Punditry

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Meeting a group of major U.S. donors to Catholic charitable works, Pope Benedict XVI asked them to pray “for the freedom of Christians to proclaim the Gospel and bring its light to the urgent moral issues of our time.”

The pope met April 21 with about 80 members of the Papal Foundation, who presented him with an $8.5-million donation that will be used to fund scholarships and 105 Catholic projects in close to 50 countries.

The projects include the construction of five schools in Egypt, where Christian leaders and human rights activists have been concerned about ensuring religious freedom as the country transitions to a democratic government.

While the pope did not refer to any specific conflicts involving religious freedom, his remarks to the American group also may have alluded to current tensions in the United States over the right of Catholic bishops and institutions to act according to Catholic teaching in matters of adoption and health insurance coverage.

Pope Benedict also paid tribute to the “historic role played by women in building up the church in America,” as exemplified by Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha and Blessed Marianne Cope, two North Americans who will be canonized in October.

The pope spoke just three days after the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith announced that it had ordered the reform of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, the main U.S. organization of heads of religious congregations. In the announcement, the congregation said, “the Holy See acknowledges with gratitude the great contributions of women religious to the church in the United States as seen particularly in the many schools, hospitals, and institutions of support for the poor which have been founded and staffed by religious over the years.”

Pope Benedict thanked members of the Papal Foundation for their support for the church’s work in evangelization, education and development.

Bishop Joseph A. Pepe of Las Vegas, secretary of the foundation’s executive board, told Catholic News Service that the idea behind the foundation, which was established in 1988, was to help the pope in his support of Catholics in poor countries. “Every year the pope gives a list of what he’d be interested in” and the foundation evaluates requests it receives in accordance with that list.

Most of the foundation members are “leaders in their communities,” and give generously to their parishes and dioceses, but they also want to assist with the universal work of the church, he said.

Bishop Kevin J. Farrell of Dallas, a member of the board of trustees, said the foundation’s Stewards of St. Peter each pledge $1 million to the foundation and promise to pay it within 10 years.

“It is admirable to see how many people are involved in this, helping the church promote programs of evangelization all over the world. I do believe it is one of the great unwritten stories of charity in our day, especially in the United States,” Bishop Farrell said. [Source]

In other news on the religious freedom front – Todd Starnes of Fox News reports:

The Hutchinson City Council will consider adding sexual orientation and gender identity to the protected classes in the city’s human relations code. They are expected to vote on the changes next month.

According to the Hutchinson Human Relations Commission, churches that rent out their buildings to the general public would not be allowed to discriminate “against a gay couple who want to rent the building for a party.”

Meryl Dye, a spokesperson for the Human Relations Commission confirmed to Fox News that churches would be subjected to portions of the proposed law.

“They would not be able to discriminate against gay and lesbian or transgender individuals,” Dye said. “That type of protection parallels to what you find in race discrimination. If a church provides lodging or rents a facility they could not discriminate based on race. It’s along that kind of thinking.”

Matthew Staver, chairman of the Liberty Counsel Action, told Fox News the proposed law is “un-American.”

“It is a collision course between religious freedom and the LGBT agenda,” Staver said. “This proposed legislation will ultimately override the religious freedom that is protected under the First Amendment.”

He argued that churches cannot be forced by the government to set aside their religious convictions and their mission. And, he warned, some churches could even be forced to rent their buildings for drag parties.

While the LCWR whines about unfair treatment, Thomas L. McDonald posts a speech from the site  of an LCWR keynote speaker and introduces it with:

The keynote speaker for the annual conference of the LCWR is New Age quack Barbara Marx Hubbard. If you’ve never heard of her, just try to imagine a combination of Deepak Chopra and Ray Kurzweil with an extra helping of crazy. Her big thing is Conscious Evolution, which is the latest repackaging of “est” with an added transhumanist/post-humanist subtext. Here she is explaining Conscious Evolution, which sounds like a combination of X-Men comics, techno-fetishizing, narcissism, New Age nonsense, paganism, trite bromides, bad grammar, Gnosticism, and good old heresy.

Read the speech here which really is full-on crazy where we learn what the Resurrection really was (well not really). That this was the keynote speech for even dissident nuns is rather surprising. But when you leave the Magisterium behind you become open to even the most irrational of theology. I think of Frank Sheed’s brilliant book “Theology and Sanity” and really the Magisterium  (guided by the Holy Spirit) keeps us sane as heterodoxy is really a form of insanity in not seeing reality as it really is.

The sympathetic news stories in support of these dissident nuns is to be expected. Though it is funny that members of the LCWR didn’t seem to see this coming considering how many times they talk about being prophetic. Though I am annoyed about the stories scoping all American nuns as coming under this. For them faithful American nuns should be ignored.

There has been some very interesting developments lately concerning two 4-letter organizations. The SSPX (Society of Saint Piux X) and the LCWR (Leadership Conference of Women Religious).

I have watched with interest the latest news concerning Vatican dialog with the SSPX and that concerning the CDF’s “Doctrinal Preamble” that “steps forward have been taken, that is to say, that the response, the new response, is rather encouraging. But there are still developments that will be made, and examined, and decisions which should be taken in the next few weeks.”

This is advancing much better than I had suspected it would. Really I was quite pessimistic about any real progress concerning the leadership of the SSPX.  Now I am much more optimistic that something substantive  will occur and I pray that it does.

The news concerning the  Doctrinal Assessment of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious is also very interesting.  This statement from the CDF is the result of the visitation they made to the LCWR in 2009. I remember some thinking this would result in a total white wash with the Vatican effectively doing nothing about the problem.  For myself I have learned some patience in regard to how the Vatican and especially the CDF reacts.  Well really I have realized I need patience on being patient since the CDF really must act slowly and deliberately out of charity for those being investigated.  Really what I would wish for is special Vatican S.W.A.T. Teams that repel out of helicopters onto dissident institutions with specially trained prayer warriors.

Regardless, the CDF is certainly taking the dissent of the LCWR seriously and are acting accordingly.

The overarching concern of the doctrinal Assessment is, therefore, to assist the Leadership Conference of Women Religious in the United States in implementing an ecclesiology of communion founded on faith in Jesus Christ and the Church as the essential foundation for its important service to religious Communities and to all those in consecrated life.

It looks like the LCWR did their Captain Renault impersonation with “I’m shocked, shocked to find that dissent is going on in here!”

In its response, the Presidency of the LCWR maintained that it does not knowingly invite speakers who take a stand against a teaching of the Church “when it has been declared as authoritative teaching.” Further, the Presidency maintains that the assertions made by speakers are their own and do not imply intent on the part of the LCWR. Given the facts examined, however, this response is inadequate. The Second Vatican Council clearly indicates that an authentic teaching of the Church calls for the religious submission of intellect and will, and is not limited to defined dogmas or ex cathedra statements (cf. Lumen gentium, 25). For example, the LCWR publicly expressed in 1977 its refusal to assent to the teaching of Inter insigniores on the reservation of priestly ordination to men. This public refusal has never been corrected. Beyond this, the CDF understands that speakers at conferences or general assemblies do not submit their texts for prior review by the LCWR Presidency. But, as the Assessment demonstrated, the sum of those talks over the years is a matter of serious concern.

The CDF’s plan is a serious plan of guidance and overview. The short version to quote “Animal House” the CDF has declared that “Well, as of this moment, they’re on DOUBLE SECRET PROBATION!” Well maybe not.

The actual steps the CDF is undertaking with their “5 year plan” is available in the doctrinal assessment itself.

The members of the CDF, SSPX, and LCWR are certainly in need of our prayers as this is not going to be an easy process. Though as pessimistic as I was for the full unification with the SSPX, I have pessimism-squared in regards to the LCWR and it’s members. Regardless I will rejoice for each person that does indeed return.

A surprisingly respectful article from the Washington Post, also amazingly sneer-free.

Ashley McGuire fell in love with the Catholic Church five years ago, after reading its teaching against artificial birth control.

McGuire, then a skeptical Protestant college student, initially saw the ban as a mandatory march to “domestic slavery.” But the more she read, the more she was blown away by the idea that sex — and women’s bodies — must be about more than physical pleasure.

Yet the images the church uses to promote its own method of birth control freaked her out. Pamphlets for what the church calls natural family planning feature photos of babies galore. A church-sponsored class on the method uses a book with a woman on the cover, smiling as she balances a grocery bag on one hip, a baby on the other.

“My guess is 99 out of 100 21st-century women trying to navigate the decision about contraception would see that cover and run for the hills,” McGuire wrote in a post on her blog, Altcatholicah, which is aimed at Catholic women.

McGuire, 26, of Alexandria is part of a movement of younger, religiously conservative Catholic women who are trying to rebrand an often-ignored church teaching: its ban on birth control methods such as the Pill. Arguing that church theology has been poorly explained and encouraged, they want to shift the image of a traditional Catholic woman from one at home with children to one with a great, communicative sex life, a chemical-free body and babies only when the parents think the time is right.

The article does not really get the nuances concerning Serious motives, just reasons, proportionately serious reasons in regards to the spacing of children. Despite that, quite a positive article considering the author Michelle Boorstein is not exactly known for friendly articles regarding the Church.

I finally got around to watch the Cardinal Pell/Richard Dawkins debate which is about an hour long.

Quite an interesting debate that was fairly civil.  I already knew Cardinal Pell was one sharp cookie, though did not know about his sense of humor and wit.  I also knew Richard Dawkins was not a serious philosophical student and he proved it here in spades.  He also seemed to be quite humorless and multiple times had to ask why people were laughing.  I guess he got the selfish gene, but not the humor one.  I did find Dawkins to be rather charming.

Though like many debates no doubt atheists will think Dawkins got the upper hand and other will think the same of Cardinal Pell.  It was not a perfect debate performance by Cardinal Pell, but it was pretty excellent – though he went off point a couple of times in reply.  Once when the Cardinal was talking about Darwin and his theism, Dawkins called him a liar and the Cardinal replied citing the page number in Darwin’s autobiography.  There were other exchanges like that.

Dawkins referred to “Lawrence Krauss’  book A Universe From Nothing: Why There is Something Rather Than Nothing.” a couple of times – a book the Cardinal had also read.  It is a rather a shell-game of a book where nothing is really something – but a much simpler state.  The Cardinal brought up the critical review of the book from what should have been the sympathetic New York Times.

My opinion of Dawkins is that he is really unequipped for such debates.  His understanding of Christian theology is totally undeveloped and distorted as if it was frozen at a grade school level.  That understanding opposing arguments is not a worthwhile use of his time and thus he would jump in with painfully silly questions for the Cardinal.  For example when the Cardinal explained the creation account and it’s literary form. That a truth was being told in poetical form, not in modern historical writing.  But Dawkins oblivious to the the Cardinal was saying, responded by asking that since Adam and Eve were not real than where did original sin come from?. I felt embarrassed for Dawkins at this point.  As Mark Shea sometimes says “Scratch an Atheist, find a Fundamentalist”.

In a related post Marc at Bad Catholic in his post ReligiON, ReligiOFF wrote in part “It hurts to even mutter the heresy, but Science didn’t spring forth from Richard Dawkins’ ass.”  His post is quite brilliant, especially characterizing the atheist culture at Reddit.

A local Planned Parenthood abortion business in California is copycatting the 40 Days for Life campaign, which recently resulted in saving the lives of more than 700 unborn children from abortion. The abortion business has set up its own 40 Days of Prayer for the local abortion center.

“We trust you to decide about your sexuality, having your children, and planning your family,” says a flier promoting the Humbolt County Clergy for Choice event. “We are religious leaders who value all human life. We accept that religions differ about when life begins. We are here to help.”

“We believe that human life is holy. That’s why we believe in your right to choose to be a parent or not,” the pro-abortion religious leaders continue. “It can be helpful to talk with friends you trust, with licensed counselors, and with whatever religious person you choose. Humboldt County Clergy are available to talk with you about the spiritual aspects of choice. Find out more by calling Six Rivers Planned Parenthood.”

…

* “Day 40: Today we give thanks and celebrate that abortion is still safe and legal.”

50 million plus children might have a different definition of “safe”. This kind of reminds me of the Devil quoting scripture. He knows the words, but when it comes down to it really doesn’t understand them and this Planned Parenthood follows suit.

It is interesting that unlike the campaign “40 Days for Life” they have to go with “40 Days of Prayer” since they really can’t mention what they are praying for. They add the subtitle “Supporting Women Everywhere” which is equally vague.

Mostly though what this situation calls for is for the Prophet Elijah. He ran into a similar circumstance himself. “How long will you go limping with two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal then follow him.” The god of ardent abortion believers is not the God of “For thou didst form my inward parts, thou didst knit me together in my mother’s womb.”, but a god more resembling Moloch. So that life might be made “easier” a child is sacrificed on the altar of the cold steel table. Elijah simply would not play Baal with them.

Elijah proposed a test to the priests of Baal and the priests of Asherah on Mt. Carmel. His proposal concerned a test of prayer where he allowed them to pray first and call down fire for their sacrifice. They prayed and prayed to no avail. They started to pray more and to cut themselves again to no avail. Elijah ups the ante by pouring water on his own sacrifice three times.

“O LORD, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that thou art God in Israel, and that I am thy servant, and that I have done all these things at thy word. Answer me, O LORD, answer me, that this people may know that thou, O LORD, art God, and that thou hast turned their hearts back.”Then the fire of the LORD fell, and consumed the burnt offering, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench.”

So let us propose a similar test of prayer with the “40 Days for Life” and the “40 Days of Prayer” campaign. One metric on the pro-life side is abortion clinics closed. So if their prayer if really efficacious than their prayer should result in more abortion clinics open. Another metric on the pro-life side is the number of mothers who decided to be open to life and no go through with the abortion. Planned Parenthood can hardly boost of the number of dead babies of those saved from the mother not changing her mind.

[Source]

Seeing the headlines today:

Pope Assails ‘Disobedience’ Among Priests‎ New York Times
Pope Denounces Priests Who Question Catholic Teachings On Celibacy …‎ Huffington Post
Pope slams reformists’ calls to ordain women‎ Kansas City Star

So what he actually said:

Pope Benedict XVI Chrism Mass

Here is the Homily in full, from Vatican Radio:

“Dear Brothers and Sisters,

At this Holy Mass our thoughts go back to that moment when, through prayer and the laying on of hands, the bishop made us sharers in the priesthood of Jesus Christ, so that we might be “consecrated in truth” (Jn 17:19), as Jesus besought the Father for us in his high-priestly prayer. He himself is the truth.

He has consecrated us, that is to say, handed us over to God for ever, so that we can offer men and women a service that comes from God and leads to him. But does our consecration extend to the daily reality of our lives – do we operate as men of God in fellowship with Jesus Christ? This question places the Lord before us and us before him. “Are you resolved to be more united with the Lord Jesus and more closely conformed to him, denying yourselves and confirming those promises about sacred duties towards Christ’s Church which, prompted by love of him, you willingly and joyfully pledged on the day of your priestly ordination?”

After this homily, I shall be addressing that question to each of you here and to myself as well. Two things, above all, are asked of us: there is a need for an interior bond, a configuration to Christ, and at the same time there has to be a transcending of ourselves, a renunciation of what is simply our own, of the much-vaunted self-fulfilment.

We need, I need, not to claim my life as my own, but to place it at the disposal of another – of Christ. I should be asking not what I stand to gain, but what I can give for him and so for others. Or to put it more specifically, this configuration to Christ, who came not to be served but to serve, who does not take, but rather gives – what form does it take in the often dramatic situation of the Church today?

Recently a group of priests from a European country issued a summons to disobedience, and at the same time gave concrete examples of the forms this disobedience might take, even to the point of disregarding definitive decisions of the Church’s Magisterium, such as the question of women’s ordination, for which Blessed Pope John Paul II stated irrevocably that the Church has received no authority from the Lord.

Is disobedience a path of renewal for the Church? We would like to believe that the authors of this summons are motivated by concern for the Church, that they are convinced that the slow pace of institutions has to be overcome by drastic measures, in order to open up new paths and to bring the Church up to date. But is disobedience really a way to do this? Do we sense here anything of that configuration to Christ which is the precondition for true renewal, or do we merely sense a desperate push to do something to change the Church in accordance with one’s own preferences and ideas?

But let us not oversimplify matters. Surely Christ himself corrected human traditions which threatened to stifle the word and the will of God? Indeed he did, so as to rekindle obedience to the true will of God, to his ever enduring word. His concern was for true obedience, as opposed to human caprice. Nor must we forget: he was the Son, possessed of singular authority and responsibility to reveal the authentic will of God, so as to open up the path for God’s word to the world of the nations. And finally: he lived out his task with obedience and humility all the way to the Cross, and so gave credibility to his mission. Not my will, but thine be done: these words reveal to us the Son, in his humility and his divinity, and they show us the true path.

Let us ask again: do not such reflections serve simply to defend inertia, the fossilization of traditions? No. Anyone who considers the history of the post-conciliar era can recognize the process of true renewal, which often took unexpected forms in living movements and made almost tangible the inexhaustible vitality of holy Church, the presence and effectiveness of the Holy Spirit. And if we look at the people from whom these fresh currents of life burst forth and continue to burst forth, then we see that this new fruitfulness requires being filled with the joy of faith, the radicalism of obedience, the dynamic of hope and the power of love.

Dear friends, it is clear that configuration to Christ is the precondition and the basis for all renewal. But perhaps at times the figure of Jesus Christ seems too lofty and too great for us to dare to measure ourselves by him. The Lord knows this. So he has provided “translations” on a scale that is more accessible and closer to us. For this same reason, Saint Paul did not hesitate to say to his communities: Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.

For his disciples, he was a “translation” of Christ’s manner of life that they could see and identify with. Ever since Paul’s time, history has furnished a constant flow of other such “translations” of Jesus’ way into historical figures. We priests can call to mind a great throng of holy priests who have gone before us and shown us the way: from Polycarp of Smyrna and Ignatius of Antioch, from the great pastors Ambrose, Augustine and Gregory the Great, through to Ignatius of Loyola, Charles Borromeo, John Mary Vianney and the priest-martyrs of the 20th century, and finally Pope John Paul II, who gave us an example, through his activity and his suffering, of configuration to Christ as “gift and mystery”. The saints show us how renewal works and how we can place ourselves at its service. And they help us realize that God is not concerned so much with great numbers and with outward successes, but achieves his victories under the humble sign of the mustard seed.

Dear friends, I would like briefly to touch on two more key phrases from the renewal of ordination promises, which should cause us to reflect at this time in the Church’s life and in our own lives. Firstly, the reminder that – as Saint Paul put it – we are “stewards of the mysteries of God” (1 Cor 4:1) and we are charged with the ministry of teaching (munus docendi), which forms a part of this stewardship of God’s mysteries, through which he shows us his face and his heart, in order to give us himself.

At the meeting of Cardinals on the occasion of the recent Consistory, several of the pastors of the Church spoke, from experience, of the growing religious illiteracy found in the midst of our sophisticated society. The foundations of faith, which at one time every child knew, are now known less and less. But if we are to live and love our faith, if we are to love God and to hear him aright, we need to know what God has said to us – our minds and hearts must be touched by his word.

The Year of Faith, commemorating the opening of the Second Vatican Council fifty years ago, should provide us with an occasion to proclaim the message of faith with new enthusiasm and new joy. We find it of course first and foremost in sacred Scripture, which we can never read and ponder enough. Yet at the same time we all experience the need for help in accurately expounding it in the present day, if it is truly to touch our hearts. This help we find first of all in the words of the teaching Church: the texts of the Second Vatican Council and the Catechism of the Catholic Church are essential tools which serve as an authentic guide to what the Church believes on the basis of God’s word. And of course this also includes the whole wealth of documents given to us by Pope John Paul II, still far from being fully explored.

All our preaching must measure itself against the saying of Jesus Christ: “My teaching is not mine” (Jn 7:16). We preach not private theories and opinions, but the faith of the Church, whose servants we are. Naturally this should not be taken to mean that I am not completely supportive of this teaching, or solidly anchored in it. In this regard I am always reminded of the words of Saint Augustine: what is so much mine as myself? And what is so little mine as myself? I do not own myself, and I become myself by the very fact that I transcend myself, and thereby become a part of Christ, a part of his body the Church. If we do not preach ourselves, and if we are inwardly so completely one with him who called us to be his ambassadors, that we are shaped by faith and live it, then our preaching will be credible. I do not seek to win people for myself, but I give myself. The Curé of Ars was no scholar, no intellectual, we know that. But his preaching touched people’s hearts because his own heart had been touched.

The last keyword that I should like to consider is “zeal for souls”: animarum zelus. It is an old-fashioned expression, not much used these days. In some circles, the word “soul” is virtually banned because – ostensibly – it expresses a body-soul dualism that wrongly compartmentalizes the human being.

Of course the human person is a unity, destined for eternity as body and soul. And yet that cannot mean that we no longer have a soul, a constituent principle guaranteeing our unity in this life and beyond earthly death. And as priests, of course, we are concerned for the whole person, including his or her physical needs – we care for the hungry, the sick, the homeless. And yet we are concerned not only with the body, but also with the needs of the soul: with those who suffer from the violation of their rights or from destroyed love, with those unable to perceive the truth, those who suffer for lack of truth and love. We are concerned with the salvation of men and women in body and soul.

And as priests of Jesus Christ we carry out our task with enthusiasm.No one should ever have the impression that we work conscientiously when on duty, but before and after hours we belong only to ourselves. A priest never belongs to himself. People must sense our zeal, through which we bear credible witness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Let us ask the Lord to fill us with joy in his message, so that we may serve his truth and his love with joyful zeal. Amen.

The Pope is just so awesome. He can talk on the issue of disobedience and ask questions like “Is disobedience a path of renewal for the Church?” and make distinctions about true reform. We hear so often of dialogue and the Pope truly uses his gifts in this way not to simply condemn, but put forth the truth and ask questions along the way.  Not  much in the way of “slam”ing or “assailing” as the headlines would claim.

Pope Benedict XVI with Fidel Castro

When the Pope arrived in Cuba in part he said:

We can no longer continue in the same cultural and moral direction which has caused the painful situation that many suffer. On the other hand, real progress calls for an ethics which focuses on the human person and takes account of the most profound human needs, especially man’s spiritual and religious dimension. In the hearts and minds of many, the way is thus opening to an ever greater certainty that the rebirth of society demands upright men and women of firm moral convictions, with noble and strong values who will not be manipulated by dubious interests and who are respectful of the unchanging and transcendent nature of the human person.

Though meanwhile:

So, Cuban state security has sent pro-democracy activists a text message: “As soon as the Pope leaves, we are going to disappear you all.” (“Tan pronto como se vaya el #PapaCuba los vamos a desaparecer a todos ustedes.”) [Source]