Punditry

When the media covers what the Pope says they are expected to get it totally wrong. They have a specific narrative more informed by a political ideology than a concern to get coverage of the Catholic Church right. So no surprise here in this regard.

Maybe this is not all that surprising, but it seems to me more and more Catholics are doing the same thing and while their narrative is different, it still comes to a jumping to conclusions. There is a hermeneutic of suspicion when to comes to the words of Pope Francis and a look for evidence that in some way he is departing from Catholic teaching.

The latest example is the letter Pope Francis wrote to Dr Eugenio Scalfari, Italian journalist of La Repubblica. The Vatican just released the English translation of this “Letter to Non-Believers.”

A typical headline was something like “Pope Francis assures atheists: You don’t have to believe in God …” or "“Pope Francis assures atheists: You don’t have to believe in God to go to heaven.”

The media’s dumb reaction was echoed in some Catholic sites and blogs which made much more out of what the Pope wrote than he actually did.

Jimmy Akin once again does a fine analysis in Did Pope Francis say atheists don’t need to believe in God to be saved? (9 things to know).

I now wish to address the three questions from your article of 7 August. I believe that in the first two questions, what interests you is to understand the attitude of the Church towards those who do not share faith in Jesus. Above all, you ask if the God of Christians forgives those who do not believe and who do not seek faith. Given the premise, and this is fundamental, that the mercy of God is limitless for those who turn to him with a sincere and contrite heart, the issue for the unbeliever lies in obeying his or her conscience. There is sin, even for those who have no faith, when conscience is not followed. Listening to and obeying conscience means deciding in the face of what is understood to be good or evil. It is on the basis of this choice that the goodness or evil of our actions is determined.

The Pope here is not speaking specifically about salvation or equating following your conscience as the only condition for salvation.

While the Catechism classes Atheism and Agnosticism as sins against religion it also says is the following section:

IV. ERRONEOUS JUDGMENT

1790 A human being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience. If he were deliberately to act against it, he would condemn himself. Yet it can happen that moral conscience remains in ignorance and makes erroneous judgments about acts to be performed or already committed.

1791 This ignorance can often be imputed to personal responsibility. This is the case when a man “takes little trouble to find out what is true and good, or when conscience is by degrees almost blinded through the habit of committing sin.”59 In such cases, the person is culpable for the evil he commits.

1792 Ignorance of Christ and his Gospel, bad example given by others, enslavement to one’s passions, assertion of a mistaken notion of autonomy of conscience, rejection of the Church’s authority and her teaching, lack of conversion and of charity: these can be at the source of errors of judgment in moral conduct.

1793 If – on the contrary – the ignorance is invincible, or the moral subject is not responsible for his erroneous judgment, the evil committed by the person cannot be imputed to him. It remains no less an evil, a privation, a disorder. One must therefore work to correct the errors of moral conscience.

1794 A good and pure conscience is enlightened by true faith, for charity proceeds at the same time “from a pure heart and a good conscience and sincere faith.”

So I in no way think the Pope was speaking at all contrary to the faith. Still I think there is a little bit of a problem at times. I have had no problem with what the Pope has had to say, more often it is what he doesn’t say that can add to confusion in understanding him. I believe he is making certain pastoral emphasis fully in accord with Church teaching, but that these emphasis can leave out a more fully articulated view of Church teaching. This in part causes a confusion among Catholics when only a pierce of doctrine is illuminated. This pastoral language sometimes lacks the theological precision that might be desired. No doubt this is always a difficult balance especially within the context of how some of these pastoral messages are presented.

The caveat being that I might be fully off-base here. It just seems to me that there seems to have been more effort to try to explain what the Pope said regarding the faithful. We expect a continuous apologetic effort with the media, but when we have to do the same with Catholics something might be wrong here in how this is being presented.

Although there are other things that enter into this problem. For example the delay between the publishing of the text in what the Pope said and the translation into English and other languages. The story can be generating headlines for a week before we see an official translation.

Some 20,000 tribal people in Jharkhand state in eastern India have marched on a village church, accusing local Christians of trying to convert them by dressing up a Virgin Mary statue in tribal clothing.

Members of the animist Sarna faith have been complaining since the statue was inaugurated in the Singpur village church in May.

But the standoff escalated on Sunday when the marchers took a normal statue of Mary to the church, aiming to replace the offending item, which depicts the Virgin Mary wearing a sari with traditional red borders, holding the infant Jesus.

Police blocked the protesters 25 meters from the church. Local head of police Jagannath Oraon said that they were seeking to avoid a confrontation and peace was quickly restored.

Bandham Tigga, head priest of the Sarna tribals, said the sari-clad statue marks the latest effort to deliberately confuse and convert tribal people in the area.

This story was reported back on August 27, 2013.

Strangely what it reminded me was of the so-called new atheists. There seems to be an odd parallel in thinking. If you can consider that a statue dressed in a sari is a forcible attempt at conversion you just might need something to thicken your skin.

The new atheists seems to have the same thinness of skin in that just seeing religious symbols especially on government land is outrageous and must be stamped out. That a nativity scene is akin to proselytizing in the most negative sense of the term. Good thing lawsuits are a tool of reason.

Via Frank Weathers.

Although my opposing war in Syria surely means I must be racist.

I just don’t get why the media and some Catholics are calling this a “selfie.”

Oxford Dictionaries Online’s quarterly update defined selfie as “a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website.”

This is more of a “groupie.”

It is bad enough that we have terms like this and then don’t even use them correctly.

The media though always like pictures that they think are somewhat ironic when it comes to the Pope, bishops, priests, and those in religious life. Show them doing something “normal” and somehow it is news.

Still I like the picture itself which no doubt is much better than the one taken on that cell phone at arms length.

A couple of years ago Steven D. Greydanus wrote an excellent essay A House Divided: Broken Homes, Flying Houses, Divorce, and Death in Family Fantasy Films. I thought that what he had to say was dead on. Some of the movies he discussed were based on children’s books.

During the summer the site Sync offers YA literature in audiobook formats. Each week during this time they usually have a fairly recent YA fiction audiobook and one of more classic literature. What I have noticed of the YA fiction are some similarities to what Mr. Greydanus wrote. In the last couple of years I can’t think of one book I read or listened to in this genre that actually had an intact family. If the children were not orphans than it was usually the case that they only had a mother or rarer only a father.

Such a contrast between classics such as the ones written by Madeleine L’Engle. I had been reading through the Kairos first-generation books and looking at the other YA books I have read in the last couple of years there is quite a contrast. Now many Fantasy novels have had the trope of the orphan who becomes the hero partly out of revenge. Now though it just seems that there must be a broken family regardless of the setting of the novel.

The other thing I have noticed is just how much deception and lying is part of these plots. Children lie and deceive either their one parent, whoever is taking care of them, or some authority figure. There is almost never a lesson learned in this and some resulting character development. The children/young adults “know better” and just have to do this for some apparent good. Moral relativism is the status quo even for the heroic figure. While I enjoyed the Harry Potter novels, the amount of lying that Harry does throughout and with no apparent consequences is an aspect that annoyed me.

Another common thread in many of these YA novels is just how dark they are or how often it involves the death of young adults. The situations contrived call for this to happen and becomes a major part of the plot as for example “The Hunger Games” trilogy. Dystopian futures seem to dominate.

Now I can understand various plot tensions and how conflict is a necessary part of a story. Yet this was done before without a dominance of broken families and gloomy futures. Maybe I am just getting older and instead of saying “Get off my lawn” I am saying “get off my bookshelf.”

While I am unable to eloquently write about these trends I see, I do wonder if others have noticed the same?

The following article has been making the rounds recently that was previously released on May 14, 2013 at the Bellarmine Forum.

A stranger came into the sacristy after Sunday Mass. In an incriminating huff he said, “I have been away from the area for fifteen years; where are the people? And now you are tearing down the school? I went there as a kid.” I put my hands up to quiet him from further talking and I calmly said, “Let me ask you a question: How many kids did you have?” He said, “Two.” Then I said, “So did everyone else. When you only have two kids per family there is no growth.” His demeanor changed, and then he dropped his head and said, “And they aren’t even going to Mass anymore.”

I never thought I would be asking that question, but since I had to close our parish school, I’ve grown bolder and I started to ask that question more often. When I came to my parish five years ago, the school was on its proverbial “last legs.” In its last two years we did everything we could to recruit more students, but eventually I had to face the fact that after 103 years of education the school was no longer viable. In one of the pre-closure brain-storming sessions with teachers, I was asked what to do to get more students. I replied, “Well, I know what to do, but it takes seven years.” The older teachers laughed, but the others needed me to state the obvious to the oblivious, viz. we need more babies. In my January 2010 letter to my bishop asking his permission to close our school, I wrote:

Bishop, it is with a heavy heart that I request this of you. As you know, priests were not ordained to be closing grade schools, but we were ordained to be Christ in the midst of sorrow and pain, which will be happening as we come to accept both your decision and the inevitable fact that St. Mary’s Grade School is no longer viable. The efficient cause is simple….no children. The first cause is the habitual contraception and sterilization mentality of a good portion of married Catholic Christians–in short the Culture of Death. The final cause is the closure of Catholic Schools and parishes. Bishop, we need your leadership to address the contraception/abortion/sterilization mentality in as forceful a way as soon as possible.

I, and St. Mary’s, closed the school that May 2010. Now three years later, I am razing the school building. It breaks my heart every time I go into this closed school. It is only 50 years old and yes, the windows and heating are in need of replacement, but otherwise the building is in good shape. You could not build as solid a building these days. There has not been a week without someone bringing the school closure and now razing up to me and how sad it is. But the cost of insurance and the cost of heating an empty building has become too burdensome for an aging and a decreasing congregation. A part of this decrease has happened because I have preached against the Culture of Death. I have modestly preached against contraception and sterilization, but for many of my parishioners it is too late. Most of them are done with raising more children. They have had their two kids twenty, thirty, forty years ago and some women don’t want to hear about the Culture of Death. They decide to go to other parishes where the pastor doesn’t prick their consciences. I am reminded of a diocesan official in his talk to us young pro-life, pro-family priests twenty years ago. He said, “Yes, you can preach against abortion and contraception, but remember, you have to put a roof over your churches.” Now, our diocese is closing and merging these same parishes, but you know what—they all have good roofs.

Pastors, if the demographic winter or bomb seems someone else’s problem, try this at your parish as I recently did at mine. I took the last ten burials and printed out their obituaries. At Sts. Peter and Paul Cemetery we had six men and four women with an average age of 80 years. With the ten, I counted the number of siblings for a total of 45 and divided by 10 which came to 4.5 children per family. Then I counted the ten’s children and divided by ten. The next generation had 28 kids which I divided by ten and came to 2.8 per family. I then moved on to the third generation, the grandchildren. These ten deceased had 48 grandchildren from their 28 children. When dividing these numbers, I came to a figure of 1.714 per family. The national average number of children per household is 1.91 (cf. ); while the replacement level is 2.1 children per family.

This priest perspective matches my own regarding the so-called vocation crisis and the connection to contraception and abortion.

The same day Pharaoh commanded the taskmasters of the people and their foremen, “You shall no longer give the people straw to make bricks, as heretofore; let them go and gather straw for themselves. But the number of bricks which they made heretofore you shall lay upon them, you shall by no means lessen it; for they are idle; therefore they cry, ‘Let us go and offer sacrifice to our God.’ Let heavier work be laid upon the men that they may labor at it and pay no regard to lying words.” (Ex 5:6–9)

Then the foremen of the people of Israel came and cried to Pharaoh, “Why do you deal thus with your servants? 16 No straw is given to your servants, yet they say to us, ‘Make bricks!’ (Ex 5:15–16)

What the Pharaoh did certainly has a parallel with our own attitudes. We have withdrawn the straw by not being open to children and then complain about the lack of priests. While it is certainly true to some degree that there is a problem of men not being ope to their priestly vocation, small Catholic families certainly exasperates the problem. We demand that God “makes bricks” while not having children or encouraging possible vocations for the children we do have.

On my own part I had totally boughten into the population problem and was proud to have had two children and a subsequent vasectomy at the ripe age of 25. As an atheist I had elevated selfishness to a virtue. I even wanted to spread the “good news” of a vasectomy and even convinced a co-worker to get one. Unfortunately it looks like my selfish and very secular viewpoint was replicated in many Catholic households. The fact that many shared my mindset does not make me feel any better about it and is one of my greatest regrets.

Still it is one thing to complain about this problem, but what do we need to do going ahead to rectify this mindset?

After Humanae Vitae it seems that contraception has become the third rail that hardly anybody wants to touch. Rampant dissent became the accepted view. The media constantly reminds us that the majority of Catholics dissent on this. The media’s inflated percentage does not take the sting out of the fact that so many Catholics approach Communion while contracepting. Having the intrinsic evil of contraception actually mentioned in a homily from time to time might be a good start, but really a ton of both/ands need to happen. Really this requires an “all hands on deck” reaction with the laity, priests, bishops, and those in religious life.

And he said to them, “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer and fasting.” (Mk 9:29)

Unfortunately we must still think we are wedding guests with the bridegroom amongst us and so we ’eat and drink” and even worse don’t even think contraception is a problem in the first place.

Photo credit: Chris Devers, cc

More and more it seems to me that dialogue means never having to say you’re sorry. That dialogue becomes just another delaying tactic for revisionists.

When the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) met in its annual assembly Aug. 13–16 in Orlando, Fla., the main topic of business was how the sisters would respond to a 2012 mandate of reform from the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF). The LCWR is a canonically erected superiors’ organization of nearly 1,400 sisters who are leaders of about 80% of the women religious in this country.

Interest in their 2013 assembly was heightened by the presence of the Vatican’s apostolic delegate charged with conducting the reform, Archbishop J. Peter Sartain of Seattle. He had offered to attend the LCWR 2012 assembly to discuss the mandate that had come out April 18 of that year, but had been told then by LCWR leaders that his presence “would not be helpful.”

This year, Archbishop Sartain addressed the entire membership ‘n a closed session and fielded questions about the mandate from LCWR members. He also met with the LCWR’s 21-member national board during the first of three days of board meetings after the assembly closed.

However, the only decision announced by LCWR in an Aug. 19 press release was simply to continue talking with Archbishop Sartain and Bishops Thomas Paprocki of Springfield, Ill., and Leonard Blair of Toledo, Ohio, who the Vatican appointed to assist him.

Now the question is: How long is the CDF willing to have the apostolic delegates continue those conversations when the LCWR has not yet agreed to any of the reforms mandated in the doctrinal assessment?

That eight-page mandate is very explicit and readily available on the Internet, even though some LCWR members have claimed that they don’t know the details of the document. Among issues identified in the mandate are areas of “corporate dissent,” “serious theological, even doctrinal errors,” various “theological interpretations that risk distorting faith in Jesus and his loving Father” and commentaries that “undermine the revealed doctrines of the Holy Trinity, the divinity of Christ and the inspiration of sacred Scripture.”

The mandate directs the bishop delegates to take no more than five years to direct a revision of the LCWR’s statutes; review and reform LCWR plans and programs; create LCWR programs to help member congregations receive deeper formation in Church doctrine; review and guide application of liturgical norms and texts; and review LCWR links with the affiliated organizations NETWORK and Resource Center for Religious Institutes.

Reportedly, several meetings and/or teleconferences between the bishop delegates and LCWR leaders took place over the past year, but no information has leaked out. From all indications, none of the mandated reforms have yet begun, even something as simple as taking the LCWR “Systems Thinking Handbook ” off the LCWR website. The CDF mandate had directed that publication to be “withdrawn from circulation, pending revision.” (source)

Right now I am reading Sisters in Crisis Revisited: From Unraveling to Reform and Renewal by Ann Carey (who also wrote this article here). This book revisits and updates her previous book on the subject and is both an informative and sad read concerning some of this history. Dialogue as a delaying tactic is clearly a method used by the LCWR and its previous incarnation from the Sixties onward. Enter into dialogue and just keep doing what you have been doing. A waiting game where you hope the other side blinks and then you just keep truckin’ on as if nothing had happened. When dealing with dissent the Vatican plays the long game (often necessarily), but in the meantime the damage continues.

… The press release for the 2013 assembly included an excerpt from her presidential address in which she said that, relative to the doctrinal assessment, the LCWR’s “situation reflects larger questions and concerns,” including “understandings of authority, faithful dissent and obedience and the need for spaces where honest, probing questions about faith and belief can be raised and discussed.”

It would seem that dialogue about doctrinal matters with the Vatican delegates will be very challenging when the sisters claim the right to “faithful dissent” and their own understandings of faith, ecclesial authority and religious obedience.

Call me very pessimistic about a true reform of the LCWR. This pessimism is towards the “leadership” of the LCWR and not necessarily towards the member organizations. Many women in religious life have their belief’s represented by the LCWR just as much as President Obama’s beliefs represent my own.

Msgr. Charles Pope of the Archdiocese of Washington is really rather hesitant about blogging on hot button topics. Having recently posted on the Liturgy considering Ad Orientum with Are We Walking to Heaven Backward? A Pastoral Consideration of Liturgical “orientation.” he now posts this. Going from liturgical orientation to another type of “orientation” with District of Columbia Cancels Appearance of Gospel Artist due to Views on Homosexuality. Who Will be Next?

Homosexual activists and advocates often state that they merely want recognition and certain legal rights, and that churches and other objectors to their life style remain free to have their opinions and state them in a free culture. And any expressed fears regarding compulsory recognition or punitive measures directed against objectors are dismissed as fear mongering.

Never mind that these fears are based in real experiences in Canada and Europe where clergy have been arrested and fined for presenting the biblical case against homosexuality in the pulpits of their own churches or the pages of their bulletins.

In the end we who raise alarms about the increasingly strident declaration of our objections as “hate speech” and as “human rights violations” remain concerned about legal punishment etc., despite “reassurances” from pro-homosexual advocates and government officials.

Today there is more confirmation about the price that is paid by those who object to the cultural juggernaut that activism is becoming. Gospel Artist Donnie McClurkin has had his appearance canceled by the Mayor’s Office here in DC due to his views on homosexuality. Here is the clip from a local Station, Fox 5 News:

Gospel star Donnie McClurkin made headlines several years ago, when he claimed god “delivered” him from homosexuality.

Now, he’s sounding off about a decision by D.C. leaders, to cancel his appearance at a concert over the weekend.

McClurkin was set to perform at a concert on Saturday, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington.

In a video, McClurkin says he was on his way to the airport, when Mayor Vincent Gray’s office called him to tell him his appearance was cancelled.

“These are bully tactics simply because of stances that I took, never ever demeaning, never ever derogatory, any lifestyle – this is a civil rights infringement situation,” McClurkin said. [1]

It is bad enough for someone to disagree with the secular orthodoxy regarding homosexual acts, but for someone with same-sex attraction to do so is apostasy! The Mannish Inquisition will brook no opposition to the teaching that those with same-sex attraction will always have the same level of SSA. “You are born that way and that’s that!” While it certainly might be true that many that suffer with SSA will always have some level of this attraction, it is apparently not true for all cases.

The idea of punishing people for their opinion is of course nothing new. There is always a minority of people who won’t attend a movie or a concert because of the beliefs of one or more people involved regarding their personal life. What is happening here though is a mainstreaming and government shunning of either those like McClurkin who claim to no longer have SSA or simply those who call homosexual acts sinful along with homosexual marriage. For example those who would boycott the big screen adaptation of “Ender’s Game” because the author of the book Orson Scott Card opposes same-sex marriage. In the recent opinion on DOMA authored by Justice Kennedy we were declared “Enemies of the Human Race” for holding such a view.

… But the point to be raised and discussed here is not a legal point but a cultural and moral one. Actions like these put to the lie any notion that homosexual activists merely seek to inculcate respect. They intend much more. Namely to destroy any dissent, marginalize and increasingly coerce consent for their agenda, and apply state sanctioned exclusion for any one who dares question their behavior.

The exclusion of Mr. McClurkin is only another step. Invited clergy are probably already being screened and excluded from any place on any dais if they do not have the politically correct view on this. Exclusions and restrictions are sure to increase and become more severe.

It is a common feature that radicals who march under the banner of tolerance and “libertas!” soon enough usher in their own reign of terror. Because when they say “tolerance” they don’t really mean it and certainly don’t mean they have to tolerate you. For them “tolerance” means your obligation to accept them, and freedom is your right and liberty to agree with whatever they say.

There seems to be absolutely no leeway that will in any way be granted. They will not, it seems, even brook the notion that for many who oppose the celebration of homosexual acts, the opposition is a matter of sincere conscience, not “hate.” If quoting the Bible or the Catechism equals hate, then night has surely come to the West. But we can do no other than adhere to God’s clear and consistent teaching all through the Scriptures at every stage which consigns homosexual acts to the realm of sin. Here I must stay, I can do no other. I will not overrule God to please men, gain access, or be considered acceptable to government officials and powerful lobby groups.

Now that these cultural radicals are politically ensconced the banners of tolerance and freedom are discarded. They never really meant it, and sure never meant the likes of Mr. McClurkin or other bible-believing Christians who object.

These exclusionary tactics are bound to increase and to become more punitive unless enough Americans begin to wake up and realize that all the talk about “tolerance” is not really what this agenda of the radicals has ever been about.

Rainbows may seem pretty, but they usually occur in the midst of a storm. This storm looks to get a lot worse.