himself when he pulls his twelve closest disciples aside and tells them outright that he will, indeed, die in Jerusalem. So, the fear which overtakes them when faced with this seems rather unflattering. Then, right on the heals of this shocking announcement, the twelve begin to regress into some very childish behavior. James and John want Jesus to promise them a special place in the Kingdom of Heaven, which our Lord refuses, promising only that they’ll be permitted to suffer with him; which then causes the other ten Apostles to become jealous. It seems so ridiculous in the face of what’s about to happen to them.
          And this is the very reason that I find this passage so consoling: because it shows the defects of the Apostles so clearly—and two very crucial defects at that: immaturity and cowardace. Keep in mind that these same men are, very soon now, going to be without Jesus, at least not as a man among them; and they will assume the task of establishing our Lord’s Church throughout the world, and all but one of them will die a martyr’s death under brutal circumstances. Is it possible for men to change so much in so short a time? We know they did. And our own St. John Chrysostom explains why:

...let no man be troubled at the apostles being in such an imperfect state. For not yet was the cross accomplished, not yet the grace of the Spirit given.

2:37 PM 3/23/2009 — As I’m sure you’ve noticed, some of the Sundays of the Great Fast are dedicated to specific people or specific spiritual ideas. Last Sunday focused on the Veneration of the Holy and Life-giving Cross. Next Sunday is dedicated to the very ascetic Mary of Egypt. Today we are asked to consider St. John Climacus, which isn’t, of course, his real name. Climacus means ladder. Shortly after his death—and maybe a little during his life—he was refered to as “John of the Ladder” because he chose to explain the spiritual life in terms of a ladder: each rung must be stepped on safely and securely before one can proceed to the next; and if one climbs steadly one will eventually reach heaven. He was born in the 7th century, and lived a life marked by such explicit penance that the Eastern Churches have taken to setting him up as an example for all of us during the Great Fast. His actuall feast day is on the 30th of this month; but, since his book, “The Laddar,” is typically read in monasteries throughout the Great Fast, a Lenten Sunday dedicated to his memory seemed logical.
          But, of course, like most of the saints of the early Church, John Climacus was a monk. He didn’t have a family, he didn’t have a job, he didn’t have most of the responsibilities that most of us in today’s world have; so, how could the life of this 7th century monk possibly serve as an example of any value to us, other than just one of general holiness? In that question, of course, is the great error of the modern age. In fact, it’s the error of every age, since every age believes itself to be superior to the past, just like every child grows up believing that he is far better equipped to deal with life than his parents were. And, besides, with so much going on in the world today, the combination of our own personal responsibilities and struggles with the distraction of world events tempts us to simply not want to listen to someone sitting on a rock in the 7th century contemplating how the spiritual life is like the rungs of a ladder.
          But then we hear the words of today’s Gospel, in which our Lord says something very curious and extremely important. It is, of course, an account of how our Lord helped a boy who was possessed by a very malicious demon. He’s brought to our Lord by his father, who explains that he wouldn’t have bothered our Lord with this problem execpt that he did take the boy to our Lord’s disciples and they couldn’t help him. So, our Lord exorcises the demon and restores a normal life to the boy, and everyone’s happy. And after it’s all over, the disciples go to our Lord and ask how come they couldn’t do it. And our Lord tells them that this kind of demon can only be driven out by prayer. In other words, here was a very practical problem that turned out, in the end, to have a spiritual solution. And this is where the example of not only John Climacus but also John Chrysostom, Basil the Great, Mary of Egypt, and all the other holy monks and prophets and ascetics and mystics we revere so highly in our Church are not only relevant to us today, but what they have to say is more important than what anyone else has to say.
          To be sure, we have spoken on occasion here about current events and what they mean for us as Christians, but not extensively. And that’s because, compared to the interior life, nothing else is really that important. Not the war, not the whether, not the economy, not the AIG bonuses—nothing is more important than being right with God. Because if we’re right with God, then nothing that can happen to us, no matter how terrible, can truly harm us in those things that truly matter; and if we are not right with God, then nothing matters at all, since the very purpose of living in this world is to prepare ourselves for the next.
          That is not an easy thing to remember when all of life is exploding around us with excitement and tragedy. But, then, consider the man who’s boy was possessed. There, certainly, was a very heartbreaking problem both for the boy and his father. And the solution turned out to be what? No less than prayer.
          Remember what our Lord said when he was visiting the home of his friend, Lazarus, whom he had just raised from the dead. Lazarus had two sisters, Martha and Mary; and Martha was busying herself with making her guests comfortable while Mary ignored her duties as a hostess and was just sitting and listening to our Lord. And Martha complained. And what did our Lord tell her? “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and upset about many things. One thing only is necessary.” Well, we may be anxious and upset over a lot of things. I'm sure we are. Other things in life may be important relatively speaking, but there’s only one thing in life that is truly necessary. The whole point of the Great Fast is to help us make sure that, no matter what else may be going on in our lives or in the world, we never lose focus on that one necessary thing.

by Father Michael Venditti

2:06 AM 3/20/2009 —

[Yes, I'll get to the Pope and the flack over his true and correct statement about condoms; but only after all the other pundits out there have finished with it—so I can correct them. In the mean time, I picked up this rather interesting story from Catholica, an information site for faithful Catholics in Australia.
     For those who don't typically follow the news of world-wide wacky weirdness in the Catholic Church—and why should you, since that's what I'm here for—Australia is truely the land of fruits and nuts. For example, a priest in Brisbane has been removed from his post by his bishop because of bad habits such as celebrating Mass with things other than bread and wine. Now the priest is litigating to get the civil courts to void the bishop's decree removing him as pastor. The bishop, in turn, is also turning to the civil authorities to have the priest removed. Last year, the Cardinal-Archbishop of Sydney was threatened with criminal prosecution because he, in turn, threatened to excommunicate a prominent Catholic politician because of his public support of abortion. Clearly, the understanding of Church/state relations is a little different down under; not helped by the penchant of Australians in general to over-react to just about everything.
     What drew your PP's attention to the following is the fact that it concerns Eastern Catholics in Australia—a dangerous combination ripe with the potential for wacky weirdness. It seems that the shrimp-on-the-barby crowd is suffering the same sort of problems Eastern Catholics in the US suffered some years ago (and still suffer in small pockets here and there): unenlightened Roman Catholics who can't seem to grasp the concept that one can be Catholic without being Roman. Both sides in this country were able to straighten the thing out by that age-old technique of sitting down and talking it out—a concept which, so far, has alluded the Australians. It's rare now, in the US, for a bishop to confirm an Eastern Catholic kid who was already confirmed in infancy; nor is it still common practice for Catholic schools in this country to force Eastern Catholic children into First Communion classes in spite of the fact that they received Communion at baptism. Yes, it still happens from time to time, but not without consequences and a slew of apologies afterward. But down under, Eastern Catholics are still forced to fight for recognition as legitimate members of the Catholic Church.
     The following paper, entitled Some Issues regarding the Education of Eastern Catholic children in Latin Catholic Schools, and co-authored by Fr. Olexander Kenez and Fr. Brian Kelty, highlights the intensity that the debate over the neglect of Eastern Catholics in Australia has engendered. For those who lived through it in this country, it brings back bad memories, and a warning to remain diligent. Keep in mind that this paper is addressed to Australian Catholics. —PP]

Background

It may be surprising to some Catholics to read the following passage penned by Pope John Paul II over a decade ago:

Conversion is required of the Latin Church that she may respect and fully appreciate the dignity of Eastern Christians, and accept gratefully the spiritual treasures of which the Eastern Catholic Churches are bearers, to the benefit of the entire Catholic communion. [Pope John Paul II, Orientale Lumen, 2nd May 1995, Par. 21.]

Conversion is a strong word which makes demands of us. It is also a word that resonates well with the first preaching of Jesus as recorded in the Gospel of St Mark where Jesus says, "The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand; Repent and believe the Gospel" (Mk. 1:14).
          Why did the Holy Father urge Catholics with such forcefulness to change their ways? He replies, "to show concretely, far more than in the past, how much the Church esteems and admires the Christian East and how essential she considers its contribution to the full realization of the Church's universality". History tells us that things were not always so. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries Latin Catholic missionaries went to many countries in the Middle East and beyond inhabited by numerous Eastern Catholics. Campaigns were mounted to convert these peoples to Latin Catholicism or at the very least to Latinize the various Eastern Rites in which these Eastern Catholics worshipped; the autonomy of many churches was abrogated to Latin bishops; the faithful were often denied the ministry of their own priests. It was frequently held at the highest levels of the Roman Catholic Church that the Latin Rite was superior to all other rites.
          By the nineteenth century changes, which recognized the value and integrity of the Eastern Churches, made slow inroads on policies of the Catholic Church. At the Second Vatican Council the bishops of the Universal Catholic Church from both East and West met and proclaimed a renewed and more balanced theology of the Church. The Council taught that the Universal Catholic Church is "a communion of Churches" [Lumen Gentium, par. 23]. This was thrashed out with a clearer refinement in the Council's document on Eastern Churches as follows:

The Church is made up of the faithful who are organically united in the Holy Spirit by the same faith, the same sacraments and the same governance. They combine into different groups, which are held together by their hierarchy, and so form individual churches [Orientalium Ecclesiarium, par. 2].

          Recent immigration has ensured a place in the Australian Catholic Church for many Eastern Catholics. The largest of these Churches have their own bishop(s) and therefore exist as autonomous ritual Churches. They are: the Maronite, the Melkite, the Ukrainian and the Chaldean Churches. Their people are mostly from the Middle East and Slavic countries. There are other communities who may have priests of their own Church but who depend on the local Latin bishop for governance and pastoral care. Some of the Churches included in this group are: the Armenians, the Catholic Copts, the Russians and the Syrians.

Pastoral Care

The Catholic School system in Australia was established to educate children in the Latin tradition of the Catholic Church. This being so, it is not surprising then, that they are successful in doing just that. When children of Eastern Catholic descent go to Catholic schools, they become educated in a Latin Catholic spirituality to the extent that they tend to become Latin Catholics themselves and abandon their Eastern Church of origin. This is obviously a highly undesirable state of affairs from the point of view of all the Catholic Churches.
          There is a dichotomy here. Students from Eastern Catholic families find one spiritual experience at home, and another at school. At School they have a Latin Catholic spirituality which tends to emphasise salvation as mediated through the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. At home they have a different spiritual experience. In the Eastern churches there is an emphasis on the Resurrection of Christ, the Holy Spirit and the Trinity. The Latin Catholic Church talks about Grace, the Eastern Churches talk about Theosis (becoming like God). Grace tends to emphasise a finality, whereas, Theosis puts an emphasis on a process of becoming.
          The cold reality is harsh. Many things continue to happen which do harm to the Christian upbringing of Eastern Catholic children and adolescents. Eastern Catholic Bishops frequently deal with complaints about the many attempts to confirm the children of their churches who have already been baptized and chrismated in infancy. Latin Catholic clergy frequently refuse communion to young children who are entitled to receive holy communion from the time of their reception of the mysteries of initiation which includes first Eucharistic communion. The lamentable ignorance of some Catholic school teachers is demonstrated by the not infrequent claims that Catholic schools are designed and meant for the education of Latin Catholics exclusively; all others must simply accept the regular religious practices offered in a one size fits all approach. Thus on Ash Wednesday it is common practice in the school setting to insist that all students accept the imposition of Ashes whether they be Latin Catholic, Eastern Catholic, Orthodox or even Buddhist. This seems to fly in the face of canon law and the principles of Catholic education as found in this recent authoritative Vatican statement:

The personal conscience of individual students and their families must be respected, and this freedom is explicitly recognized by the Church (Congregation for Catholic Education, The Religious Dimension of Education in a Catholic School, Rome, 1988, par. 6).

The same document goes on to refer to the imposition of religious practices as, "a moral violence which is strictly forbidden, both by the Gospel and Church law". In support of this assertion the following item of Canon Law is cited:

It is never lawful for anyone to force others to embrace the Catholic faith against their conscience (Code of Canon Law, 748, §2).

How much more so (one might hope) for fellow Catholics! The very enrolment of students in schools does carry certain rights as well as obligations. It is high time that the Catholic school system systematically respected the rights of all those Eastern Catholics who choose to enroll in Catholic Schools. Take for example the wearing of the prayer rope (chotki) which is clearly a religious emblem; most schools treat this as a piece of jewelery and thus forbid it. Eastern [Catholic] and Orthodox youth respond to such intolerance with an attitude of keep your head down, tell no one that you are different; they feel that they must hide their identity and comply with the expectations of the school's dominant religious practices.

Spirituality

If anything is to change practical strategies must be thought out which directly address the issues raised. Therefore, the following recommendations are made. The whole issue of sign and symbol in the Eastern Churches is of course central in Eastern theology as it is any deeply sacramental theology.

• First and foremost is the need to secure the appointment of an Eastern Catholic theologian at Australian Catholic University in order that the many recommendations made by the Holy See for theological education might begin to be fulfilled.

• The demands of ecumenism and international dialogue with the East have assumed primary importance in the agenda of Pope Benedict XVI. Not only ought we support this program of dialogue but we need to be very clear about our identity as Eastern Catholic Churches. We need theological support to do this.

• To make Eastern Catholic Spirituality visible in Catholic schools and Catholic institutions of higher education the use and veneration of icons with lamps ought be present. Iconography and its theology should be taught in theological institutes.

• It would be helpful to provide an icon packet consisting of icons with explanations about the symbolism involved to every Catholic school in the country.

• Not only is the sign of the cross made differently in the East, it also assumes greater importance. During the Divine Liturgy one makes the sign of the cross at least 36 times. In the Latin Catholic tradition this is not so.

• The making and wearing and praying the Jesus prayer (chotki) is one example of what may be done as a prayerful exercise perhaps during a retreat. All students especially Eastern Students could be encouraged to make and wear the prayer rope as a wrist band with strong religious symbolism.

• The Eastern Liturgy is accessible to schools in English these days. Every capital city in Australia has Catholic priests who can celebrate the Divine Liturgy. Pastoral hospitality for Eastern Catholic clergy ought be available especially in those cases where large numbers of Eastern Catholics are enrolled.

• In 1997, Eastern Catholics in Australia was published. It was a very important document. Perhaps it is time to reprint and distribute this publication so that it might become an instrument for study and workshops on the many issues which concen Eastern Christianity.

• The Eastern Catholic Churches in Australia have grown sufficiently to seek the appointment [of] an education officer within the National Catholic Education Office. This officer would coordinate all information about Eastern Churches for distribution to the Catholic school system, and function as an Eastern Catholic information service.

• The issue at hand is to provide the teachers and the schools of the Latin Catholic system with a way by which they can be made more aware of Eastern Catholic spirituality.

Awareness

Perhaps it is time that we once again made religious education teachers more aware of the presence of Eastern Catholic children in their schools. It is timely to offer a series of in-services for teachers sensitizing them to the presence and the needs of Eastern Christians in the schools. In addition, the preservice courses for teaching in Catholic schools at ACU ought include an Eastern Catholic awareness program. In this way, new teachers would at least be aware of the spiritual needs of these children.
          Some of the issues raised in this paper might seem less of an imposition if we just consider how the late Pope John Paul II proposed to respond to this problem. He listed six approved means by which mutual understanding and unity might be improved between the Latin and the Eastern Churches. He reasoned that an improved knowledge of one another must be a good thing. The six means follow:

1. To know the liturgy of the Eastern Churches; To deepen knowledge of the spiritual traditions of the Fathers and Doctors of the Christian East;

2. To follow the example of the Eastern Churches for the inculturation of the Gospel message;

3. To combat tensions between Latins and Orientals and to encourage dialogue between Catholics and the Orthodox;

4. To train in specialized institutions theologians, liturgists, historians and canonists for the Christian East, who in turn can spread knowledge of the Eastern Churches;

5. To offer appropriate teaching on these subjects in seminaries and theological faculties, especially to future priests.

6. The pope then added the following remark, "These remain sound recommendations on which I intend to insist with particular force" [Orientale Lumen, par. 24]

Conclusion

These days a great deal of attention is given to Christian spirituality and religious education in Catholic schools in Australia. Religious education syllabi include useful information about the Eastern Churches. In some schools this information is no longer taught. It is possible that the whole concept of Eastern Churches is simply neglected. For Catholic schools it is a matter of recognizing the true nature of the [C]hurch as Catholic. Catholicity, according to Karl Adam, is the Church's essential aptitude for the whole of mankind. For schools to conform to such a lofty theological principle they must be far more adaptable to the varied religious identities now represented by the youth of the many other Catholic churches now present in them.

by Fathers Olexander Kenez and Brian Kelty

1:52 PM 3/19/2009 —

"Are you now, or have you ever been, a Captitalist?"

by Priestly Pugilist

12:04 PM 3/16/2009 — About twenty years ago I stood in the Catacombs of St. Callistus, just outside of Rome. I had been asked to lead a group of college students on a pilgrimage various holy sites in Italy and France; and I had been given permission to offer Holy Mass according to the Roman Rite in the very chamber in which Pope Sixtus II was martyred. He was offering Holy Mass, just as I was, when he was told the soldiers were coming. He could have saved himself. He could have hidden himself in the many passageways of the catacombs; it would have been easy; we almost got lost ourselves. But he refused to interrupt the service. The Eucharist, he thought, was much more important than his life. He finished the celebration; and, 20 minutes later, he and the two deacons who were with him had their heads cut off. They buried him right in that room, and we offered the Liturgy using his tomb as our altar.
          We are all aware of the many and varied ways that Christianity is being attacked today in our society, not simply theologically, but culturally. And each of us needs to consider what our response is going to be, not only to the attacks on Christian culture that seem to be surrounding us, but also the attacks that come to each of us in the day to day spiritual combat with temptation and sin in our own souls.
          "If you would be my disciple," says our Lord, "you must deny yourself, take up your cross every day, and follow me." Pope St. Sixtus, and the thousands upon thousands of others in every century who have died for their faith, obviously took our Lord's words literally, and obviously believed that they applied very directly to them.
          Ever since Christ died on the cross there have been Christians who have tried to live life as if the cross did not exist. Judas was the first. He was scandalized by the fact that Jesus was so obviously setting himself up for death. But you can’t have Christ without his cross. To attempt to have Christ without his cross is to seek after a Christ who did not exist. Every day, in a thousand different ways, we have to choose between playing it safe and carrying the cross of Jesus Christ. Most of the time the cross is not that heavy, and we can handle it. Once in a while, the cross is very heavy, when we are asked by our Lord to make a choice that could cause us to change the way we live or perhaps even alienate someone we love. But he always leaves that choice in our hands. And he has promised us his grace to help us in these trials if we but ask for it. God has given us everything we need to reach heaven except for one thing: the decision. He will not make the choice for us. We have to make that decision for ourselves.

by Father Michael Venditti

1:12 PM 3/14/2009 —

[Priestly Pugilist appologizes for the delay in publishing this homily of Father Venditti's from last Sunday, as well as for the general lack of updates this past week. This was due to a catostrophic computer failure at our "offices" (just picture me behind an aircraft carrier-sized desk with a harem of pretty young secretaries doing my bidding). The best we could do last week was update the episode of Msgr. Smith's radio series. We have successfully recovered most of our files, and should be up to speed now.
     Father has asked me to mention that his homilies for the Great Fast (Lent) are typically shorter than usual due to the fact that the Divine Liturgy of St. Basil the Great celebrated during this season is considerably longer than the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom normally used on Sundays outside of this season. --PP]

02:03 PM 3/5/2009 — True of false? Artificial birth control is a mortal sin; and, if you are using any form of it, you may not receive Holy Communion.
          Most American Catholics—indeed, most Catholics throughout the world—would probably swear on a stack of New American Bibles that it's false. They're wrong, of course. The statement is totally true. They think it's false because they mistakenly believe that Vatican II introduced us to a previously unappreciated facet of the Holy Spirit which makes each one of us infallible in moral matters, called the "conscience." The misunderstanding is rampant even among conservatives. When Sean Hannity declared that the Church was "wrong" about birth control, he was called on the carpet by a priest—no bishop had the courage to do it—and all he could do was repeat the mantra, "...the primacy of conscience..." over and over again, followed by the non sequitor, "Judge not lest ye be judged"; proving that he hasn't cracked open a Bible since the Douay-Rheims version was published in 1582 (I don't routinely hear him opening his show with "Greetings, brethren. I welcometh ye to the program. Doth thou knowest we be loaded up today!") And why do American Catholics cling so dogmatically to this fairy tale called "conscience"? Because they're lazy. They were told that Vatican II declared the primacy of conscience; but, shove a paperback copy of the Documents of Vatican II or the Catechism of the Catholic Church in front of Hannity and ask him to show you where this declaration is made, and he wouldn't have a clue where to begin.
          Now, we've discussed the fairy tale called conscience here on Priestly Pugilist enough times. Probably the most concise example would be Father Venditti's excellent letter to Congresswoman DeLauro, which you can read here. Suffice it to say, there's just no such thing as "I prayed about it, and decided it's not a sin for me." And, to be fair, people believe there is such a thing usually because a priest has told it to them in the confessional. And that's because the priest himself didn't understand what the Church actually teaches, but thinks he does, because even he—the priest—is just as lazy. It's bad enough when lay people get their knowledge of the Catholic Faith from People Magazine; worse yet when priests do it.
          No, we're not revisiting contraception again. The point today is to alert you to the double standard now being applied to the very concept of conscience in the form of an attack on it by the Obama administration. Here is a selection from a New York Times story of February 27th (I won't provide a link to it because pointing you to the Times might be considered exposing you to an occasion of sin):

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration moved on Friday to undo a last-minute Bush administration rule granting broad protections to health workers who refuse to take part in abortions or provide other health care that goes against their consciences. The Department of Health and Human Services served notice on Friday, through a message to the White House Office of Management and Budget, that it intends to rescind the regulation, which was originally announced on Dec. 19, 2008, and took effect on the day President Obama took office. When the administration publishes official notice of its intent, probably next week, a 30-day period for public comment will begin, after which the regulation can be repealed or modified.
     It has been known for weeks that President Obama intended to review the rule and other last-minute regulatory actions once he took office, so the notice on Friday beginning the process was not a surprise. Even so, considerable emotion surrounds the issue, as illustrated by the shorthand used to describe the Dec. 19 rule. Its supporters called it the “provider conscience regulation,” while the Planned Parenthood Federation of America disdained it as a “midnight regulation.”
     The rule prohibits recipients of federal money from discriminating against doctors, nurses and other health care workers who refuse to perform or assist in abortions or sterilization procedures because of their “religious beliefs or moral convictions.” Its supporters included the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Catholic Health Association, which represents Catholic hospitals. In praising the Bush administration last fall, Sister Carol Keehan, president of the Catholic Health Association, said that in recent years “we have seen a variety of efforts to force Catholic and other health care providers to perform or refer for abortions and sterilizations.”

This isn't just a cerebral concern. Back when your PP was assigned as a full time hospital chaplain, a young medical student was able to become a doctor because there was a general presumption that hospitals—even those receiving federal funding—had a constitutional obligation to respect peoples' consciences. He was a newlywed, and he and his wife had just had their first baby. Completing his residency in gynecology, he was required to perform an abortion. He refused. The general respect for conscience and religous belief made it possible for him to complete his training without committing the murder required. If he were doing his residency today, and if President Obama has his way, he would have to give up his dreams of a career in gynecology.
          So, conscience—or what people believe is conscience—is A-O-K if you're a liberal seeking to deviate from the truth of the Gospel, but quite offensive if you're seeking to live according to it. Elections are not TV talent shows. They have consequences.
          Here's another true or false quiz: True of false? If you're a Catholic who voted for Obama because you were concerned about the national economy and didn't give a rat's ass about unborn children, then you, too, may not receive Holy Communion.

by Priestly Pugilist

12:33 PM 2/27/2009 — The liturgical celebration of the First Sunday of the Great Fast has gone through an evolution over the centuries; and we've spoken about that in years past. Originally it was a commemoration of Prophets of the Old Testament; hence Phillip telling Nathaniel, "We have found Him of whom Moses in the law, and also the prophets, wrote...." Then, following the inconoclastic controversy, the focus of this Sunday changed, and became a celebration of the restoration of the veneration of icons throughout the Church; hence it's still popular title, "The Sunday of the True Faith" or "The Sunday of Orthodoxy" (the word "orthodoxy" not referring to the Orthodox Churches, but to it's generic meaning of "right belief"). For our purposes today, however, I would like us to reflect exclusively on this interesting meeting of our Lord with Nathaniel.
          Last week, you will recall, we ended with our Lord giving us the somber warning: “If you do not forgive others, neither will your heavenly Father forgive you.” Our Lord is not speaking figuratively here; I believe he means it very literally; that we may very well stand before Christ the Lord on the day of our judgment, and he will show us our sins, and we will say, “O Lord, please forgive me!” and he will say, “I am inclined to forgive you, because your sins are not that bad; but remember that person in your parish that you didn’t like because of this or that, that person that you didn’t let help with this project or that, or that neighbor you never spoke to, or that relative you never forgave for that thing he said or did? You never fixed that!” I think it will happen exactly that way. We like to assume that it will be primarily because of things like murder or adultery or fornication or theft or lying or cheating or missing Church on Sunday for which we will be judged. And I’m not disagreeing with that, because those are serious sins. But a lot of people today do those things; and, if we’re not completely morally illiterate, we know we’re committing sin when they do them. But the sin that often does escape our attention is the one our Lord specifically mentioned last week: “If you do not forgive others....”
          Now, we come to the really scary part, which is that we cannot hide the animosity we hold for others in our hearts from our Lord. That’s the point of what we read in the Gospel today. Philip meets our Lord; and as soon as he meets him he runs to get his brother Nathaniel who is sitting under a fig tree, munching on figs as he reads the morning paper. And the significance of the symbol should not be lost on us. Remember that it was a fig tree of which our Lord later said that if it didn’t bear fruit it should be cut down and thrown away, talking, of course, about us. So, Nathaniel puts down his paper, swallows one last fig, gets up and goes to see Jesus; and, as he approaches, Jesus recognizes him by name even though they had never met. And Nathaniel asks him, “Where do you know me from?” and Jesus says, “I saw you under the fig tree,” which is pretty impossible since they were no where near the fig tree where Nathaniel had been sitting. There’s a message in this for us. Jesus sees everything. In the case of Nathaniel, he even saw into Nathaniel’s heart, and said, “There is an Israelite in whom there is no guile”—a lot of figs maybe, but no guile—guile meaning animosity, hatred, ill feelings toward others.
          Lucky for Nathaniel that he had no guile in him. What does Jesus see when he looks into our hearts? Do we doubt that he sees every thought we have, or will have even before we have them? When we sit and pontificate about how we don’t like that person or won’t work with this person or won’t talk to such a person because...and we list a thousand and five reasons that make perfect sense to us...are we really so stupid to think that those reasons mean anything to God? and are we so unconcerned about the state of our souls to think that it won’t matter when we stand to be judged?
          One of the easiest things in the world to do is to catalog the faults of another, be it our neighbor or our boss or our spouse or our child or our child’s spouse or another parishioner or whomever. As I’ve said to you before, the most miserable people you know are the ones who know everything that’s wrong with everybody else; and what’s really sad is that, most of the time, they have no idea how miserable they really are; and every time they hear a sermon about Christian charity, the first thing that pops into their minds is, “Gee, I hope So-and-so heard that!”
          Lent is a time for looking into ourselves; but, more important than that, it’s a time to realize that someone else is looking into ourselves, and that person is Christ. And he sees everything. Looking into ourselves isn’t enough because we’re biased in favor of ourselves. Listening to others complaints about us doesn’t work either, because they’re biased in favor of themselves. There’s only one truly objective judge of character, and that’s Jesus Christ. Which means that, more than anything else, Lent is a time for talking with and listening to Jesus Christ. It’s a time of stopping before we say or do anything and asking, “What would our Lord say? What would our Lord do?” It’s a time for ceasing to ask, “What will everyone think of me?” and for asking instead, “What will Our Lord think of me?” His, after all, is the only opinion that matters.

by Father Michael Venditti

05:38 PM 2/25/2009 — This is certainly low off the mark from our usual highbrow ranting. Besides, my bandwidth monitor is showing too many people reading Priestly Pugilist lately; so, it's time to thin the herd and drive some of them away. This ought to do the trick:
          The other night your PP was watching one of his favorite shows, “24”, and marveling at how efficiently Jack Bauer can kill terrorists without having to stop and smell the roses. This season he’s being reluctantly assisted by a female FBI agent. In typical Jack Bauer style, he persuades the girlfriend of a terrorist to lead him to his target, promising her that she’ll be safe. Of course, Jack gets his man, but the girlfriend still gets killed—which we smelled coming as soon as Jack promised her she’d be safe—which sends the female FBI agent into a tizzy, not because she thought Jack could have prevented it, but because he was already off on the trail of another terrorist without stopping to bleed emotionally over the death of the innocent girl. The climax of the scene is the agent grabbing Jack by his lapels and screaming, “I need to know that you feel what I feel.” Of course, he doesn’t. He’s Jack Bauer. And as he’s running off with gun drawn to hunt down the next terrorist, he shouts over his shoulder, “You’ll get used to it.” to which she replies, “I don’t want to get used to it.”
          Today your PP was listening to one of his favorite radio programs, The Rush Limbaugh Show, in which the host was reacting to a poll which showed a measurable “gender gap” in his own approval ratings. In a tongue-in-cheek effort to “get to the bottom” of this problem, the host conducted a “female summit,” in which he took calls only from women who would explain why they don’t like him. In every case, the reason was a variation of the same theme: “You’re too sure of yourself. You need to show some vulnerability.”
          One of your PP’s own classmates was telling me about a particular woman in his parish who routinely takes issue with his homilies. In the course of conversation, he had told her about his trip to Best Buy to buy a new iPod. She asked him what color he wanted. He replied that the color was not important to him, only the storage capacity. Her response: “But you had to choose a color, right?” He pointed out to her that it wouldn’t have mattered anyway since the new iPod Classic only comes in black or white. Her response to that: “But you didn’t know that when you went to the store. What color did you want?” He repeated that he had no color preference in his mind, and that the only concern he had was storage capacity. Her response: “That’s your problem. Everything is so black and white to you!”
          Some years ago, your PP was attending one of those torture sessions known as a Convocation of Priests. A presentation was given on a particular topic—the subject is irrelevant; what was relevant was that the presenter was a woman. In the course of the presentation, she said something about the teaching of the Church which was manifestly untrue. Afterward, I approached her and pointed out the error. Her response—and I’m not making this up—was, “I feel your pain.” I attempted to point out to her that I wasn’t in any pain; and, even if I had been, I had no interest in her feeling it along with me; all that was important to me was that she be aware of her error and correct it. It was like talking to a brick.
          No one likes to be stereotyped, especially when the stereotype is being applied to oneself. But when the evidence suggests that a particular stereotype is true across the board, one must face the possibility that it isn’t just a prejudicial generalization. Men live by their wits; women by their glands. That’s it. If it upsets you to hear that, maybe it will make you feel better if I say that I feel your pain. For years, conservative priests, like your PP, have been stereotyped a certain way by those in authority; but it takes the living of life and years of reflection to realize the undercurrent behind it. Last year, I had ruminated about this in a post entitled, “Revisiting the ‘doomsday doc’ and the culture of ‘soft’ priests.” That post focused on the phenomenon of generations of priests force-fed the spiritual philosophy of the late gay Jesuit, Henri Nouwen, and how they had been formed to view the emotional frailties of gay men as indicative of the human condition. I gave a recipe for recognizing them:

Think back to any one of a number of priests you may have run into from my generation, perhaps in the context of a wedding or funeral you attended, or in your own parish. He’s gentle. Almost too gentle. You shake his hand and there’s no grip, or else he latches on the tips of your fingers as if he’s afraid of damaging your hand somehow. When he speaks to you, it’s in a kind of Dr. Seuss-esque “sing-songy” manner (“I do not like green eggs and ham—I do not like them, Sam-I-Am”). Ask him a question—any question, but preferably one about doctrine or moral praxis—and his answer will always begin with the word, “Well...,” followed by a long, drawn out litany of platitudes, albeit interlaced with the actual teaching of the Church (he’s not, after all, a heretic or dissident), but sufficiently diluted with enough filler to make sure you understand that he’s not imposing anything on you or suggesting any imperative to alter your life as a consequence. The lesson will then end with some kind of interrogatory about how you might “feel” about it, followed by a broad smile and a brief expression of affirmation just to make sure you’re convinced of nothing, but assured that (1) you continue to feel good about “where you’re at,” and (2) that Father is just a swell guy you can talk to anytime. You walk away from the encounter feeling a little creepy; but you accept it, thinking to yourself, “I guess that’s just they way they are.”

          It was in speculating why they are the way they are that I advanced the above mentioned theory about the long term effects of Nouwen being enthroned as the denizen of post-Vatican II spirituality, and what that has done to two—perhaps three—generations of priests.
          Now, skip back even further to some of our older discussions about “Bernadine-lite Catholicism,” a brand of religion indistinguishable from most mainline Protestantism. Skip down just a few posts, while you’re at it, at the post entitled We have been placed on the "Index of Forbidden Blogs," and the description of the generation of priests of which the unnamed Archbishop alluded to in that post is a member. It occurs to me that there’s a tangled skein running through all of this. Can you guess what it is?
          When the Code of Canon Law for the Latin Church was promulgated in 1983, there was something in it which completely escaped notice in almost every country but our own, where it was seen as seminal: that the chancellor of a diocese did not have to be a man. Nothing really earth-shattering given the fact that the chancellor, strictly speaking, is nothing more than a bookkeeper; but because of long-standing custom in the United States by which chancellors had always been priests, given powers of dispensation by an act of delegation by the bishop, everyone here thought it was some kind of great feminist moment, even though it wasn’t. And all of a sudden every diocese in the United States had to have a woman as chancellor. Bishops bent over backwards to find them, even sending them to get degrees in Canon Law in spite of the fact that such expertise is totally unnecessary for the task of knowing how to file things and make good coffee—which, according to Canon Law, is all that a chancellor is empowered to do (except the coffee part). It was the beginning of the emasculation of the American Hierarchy.
          The problem is exacerbated by the fact that, for most of us, the folks that do most of the “stuff” in our parishes are women; men don’t like to get involved in “churchy” things. We rely on women for almost everything; which means that, whenever you need to organize something or have a meeting, you have to try and navigate the foggy maze that is the hormone-driven female mind. Someone wants “Uncle Ralph” to be godparent to their new baby, except that Uncle Ralph hasn’t been to church in years or is living with someone to whom he’s not married. When you point this out, you’re told that Uncle Ralph is still more “Christian” than anyone else she knows. Unfortunately, the law of the Church doesn’t recognize that definition of “Christian,” and instead relies on objective requisites. Off she goes in a huff to find a more “caring” priest. You preach a homily pointing out the dangers to our Christian culture that the gay agenda poses, and how gay "marriage" threatens our very way of life, and you'll get at least three or four comments to the effect that "but if they've found happiness...." As one of my altar boys, who was having some problem with a girl he liked, once said to me, “They don’t think the way we do, do they?” Out of the mouths of babes...!
          Who are the bishops who get the highest marks with the female-chaired Lay Review Board which oversees our bishops’ response to the sex abuse crisis? Not the ones who have dealt with priests justly and quickly, removing the guilty and reinstating the innocent, but the ones who hold lots of meetings with victims’ groups and hold their hands and cry with them—the ones who “feel their pain.” Oh, don’t bother confusing the issue with the fact that feeling their pain doesn’t do one damn thing to solve the problem or promote recovery for the trauma-laden. Like Jack Bauer’s reluctant assistant, they “need to know that you feel what I feel.”
          None of this is to suggest that the Church and the world would be better off if we were all Vulcans. Or would it? By the way, I bought a new iPod, too. And it’s none of your business what color it is. It wasn’t any of my business when I bought it, either. Live long and prosper!

by Priestly Pugilist

03:10 PM 2/23/2009 —

[The following column, by L. Brent Bozell, III, entitled "Sex and the Single Priest," appeared on News Busters on February 21st. Mr. Bozell is President of the Media Research Institute. —PP]

The dictionary defines prejudice as premature judgment: making a decision before becoming aware of the relevant facts of a case or event. Some forms of prejudice are fading, racism being the primary and obvious example. The backlash against prejudice is so intense it has spurred its opposite, the call toward tolerance.
          But for one sector, the prejudice remains intact. It is perfectly acceptable to spew intolerance against Christians in general and Catholics in particular. But the bonanza of prejudice is reserved for Catholic priests.
          In our sex-drenched society, the idea of a single man taking an oath of lifelong celibacy sounds sacrificial to the point of freakish. The world says abstinence is impossible, and pledging abstinence is ridiculous. So when the crisis over child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church erupted, it didn’t matter that a tiny minority of unfaithful priests (and their supervisors) had betrayed the faithful. Hollywood and other champions of unbridled lust broke out the prejudice, smearing all Catholic priests as stunted at best, and predatory at worst.
          Many assume priests are miserable in their celibacy. That’s dead wrong. A Los Angeles Times survey completed in the midst of abuse scandals in 2002 found that 93 percent of more than 1,800 priests surveyed said that they’d become priests if they had to choose their careers again. Only two percent said that they would probably leave the priesthood. In general, priests are more likely to find happiness in their life’s work than doctors, lawyers, teachers, and even married Protestant clergy.
          The tidal wave of outrage inside and outside the Catholic world is long past its peak, but Hollywood keeps whipping on priests as sexually retarded. Two examples emerged within four days of each other recently.
          On the February 12 edition of the NBC sitcom "30 Rock," the gags were flying when the show’s capitalist-pig character, Jack Donaghy (played by Alec Baldwin), was dragged to Mass on Valentine’s Day by his devout Latina girlfriend (Salma Hayek).The lowlight was his trip to the confessional. Before the priest, he refused any opportunity to express remorse for his comically flagrant sins, even as he listed them for several minutes. When he described to the priest the glorious earthly delights of romancing a woman, the priest had enough, charging out of the confessional, a very frustrated and unhappy man. "Harvard didn’t prepare me for this!" he lamented.
          On the February 16 episode of Fox’s "House," the show began with a demoralized priest being rude to a poor man who knocked on a church door wanting a winter coat. He then sat depressed in his dingy apartment, smoking and drinking. (What a miserable life, the priesthood.) This priest had been accused of inappropriate contact with a teenage boy, and had been shuttled from church to church across about six states.
          The show’s atheist title character delighted in the priest’s vanished faith when he came to the hospital after a vision of a bloody Jesus (without a cross) knocked on his door and floated unhappily before him. The doctors all assumed the priest was a drunk.
          The script writers wanted everyone to assume the priest is guilty. The doctors unanimously did. Dr. House reveled in the priest’s misery – "a priest that doesn’t believe in God. It’s cool that God did to him what he did to the kid." After talking to him, he proclaimed: "God, I wish you weren’t a pedophile!" He also called him "our pederast priest."
          The assumptions of guilt grow heavier and nastier when they determined the priest had a compromised immune system. "Father Nietzsche has AIDS," House declared, after the philosopher who famously suggested God was dead. (That’s one of only two times in the script that the priest is described as "Father.")
          One doctor insisted they find the child who accused the priest and get him an AIDS test: "This is an innocent kid who’s been molested." The priest, a lifelong virgin, refused a similar AIDS test, fearing a false positive. "Heaven forbid, a diddler has job issues," a doctor responded. But the doctors learned it wasn’t AIDS after all. And when notified he "needs" an AIDS test, the teenaged accuser recanted. He came to the priest’s hospital bed, cried and apologized.
          Vindication for the priest? A lesson in tolerance for the audience? Hardly. After it was revealed that the priest had been telling the truth all along, not one of the doctors felt remorse or apologized for all their premature judgments and cruel remarks. When it comes to traditional religion, Hollywood feels very comfortable in its anti-Catholic prejudice, even when they know it’s repugnant.

by Brent Bozell

12:18 PM 2/21/2009 — Some of you may remember my telling you that, before becoming a priest, I had once entered monastic life in a very old community of the Latin Church called the Carthursians. Now, the Carthusians, founded by St. Bruno in the 11th century in France, are probably the strictest order of monks in the world; and I went to their place in Vermont for a month long stay to look them over and let them look at me. And one of the things I did while I was there was to read the rule of life that St. Bruno wrote for them in the year 1050. And it struck me that every aspect of that rule is focused on this idea that we are here to please God and no one else. And he even addresses the idea that we have to presume this about everyone else, not just ourselves. For example, there’s a passage in the rule where he says that if you observe a brother doing something you were told was wrong, whatever it may be—whether it’s conversing with a woman, or entering a shop, or eating something forbidden on a fast day, or doing anything that is ordinarily forbidden—always assume he has permission; this way, you will never sin by judging another unjustly.
          I never forgot that, and have often speculated how much anxiety we could eliminate from our lives if we could only find a way to live that principle in all our lives. Of course, we have no control over the spiritual lives of others—except perhaps by example—; but we do have control over our own; but even that can be a hard sell, sometimes. How often have we heard a sermon or read something that strikes a chord in us, and our first thought is to apply it to someone else? How many times have we heard the priest say something about how to behave and the first thing that pops into our heads is, “I sure hope so-and-so heard that”?
          This principle of doing the right thing to please God and not caring whether anyone else understands—or even if they misunderstand—is addressed very directly in that section of St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans we just heard; but it is also presented to us in the today’s Gospel in a veiled way—in a way that requires us to look deeply into the meaning of our Lord’s words. He says, "When you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by men but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you" (Matthew 6:16,17). What St. Bruno understood, and what we have to understand as well, is that by fasting our Lord is not simply speaking of abstaining from food for spiritual reasons; fasting here is interpreted as anything that we do that pleases God, even if it is not understood by anyone else. And when we realize that, all of a sudden we see that this has not to do simply with personal acts of mortification, like giving up food, but with everything that touches on our relationship with one another. A person who consistently does what is right in his daily life will end up disappointing more people than he pleases in this life, if he is truly doing what is right. Sometimes we make the mistake of thinking that what is pleasing to others is what is right. And that’s almost never the case. If it were, life would be a breeze; but we know it isn’t.
          And that is, in fact, the reason that this Sunday, Cheesefare Sunday, is sometimes referred to as the Sunday of Forgiveness; for on this Sunday we are seeking forgiveness, not just from God, but also from one another. Because if we are true to the spirit of Lent, and make a serious effort to live the Gospel of Jesus Christ in those areas where we had not been before, we’re going to be disappointing someone somewhere, because we will be living to please God and not each other. So we begin Lent by recognizing that those around us will no longer be existing to make us happy; that not only should we now start to do what is pleasing to God, but that we should give the other people in our lives the freedom to do the same, and stop expecting everything they do to meet with our approval.
          It is a twisted fact of human nature that the people who set the highest standards for themselves are the most miserable because no one around them lives up to their expectations. And it’s not simply a matter of excepting the failures of others—that’s too easy a rationalization—because it may not be a failure at all: the standards by which we think everyone should live may not apply to someone else because we don’t know the circumstances of that person’s life. Even if we were to completely eliminate personal sin from our lives, it would mean nothing if we still stood in judgment over someone else, or allowed someone else to be held accountable for making us happy. It’s like our Lord says in the very first sentence of today’s Gospel: "If you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your heavenly Father forgive yours" (Matthew 6:15).
          Now, that raises a question: does this not put us on the track of becoming moral relativists? After all, right and wrong are determined by God, not by us; so, how do we “forgive” (to use our Lord’s own word) someone who’s life or actions departs from the Gospel of Jesus Christ? And here’s where the other Liturgical texts for this day are instructive. They focus us to contemplate God’s supreme act of judgment upon man: the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. The sin of Adam was the sin of wanting to be God, repeated in each one of us every time we set aside God’s law and decide for ourselves what’s right and wrong. That’s why it’s called the “Original Sin,” because all sin stems from it. And man paid a penalty, as the Book of Genesis tells us: our food and livelihood are no longer supplied by God, but by the sweat of our brow; the nakedness of our bodies ceases to be a thing of beauty and becames a source of temptation; even the pain of a woman in childbirth, Genesis tells us, is the result of that one first sin. So terrible is that sin—usurping the authority of God and deciding for ourselves the difference between right and wrong—that its effects are passed on through every generation.
          And, yet, in spite of this, God still judged man worth saving: he loved his creation so much that, instead of allowing man to suffer the price for that sin, he became a man himself and suffered it for us. That’s why on the Sunday’s of the Great Fast we celebrate the Liturgy of St. Basil. We groan about it every year and tell each other it’s much too long; but its anaphora recounts the history of our salvation, from the fall of Adam to the Passion of Our Lord, reminding us that God, instead of simply forgiving us—which would have obfuscated the very concept of his justice—choose instead to become one of us and pay the penalty of death himself. If God has chosen to do that, then how can we continue to harbor ill thoughts against another whose wrong against us is so petty in comparison?
          So, as we prepare for the beginning of the Great Fast, I would recommend the following exercise, which I seem to recommend every year and will continue to do so: count the number of people in your life that you will have nothing to do with—because they once did something to hurt you and never asked forgiveness, or because you don’t like their personality, or because they’re not living the way you think they should, or maybe because you just don’t like the looks of them—count them, and realize that that’s the extent to which you have made yourself unworthy of what God has done for you. And if, by the end of Lent, you can succeed in lowering that number, that’s the extent to which you have become more pleasing to God than you were before.

by Father Michael Venditti

10:31 AM 2/17/2009 —

[One of the most liberating things about blogging under an assumed name—aside from the fact that it's difficult for someone to sue you—is that you can be as pompous and conceited as you like an no one can say boo to you, because they don’t know whom to say boo to (you can also end sentences with a preposition without causing scandal to generations of students whom you berated for years for doing just that). And your PP’s intention in this post was to catalog a whole list of complaints about how stupid the rest of the world is compared to me: to wit, the legions who believe that Pope Benedict lifted the excommunication of a holocaust denier because he’s a holocaust denier; or how no one knows about the current and constantly escalating persecution of Catholics by the government of Vietnam because no one in the American media thinks it’s news; or how no one in the media is reporting accurately about what happens to older people in all universal health care programs world wide; etc., etc. It makes your PP’s blood boil.
     But as I was preparing to vent my spleen on this and related things in what would have been my most self-serving post to date, I had an uncharacteristic lapse into humility, and decided to search the PP archives. In contemplating these and other issues, I realized that the operative word in all the thoughts spinning in my enormous and chaotic brain was the word, “media.”
     Our Founding Fathers regarded a free press essential to our liberty because, in order to participate in government, one must be informed; and the media represent the only sure way to make sure that Mom and Pop know what’s going on the country and in the world in an uncensored manner. Unfortunately, the Founding Fathers assumed a lot about the media when they wrote the First Amendment, a lot of which is no longer true.
     So, I have decided to scrap my catalog of complaints—for now, anyway—and simply reproduce for you a homily preached by the more thoughtful wing of this pugilistic tag team, Fr. V, from a number of years back. It may not be directly prescient to what’s in the news right now; but it’s worth meditating on again and again; for, I assume that if you’re reading Priestly Pugilist with any regularity it has to be because you’re the kind of person who gets upset about many of the same things that upset me. Sometimes it’s good to have someone put things in perspective.
     I asked Father if this homily didn't drift somewhat far from the purely Scriptural expositions characteristic of most of his homilies; he replied that, "When I sense my flock is being internally disturbed by something, it needs to be addressed." —PP]

It is very easy, I think, to watch the news and become upset or depressed or angry or all of the above, and to think that the world is simply coming apart at the seams, and that you are the only person left on the planet who believes all the things you grew up believing; but is it really so? I actually had a conversation not long ago with someone who was complaining about how upset she was about everything that she was seeing in the news; and I don’t think she was expecting the advice I gave her, because my advice to her was to switch it off. It’s like that old joke where the man goes in to see his doctor and he says, “Doctor, it hurts when I do this.” And the doctor replies, “Don’t do that, then.” If watching the news upsets us, why is the advice to simply turn it off not acceptable to us? Because we’re afraid that if we do, we’re going to miss something? Because we "feel" that not watching it is, somehow, irresponsible and shows we don't care? What is it exactly we think we’re going to miss, and what do we think we can do about it?
          Some of you, I'm sure, are old enough to remember when television news first started. TV networks first began broacasting news in the late 1950's. For almost 20 years, the CBS Evening News consisted of Edward R. Murrow reading headlines for fifteen minutes, without commercials, followed immediately by that week's episode of "I Love Lucy." There were no pictures, no reporters "on the scene," no experts to tell us what it all meant; and it was over in a quarter of an hour. Was that because there was much less going on than there is now?
          Before he died, Murrow was very candid about the debate that went on at the time as to whether this new thing called "TV Journalism" should become commercial (the networks that broadcast news reports did so gratis; there was no revenue generated by it). Some—including Murrow—thought it would be a mistake for news to attempt to make money because it would corrupt it's objectivity. The decision to advertize on news broacasts extended the time needed from fifteen minutes to a half hour; and, suddenly, finding ways to make people watch your channel instead of the other guy's became important. Hence, live reports from the scene, expert commentary, human interest ("Here's a neighbor who will tells us what a nice quiet man the ax murderer was," or "How do you feel about your children being eaten by a python?"); and, eventually, whole shows devoted to commentary (like "60 Minutes"); none of which contributed in any way to the transmission of essential and needed information, but, hopefully, made the whole thing more entertaining than the other channel.
          When 24 hour cable news channels first appeared, the idea wasn't that anyone would watch the news for 24 hours; the idea was that someone could catch ten or fifteen minutes of essential news when they had time to watch it, instead of having to schedule their day around some stupid broacast. I challenge you to watch the news for 24 hours and then identify four major stories that are new or have changed substantially in that period. After all, the man who reads the news to you on TV in the evening is not going to come on and say, “Well, folks, nothing much new happened today, so you might was well go watch Sienfeld.”
          Remember that journalism is not a public service; it’s a business. It makes its money by selling advertising; but advertising doesn’t make any money unless a lot of people are watching. So, the talking head spouting news at you has a commercial interest in doing everything he can to make sure your eyes and ears are glued on him and his channel as often and as long as possible. So, no matter what is actually happening in the world—or not happening as the case may be—he’s got to find a way to make sure you think the world is falling apart, and you’d better darn well watch it or you’re gonna miss it. If he’s got footage of some explosion or battle, he’ll play it for you over and over again, each time embellishing it with even more intense descriptions of the carnage; then he’ll truck out the ubiquitous panel of experts and analysts and retired generals who will each tell you how this is, indeed, the most important and critical thing that has ever happened in the history of the universe; and if you so much as leave to go to the kitchen and get a Coke, you’ll be sorry because you’ll miss the end of the world.
          My point is simply this: world events are not unfolding any faster than they have in the past, and the world is not falling apart at the seams. If it seems that way, that’s because the events of the day are being packaged and repackaged in an ever increasingly sensationalistic way for the purpose of doing exactly what they're doing: causing us to park our rear ends in front of the TV, getting us all hot and bothered over events about which we can do nothing; nothing except, of course, to pray, which we should be doing every day anyway.
          So, the advice of the doctor in the joke is actually quite sound: “Doctor, it hurts when I do this.” “Don’t do that, then.” “Father, I get upset when I watch the news.” “Then, don’t watch the news.” I can guarantee that, if the world comes to an end, you’re not going to miss it because you weren’t watching television.

by Father Michael Venditti

12:19 AM 2/14/2009 — Two Sundays ago, I attempted to explain for you the theory behind this ancient practice we call the Lenten Triodion—a preparation for the preparation, I called it—in which we ease ourselves into both a spirit and a practice of self-denial. The week of Meatfare, through which we just passed and which culminates on this day we call Meatfare Sunday, is part of it. It was—and is for those who keep to the Traditional Fast—the last day until Easter on which meat was eaten.
          To our ancestors in the faith, this all made perfect sense. The spiritual children of Cyril and Methodius lived an agrarian life where the winters were long and harsh. There wasn’t a lot of hard manual labor that could be done; so, it wasn’t difficult for them to turn their minds and hearts to spiritual things. The Great Fast—or Lent, whichever you choose to call it—was not simply a token symbol which recalled something that happened in the Early Church in a more concrete way; the tradition of the Church is alive and dynamic, as contradictory as that may sound. It is not something to be recalled and remembered; it is something to be lived.
          Of course, even with the best of intentions, our circumstances are different today. Our winters may still be long and harsh—at least from our perspective—; but life goes on no matter how much snow falls or how impossible the frozen soil is to turn. We have to get up, we have to go to work, we have to cook the food, we have to clean the house, we have to yell at the kids, we have to yell at our spouse, we have to do all the things we normally do. We are not naturally drawn by the season to retreat into ourselves and contemplate the things of God more. ...which, when you think about, makes these traditions of which we’ve been speaking even more important today.
          As I mentioned when the Triodion began, these weeks before Lent, especially Meatfare and Cheesefare, call us to focus on very concrete things for a reason. Jesus didn’t just sit down and think about what it would be like to fast for forty days in the desert, and then contemplate how that might change him, abstaining from the occasional fig now and then as a reminder; he actually went there and actually fasted. If my Lent consists of: “I’ll give up desserts, I’ll cut out an hour of my TV time, I’ll say an extra ten minutes of prayers each night....” That’s wonderful; but it’s not Lent, because it’s all just symbolic. A symbol—whether it be a picture or a word or a symoblic act—no matter how meaningful it may be, is still just a ghost. If it has no substance, it cannot change me concretely. But if my Lent is not just a symbol—if it is something which I allow to completely reorient my life, turning me away from the things of this world toward the things of God to the extent that my state if life permits—then, over the course of a lifetime of Lents, it can make the difference between heaven and hell. And that—at the risk of sounding amusingly tempered—is not insignificant.
          Which brings us to the Liturgical texts for the Sunday of Meatfare: the Kontakion of the Divine Liturgy speaking of rivers of fire flowing before the judgement throne of Christ, the chants of Vespers, and especially the Holy Gospel in which Jesus gives us an allegorical representation of the final and Terrible Judgment. It shocks us to read it, because we want to think of Jesus as this lily white quiet sort of man, who never gets angry, who always understands and who never requires anything—like a schmaltzy painting on black felt—; and here he is talking in graphic detail about the punishments that await those who do not repent. It probably isn’t far off the mark to presume a program to the course of the Triodion Gospels: The Sunday of the Publican and Pharisee showed us the efficaciousness of admitting our sins; the Sunday of the Prodigal Son showed us the willingness of God to forgive no matter what; but, just in case there’s somebody out there who isn’t getting the message, here’s what happens to you if you weren’t paying attention.
          What’s important to remember is that, in the parable which the Lord tells us today, those who are damned are not sent to hell by God; they send themsevles there by their actions, or, in this case, their lack of action: “When I was thirsty you gave me no drink.” And then they’re so surprised in the end to find out that someone actually was going to hold them accountable. And those who are saved are shown mercy precisely because they were the ones who showed mercy to others: “Whatever you did for the least of my brothers you did for me.”
          In contemplating the last judgment, we are led to hope for mercy if we have been faithful and merciful ourselves. Our Lord is merciful in the highest degree, but He is also just; and His judgment is grounded in the truth: the truth about Who He is, who we are, what we’ve done with our lives and what we have yet to do. If, when we emerge from Lent, we have a clearer vision of these things than we did before, then Lent will have done its job, because we will have done ours.

by Father Michael Venditti

03:02 PM 2/11/2009 — I have been informed by a reliable source that access to Priestly Pugilist has been specifically blocked on the computers of a facility of a major Metropolitan Archdiocese of the Latin Church. I couldn't be more proud!
          The fact that the Archbishop of this particular place has been a favorite PP target by worrying more about his "rep" in the editorial pages of liberal newspapers than about whether the souls entrusted to his care know and live the Catholic Faith may have something to do with it. In all fairness, though, we have to recognize that, to bishops of this sort, hand-wringing over the Church's image in the secular press is in the greater interest of the cause of Christ; and it has a lot to do with the generation from which this bishop comes. Here's how the reasoning works:

1. A prominent Catholic living or working in the diocese makes a public statement or publically supports an action which is contrary to Divinely revealed Catholic teaching.

2. The bishop begins to weigh in his mind the conflict between obfuscating scandal against the prospect of propelling his name and that of his diocese into the public eye. On the one hand, the bishop is mindful of his responsibility to "confirm the faith" of the souls entrusted to his care, conscious that failure to speak out in a forceful way could lead many of the faithful to conclude that the onerous opinion being expressed is acceptable or, at least, not that important; on the other hand, the bishop comes from a generation of priests who were taught that the cause of Christ is best served when the Church is not in the headlines, and that controversy of any kind is always bad.

3. Unable to resolve the conflict in himself, the bishop decides that the best course is to find a way to make the whole situation someone else's responsibility; so, he regretfully laments that the individual in question is not really a subject of his diocese (even though the offense occured there), and that he is powerless to do anything without clear instructions from the individual's "proper" bishop—knowing, of course, that his brother bishop is of the same generation and mind-set as he is, and that this reasoning process will be repeated "over there," hopefully drawn out long enough until the news cycle has run it's course and the matter is no longer "front page" material.

The end result of all this is that the whole problem just fades away with time, and everyone can get back to pretending that all is sweetness and light—at least that's what the two bishops would like to believe, with an "off screen" nod and wink between them.
          To a priest of my generation, this is all perfectly horrific, and explains a whole host of things, including the sex abuse crisis and the poor response of the bishops in general to it. To a priest of the Archbishop's generation, it's priests like me and my generation which are the problem, because we don't undertand the absolute necessity of playing the game of projecting the Home-on-the-Range image of the Catholic Church to the outside world: "...where never is heard a discouraging word, and the skies are not cloudy all day."
          The problem really is generational; and, for proof of that, visit your PP's alma mater, St. Joseph's Seminary in Yonkers, New York. It's one of the oldest in the country (see the biography of Msgr. Smith below for some background). As soon as you walk into the main corridor of the ancient building, take a left and walk to the end. Take another left, past the room labled "Small Theology." On the right hand wall begins the group portraits of the classes, beginning in 1873 and stretching all along the wall down to the opposite end of the building. The portraits of those early classes—some with as few as five or six priests in them—are inspiring. There they all sit, in hopelessly wrinkled cassocks and unkempt hair, with fire in their eyes. These, after all, were the men who would have to "create" the Catholic Church in this country—a country which, for the most part, believed that Catholics were worshipers of Satan. They were trained to resist persecution, defend the faith against all manner of attack, work independently without contact with higher authority, and support an immigrant faithful which was mistrusted and persecuted themselves. They had to be men! Thay had to be fighters! They had to be individuals! They had to stand out from the crowd! And you can tell they were all that and more just by looking at their pictures.
          Now, stroll down to the other end of the building, to around 1950 or so and continuing through the 60's and 70's. There are portraits here, too. The classes here are much larger, some with as many as thirty priests in them; but there is no fire in their eyes. Sometimes it's hard to even distinguish between the men in them: all the same hair cut; all the same style of perfectly pressed suit and collar; all the same dull, blank, expressionless stare. Here you have found the Archbishop's generation, all with spine neatly and surgically removed. They, after all, were not ordained to defend the faith, but to make it seem harmless to a well ordered Protestant society. They were not intended to help an immigrant community survive a vicious persecution, but rather to help the Catholic Church in America "blend in;" and, to that end, they were formed and trained to blend in themselves. If there were originally any individuals and strong personalities—any "characters"—among them, they were weeded out in the formation process by the new tool of psychological evaluation. Their lack of individuality and self-determination, it was thought, was necessary to ensure their obedience; their ability to blend in and not stand out from the crowd was thought necessary to ensure that the Catholic Church was not perceived by anyone as a threat.
          And the Church got exactly what she wanted. This latter generation, with their sexuality thoroughly repressed, their emotional development frozen somewhere in adolescence, their "fighting Irish" spirit boiled out of them, and their blind obedience to authority thoroughly ensured, were unleashed into a society which, within a few decades, would turn against the Church again—a Church which would look to her priests to fight for her—but there was no fight in them. Humanae Vitae came and went, and the number of priests and bishops willing and able to stand up and defend the doctrine could be counted on one hand. The repression of their psycho-sexual development exploded in a flurry of imporper and horrific abuses of young boys; and the ones charged with protecting the young and restoring order had not the strength of character—or the ability to even see the need—to take the bull by the horns and deal with it. Instead they chose to try and "smooth it over" by cryptic transfers to other assignments, hoping it would all go away. Then, when the poop hit the fan, they placed the whole problem in the hands of a lay review board, to which they subordinated their Divine commission, inventing slogans like "Promise to Protect, Pledge to Heal," actually believing that marketing and image were part of the solution. They convinced the Holy See to sign off on a policy of "norms" that would allow them to rid themselves of any priest who embararssed them, while protecting themselves from any liability. And when a Catholic politician openly supports policies which are abhorrent to fundamental Catholic dogma, they pass the buck. Is it any wonder why?
          Back when your PP was a seminarian, the formation program was different than it is today. Your summers were your own, so long as you did something within the Church. I spent one summer living and working in the cathedral parish of a Roman Rite diocese down in Louisiana. The rector of the cathedral was the Vicar General of the diocese, one of the most brilliant, talented and strangest men I ever knew: a musician, a scholar, a veteran who had served in two wars (and, on and off, in every single branch of America's military before becoming a priest), and with the colorful vocabulary of a drunken sailor. Once at dinner he told me about his first assignment as a priest in a parish in the bayou, and about his pastor who used to sit at the dinner table with a revolver by his plate. In the middle of his story he stopped and let out a deep sigh; then, after a pause he said in a sad voice, "There are no more characters in the priesthood."
          Indeed there aren't. And it seems that the Catholic Church in this country—and the Catholic Faith itself—will be suffering from this deficiency for many generations to come. Where will we find the priests who will be needed to rebuild the Catholic Church in America? The men in those early portraits are all dead, and the generation currently running the show doesn't want anyone like them ordained any time soon. Yes, there's my generation ordained in the early and mid-80's; but there are so few of us—ordained, in some cases, in classes of two or three or even one. And we're already in our 50's and 60's; we'll be practically dead ourselves before the Archbishop and his generation let the reigns slip through their hands. To be sure, the Pope is a good man; but I haven't seen him make any moves to tell any bishop in this country to "excommunicate that politician or you're out of a job." How do you correct the leadership gap in the Catholic Church today? Do we emulate the previous generation and just hope it all blows over after the news cycle turns? I choose to blog under an assumed name. How about you?
          In the mean time, welcome to the Index of Forbidden Blogs.

by Priestly Pugilist

11:29 PM 2/9/2009 —

[Maybe it's something in the water, or perhaps it's just the specticle of so many millions of American Catholics voting for Barak Obama; but Catholic bishops all over the country are starting to poke their heads out of their foxholes. Here's another example of a bishop who failed to get the surrender memo; and in doing so, exposes a whole dynamic to the situation that is rarely discussed: the role of the bishop as the protector of the temporal resources of his diocese, and the priest as a "factor" which has the potential to damage those resources.
     Unfortunately, for every Catholic bishop who appreciates and stands up for his faithful priests, there are ten who view their priests primarily as potential liabilities to be constantly scrutinized against the risk of embarassing the diocese or costing it money. To this latter group, this is what it means to be a "good steward" of the resources of the diocese; and they are, in the strictly secular sense. When you believe in God, however, you take a different approach to being a good streward, like Bishop Jenky does here.
     It used to be generally accepted that a bishop needs his priests in order to fullfil his three-fold ministry to "rule, teach and sanctify" the faithful entrusted to him by Christ. Increasingly, however, it seems that many bishops have turned their backs on this traditional understanding of their office, choosing instead to view themselves more like CEOs rather than apostles; and their priests not as colaborators in the sacred ministry, but employees whose service must be constantly evaluated according to the cost-effectiveness of their performance.
     Of course, a bishop cannot so easily disgard his mission to rule, teach and sanctify unless he has, in fact, lost his faith. Don't believe me? If there was a way to track those dioceses with the highest number of priests removed from ministry without any charges being brought against them by civil authorities, you will find that they are the most liberal dioceses in the country.
     Personally, I prefer the Jenky approach. So does Pope Benedict who, years before becoming pope, spoke those immortal words: "What the Church needs is holiness...not management." —PP]

February 7-8, 2009

Dear Priests, Deacons, Religious and Faithful of the Diocese of Peoria,

          My greatest responsibility as your bishop is to preach the Gospel, celebrate the Sacraments, and to try my best to be a good shepherd for this local church. The saddest part of my ministry has been to deal with our part of the immense societal issue of sexual misconduct with minors. Where there have been credible accusations made against individuals and with the advice of my Review Commission, I have not hesitated to remove them from all active ministry. I have also tried to attentively follow the charter adopted by the American bishops that deals in a comprehensive manner with this painful subject. I have not discovered any evidence in this Diocese that priests guilty of misconduct were ever moved from assignment to assignment. Our Diocese normally offers counseling to victims rather than paying out large cash settlements. Not every allegation has been found to be credible by our Review Commission, and so our Diocese resists supporting those claims that simply cannot be sustained by the facts. I take very seriously my responsibility to protect all the children entrusted to our care, and I am absolutely convinced that today the programs of our Church now provide the safest possible environment in America for your children.
          In these perilous economic times, I will work to be a prudent steward of the money you offer for the work of Christ. Attorneys representing some claimants and some "victims groups" obviously have a significant financial stake in trying to overturn our Diocesan policies. Recent decisions in the Illinois courts may make our legal situation even more difficult in the future. It should be noted that the sexual abuse of minors cuts across all socio-economic lines, ethnicities, ministries, and religions. It is important to remember that the State basically exempts its own institutions from civil litigation. Amid all the tensions of our nation's culture wars and in the face of the media's intense hatred for our Catholic Faith, I am increasingly concerned that our Church in effect no longer enjoys equal justice under the law. I will not be intimidated by choreographed demonstrations or the abuse that is sometimes personally directed against me. I remain immensely proud of the zealous and holy priesthood of our Diocese. May God guide and protect his Holy Church and bless us all in his service.

Sincerely yours in Christ,
Most Reverend Daniel R. Jenky, C.S.C.
Bishop of Peoria

[From the Diocese of Scranton's Official Web Site] In a letter to Sen. Robert P. Casey, Bishop Joseph F. Martino condemned the vote taken by Sen. Casey against an amendment to a bill which would have prohibited millions of U.S. tax dollars from going to organizations abroad that provide and promote abortion.
          The Martinez Amendment to the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) would have reinstated the Mexico City Policy rescinded by President Obama on Jan. 23. The amendment was defeated in a vote of 60-37.
          In his letter, Bishop Martino condemns Sen. Casey’s vote against the Martinez amendment which would have prevented “over 450 million dollars of American foreign aid . . .[from going] to organizations that are militant in promoting abortion as a method of population control, particularly in countries that find abortion objectionable on moral grounds.”
          The Bishop continues, “Your vote against the Mexico City Policy will mean the deaths of thousands of unborn children. This is an offense against life and a denial of our Catholic teaching on the dignity of every human being. This action is worthy of condemnation by all moral men and women.”
          The Bishop’s letter urges Sen. Casey to rescind his vote on the Martinez amendment. “Your failure to reverse this vote will regrettably mean that you persist formally in cooperating with the evil brought about by this hideous and unnecessary policy,” says the Bishop.
          The Mexico City Policy was first implemented under President Reagan. It was rescinded by President Clinton and reinstated by President Bush. The policy required that non-governmental organizations abroad “agree as a condition of their receipt of [U.S.] federal funds” that they would “neither perform nor actively promote abortion as a method of family planning in other nations.” The policy exempted abortions done in response to rape, incest, or life-threatening conditions.
          “The core of the argument is whether U.S. taxpayers ought to be forced to fund efforts abroad that utilize abortion as a means of family planning,” said Sen. Mel Martinez (R-FL). “If we want to continue fostering a culture of life, where every life is considered sacred, every child is celebrated, and life at all stages is given the dignity it deserves, then we will reinstate this [Mexico City] policy.”
          A release issued by Sen. Casey’s office the day after the vote says that “Restrictions on the federal funding of abortions are in place both domestically and overseas. U.S. funding of abortions overseas is prohibited by the 1973 Helms Amendment. . . . [which reads] “No foreign assistance funds may be used to pay for the performance of abortion as a method of family planning or to motivate or coerce any person to practice abortions.”
          But as Bishop Martino’s letter points out, the Helms Amendment does not restrict organizations from using their own money to provide and promote abortions. It does not deny money to organizations that are militant about pressuring foreign governments to reverse anti-abortion legislation. The Mexico City Policy does both.
          The full text of Bishop Martino’s letter to Sen. Casey follows:

January 30, 2009

Dear Senator Casey:

          I wish to thank you for voting in favor of the Hatch Amendment to the Children’s Health Insurance Program Reorganization Act of 2009 which would have made unborn children eligible for child health assistance had it passed. I am grateful for what you have done on behalf of children in America who are without health care.
          It is with deep regret, however, that I learned of your vote against the amendment offered by Senator Mel Martinez (R-FL) to the same Children’s Health Insurance Act. Senator Martinez’s amendment would have reinstated the Mexico City Policy. That policy, instituted in 1984, required foreign non-governmental organizations “to agree as a condition of their receipt of [U.S.] federal funds” that they would “neither perform nor actively promote abortion as a method of family planning....” It also prohibited them from lobbying governments to make abortion legal. In effect, the reversal of the Mexico City policy will mean that over 450 million dollars of American foreign aid will go to organizations that are militant in promoting abortion as a method of population control, particularly in countries that find abortion objectionable on moral grounds. Senator, is not this vote a contradiction of your repeated claim that you support the protection of unborn life?
          Contrary to a release issued by your office yesterday, the 1973 Helms Amendment does not provide the same restrictions as the Mexico City Policy. The Helms Amendment prohibits only U.S. funds from being used to pay for abortions or to motivate or coerce anyone to practice abortions. It in no way keeps U.S. federal funds from organizations which use their own money to pay for or support abortions. Nor does it place restrictions on organizations that lobby foreign governments to reverse anti-abortion laws. While I understand that the Helms Amendment is still in place, it does not have the same effect in limiting abortions abroad.
          On Respect Life Sunday, October 5, I addressed the faithful of the Diocese of Scranton. In keeping with the obligations of my episcopal office, I called upon my brothers and sisters in faith to be vigilant against the objections to the Church’s teaching on life so prevalent in current political discourse. I vowed to be vigilant in correcting Catholics who are in error with regard to the sanctity of life. Your vote against the Mexico City Policy will mean the deaths of thousands of unborn children. This is an offense against life and a denial of our Catholic teaching on the dignity of every human being. This action is worthy of condemnation by all moral men and women.
          Your release also says that you support “family planning...specifically because reducing unintended pregnancies reduces the number of abortions.” I remind you that it is never permissible to use immoral means (e.g., artificial contraception) to achieve a good end.
          As I have done on several occasions, Senator, I urge you to consider that Church documents speak clearly and compellingly on the special responsibility that falls to you as a lawmaker to oppose abortion and other clear evils, including contraception, infanticide, euthanasia and embryonic stem-cell research. To that end, I refer you to two documents:

1. Doctrinal Note on some questions regarding The Participation of Catholics in Political Life. It says, “Catholics...have the right and the duty to recall society to a deeper understanding of human life and to the responsibility of everyone in this regard. John Paul II, continuing the constant teaching of the Church, has reiterated many times that those who are directly involved in lawmaking bodies have a ‘grave and clear obligation to oppose’ any law that attacks human life.”

2. Christifideles Laici. It states, “If, indeed everyone has the mission and responsibility of acknowledging the personal dignity of every human being and of defending the right to life, some lay faithful are given a particular title to this task: such as parents, teachers, health workers and those who hold economic and political power.”

          I remind you further that when he was Prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Ratzinger sent a memo to the bishops of the United States advising them that advocacy of, or participation in, abortion and euthanasia can never be justified by invoking respect for the freedom of others or by appealing to the fact that civil law permits or requires it. He said there can be no diversity of opinion among Catholics regarding abortion and euthanasia.
          It is my deepest wish, Senator, to convince you of the necessity of rescinding your vote on the Martinez Amendment. It is the height of irony that this amendment was defeated while the Senate passed legislation to provide health insurance for children who would otherwise be without it. What hypocrisy offers health insurance to children in one part of the world when children in another part will be deprived, by the stroke of the same pen, of their first breath?
          I recognize and respect the burdens that you bear as a United States Senator; however, I remind you that your responsibilities as a Catholic bound by the faith of the Church exceed even those of your office. Your failure to reverse this vote will regrettably mean that you persist formally in cooperating with the evil brought about by this hideous and unnecessary policy.
          As I have done several times before, I offer to make myself available to you to discuss the grave concerns that I raise here.

Sincerely yours in Christ,
Most Reverend Joseph F. Martino, D.D., Hist. E.D.
Bishop of Scranton

12:12 PM 2/7/2009 — I've often heard people say that they don't believe in God because they can't conceive of a god who would allow such-and-such to happen. They see poverty and AIDS and famine and war, and they say that God would not allow these 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. It almost seems to trivialize the very idea of God—I mean, what's the point of being God if you have to submit everything you do to the approval of the committee?
          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?" Isn't God being unfair?
          I always recommend them to read the book of Job; and many of you have heard me preach from it at furnerals. 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 Bible: "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 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

01:00 PM 2/6/2009 — Last year, in a post entitled, "Reform: can you deal with it?", your PP spoke about an imaginary priest, formed after Vatican II, whose entire belief system is based on the common misinterpretations of the Council, and what would happen to him should the Latin Church actually engage in a real reform of the Liturgy. I summarized his new Post-Vatican II faith as follows:

And he is the priest referred to above: the one who, if faced with a general and comprehensive reform of the Western Liturgy—to use Cardinal Ratzinger's words—"standing wholly in the legacy of the traditional Rite," would most likely opt for an early retirement rather than re-wire his brain to accept something so foreign to his own "personal faith." For him, Vatican II wasn't one council among many; it was a "new Pentecost"—and not just a new Pentecost, but one which cancels the previous one. For him, the Church is community (which, of course, it is), but that's all it is. Her Liturgy does not carry a duel purpose of sanctifying and uniting; it's only one of those, and he's sure he knows which one. Based on the way he's re-tooled his priesthood, his approach to the liturgy eschews any concern for validity or the historical significance of the actions he performs at the altar, and instead focuses on whatever in the liturgy can be made to appeal to the emotional. He could never, for example, celebrate the Eastern Liturgy or deal, for that matter, with a reform of the Western Liturgy, since the lack of eye-contact with his brothers and sisters would make the whole thing meaningless to him. The liturgical act, for him, is not so much an encounter between the worshipers and God as it is between the priest and his flock. His purpose in the sanctuary is not so much salvific as it is therapeutic, with the goal of the liturgical act being not the transmission of grace but the healing of emotions. A wedding is not a ratification of a covenant with God, but a celebration of love; a baptism is not the cleansing of Original Sin and the restoration of Sanctifying Grace, but a celebration of life; confession is not the acknowledgment and forgiveness of sins, but a celebration of affirmation and reconciliation; a funeral is not an appeal to God to speed the soul on its journey and keep it safe until the final Resurrection, but grief counseling for the family; and the Eucharist is not the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ offered for our sins on the Altar of the Cross, but a gathering of fellowship around the table of the Lord in which we find our "true selves" in communion with one another.

Your PP then went on to speculate how this imaginary priest might cope with the real reform should it occur:

Believe or not, I do not think any of this is an exageration; and this brand of priest is much more common than any of us would like to admit. Summorum Pontificum is not simply an annoyance to him; it's a challenge to his religion. And if the comprehensive reform hinted at in Card. Ratzinger's 2003 letter were to ever occur, he would lose his faith, because it wouldn't just be about rubrics; it would be about the very essence of the Christian Faith of which the Liturgy is the primary expression; and it would no longer express what he believes. He might, for a time, hold out hope that some future pope will come along to undo the damage done to the Holy Spirit who, after all, told us to face the people at Vatican II (in much the same way that so many nuns lamented, during the last pontificate, that they won't be priests "under this pope"); but when the correction doesn't come, he'll leave. He'll have to. And he'll be thoroughly convinced that it was the Church who left him.

The letter referred to was a piece of private correspondence by the furture Pope Benedict, in which he speculates about a future reform of the Western Liturgy which would consist of a melding of certain aspects of the Novus Ordo with the basic structure and rubrical thrust of the Mass of Pius V. The entire post is lengthly, but well worth a read (if I do say so myself). Just click on the 2008 link at the bottom of the page and search for the title in the table of contents.
          Now there seems to be emperical evidence that much of what your PP speculated is coming true. Entries around the blogosphere have been ripe with what I shall now call Reverse Post-Conciliar Traumatic Stress Disorder, or RPCTSD. It's counterpart, PCTSD, was rampant in the Church during the late 1960's and early 70's, as conservative priest after conservatice priest sought early retirement—or went full force schismatic—declaring, "This isn't the Church I was ordained for." Marcel Lefebvre's Society of Pius X was a tangible example of PCTSD taken to its logical conclusion. Now, it seems, RPCTSD is beginning to manifest itself in exactly the same way, its catalyst being a succession of Papal initiatives designed to—as Cardinal Ratzinger put it—"reform the reform." First was the establishment of the commission Ecclesia Dei by John Paul II, which created a means by which priests could obtain permission "over the head of the bishop" to celebrate the 1962 Missal; next came Pope Benedict's motu proprio, Summorum Pontificum, which went even further, eliminating the need for anyone's permission; now comes the lifting of the excommunications of the four bishops consecrated by Archbishop Lefebvre in 1988, which is discussed in the post directly below. Laced in between these public events are smaller, less noticable ones that only veteran Vatican watchers usually detect: Pope Benedict removing the portable altar from the Sistine Chapel and beginning to offer the Novus Ordo on the original main altar "with his back to the people," then explaining the whole thing in a beautiful meditation offered during the following General Audience (read about that in last year's post, "Conversi ad Dominum"); then his request that the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments investigate the feasibility of restoring the Eastward orientation of the priest and the mandatory use of Latin in the Eucharistic prayer of all Masses; even statements made by the secretary of that same Congregation calling for a reconsideration of the practice of receiving Holy Communion in the hand (last year's post, "Give me some tongue"). It doesn't take a whole lot of clairvoyance to see that the "reform of the reform" is well under way.
          The hysterical reactions to the "reform of the reform"—the manifestations of RPCTSD which are now cropping up—are easy to gloat over; and the blogosphere is full of 'em: editorials in liberal Catholic papers like The Tablet, delcaring "The Holy Spirit Betrayed"; liturgists gathering in Rome to weep over the grave of Archbishop Bugnini, chief architect of the Novus Ordo under Pope Paul VI; even one of your own PP's former seminary professors who proclaimed recently, "Some future pope is going to have to undo all this." I was in the process of collecting all these to just hurl into a massive post entitied "Collective Nervous Breakdown" or something similar. But we are supposed to be Christians, after all; and twisting the knife should not be something we enjoy even when we do it.
          It suffices to provide just one example of RPCTSD to illustrate the phenonemon, as reported from one of your PP's colleagues in the Catholic blogosphere, Rorate Caeli. It seems that a somewhat well known "progressive" priest in France, Fr. Gérard Bessière, is so traumatized by the lifting of the excommunications of the four SSPX bishops, that he has repsonded by excommunicating the Pope:

It is huge, it is true, disproportionate to my insignificant self! But it is good that I declare it, I cannot hide it from friends: I have excommunicated Benedict XVI. As soon as he lifted the excommunication of the Integrist bishops...!
     You do not take me seriously? It is true, nonetheless. What happened? In the end of January, when Rome bolstered these four schismatic miters, without taking into consideration their rejection of the renewal of the last Council, of the recognition of religious liberty, of ecumenism, of opening up to the world, and so forth, I have ceased naming the bishop of Rome in the eucharistic prayer.

          It would be easy to dismiss Fr. Bessière as a satirist; but, take my word for it, his anguish is real; his case of RPCTSD is terminal; and, if he were a younger man still involved in active ministry, he would most likely leave the priesthood or start some sort of liberal schismatic association dedicated to "preserving the true faith." Parsing the misunderstandings in his statement would be futile—for example, no where in the documents of Vatican II is found anything about "opening up to the world," and one is reminded of Origin's remark, still read in the Roman Breviary, about living in the midst of the world without being a part of it—because what's been betrayed, in Bessière's mind, is the Christian Faith itself, re-invented at Vatican II under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. All the Ecumenical Councils before it, all the popes, all the Creeds, the whole of Christian history, even the Epistles of St. Paul, are abrogated by the one true Gospel of Vatican II; which, by the way, is not understood by a reading of it's final documents, but by that etherial and magical Gnosis that eminates from it like a mist, permeating and enlivening all creation. And when Pope Benedict speaks about understanding the Council in the context of Catholic history and not separating it from the integral development of the Church over the centuries, to Bessière it is like trying to interpret the Torah in the context of Adolf Hitler.
          I wonder if there's any money left in the Stimulus Package for the treatment of RPCTSD. The fact that practically nothing was done for those who suffered from PCTSD in the 60's should not close our hearts to the suffering that's now going on out there, even though that failure is what caused four bishops and their two consecrators to be excommunicated, along with alienating thousands of others. It's a big Church, after all; there should be room for everyone—at least that's what everyone says Vatican II teaches us—unless, of course, you're Fr. Bessière, for whom there is no room for Pope Benedict.

by Priestly Pugilist

11:00 AM 2/4/2009 — Die-hard PP fans—all six of you—know exactly what your PP thinks of Catholic polititians who feel they can separate their faith from their public responsibilities. Entries from previous years (they're available at the bottom of the page) are filled with many posts on this subject. I was on the verge of actually getting tired of the topic until this glittering jewel of colosal ignorance came along.
          As you've probably heard from other sources, our Holy Father, Pope Benedict, lifted the excommunications which were automatically imposed on four renegade bishops consecrated by the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. Because Eastern Catholics don't routinely keep up with the "old-lady-type" gossip about the "goings on" in the Latin Church, allow your PP to bring everyone up to speed, as this story requires some background.
          Marcel Lefebvre, born in 1905, was originally a priest of the Diocese of Lille in France, before leaving the diocese to join the Holy Ghost Fathers. He served as a professor and rector of two seminaries operated by the society before being sent to Africa as a bishop by Pope Pius XII. There he served in both pastoral and diplomatic capacities, eventually becoming the first Archbishop of Dakar in Senegal. After the death of Pius XII, Pope John XXIII appointed him Bishop of Tulle in France (retaining the personal title of Archbishop), and made him a member of the Central Preparatory Commission for the Second Vatican Council. In 1962 he was elected Superior General of the Holy Ghost Fathers.
          As a bishop, Lefebvre participated in the Second Vatican Council, and was outspoken in his opposition to liturgical reform and the Council's so-called "Declaration on Religious Liberty." After his retirement, he was approached by a group of students from the French Seminary in Rome who had been denied Holy Orders because of their traditionalist views. In 1970, he took nine seminarians to Switzerland, where Bishop François Charrière of Fribourg gave him permission to establish an experimental seminary as a Pious Union—a provision in Canon Law which is the first step to creating a Religious Order—called the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX). In 1971 he moved the seminary to Ecône, Switzerland. The French bishops, whose theological outlook was quite different from Lefebvre's, treated the Ecône seminary with suspicion and referred to it as "the Wildcat Seminary," saying they would not employ any of the priests trained there. In November 1974, The Holy See sent two Belgian priests to carry out a rigorous inspection of the seminary, producing, it was said, a favourable report. However, while at Ecône, they expressed a number of theological opinions to which the seminarians and staff objected as scandalous. In what he later described as a mood of "doubtlessly excessive indignation", the Archbishop wrote a "Declaration" in which he strongly attacked the modernist and liberal trends that he saw as apparent in the reforms being undertaken within the Church at that time. In 1975 the new Bishop of Fribourg withdrew the SSPX's pious union status. Archbishop Lefebvre continued his work at the seminary regardless, and ordained his seminarians to the priesthood in 1975 without the permission of the local bishop, despite receiving letters from Rome forbidding it. As a result, his powers to function as a bishop were suspended. In the years that followed, Lefebvre continued his work of educating priests according to his own traditional outlook, sending them out to establish parishes and missions throughout the world which worked independently of the local bishops, all the while rebuffing offers from Pope Paul VI and Pope John Paul II to find a way to regularize the status of the SSPX.
          Up to this point, even though Lefebvre's activities were clearly reputiated by the Church, he had done nothing to warrant the draconian punishment of excommunication. That began to change in 1981, when, at the age of 81, he announced his intention to consecrate a bishop to carry on his work after his death. The consecration of a bishop without the permission of the Pope carries with it an automatic excommunication. Much activity took place at this time to try and forstall what many people believed was nonetheless inevitable: Pope John Paul created the commision "Ecclesia Dei," which had power to grant priests permission to offer the "old Mass." The then-Candinal Ratzinger offered an aggreement by which a bishop chosen by Rome would be consecrated for the SSPX. Both actions failed to persuade Lefebvre; and, on June 30, 1988, Archbishop Lefebvre, with Bishop Emeritus Antônio de Castro Mayer of Campos, Brazil, as co-consecrator, consecrated four SSPX priests as bishops: Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, Richard Williamson, Alfonso de Galarreta and Bernard Fellay. On July 1, the Holy See issued a decree declaring the consecrations a schismatic act, and that all six people involved had thereby incurred automatic excommunication. Pope John Paul II confirmed the excommunications the following day. Lefebvre died of cancer in 1991 at the age of 85.
          A lot of water has flowed down the Tiber since then: in 1988, Pope John Paul II established the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, a Society of Apostolic Life which has attracted many priests from the SSPX to return to regularized status within the Catholic Church, granting it's members permission to serve as priests according to their traditional sensibilities. In 2007, Pope Benedict issued the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, granting every Roman Catholic priest to right to offer Mass in the ancient form wihout restriction and wihout seeking the permission of his bishop.
          So, now you're pretty much up to speed. What draws our attention to all of this right now is Pope Benedict's decision to lift the excommunications from the four bishops consecrated by Lefebvre in 1988, an action which ordinarily would not draw the attendtion of the secular press were it not for the fact that one of these men, Richard Williamson, has made an imprudent statement in which—get ready for it—he denies the Nazi Holocaust.
          Head spinning yet? Good. That's what we like here at Priestly Pugilist, lots of confussion. But let's try and clarify some of it anyway.
          First, some facts. The lifting of the excommunication does not regularize the SSPX within the Catholic Church, nor does it make the four bishops involved "bishops-in-good-standing." It lifts a canonical penalty, restoring them to ordinary membership in the Catholic Church; but they are still suspended priests, unauthorized to function as such within the Church. One persumes that talks between the Holy See and the SSPX will continue, as both sides try to iron out some agreement which would make it possible for the SSPX to function as a part of the Catholic Church again. Pope Benedict, after all, is a traditionalist himself, having already made the use of the so-called "Old Latin Mass" (properly called the "Extraordinary Form of Mass") available to everyone. The comments made by Bishop Williamsom regarding the Holocaust, which are clearly the products of a deep-fried brain, are completely extraneous to the Holy Father's pastoral concern for the members of the SSPX. But that doesn't seem to matter to the press, which can't pass up an opportunity to find scandal within the Catholic Church.
          Now, I did mention Catholic politicians at the top of this post; so, here's what prompted your PP to weigh in on this in the first place. A group of 50 Catholic congremen have written a letter to Pope Benedict "expressing concern" over his "failure" to denounce Bishop Williamson's remarks. Their letter, in part, reads:

As Catholic Members of Congress, we are writing to express our deep concerns with your decision to reinstate Bishop Richard Williamson to communion with the Catholic Church at the same time that Bishop Williamson publicly denies that the Holocaust occurred or that such was the policy under Adolf Hitler. We do not question your reasons for revoking the excommunication of Bishop Williamson or your right to do so, but we fail to understand why the revocation was not accompanied by an emphatic public rejection of his denial of the Holocaust … [T]his is too sensitive an issue to be handled without a direct repudiation of Bishop Williamson’s views. As a spiritual leader and the head of the Catholic Church, we believe it is vital that you publicly state your unequivocal position on this matter so that it is clear where the Church stands on one of the most consequential events of the 20th century.

If you're tempted to sympathize with the concerns expressed in this letter, it's time to think again. But on the outside chance that you might not—think again, that is—let's have another little PP fact check:
          First of all, Bishop Williamson's remarks were not made public until after the decree lifting the excommunication was issued; so it would have been pretty much impossible for the Holy Father's decree to be "accompanied by an emphatic public rejection of his denial of the Holocaust." The man may be infallible in matters of faith and morals, but he's not clairvoyant. Also, a Papal decree lifting an excommunication, is just that: a Papal decree lifting an excommunication. It's not supposed to include a commentary on whatever happens to be in the news at the time, no matter how prescient. Likewise, the idea that the Pope's "failure" to repudiate Williamson's remarks leaves some kind of confussion in people's minds about where the Church stands on Nazism is ludicrous to say the least. It's an example of the common political ploy of expressing outrage over something that everyone's already outraged about for no reason but to pad one's political resume. No one—except for a few conspiracy-theory kooks still hurting over their childhood abductions by aliens—thinks the Catholic Church likes Nazis.
          But the real rub regarding this letter from 50 U.S. Catholic Congressmen is the fact that the ring-leader of this aliance of the concerned is none other than Rosa DeLauro, Democrat from Connecticut. Don't remember her? Oh, she's an old hand at writting letters to the Pope. She was the one who, back in 2006, got the same group of concerned Catholic congressmen to write to Pope Benedict in protest to his statement that public officials who support abortion should not receive Holy Communion.
          So, let's recap and see if we have this straight: the Pope has no right to tell Catholic politicians who funnel millions of dollars of tax-payer money into the slaughter of innocent, unborn children that they're wrong; but they have every right to tell the Pope that he's wrong because he hasn't condemned Nazism again this week. Yeahsureright!
          I don't know about you, but this business of telling the Pope how to do his job is getting a bit worn on me. Ms. DeLauro and her aliance of the concerned would probably tell me that the Pope shouldn't tell her how to do her job, either. The problem is, he's not. He's telling her how to be a good Catholic—something in which she has, obviously, never been interested.

by Priestly Pugilist

Click here to listen to the report from Vatican Radio.

[As a companion to the above, Fr. V has given your PP permission to reproduce here a letter he wrote to Congresswoman Delauro back in 2006, at the time she and other so-called Catholic Members of Congress issued their original statement concerning the obligations of Catholic politicians. —PP]

3 March 2006

Hon. Rosa L. DeLauro
2262 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Representative DeLauro,

          I am writing to you today to express concern over the “Statement of Principles” released from your office on February 28th of this year, and signed by 55 Catholic Democrats in the House of Representatives.
          Without delving into the specific issues which may have prompted the statement (about which I am little equipped to discuss), I am troubled by what you and your colleagues describe as the “primacy of conscience,” particularly since there is clearly no such concept in Catholic moral teaching.
          The Catholic Church defines the conscience as a faculty of the intellect that alerts us as to whether our actions are in conformity with the truth. Whether the conscience can do this is determined by whether it really knows the truth. A conscience which has been misinformed, or is ignorant of the truth, cannot perform it's function and is therefore useless. For example, if a Catholic priest, for whatever reason, tells someone that they may steal money from work and that this is not wrong, the person does not sin in doing it, because their conscience has been misinformed. But that does not make the act right, nor make the conscience infallible. As soon as that person becomes aware of the truth, the excuse of conscience is no longer valid, since the conscience now has a new standard by which to judge. How one feels personally about the issue at hand has absolutely nothing to do with how the conscience operates.
          As I’m sure you know, this “common stock” misunderstanding of conscience is most acute when it comes to matters dealing with more personal and intimate moral questions. People who interpret conscience as "how I feel about it personally" will say that conscience excuses deviating from Catholic moral teaching because of the person's own personal conclusions. But this is not conscience. Conscience can only excuse such a deviation if the conscience is either ignorant of the law of God, or if it has been misinformed by "Father Friendly." In such a case, the conscience is wrong through no fault of it's own; and we are obliged to follow even an erroneous conscience provided that we don't know it's erroneous (and this is what is commonly mislabeled as “primacy of conscience”). But once the conscience has been informed as to the reality of what the Church teaches, then the excuse no longer exists, and one must now act in accord with the new standard the conscience has received.
          Moral theologians refer to this as “invincible ignorance,” that is, a conscience which is in error about the truth. It is only through invincible ignorance that a person's conscience can excuse from guilt in deviating from the moral order. A conscience that knows what the Church teaches can never be used as an excuse to do what the Church teaches is objectively evil.
          In conclusion, I find it ironic that you and your colleagues refer to the Apostolic Exhortation, Christifideles Laici, of our late Holy Father, John Paul II, in support of your misleading and uninformed statement, particularly in light of the fact that it was this same pope who stated that Catholic lay people in public office who conclude that the performance of their government duties require them to deviate from Catholic moral teaching have an obligation, in conscience, to immediately resign their government posts.
          Hoping that your Lent will be grace filled, and with a promise of my prayers, I am

Sincerely Your in Christ,
J. Michael Venditti
(Rev.) J. Michael Venditti

10:39 AM 2/3/2009 — VATICAN CITY, 2 FEB 2009 (VIS) - Made public today was the text of a Message from the Pope to His Holiness Kirill, for the occasion of his enthronement as patriarch of Moscow and All Russia. The ceremony took place yesterday, 1 February, in Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Saviour.
          Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, who led the Holy See delegation to the enthronement ceremony, delivered the Message to Kirill, along with a chalice from the Pope "as a sign of the desire to achieve full communion as soon as possible".
          In his English-language Message Benedict XVI tells the new patriarch of his "esteem" and "spiritual closeness", and adds: "I pray that our heavenly Father will grant you the abundant gifts of the Holy Spirit in your ministry and enable you to guide the Church in the love and peace of Christ". Kirill's predecessor Alexis II, writes the Pope, "left his people a deep and abiding inheritance of ecclesial renewal and development. ... He likewise maintained a spirit of openness and co-operation with other Christians, and with the Catholic Church in particular, for the defence of Christian values in Europe and in the world. "I am certain", he adds, "that Your Holiness will continue to build on this solid foundation, for the good of your people and for the benefit of Christians everywhere.
          "As president of the Department of External Church Relations, you yourself played an outstanding role in forging a new relationship between our Churches, a relationship based on friendship, mutual acceptance and sincere dialogue in facing the difficulties of our common journey. "It is my earnest hope", the Holy Father concludes, "that we will continue to co-operate in finding ways to foster and strengthen communion in the Body of Christ, in fidelity to our Saviour's prayer that all may be one, so that the world may believe".

[ Photos courtesy of the BBC. ]

posted by Priestly Pugilist

01:39 PM 2/1/2009 — If Lent is a time of preparation for Pascha or Easter, some may find it overkill to have a time of preparation for Lent itself. But it is the nature of the Eastern Churches, following ancient traditions, to cling to the practice of centuries past; and in centuries past, Lent was not just a time to prepare ourselves for Easter by giving up chocolate and saying a few extra prayers. When the Church was young—and the Apostles were still preaching the words of our Lord from memory—very few people were born into the faith; they joined the Church as adults. And joining the Church meant a big change in a person’s life, especially in an age of persecution. Lent was a time of intense study and prayer and fasting and personal purification. Baptism, after all, is the restoration of Sanctifying Grace; one does not take it lightly.
          And, as in all things, the Church follows the example of our Lord who, before beginning the work he came to do, fasted and prayed in the desert for forty days. He didn’t give up chocolate and television for forty days; he fasted and prayed for forty days. And so, the Eastern Churches, following a tradition handed down from the Apostles, places great emphasis on this thing we call the Great Fast—what most others call the season of Lent—; so much so that, before we even enter into it, we take time to prepare; kind of like a preparation for the preparation, which we call the Triodion: three or four weeks—depending on the date of Easter—during which we gradually ease ourselves into a spirit of self-denial.
          Two years ago I went on vacation to a place where there was a pool; so, I said, “I’m going swimming.” But I had not been swimming for a long time, and the water seemed cold to me. So, instead of diving right in—if you can picture such an ungraceful thing—I walked into the water slowly, little by little, splashing myself in order to acclimate to the temperature of the water. That’s what we do during the Triodion. We acclimate ourselves to, first, acknowledge that we are sinners and need to reform our lives—that’s the point of today’s Gospel lesson—; then we try to accustom ourselves to the notion that, in spite of our sinfulness, God really does want us to reform, which our Lord illustrates for us in the parable of the Prodigal Son; then we begin, little by little, to impose upon ourselves that measure of self-denial that makes the reform of our lives possible in grace—the Week of Meatfare, the Week of Cheesefare.... Identifying specific objects for our mortification helps us to focus ourselves on the fact that our self-denial, if it is to have any effect, cannot be simply symbolic. We are every bit our bodies as we are our spirits. Our Lord didn’t sit down and think about what it would be like to fast for forty days in the desert, then try to imagine how that would change him; he actually went there and actually fasted.
          And so, we begin. In the Gospel lesson today, our Lord speaks to us of two men who go into the temple to pray. Both of them are sinners. That’s important to remember: both of them are sinners. But only one of them admits it. And I believe that the tax collector who admitted he was a sinner left the temple a happier man. Why? Because he was honest. The Pharisee, on the other hand, instead of telling God his sins, tells God what a wonderful guy he is, how much he gives to the temple, how much he fasted, how much he prayed, etc. And Jesus says that this was not pleasing to God, not because these are not good things to do—because they are—but because he didn’t tell the whole story. He didn’t tell God his sins.
          Every time we commit a sin and don’t confess it, we lie to God; for a lie isn’t just telling something that isn’t true, but also not telling something that is true. Every time we receive Holy Communion conscious of a serious sin that we have not confessed, we lie to God. And it’s a futile lie because God already knows the truth. The irony is that there’s no reason for it since we know, even before we confess our sins, that we’re going to be forgiven. If we tell the truth to God up front in confession, and express true sorrow for what we may have done, we know that we will be forgiven. The only thing that holds us back is admitting to ourselves that we are sinners. And if we’re not willing to do that, then we can’t even think of beginning Lent.
          Some of you may have personal experience with Alcoholics Anonymous. For those that don’t, it’s a program of recovery from addiction which consists of a series of steps—twelve in all—that must be taken in order; and what’s the first step? The first step is admitting to yourself that you have a problem. And why is that the first step? Because if you’re not willing to admit you have a problem, there’s no program in the world that can help you. If you don’t tell the doctor where it hurts, he can’t cure you. If you don’t tell the therapist what’s bothering you, he can’t help you understand why. If you don’t tell Christ your sins, he can’t forgive you.
          And so, as we begin this journey into the desert of our own souls, the Church presents to us these two men who walk into the temple to pray. One admits who and what he is, the other does not; and we must make a choice which example we will follow. The choice we make will determine a lot.
          St. Peter said, "Anyone who says he is not a sinner is a liar." We all have sins. Some of us have big sins, some have sins that aren’t so big. Ultimately it doesn't matter; because if we take them all to the Lord—big, little, and in between—he will forgive them all. All that is important to him is what was important in the parable today: that we tell them honestly and with sorrow. The prayer of the tax collector is, therefore, the perfect motto for us as we prepare to enter into the journey of Lent: God, be merciful to me, a sinner.

by Father Michael Venditti

04:27 PM 1/30/2009 — CHICAGO, Illinois, JAN. 29, 2009 (Zenit.org). An ad that promotes the potential of all life will not be shown on NBC during the Super Bowl on the grounds that it involves "political advocacy or issues."
          After several days of negotiations, an NBC representative in Chicago advised CatholicVote.org on Wednesday of it's decision not to run an ad that features President Barack Obama and concludes with the tagline, "Life: Imagine the Potential." Brian Burch, president of CatholicVote.org said there was "nothing objectionable in this positive, life-affirming advertisement." He then noted the irony that while NBC refused their ad for being advocacy-based, an ad of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals—an advocacy group—was rejected because it depicted "a level of sexuality exceeding our standards." The organization was then given a detailed list of edits that would make the spot acceptable.
          “NBC claims it doesn’t allow advocacy ads, but that’s not true. They were willing to air an ad by PETA if they would simply tone down the sexual suggestiveness,” said Burch. “The purpose of our new ad is to spread a message of hope about the potential of every human life, including the life of Barack Obama,” said Burch. “We are now looking at alternative venues to run the ad over the next several weeks.”
          The ad aired on BET in Chicago on Inauguration Day. It has become an Internet hit with over 700,000 views in seven days. The ad was in the top 10 "most viewed’" category on YouTube on Inauguration Day, Jan. 20.

posted by Priestly Pugilist

06:39 PM 1/29/2009 — Msgr. Smith once said, "Wherever you are assigned by the Bishop as a diocesan priest really does not matter too much, but what matters very much is that we be faithful."
          Returning to the seminary the day before yesterday for the Mass of Christ the High Priest—celebrated the night before a priest's funeral in the Latin Church—was painful; not because of any bad memories, but for just the opposite reason, as it reinforced how isolated I am in my current assignment from everyone who was important to me during those formative years.
          About a month ago, I had called one of my classmates to whom I speak regularly, complaining about this very thing. I suggested that I might make an overnight trip to New York, and asked if he could see if any of our old friends from Dunwoodie would be available for dinner. There were four of us for dinner that night: myself; my classmate; a priest from Manhattan who is also a good friend; and the busiest man on the planet, Bill Smith. That was the man.

by Priestly Pugilist

10:51 AM 1/26/2009 — Goodness! We haven't even buried Msgr. Bill Smith yet, and the politicos are making contraception an issue again after all these years.
          Remember how, during the previous administration, liberals were popping veins because America was "out of step" with the rest of the world? Remember how Mr. Obama was going to talk to everyone who didn't like us, magically making them all like us again because he talked to them? Well, there could be no clearer illustration of America being out of touch with the rest of the world than a comparison of the following two stories. The first is from CNN:

Even before one reaches the front door of Canon's headquarters in Tokyo, one can sense the virtual stampede of employees pouring out of the building exactly at 5:30 p.m. Japan's birth rate of 1.34 is below the level needed to maintain the country's population. In a country where 12-hour workdays are common, the electronics giant has taken to letting its employees leave early twice a week for a rather unusual reason: to encourage them to have more babies. "Canon has a very strong birth planning program," says the company's spokesman Hiroshi Yoshinaga. "Sending workers home early to be with their families is a part of it."
      Japan in the midst of an unprecedented recession, so corporations are being asked to work toward fixing another major problem: the country's low birthrate. At 1.34, the birthrate is well below the 2.0 needed to maintain Japan's population, according to the country's Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare. Keidanren, Japan's largest business group, with 1,300 major international corporations as members, has issued a plea to its members to let workers go home early to spend time with their families and help Japan with its pressing social problem.

In the last decade it was France. Now it's Japan. Everyone, it seems, knowns instinctively that, when the economy is in the tank, artificially pumping money into the economy is only a quick fix; the long-term solution is—get ready for it—babies! And lots of 'em. A bigger population means more people participating in the economy: more people manufacturing more goods and more people consuming those goods, and—hocus pocus—the economy chugs back to health like an old Chevy after a new oil change. It never fails.
          Yup. Everybody knows this. Everybody but us:

[From the Drudge Report:] Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi boldly defended a move to add birth control funding to the new economic "stimulus" package, claiming "contraception will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government."
      Pelosi, the mother of 5 children and 6 grandchildren, who once said, "Nothing in my life will ever, ever compare to being a mom," seemed to imply babies are somehow a burden on the treasury. The revelation came during an exchange Sunday morning on ABC's THIS WEEK.
      STEPHANOPOULOS: Hundreds of millions of dollars to expand family planning services. How is that stimulus?
      PELOSI: Well, the family planning services reduce cost. They reduce cost. The states are in terrible fiscal budget crises now and part of what we do for children's health, education and some of those elements are to help the states meet their financial needs. One of those - one of the initiatives you mentioned, the contraception, will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government.
      STEPHANOPOULOS: So no apologies for that?
      PELOSI: No apologies. No. we have to deal with the consequences of the downturn in our economy.

          Now, let me see if I understand this correctly. The economic down-turn started here in the United States, and rippled outward to the rest of the world. The rest of the world understands—and has always understood—that a static or declining population impedes economic growth; which is why, during bad economic times, countries all over the place take measures to encourage people to reproduce, whether it's a country like France offering huge tax breaks to families with four or more children, or an industrial jugernaught like Japan shortening the work day so people can go home and make woopie. But here in the US, where the new liberal administration ran on a platform of bringing us into step with the rest of the world, it is once again a case of "We're right and everyone else is wrong!"
          But what's really wrong with this picture is not the economic ineptitude on the part of a liberal government that was swept into office because everyone was hoodwinked into thinking that they were better equipped to deal with the problem; it's the fact that the point-person for this nonsensical national suicide attempt is someone who pretends to be a Catholic.
          Last year, we had a post about the Archbishop of San Francisco promising to have a "private conversation" with Ms. Pelosi about her public position on abortion ("Biden, Pelosi & the archbishop: and we are still waiting..."), and we wondered—tongue in cheek—how long we would have to wait for the results. We're still waiting. Not a surprise, as Archbishop Niederauer isn't exactly what one would call a courageous apostle for truth. The question now is: What will His Excellency do now that Ms. Speaker has stated a position as contradictory to the Gospel as if she had said that Jesus is not God?
          In spite of the failure of priests and bishops to state it forcefully, the fact is that the Church's teacing on artificial contraception is not up for discussion. The "wiggle room" that everyone seems to think they have because of something they think Vatican II said about conscience doesn't change that, since what everyone thinks Vatican II said, it never said. If Niederauer allows this to pass without informing Archbishop Donald Wuerl of Washington, DC, that she should not receive Holy Communion—an instruction that Wuerl has stated he would accomodate (cf. last year's post "That Pepsodent smile!")—, and Pope Benedict does nothing when Niederauer does nothing—which is probably what Niederauer will do—, then exactly how is the command of Christ to "confirm the faith" of the faithful being fulfilled?
          Sometimes I wish I lived in Vietnam, where the government confiscates churches, imprisons priests and shoots lay people when they protest it. At least there you know who the enemy is. Here, Catholic lay people ascend to high public office, make pendantic statements about how the Church is wrong, and our bishops respond by pledging to "work with the administration"—and even churn out a meaningless statement on immigration reform to prove it.
          Tomorrow your PP is traveling to his old seed-bed, Yonkers, New York, to concelebrate the funeral services for a friend and teacher who did more to promote the moral doctrine of the Catholic Church than all the bishops this country ever had put together. Why was he never made a bishop? If you don't know that, you haven't been reading this blog.

by Priestly Pugilist

01:50 PM 1/25/2009 — Last Sunday, you will recall, Jesus met a man named Bartimaeus along the road to Jerico; and we spoke about him and his conversation with our Lord in some detail. Today’s gospel lesson begins with Jesus arriving in Jerico; and as he’s passing through the town he meets someone else; and this Sunday before the Triodion is named after him: The Sunday of Zaccaeus.
          There are certain similarities between these two men who happen to meet our Lord by chance, most notably the fact that both of them are not full participants in society. Bartimaeus, remember, was blind; so he’s separated from society by a physical handicap which he asked our Lord to cure. Zaccaeus’ problem is a little bit more complicated: what separates him from society is his own behavior. He’s a tax collector for the Romans, so naturally people aren’t going to like him very much; but, worse yet, it is implied in the Gospel—by his own words—that he is also a crook, who collects a little bit more than he’s entitled to. And in that sense, Zaccaeus is even more representative of our spiritual situation.
          The scene of his encounter with our Lord is painted very vividly by St. Luke. Jesus is passing by, and a large number of people have lined the streets to catch a glimpse of him. Zaccaeus would like to get a look at Jesus, too; but he’s at the back of the crowd and can’t see anything because, as the Gospel says, he was a relatively short man. So, to get a better look at Jesus, he climbs up a sycamore tree. But climbing up a tree not only allows him to see Jesus, it allows Jesus to see him. Why our Lord singles him out will always be a mystery—I like to think that Jesus saw both an opportunity to save a soul as well as make a point. He is, after all, God, and certainly could know, simply by looking at him, exactly what kind of man Zaccaeus was. He also knows that, by inviting himself to Zaccaeus’ house, he’s going to be raising some eyebrows. St. Luke tells us how they all murmured when they saw the two go off together, and whispered to themselves, “He’s gone to a sinners house as a guest.”
          Our Lord does not respond to them on this occasion. Later on, when a similar situation presented itself, and our Lord was actually seen dining in the house of a public sinner, he would utter those famous words that would forever be a motto for his ministry: “It is the sick who need the physician, not the healthy.” But on this occasion he doesn’t say anything; he just goes with Zaccaeus to his house; and his kindness to Zaccaeus was enough to motivate Zaccaeus to completely change his life. In fact, not only does Zaccaeus change his thieving ways then and there, he also promises our Lord that he’ll pay back everything he’s stolen four times over, and give half of what's left to the poor. Now, that’s bound to make a dent in his standard of living. Zaccaeus made himself rich by stealing people’s tax money; if he pays it back multiplied by four, he’s gonna end up a poor man. But, apparently, that’s O.K. with Zaccaeus. The kindness that our Lord showed him by simply acknowledging him as a human being, and going to visit with him in his home regardless of how much it scandalized the self-righteous, meant more to Zaccaeus than anything else he had.
          It’s very easy to hate evil people, especially if we are among their victims. The people in Jerico hated Zaccaeus because he had stolen their money. But it wasn’t their hatred of him that moved him to give them their money back with interest; it was an act of kindness performed by a stranger. Now, admittedly, that stranger happened to be God, and enjoyed a certain degree of intuition that the good populace of Jerico didn’t have. Nevertheless, you don’t have to be God to be kind to people, especially to people whom it may be very popular to hate.
          Jesus didn’t do all that much for Zaccaeus comparatively speaking: he didn’t give him back his sight, or make him walk when he was crippled, or bring his dead daughter back to life—things that he had done for others; all he did for Zaccaeus was have a cup of coffee with him in his house. To us, it doesn’t seem like much—it may not have seemed like much to our Lord; but, to Zaccaeus, it meant everything. It just goes to show that you never can tell how much good you can do by doing the simplest things.

by Father Michael Venditti

06:21 PM 1/24/2009 — Heaven is getting crowded these days!
          When Fr. Venditti redesigned Priestly Pugilist for the new year, he created a new color entry for obituaries; but I had no idea we'd be using it so often right off the bat. First it was Father Neuhaus, then Patriarch Stephanos; now, Monsignor William B. Smith, STD, professor of moral theology at St. Joseph's Seminary (Dunwoodie), Yonkers, New York.
          If you're not up on your theological journals, you probably wouldn't recognize his name—unless you caught him on the Charlie Rose show or the odd episode of "Good Morning America"—; but, for those involved in the defense of Catholic doctrine, particularly the Gospel of Life, he was a guiding light.
          In the classroom, Father Smith (he wasn't a monsignor then) never made you learn; from him, you always wanted more. You left his class with the same feeling you had leaving the table after a good meal: looking forward to the next one after due digestion. And while the information came fast and furious, it was presented so simply and straightforwardly that, by the end of the class, all the questions you had jotted down to be asked when the lecture was over were already answered. Nor was there any trickery or attempts to show how clever he was—that perennial curse that infects so many academicians—; he wanted you to understand, and, if you didn't, he counted it a personal failure on his part, not yours. "This will be on the exam," he would often say; and there it was on exam day, in exactly the same words as in the lecture. You couldn't help but learn.
          But the humility and singleness of purpose that characterized Msgr. Smith in the classroom were only offshoots of the personal qualities of the man and the priest; and it is unfortunate that those who knew him—or knew of him—only through his scholarly legacy in defense of human life and Catholic moral teaching, never heard him preach or lived with him. The priest-professor who glides into the sanctuary in the local parish because he's been assigned to help there on the weekends gets a bad rap, usually well deserved, as he dazzles the faithful with exegesis which would confound St. Jerome; but, in the pulpit, Msgr. Smith would speak only of eternal realities, and in such a way that one recounted the words of the emissaries of the Prince of Kiev in Constantinople: "We did not know if we were in heaven or on earth."
          To live with him was to live with a friend from the first day you moved in. Shy and not given to the social graces, he was nevertheless as comfortable to be with as pair of flannel pajamas (once he realized that you meant him no harm); and in the seminary, he was quick to defend anyone whom he perceived was being persecuted for faithfulness to the Church and her Divine mission. There are many good and holy priests laboring in the vineyard today who would not be there if not for Msgr. Smith standing up for them in trying times before evaluators and authoritarians who saw their roll in the seminary in service to their own agendas.
          It is not insignificant that he passed from us at the same time as the anniversary of that disastrous Supreme Court decision that made the murder of the inconvenient legal. But it would be remiss to ignore the fact that, even in pro-life circles, Msgr. Smith was often an unwelcome guest, not unlike the crazy uncle you have to invite for Thanksgiving because he's family. With him, it was nothing less than all of Catholic teaching, not just the soup of the day; and often it seemed that he was a lone voice crying in the wilderness the awful truth that it's primarily artificial contraception that is at the root of the murder of unborn children; and while Catholic bishops and theologians risk nothing to stand up for the fight against abortion, you can count on one hand those who have spoken fearlessly and continuously about the mortal sin of artificial birth control, and that myth of casuistry that so often masquerades under the title of "conscience" in Catholic pulpits and confessionals. Msgr. Smith was among them.
          With the stroke of a pen yesterday, President Obama condemned millions of innocent children to death on our dime, as he rescinded, by Executive Order, the "Mexico City Accords" that prevented American tax dollars paying for abortions overseas. What he didn't count on was our own secret weapon: a torpedo fired into heaven from earth, which will reign down the light of truth on the unrighteous, already present in the hundreds of priests and lay people who have been schooled in the Gospel of Life by the best defender human life ever had.
          May Christ our God richly reward his servant, the priest William, with eternal blessings; and may his memory be eternal!

by Priestly Pugilist

11:05 PM 1/25/2009 —

[What follows is Chapter Four of the book, Fishers of Men, published in 1986 by Trinity Communications. The electronic form of this document is copyright © Trinity Communications 1994. Provided courtesy of: The Catholic Resource Network, Trinity Communications, PO Box 3610, Manassas, VA 22110. —PP]

St. Joseph's seminary sits on a hill along Seminary Avenue, a street that winds its way up from the homes and stores, restaurants, bakeries, and delicatessens that gather together on the Hudson River to form Yonkers, New York. From its gold dome to its foundation stone, St. Joseph's radiates strength and permanence; if it could speak it would probably say to America, "The Church is here to stay!"
          Yonkers touches the northern border of the Bronx, and though some people call it "the sixth borough" of New York City, it likes to assert its own identity-a sense of neighborhood community built on the shared perspective of the Polish, Italian, and Irish ethnic groups that make Yonkers their home. The flavor of Yonkers is tangible, like that extra spice you notice in the spaghetti sauce that tells you that the restaurant cook makes it the same way at home for his kids. At the same time there is that universal touch that is distinctive to New York, an area that has its eyes wide open to everything that is going on in the world.
          All of these things are very much a part of St. Joseph's Seminary; the fact that it is a major institution in one of the most important Catholic dioceses in the world does not make it any less a part of the neighborhood. And the institution is reflected substantially in the man who is its Dean; a man who has lived his whole life in the shadow of St. Joseph's, yet who also has a vital role to play in speaking to America on behalf of the Church that St. Joseph's serves.

"My vows to the Lord I will fulfill before all his people" (Ps. 116:12).

          Msgr. William Smith is a priest perhaps best known for being in the "hot seat" on critical issues in the public forum. In sensitive areas of medical ethics, abortion, and homosexuality he has represented the voice of the teaching Church, often on national television and radio. Yet Msgr. Smith is a man who never intended to be a "celebrity" and who does not especially seek the public eye. He speaks on behalf of the Church—on behalf of the diocese he is pledged to serve, and in recognition of the duties inherent in the diocesan priesthood. Msgr. Smith is a man of duty; his sense of duty, though, is not some impersonal thing, but rather it stems from a profound sense of encountering Christ in the various and often unpredictable circumstances that form the substance of his vocation.
          Becoming the Dean of St. Joseph's Seminary was perhaps the last thing that William Smith would have predicted while growing up in Yonkers. Born on August 4,1939, the youngest of three boys, William's family was characterized by quiet but steady devotion, a sense of duty to the Church and the obligations of life, and a share in the values of a heavily Catholic neighborhood. "The Lord alone was their leader, no strange god was with him" (Deut. 32:12). William has nothing but fond memories of a supportive childhood, one marked in particular by a great deal of intimacy with the parish priests, who frequently visited the Smith home. The priests were seen as members of the family, like "uncles" who seemed to play as much a part in the family upbringing and formation as anyone else. Everywhere young William turned he saw a unity of influence and activity, despite the everyday problems that are part of the lives of everyone. "The home, the school, and the Church," the three basic sources of his personal growth, "were all playing the same tune, resonating the same values, confirming and reconfirming the same direction."
          St. Denis parish played a large part in his boyhood years. Msgr. Joseph O'Connor, the pastor since 1921, was a revered and saintly man. His associates were often youthful and close to the children. All three of the Smith brothers were altar boys, and William thus had the opportunity to get to know the priests in a particularly intimate way. Often, Fr. Quill and Fr. Marshall would take William and some of the other boys on outings as a reward for doing the early Masses that no one else wanted to do. By third grade, William had already begun to think that he wanted to be just like these dedicated and friendly men whom he saw every day.

"Everyone should see how unselfish you are. The Lord is near" (Phil. 4:4-5).

          William was attracted to the priesthood in a very concrete fashion; he wanted to imitate these priests because he saw in their lives something profound, a deep commitment underlying the variety of their service.
          After grade school, William attended Xavier High School, run by the Society of Jesus. Here he learned Latin and Greek, played sports, and became involved in charitable activities. The Jesuits too were exemplary, yet William still felt drawn to the parish life, though he could not give detailed reasons why. As graduation approached and he determined to enter the diocesan seminary, he remembers that "I became the object of a vocations campaign" by the ever-zealous Jesuits. "Why don't you want to be a Jesuit," they asked him, "and oddly enough I kept saying I didn't want to be a teacher." The diversity of the parish duties, their intimate connection with daily life, attracted him and called upon him to commit himself to a kind of service defined solely by the day to day requirements of the Church and the needs of the people.

"Do not live in fear, little flock. It has pleased your Father to give you the kingdom" (Lk. 12:32).

          The parish priest, he realized, serves as that intimate and necessary link between the Catholic people and the teaching, ruling, and sanctifying aspects of their Church. When William graduated from high school in 1957, the Church, under Pope Pius XII, reflected deeply the solidarity of all her members. This reflection formed the whole of William's boyhood experience and solidified his vocation; the Church in his early life seemed to be one large team, "some people were guards and some were ends, but there was no question where that goal line was."
          At this time, however, his understanding was more practical than theoretical. William devoted a good deal of time to following the statistics of the New York Yankees, and at first, things such as Mystici Corporis and Humani generis sounded like names of diseases to him. A fellow student at Cathedral College, James O'Connor, was by contrast quite interested in these weighty theological matters. The two began by being on opposite sides of various discussions and arguments, but their relationship quickly developed into a friendship that lasted throughout their seminary years and indeed to this very day as colleagues on the faculty. After two years of general studies at Cathedral, the students made their dramatic entrance into the formidable seminary of St. Joseph.

[ Your PP's Alma Mater on an old City of Yonkers post card. It hasn't changed. ]

          In the year 1959, such an entrance brought a seminarian into a world of unparalleled discipline and regimentation. From 5:30 in the morning until 10:00 at night, every minute was accounted for, divided among prayer, classes, study, and recreation. It seems that the object of the regimentation and order was to keep a seminarian from performing any one activity for too long. This training would then carry over into parish life, which-although structurally different from seminary life-nevertheless is characterized by constantly changing demands on a priest's attention. The seminary structure was designed to give the priest the discipline and flexibility for this kind of life.

"The Lord is great and worthy to be praised in the city of our God" (Ps. 48:1).

          If a seminarian was at peace with himself and sure of his goal, he could make it through the system, have a sense of humor about it, even thrive on it. Msgr. Smith insists, "I enjoyed my time at the seminary in as much as I was doing exactly what I wanted to do all the time every day, although if you judged it by contemporary standards it was a little bit stricter than Sing Sing prison!" All kidding aside, however, the strictness was not slavish in that it was informed with a clear purpose, and lived not only by the students but also by the priests who comprised the faculty. Hence "what to outsiders may have looked like a burden was actually a system of providential ways to maximize your time and your personal development."
          In addition, each class of seminarians developed their own special bond of solidarity and friendship from the sharing of common activities and the achievement of a common goal. William's class, however, was particularly noteworthy because of a unique and ongoing event that dominated his years of theological study.
          On October 11, 1962 the seminarians at St. Joseph's were granted fifteen extra minutes of recreation, something that was not often done. This, however, was no ordinary day, for the entire seminary was gathered around a television set to watch the opening of the Second Vatican Council. The occasion was one of great solemnity, yet when the secular television commentator announced that "the choir is now going to sing 'Come CREATED Spirit'" the seminarians roared with laughter.
          For the next few years, the seminarians followed the Council with enthusiasm, "like a World Series in motion." St. Joseph's dogma professor, Fr. Austin Vaughan, was a man of towering stature both intellectually and spiritually. Digesting the daily reports of L'Observatore Romano, Fr. Vaughan would recapitulate for each class the action on the Council floor the previous day. In this way, William's class was trained to assimilate the authentic teaching of Vatican II-viewed in continuity with the whole of the Church's tradition even while that teaching was being formed. Another important influence on William personally was Msgr. Daniel Flynn, who not only trained him to be an altar boy as a youth, but also taught him almost all of his moral theology in the Seminary.
          Finally the much anticipated ordination day arrived on May 28,1966. William was deeply moved by the ceremony at St. Patrick's Cathedral, with his family present and Cardinal Spellman, just back from the Council, imposing the hands that stretched forth through their consecration from the hands of the very apostles themselves. As members of the first class to be ordained after the close of Vatican II, William and his fellows had particular obligations toward the renewal of the Church. (Msgr. Smith remarks that, "As I often point out to Fr. Curran, he's pre-Vatican II, I'm not.")

"He who calls us is trustworthy" (1 Thes. 5:24).

          The new Father Smith became assistant pastor at St. Francis Church in Mt. Kisco, north of Yonkers. Here he delved into the parish life just as he had always hoped he would, ministering to a growing and active hospital, teaching the children in school, giving sermons, and administering the sacraments. He had immediately been placed in that formative role that so influenced him as a child. Fr. Smith quickly learned about the trust that people put in the Church. Here he was, young and unknown, coming into a parish and taking a directive role in people's lives, some of whom had been Catholics since long before he was born. They did not know him, but they trusted the Church who sent him.
          This in turn gave a tremendous sense of responsibility to the young priest. Fr. Smith wondered how God could place such an important matter in the hands of someone so young as himself, but he realized that, many years ago, a young woman in Nazareth was entrusted with the task of bearing the Word made-flesh. Indeed, God has a great deal of confidence in young people who are devoted to Him.
          Fr. Smith was nevertheless prepared to take on any other task at the call of the bishop. He was already aware of the possibility that he might end up teaching in the seminary; while still a seminarian, some of his professors had "sounded him out" about the possibility of an academic career. Although at that time he admitted that he had no desire to be a teacher, he nevertheless pledged his loyalty to the wishes of the bishop.
          Now the will of New York's new bishop, Terence Cardinal Cooke, became clear. At the recommendation of St. Joseph's seminary faculty, Fr. Smith was to pursue advanced studies in moral theology with a view to becoming involved in seminary life. After an interim year of teaching religion at Stepinac High School, Fr. Smith got his passport and prepared to go to Rome, along with Fr. O'Connor, who was studying dogmatic theology, and all the other priests from the Archdiocese of New York who were being sent to pursue doctoral degrees.
          As with everything else, however, a diocesan priest can never be sure of his travel plans. Cardinal Cooke had just been placed on the board of directors of the Catholic University of America, as is common for prominent members of the American hierarchy. The president of the school complained to the Cardinal that "New York never sends us anyone unless there's a war on," referring to the Archdiocese's policy of sending its students to Rome. Cardinal Cooke, realizing that there was one particular priest that he could send to Washington, D. C., replied, "Well, we're sending one right now." Thus Msgr. Smith recalls that, when the semester started, "I found myself going down the New Jersey Turnpike, which is not the way to Rome."

"I do not run like a man who loses sight of the finish line" (Cor. 9:25).

          It was the fall of 1969, and when the priest-student arrived at the Catholic University he soon discovered that "the silly season had emerged" in the school of theology. Humanae vitae was a year old, and some of the professors were no doubt wishing that this encyclical would go away. The theology school was polarized over the issue of dissent. Fr. Smith was deeply disturbed by the "politicization" of the faith; the idea that one had to choose sides "for" or "against" Catholic teaching at a Catholic university was to him ridiculous. It was as if the team were breaking apart and the players running all over the field.

"He has kept my soul from death, my eyes from tears, and my feet from stumbling" (Ps. 116:8).

          Fr. Smith quickly realized that his loyalty to the Church and defense of her teaching would cause him difficulty with the dissenters on the faculty. Recognizing that he had been sent to the university for a specific purpose, Fr. Smith dug in his heals and set about getting his degree as quickly as possible, determined not to compromise the Church, but also determined not to allow those who were abandoning their loyalty to the Church to have any excuse to hinder him from accomplishing the task that the bishop had given him. His call was to the formation of seminarians; there would be plenty of battles to be fought and a great deal to be learned after he had his doctorate of Sacred Theology. Thus he determined to make his stay at the university as short and as smooth as fidelity to his principles would allow.

"The Word is near you, on your lips and in your heart" (Rom. 10:8).

          Through two turbulent years at Catholic University Fr. Smith kept a low profile and fulfilled his academic requirements. Upon receiving his degree, Fr. Smith attained a status far different than he had ever expected. He was now a Moral Theologian, thrust forth in the midst of a crisis. The Church once again placed great trust in him, and he was determined to represent her teachings with faithfulness, through the power of the Spirit of God.
          And there was yet another trust that he was about to receive from God. The formation of His priests, the delicate nurturing of personal vocations as they correspond to that highest call of the Lord through His Church, to be conformed to Him in the fullness of His redemptive action: a task such as this carries a tremendous responsibility, particularly in these difficult years. Fr. Smith, however, was prepared because he saw this task, like all others, as a fulfillment of his duty.
          The duty of a diocesan priest is unique because it does not correspond to a particular charism; rather it is universal within the local circumstances of a parish or other diocesan service. The priest makes the bishop "present" locally to his people; he participates in the bishop's duty of shepherding the flock. This means the willingness to accept a variety of assignments and, within each assignment, the variety of responses that each circumstance requires.
          Fr. Smith identifies this unpredictable variety as "both the beauty and the challenge of the diocesan priesthood; whoever knocks on the door, you answer the door." The duty of a diocesan priest can be expressed as "opening the door." A parish priest in a rectory hears knocking all during the course of the day, and on the other side of his front door he might find anyone from the local mayor to a transient who needs money or food to a kid from the neighborhood. Despite the variety of people, needs, and situations, however, there is a profound underlying consistency—it is on the other side of that open door that the priest finds, each and every time, the person of Jesus Christ.
          For Fr. Smith, the knock on the door was a call away from the parish life he loved and into a seminary where he could communicate that love to others. He knew that it was Christ who called, Christ who was on the other side of the door of his heart. In 1971, he answered that door, becoming professor of Moral Theology at St. Joseph's seminary.

"What we have seen and heard we proclaim in turn to you so that you may share life with us" (1 John 1:2).

          Fr. Smith had never imagined himself as a teacher, but seminary teaching is much different from a college professorship. At the seminary, he is "teaching his own", playing a vital role in enriching the ministry of the diocese. Also there is a strong pastoral component to seminary teaching; by knowing what the Church expects of her priests and integrating it with his own life, Fr. Smith is able to communicate the essence of that openness that characterizes the diocesan priestly vocation. In addition, the current situation has created its own special difficulties. Many young men come to the seminary without a clear knowledge of the essentials of the faith. This means that there is an added need for communication between the faculty and the seminarians.

"Righteous and true are your ways" (Rev. 15:3).

          Theology embraces a way of life, and it is essential both for the sake of fidelity to the Gospel and for the happiness and stability of the candidate that he be at peace with what the Church teaches. "Better to talk out a problem here than live it out later on," Fr. Smith points out.
          Thus St. Joseph's seminary has maintained its own "peace" as an institution dedicated to the Gospel during a time when some other seminaries in America are tossing about in a sea of irrelevant novelty and a crippling lack of discernment. Soon after Fr. Smith's arrival as a professor, now-Bishop Vaughan became Rector of the seminary, bringing his lucid sense of the Church and its authentic renewal into the administration of St. Joseph's.

[ The seminary chapel is inspected by security guards in preparation for a visit by Pope Benedict. ]

          This particular seminary thus has had an important role not only in training its own priests, but also in representing the teaching Church. As the 1970's wore on, issues of ethics became prominent in New York politics and in the national public forum. The Archdiocese of New York was continually called upon to present the teaching of the Church, often to a hostile, secular audience. Cardinal Cooke needed an articulate and knowledgeable spokesman who could grapple with issues that were having a serious impact on American public life, as well as a confusing effect on the faithful. There was a knock on the seminary door, and Fr. Smith answered.

"I am for peace, but when I speak, they are for fighting" (Ps. 120:7).

          Under Cardinal Cooke and his successor Cardinal O'Connor, Fr. Smith has spoken for the Church on a variety of moral topics, proclaiming me Gospel even in the most unfavorable circumstances. He has appeared on national television programs, including the Today Show, Phil Donahue, David Suskind, 20/20, First Estate, Good Morning America, Firing Line, and Cable Network News, and has also written numerous articles and given important lectures.
          His involvement in the public realm of ideas and issues convinced Fr. Smith more and more that the Word of God, particularly as it is expressed in the intellectual apostolate, was frequently misunderstood and increasingly unpopular. Loyal Catholic thinkers abounded, but they were isolated from one another, forced to face hostile forces in the world—even in the Church-alone. The burden of this situation could become too great for some to bear. "There's always the danger that you'll be shaving one morning and you'll think, 'Maybe I'm the one who's crazy!'" This realization prompted Fr. Smith and several other concerned intellectuals to found the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars in order to provide a sense of solidarity in the midst of crisis, reminiscent of the great sense of teamwork he remembered so well from his youth. "Don't be conquered by evil but conquer evil with good" (Rom. 12:21). Fr. Smith served as president from 1981 to 1983.

"He has spoken to us through His Son" (Heb. 1:2).

          In all of his activities as seminary professor, whether proclaiming the teachings of the Church or dealing directly with his seminarian students, Fr. Smith sees that same consistency-within-diversity that characterizes parish life: "Whatever comes up, comes up, and you deal with it." A seminary priest, or a parish priest, or any priest in the diocese simply has to examine every task, break it into manageable parts, and go to work; keeping in mind at all times a supernatural vision, a conviction of the reality and primacy of the spiritual. This means seeing Jesus Christ in the substance and at the end of every priestly duty.

"It pleased God to make absolute fullness reside in him and, by means of him, to reconcile everything in his person" (Col. 11:19).

          Such a vision is impossible without three components that Fr. Smith continually stresses to his students and to anyone who will listen: sound doctrine, in order to know Jesus Christ; sound interior life, in order to encounter Christ in prayer and the sacraments, increasing love and union with Him; and sound personal practice, in order to serve Christ as He presents Himself in the demands of priestly life.
          Jesus Christ is the goal and Jesus Christ is found everywhere, linked as He is to the destiny of every human being. Therefore it is impossible for a faithful priest to be idle. "Go visit the sick or teach some kids the Hail Mary," Fr. Smith would say to priests who find time on their hands. "No honest priest would say that he has nothing, to do." Nevertheless, the devoted parish priest often serves with a zeal known only to God, and even if he does become a celebrity in the course of his duties, his ultimate successes are usually hidden ones: "Some of the most important things we work at will never show up in a cost/benefit analysis, nor in a book, nor in a glossy magazine," Fr. Smith observes. The greatest deeds, done to Jesus in the persons and situations that plant themselves on the front doorstep of the diocesan priest, are written only in the Book of Life.

"O search me, God, and know my heart" (Ps. 139:24).

          Fr. Smith, with his strong sense of the meaning of the priesthood, and his recognized status within the intellectual community, was the ideal choice for Dean of the Seminary in 1977. His approach to theology is professional and scholarly but at the same time embraces the full sense of "faith seeking understanding." Knowing that "if theology were sheerly knowledge, it could be done by a correspondence course," Fr. Smith tries to integrate knowledge with life, so that his candidates increase in wisdom.

"Draw close to God, and He will draw close to you" (Jas 4:7).

          In addition to his seminary work, Fr. Smith helps out in various other works within the diocese; he assists at Immaculate Heart of Mary parish in Scarsdale, New York on Sundays, works as Vice-Chancellor-of the Archdiocese during the summer, and serves as chaplain for the South Bronx house of the Missionaries of Charity, a work which brought him to Calcutta, India to preach retreats to Mother Teresa and her sisters during Christmas of 1983.
          Finally, it was in recognition of his service that, at the recommendation of Cardinal O'Connor, Pope John Paul II conferred the title of Monsignor upon William Smith in March of 1986. This honor singles out Msgr. Smith for his loyalty to the Church and loyalty to duty. During his twenty years in the priesthood of Jesus Christ, he has answered the door for parishioners, high school students, seminarians, religious, the inquiring secular press, and—always—the Cardinal Archbishop of New York. One might say that the door, so often used, is simply left open, lest the appearance of Christ with His ever-present call might for a moment be obscured. And most often it is young men who walk through the passageway, following the same Christ, who has brought them to St. Joseph's Seminary to become His priests. For these, Msgr. Smith has one especially important message, a message he has tried to live: "Wherever you are assigned by the Bishop as a diocesan priest really does not matter too much, but what matters very much is that we be faithful. If it involves some public attention or no notice at all, what difference? St. Luke's gospel tells us what makes the difference and what really matters: 'We have done no more than our duty'" (Lk. 17:10).

by John M. Janaro

11:39 AM 1/22/2009 —

[Wanna get an old person mad? Of course you do. It's fun. And they deserve it, the way they monopolize McDonalds in the crucial 7 to 9 time slot with their raucus behavior and sucking up all the free coffee refills. The way to do it is to dump on the idea of free health care. But it's important that we do this for both political and moral reasons.
     Politically, we have to dump on the idea of universal health care because Rush Limbaugh is right: it will mean the end of America as we know it. Morally, it represents something far worse. The horror stories coming out of countries that already have the kind of health care that the Messiah-in-chief wants to provide are often greeted with scoffs by those who simply refuse to believe them. For example, if someone needs a new kidney or a new liver, at present his name goes an a waiting list; and the first available organ goes to the the next person on the list—first come, first served—because in this country we've never judged the value of a human life based on what it produces. But in countries with universal health care—Canada, Great Britain, Japan, Sweden, etc.—there's no such thing as "first come, first served." The decision about who gets the kidney is based on cost effectiveness. In other words, if your Grandpa Joe needs a kidney and goes on the list on January 1st, and along comes a much younger man, with more of an education than Grandpa Joe, who goes on the list on February 14th, it's the young pup who gets the kidney. The reason? Well, Grandpa Joe is no longer part of the work force; the money spent on giving him a kidney won't be returned into the economy; therefore, it isn't cost effective for the government to keep Grandpa Joe alive.
     Some people believe this is fair. Historically, we have traditionally called such people Nazis. While you may find the comparison strained, consider this: In the United States of Obamaland, who do you think would get the kidney first? The Downs Syndrome twenty-something woman living with her parents and working as a bus-girl at the local greesy spoon, or the local district director of Planned Parenthood (who probably thinks it was cruel to even allow the bus-girl to be born in the first place)?
     I know all the sob stories about people who can't afford health care, and I don't pret