In the August 31 edition of America magazine, Bishop D'Arcy, the bishop of Fort Wayne-South Bend, asks some questions of the University of Notre Dame and other Catholic universities as well. Some highlights:

It is not about President Obama.... It is not about Democrats versus Republicans.... It is not about whether it is appropriate for the president of the United States to speak at Notre Dame or any great Catholic university on the pressing issues of the day.... The response, so intense and widespread, is not about what this journal called “sectarian Catholicism.” Rather, the response of the faithful derives directly from the Gospel....

Another serious question of witness and moral responsibility before the Notre Dame administration concerns its sponsorship over several years of a sad and immoral play, offensive to the dignity of women, which many call pornographic, and which an increasing number of Catholic universities have cancelled, “The Vagina Monologues,” by Eve Ensler.

Although he spoke eloquently about the importance of dialogue with the president of the United States, the president of Notre Dame chose not to dialogue with his bishop on these two matters [ND commencement and The Vagina Monologues], both pastoral and both with serious ramifications for the care of souls, which is the core responsibility of the local bishop....

I firmly believe that the board of trustees must take up its responsibility afresh, with appropriate study and prayer. They also must understand the seriousness of the present moment. This requires spiritual and intellectual formation on the part of the men and women of industry, business and technology who make up the majority of the board. Financial generosity is no longer sufficient for membership on the boards of great universities, if indeed it ever was. The responsibility of university boards is great, and decisions must not be made by a few. Like bishops, they are asked to leave politics and ambition at the door, and make serious decisions before God....

Where will the great Catholic universities search for a guiding light in the years ahead? Will it be the Land O’Lakes Statement or Ex Corde Ecclesiae? The first comes from a frantic time, with finances as the driving force. Its understanding of freedom is defensive, absolutist and narrow. It never mentions Christ and barely mentions the truth. The second text, Ex Corde Ecclesiae, speaks constantly of truth and the pursuit of truth. It speaks of freedom in the broader, Catholic philosophical and theological tradition, as linked to the common good, to the rights of others and always subject to truth. Unlike Land O’Lakes, it is communal, reflective of the developments since Vatican II, and it speaks with a language enlightened by the Holy Spirit.

The whole article from this wise shepherd is worth a read and some reflection.

Labels: bishop, church, communication, communion, dialogue, human life, moral life, politics, pope benedict xvi, USA

I attended the ordination of Bishop Lee Piché yesterday at the Cathedral of Saint Paul, and captured some photos and audio on my iPhone.


I'm posting the images and audio recordings here, with apologies in advance for the quality of some of the audio. I was standing at the back of the right transept, which was near an open door, so there are a few patches of noise in the recordings when wind brushed the very sensitive microphone on my phone.

Entrance Procession: Behold, a New Creation - James Biery (2:32)

Liturgy of the Word: Psalm 34 - Howard Hughes, SM (excerpts; 1:20)


Rite of Ordination: Hymn - Veni, Creator Spiritus - Mode VIII Chant (excerpt; 0:31)

Accende lumen sensibus, infundeamorem coribus, informa nostri corporis virtute firman perpeti.

Enkindle your light within our minds, pour love into our hearts; strengthen the weakness of our body by your never failing power.

Rite of Ordination: Apostolic Letter and Consent of the People (3:18)

The mandate from the Apostolic See is read. This authenticates the Holy Father's choice of this priest for ordination to the Episcopate. The letter is formally presented to the Chancellor of the Archdiocese.

Rite of Ordination: Homily (12:07)

Archbishop Nienstedt addresses Bishop-elect Piché and all present on the office of Bishop.

Rite of Ordination: Litany of Supplication (excerpts; 3:32)

The Archbishop invites all present to beg God to grant an abundance of His grace to His chosen servant.

Concluding Rites: Address by the Newly Ordained (4:25)

Bishop Piché speaks to the people present.

The rest of my photos from the ordination are posted on Flickr.

Coverage in The Catholic Spirit may be found here.

Labels: bishop, church, communion, events, Holy Spirit, multimedia, pope benedict xvi, prayer, priesthood, sacraments

I think of how it began.

Paul Furey, continue to remember us in your prayers. You are certainly in our own.

Labels: communion, paschal mystery, pauline year, prayer, saints, suffering

This just in from the Cardinal Newman Society:

Yesterday the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities, which represents more than 200 Catholic institutions, released its summer 2009 newsletter including a report on the ACCU’s board of directors meeting last week.

Here's the text of that report:

ACCU’s Board of Directors met June 11-12 at the University of San Diego. Gratitude was expressed to Dr. Anthony Cernera, president of Sacred Heart University, whose term as ex officio member just concluded.

In response to a request from Bishop Thomas Curry, chair of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Catholic Education, the Board held a lengthy discussion concerning campus speaker policies. This conversation continued a dialogue started by Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who informed bishops in 2006 that their document “Catholics in Political Life” warranted further clarification regarding its application to Catholic higher education.

ACCU’s directors informally concluded that it would be desirable for the USCCB to withdraw “Catholics in Political Life” since it was written as a stop-gap statement prior to the 2004 national election. A successor document, if any, should distinguish between “honors” and “platforms” and should acknowledge more clearly the differing roles of campus authorities and bishops. In addition, ACCU’s directors suggested that juridical expressions of bishops’ or universities’ responsibilities should be kept to a minimum, lest they inhibit the “mutual trust, close and consistent collaboration, and continuing dialogue” to which Ex corde Ecclesiae calls Church and university authorities.

The Board asked ACCU staff to draft a document portraying the nature of the student body entering Catholic colleges and the principles which guide Catholic higher education’s mission, programs, and processes. The document will be national in scope and also reflective of considerable differences among institutions. The document’s principal purpose is to shed light on the core educational challenges, opportunities, and contributions of Catholic higher education.

ACCU’s next Annual Meeting will be at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, Washington, DC, January 30 to February 1, 2010.

Commentary from the Cardinal Newman Society here.

John Allen, Jr., interviews Bishop Thomas Curry today:

Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Curry of Los Angeles, 66, is chair of the U.S. Bishops’ Committee on Education, and thus likely to be a key player in discussions about the fallout from the University of Notre Dame’s controversial decision to invite President Barack Obama to deliver the commencement address and to award the president an honorary doctorate. Curry is also a distinguished intellectual with a special interest in church/state relations; he even operates a blog devoted to church/state issues at www.thomascurry.org. He sat down with NCR during the bishops’ spring meeting in San Antonio today to discuss the Notre Dame/Obama case.

Here's a link to Allen's full article: 'No consensus' on follow-up to Notre Dame flap

Labels: bishop, church, communication, communion, education

It is pleasant to spend time with him, to lie close to his breast like the Beloved Disciple (cf. Jn 13:25) and to feel the infinite love present in his heart. If in our time Christians must be distinguished above all by the “art of prayer,” how can we not feel a renewed need to spend time in spiritual converse, in silent adoration, in heartfelt love before Christ present in the Most Holy Sacrament? How often, dear brothers and sisters, have I experienced this, and drawn from it strength, consolation and support!

(from the encyclical letter Ecclesia de Eucharistia, paragraph 25)

Labels: communion, Eucharist, John Paul II, prayer, sacraments

On Corpus Christi, a trailer from Grassroots Films:



You can order the complete 10-minute film here.

Labels: communion, Eucharist, movies, multimedia, prayer, vocations

When I reached the prison camps of Siberia, I learned to my great joy that it was possible to say Mass daily once again. In every camp, the priests and prisoners would go to great lengths, run risks willingly, just to have the consolation of this sacrament. For those who could not get to Mass, we daily consecrated hosts and arranged for the distribution of Communion to those who wished to receive. Our risk of discovery, of course, was greater in the barracks, because of the lack of privacy and the presence of informers. Most often, therefore, we said our daily Mass somewhere at the work site during the noon break. Despite this added hardship, everyone observed a strict Eucharistic fast from the night before, passing up a chance for breakfast and working all morning on an empty stomach. Yet no one complained. In small groups the prisoners would shuffle into the assigned place, and there the priest would say Mass in his working clothes, unwashed, disheveled, bundled up against the cold. We said Mass in drafty storage shacks, or huddled in mud and slush in the corner of a building site foundation of an underground. The intensity of devotion of both priests and prisoners made up for everything; there were no altars, candles, bells, flowers, music, snow-white linens, stained glass or the warmth that even the simplest parish church could offer. Yet in these primitive conditions, the Mass brought you closer to God than anyone might conceivably imagine. The realization of what was happening on the board, box, or stone used in the place of an altar penetrated deep into the soul. Distractions caused by the fear of discovery, which accompanied each saying of the Mass under such conditions, took nothing away from the effect that the tiny bit of bread and few drops of consecrated wine produced upon the soul.

the priests in the Nazi prison camp of Daucau
fashioned this makeshift monstrance

Many a time, as I folded up the handkerchief on which the body of our Lord had lain, and dried the glass or tin cup used as a chalice, the feeling of having performed something tremendously valuable for the people of this Godless country was overpowering. Just the thought of having celebrated Mass here, in this spot, made my journey to the Soviet Union and the sufferings I endured seem totally worthwhile and necessary. No other inspiration could have deepened my faith more, could have given me spiritual courage in greater abundance, than the privilege of saying Mass for these poorest and most deprived members of Christ the Good Shepherd’s flock. I was occasionally overcome with emotion for a moment as I thought of how he had found a way to follow and to feed these lost and straying sheep in this most desolate land. So I never let a day pass without saying Mass; it was my primary concern each new day. I would go to any length, suffer any inconvenience, run any risk to make the bread of life available to these men.

Fr. Walter J Ciszek, SJ - in He Leadeth Me

Labels: communion, Eucharist, liturgy, paschal mystery, prayer, sacraments, suffering

On this great feast of Pentecost, I'm simply going to link to a couple of talks given by Father Raniero Cantalamessa, OFM Cap, preacher to the papal household.

Pentecost and the love of God

the grace of Pentecost and loving the Church

Veni Sancte Spiritus!

Labels: charity, communication, communion, conversion, Holy Spirit, moral life

The Catholic Spirit has profiles of the three men to be ordained to the priesthood at 10 am today at the Cathedral of Saint Paul: Deacons Douglas Ebert, Allan Paul Eilen, and Michael Johnson. Click on the images below to read about each of them.

    

Come to our help,
Lord, holy Father, almighty and eternal God;
you are the source of every honor and dignity,
of all progress and stability.
You watch over the growing family of man
by your gift of wisdom and your pattern of order.
When you had appointed high priests to rule your people,
you chose other men next to them in rank and dignity
to be with them and to help them in their task;
and so there grew up
the ranks of priests and the office of levites,
established by sacred rites.

In the desert
you extended the spirit of Moses to seventy wise men
who helped him to rule the great company of his people.
You shared among the sons of Aaron
the fullness of their father's power,
to provide worthy priests in sufficient number
for the increasing rites of sacrifice and worship.
With the same loving care
your gave companions to your Son's apostles
to help in teaching the faith;
they preached the Gospel to the whole world.

Lord,
grant also to us such fellow workers,
we are weak and our need greater.

Almighty Father,
grant to these servants of yours
the dignity of the priesthood.
Renew within them the Spirit of holiness.
As co-workers with the order of bishops
may they be faithful to the ministry
that they receive from you, Lord God,
and be to others a model of right conduct.

May they be faithful in working with the order of bishops,
so that the words of the Gospel may reach the ends of the earth,
and the family of nations,
made one in Christ,
may become God's one, holy people.

We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
Amen.

source: Ordination Rite, Order of Priest, prayers of consecration

Labels: church, communion, events, Holy Spirit, liturgy, prayer, priesthood, vocations

MESSAGE OF THE HOLY FATHER
BENEDICT XVI
FOR THE 43rd WORLD DAY OF COMMUNICATIONS

"New Technologies, New Relationships.
Promoting a Culture of Respect, Dialogue and Friendship."

May 24, 2009

Dear Brothers and Sisters!

In anticipation of the forthcoming World Communications Day, I would like to address to you some reflections on the theme chosen for this year - New Technologies, New Relationships: Promoting a Culture of Respect, Dialogue and Friendship. The new digital technologies are, indeed, bringing about fundamental shifts in patterns of communication and human relationships. These changes are particularly evident among those young people who have grown up with the new technologies and are at home in a digital world that often seems quite foreign to those of us who, as adults, have had to learn to understand and appreciate the opportunities it has to offer for communications. In this year’s message, I am conscious of those who constitute the so-called digital generation and I would like to share with them, in particular, some ideas concerning the extraordinary potential of the new technologies, if they are used to promote human understanding and solidarity. These technologies are truly a gift to humanity and we must endeavor to ensure that the benefits they offer are put at the service of all human individuals and communities, especially those who are most disadvantaged and vulnerable.

The accessibility of mobile telephones and computers, combined with the global reach and penetration of the internet, has opened up a range of means of communication that permit the almost instantaneous communication of words and images across enormous distances and to some of the most isolated corners of the world; something that would have been unthinkable for previous generations. Young people, in particular, have grasped the enormous capacity of the new media to foster connectedness, communication and understanding between individuals and communities, and they are turning to them as means of communicating with existing friends, of meeting new friends, of forming communities and networks, of seeking information and news, and of sharing their ideas and opinions. Many benefits flow from this new culture of communication: families are able to maintain contact across great distances; students and researchers have more immediate and easier access to documents, sources and scientific discoveries, hence they can work collaboratively from different locations; moreover, the interactive nature of many of the new media facilitates more dynamic forms of learning and communication, thereby contributing to social progress.

While the speed with which the new technologies have evolved in terms of their efficiency and reliability is rightly a source of wonder, their popularity with users should not surprise us, as they respond to a fundamental desire of people to communicate and to relate to each other. This desire for communication and friendship is rooted in our very nature as human beings and cannot be adequately understood as a response to technical innovations. In the light of the biblical message, it should be seen primarily as a reflection of our participation in the communicative and unifying Love of God, who desires to make of all humanity one family. When we find ourselves drawn towards other people, when we want to know more about them and make ourselves known to them, we are responding to God’s call - a call that is imprinted in our nature as beings created in the image and likeness of God, the God of communication and communion.

The desire for connectedness and the instinct for communication that are so obvious in contemporary culture are best understood as modern manifestations of the basic and enduring propensity of humans to reach beyond themselves and to seek communion with others. In reality, when we open ourselves to others, we are fulfilling our deepest need and becoming more fully human. Loving is, in fact, what we are designed for by our Creator. Naturally, I am not talking about fleeting, shallow relationships, I am talking about the real love that is at the very heart of Jesus’ moral teaching: "You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength" and "You must love your neighbor as yourself" (cf. Mk 12:30-31). In this light, reflecting on the significance of the new technologies, it is important to focus not just on their undoubted capacity to foster contact between people, but on the quality of the content that is put into circulation using these means. I would encourage all people of good will who are active in the emerging environment of digital communication to commit themselves to promoting a culture of respect, dialogue and friendship.

Those who are active in the production and dissemination of new media content, therefore, should strive to respect the dignity and worth of the human person. If the new technologies are to serve the good of individuals and of society, all users will avoid the sharing of words and images that are degrading of human beings, that promote hatred and intolerance, that debase the goodness and intimacy of human sexuality or that exploit the weak and vulnerable.

The new technologies have also opened the way for dialogue between people from different countries, cultures and religions. The new digital arena, the so-called cyberspace, allows them to encounter and to know each other’s traditions and values. Such encounters, if they are to be fruitful, require honest and appropriate forms of expression together with attentive and respectful listening. The dialogue must be rooted in a genuine and mutual searching for truth if it is to realize its potential to promote growth in understanding and tolerance. Life is not just a succession of events or experiences: it is a search for the true, the good and the beautiful. It is to this end that we make our choices; it is for this that we exercise our freedom; it is in this - in truth, in goodness, and in beauty - that we find happiness and joy. We must not allow ourselves to be deceived by those who see us merely as consumers in a market of undifferentiated possibilities, where choice itself becomes the good, novelty usurps beauty, and subjective experience displaces truth.

The concept of friendship has enjoyed a renewed prominence in the vocabulary of the new digital social networks that have emerged in the last few years. The concept is one of the noblest achievements of human culture. It is in and through our friendships that we grow and develop as humans. For this reason, true friendship has always been seen as one of the greatest goods any human person can experience. We should be careful, therefore, never to trivialize the concept or the experience of friendship. It would be sad if our desire to sustain and develop on-line friendships were to be at the cost of our availability to engage with our families, our neighbors and those we meet in the daily reality of our places of work, education and recreation. If the desire for virtual connectedness becomes obsessive, it may in fact function to isolate individuals from real social interaction while also disrupting the patterns of rest, silence and reflection that are necessary for healthy human development.

Friendship is a great human good, but it would be emptied of its ultimate value if it were to be understood as an end in itself. Friends should support and encourage each other in developing their gifts and talents and in putting them at the service of the human community. In this context, it is gratifying to note the emergence of new digital networks that seek to promote human solidarity, peace and justice, human rights and respect for human life and the good of creation. These networks can facilitate forms of co-operation between people from different geographical and cultural contexts that enable them to deepen their common humanity and their sense of shared responsibility for the good of all. We must, therefore, strive to ensure that the digital world, where such networks can be established, is a world that is truly open to all. It would be a tragedy for the future of humanity if the new instruments of communication, which permit the sharing of knowledge and information in a more rapid and effective manner, were not made accessible to those who are already economically and socially marginalized, or if it should contribute only to increasing the gap separating the poor from the new networks that are developing at the service of human socialization and information.

I would like to conclude this message by addressing myself, in particular, to young Catholic believers: to encourage them to bring the witness of their faith to the digital world. Dear Brothers and Sisters, I ask you to introduce into the culture of this new environment of communications and information technology the values on which you have built your lives. In the early life of the Church, the great Apostles and their disciples brought the Good News of Jesus to the Greek and Roman world. Just as, at that time, a fruitful evangelization required that careful attention be given to understanding the culture and customs of those pagan peoples so that the truth of the gospel would touch their hearts and minds, so also today, the proclamation of Christ in the world of new technologies requires a profound knowledge of this world if the technologies are to serve our mission adequately. It falls, in particular, to young people, who have an almost spontaneous affinity for the new means of communication, to take on the responsibility for the evangelization of this "digital continent." Be sure to announce the Gospel to your contemporaries with enthusiasm. You know their fears and their hopes, their aspirations and their disappointments: the greatest gift you can give to them is to share with them the "Good News" of a God who became man, who suffered, died and rose again to save all people. Human hearts are yearning for a world where love endures, where gifts are shared, where unity is built, where freedom finds meaning in truth, and where identity is found in respectful communion. Our faith can respond to these expectations: may you become its heralds! The Pope accompanies you with his prayers and his blessing.

From the Vatican, 24 January 2009, Feast of Saint Francis de Sales.

BENEDICTUS XVI

Labels: church, communication, communion, pope benedict xvi, social networking, technology

Imagine the potential. (source)

Labels: communication, communion, human life, marriage and family, multimedia

Labels: communion, John of the Cross, paschal mystery, prayer, saints, technology

From the conclusion to The Weight of Glory by C.S. Lewis:

At present, if we are reborn in Christ, the spirit in us lives directly on God; but the mind, and still more the body, receives life from Him at a thousand removes through our ancestors, through our food, through the elements. The faint, far-off results of those energies which God's creative rapture implanted in matter when He made the worlds are what we now call physical pleasures; and even thus filtered, they are too much for our present management. What would it be to taste at the fountain-head that stream of which even these lower reaches prove so intoxicating? Yet that, I believe, is what lies before us. The whole man is to drink joy from the fountain of joy. As St. Augustine said, the rapture of the saved soul will "flow over" into the glorified body. In the light of our present specialized and depraved appetites we cannot imagine this torrens voluptatis, and I warn everyone most seriously not to try. But it must be mentioned, to drive out thoughts even more misleading—thoughts that what is saved is a mere ghost, or that the risen body lives in numb insensibility. The body was made for the Lord, and these dismal fancies are wide of the mark.

A Light Exists by Duane Romanell

Meanwhile the cross comes before the crown and tomorrow is a Monday morning. A cleft has opened in the pitiless walls of the world, and we are invited to follow our great Captain inside. The following Him is, of course, the essential point. That being so, it may be asked what practical use there is in the speculations which I have been indulging. I can think of at least one such use. It may be possible for each to think too much of his own potential glory hereafter; it is hardly possible for him to think too often or too deeply about that of his neighbour. The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbor's glory should be laid daily on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken. It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilization these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendours. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously—no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner—no mere tolerance or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbour is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbor he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ vere latitat—the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden.

Labels: charity, communion, Easter, Eucharist, moral life, paschal mystery

John the Beloved watches as the body of Christ is elevated on the Cross. He remembers the words of the Master as He elevated the unleavened bread: “This is my body… do this in memory of me.” The Supreme Teacher does not want us to forget that love is self-offering, and so the meal He asks us to share, again and again until the end of time, takes the very shape of His sacrifice.

Christ’s blood reveals to man that his greatness, and therefore his vocation, consists in the sincere gift of self. Precisely because it is poured out as the gift of life, the blood of Christ is no longer a sign of death, of definitive separation from the brethren, but the instrument of a communion which is richness of life for all. Whoever in the Sacrament of the Eucharist drinks this blood and abides in Jesus is drawn into the dynamism of his love and gift of life, in order to bring to its fullness the original vocation to love which belongs to everyone.

It is from the blood of Christ that all draw the strength to commit themselves to promoting life. It is precisely this blood that is the most powerful source of hope, indeed it is the foundation of the absolute certitude that in God’s plan life will be victorious.

Pope John Paul II, The Gospel of Life

Labels: communion, Eucharist, human life, John Paul II, Lent, sacraments, stations of the cross

God sets against human pride a universal measure, namely, love. Pride is at the heart, and is the content, of every form of sin, in the sense of wanting to be God oneself. Love, on the contrary, does not exalt itself, but stoops down. Love shows that stooping down in that way is the truly exalted thing. That we are sublime when we come down low, when we become simple, when we bend down to the poor and the lowly. God makes himself little in order to bring puffed-up man back into the proper measure. Thus we see that becoming small is the rule, the model of how God acts.

from an interview with Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, in God and the World, "The Light"

Labels: charity, communion, Lent, pope benedict xvi

Isn't it remarkable, how in spite of our deep-rooted longing for love, we regard everything else as being more important: success, sex, status, money, power. We use almost all of our energy in learning how to reach these goals. And we devote hardly any effort at all to learning the art of loving.

Many of the things you mentioned are short-cuts and substitutes. In these ways we try to save ourselves the trouble and risk of losing ourselves and to reach our goal more quickly and easily. That is one thing. Besides that, it is an essential part of man's calling to develop his capabilities—and only thus can he fulfill his mission of loving.

Man is meant to develop and actualize the potential within him; he is meant to do something in this world. That's because learning work skills and setting about a job in no way conflict with his basic task of loving, but give it concrete shape. I am only fulfilling my mission to love, so to speak, when I become the person I am capable of being. When I am giving what I am able to give. When I open up those possibilities in creation and in the network of human relationships that help us to get through life together and together to shape the fertile capacity of the world and of life into a garden, in which we can find both security and freedom.

This basic impulse goes astray whenever this vocational education aims at no more than the acquisition of skills; whenever mastery over our environment, improving our earning capacity, and the pursuit of power become disassociated from the inner task of loving, from everyone's being there for everyone else. Whenever power gets the better of giving. Whenever self-assertion, turning-in upon oneself, the collecting of things around oneself becomes once more the primary aim, and, in this way, man's capacity for loving is choked off. Man is then dominated by things and no longer knows how to value them properly.

from an interview with Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, in God and the World, "How Do We Learn to Love?"

Labels: communion, Lent, moral life, pope benedict xvi

When it comes down to it, everyone has to undergo his own Exodus. He not only has to leave the place that nurtured him and become independent, but has to come out of his own reserved self. He must leave himself behind, transcend his own limits; only then will he reach the Promised Land, so to speak—the sphere of freedom, in which he plays his part in creation. We have come to recognize this fundamental law of transcendence as being the essence of love.

from an interview with Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, in God and the World, "Love: The Meaning of Life"

Labels: communion, Lent, pope benedict xvi

The Old Covenant is the story of God's relation with his Chosen People. God himself gives them a name. It was after he had struggled all night with the patriarch Jacob in the river Jabbok. Jacob would not allow himself to be overthrown even by the Lord of the universe, and thenceforth he was to be known as "Israel," he who fights with God.

But why did God choose one special people at all? And why this people in particular?

In the Old Testament the special significance of this choice is emphasized again and again, in Deuteronomy, for instance. God says to the people through Moses: I did not choose you because you were a great and numerous people, not because you possess this or that quality; but because I love you I have freely chosen you.

We cannot question the motives for this choice by any process of rational thought; it remains God's mystery. But this does imply something: God chooses. Yet he does not make a choice so as to exclude the others, but in order to come to the others by means of the one chosen, and to enter in a concrete fashion into the interplay of history....

God's way of looking at things is different from ours. Being chosen by God does not mean that he will make you great in worldly terms. He does not turn his people into a great power, but he reveals himself in small things and works through them. Political power is not what counts in God's reckoning, but faith.

A people who were always in danger of being ground down between the great powers of Egypt and Babylon, like corn between millstones, was obviously called to have faith. Thus God creates his own history in something that is far from being a worldly power. And the lesson we can draw from this for the Church is that she, too, is not important on account of worldly power or influence but simply because she incorporates and represents God's alternative. Her greatest moments are those in which she is suffering persecution and not those times when she has at her disposal great wealth and worldly power.

Through this we can learn for ourselves the system of values as to what is, or is not, important in life. But to try to work out God's reasons in detail is not our task. He shows us the way, points the direction, and retains his sovereignty.

from an interview with Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, in God and the World, "The Old Covenant"

Labels: church, communion, Lent, pope benedict xvi

This week I've posted the audio recording from our class on human sexuality and the sacrament of marriage, which was led by guest speaker Patrick Coffin, now the host of the radio show Catholic Answers Live. The class was held a year ago this week.

A short excerpt:

The will to contracept is very similar to the will to abort, because they are fruits from the same roots. They both desire the indulgence in sex without desiring the natural result of sex, which is the new human person. And a lot of the Catholic dissenters from Humanae Vitae... admit that you cannot argue against any other sexual perversion as long as you deny that each act of intercourse ought to be open to new life.

How can a couple who are married and are using the pill argue against gay marriage? Or against any kind of homosexual acts? They really can't, because the logic has a way of catching up with them. They have already, in a sense -- biologically at least -- gay-ified their own union by making every act sterile and therefore their rationality in condemning other sterile acts is, I would say, compromised.

Click here for the links to the audio and the materials we read in preparation for the class.

Labels: communion, human life, marriage and family, multimedia, podcasts, RCIA, sacraments, theology of the body

Let us consider... the Tower of Babel, with which man tries to create a universal civilization by means of technology. He tries to bring about by his own ability and efforts the dream, which in itself is right and good, of one world, of unified humanity, and by means of a tower reaching up to heaven, he tries to seize power and make himself like God. Basically this is the same as the dream of modern technology: possessing divine power, being able to get at the controls of the world itself. In this way, these images truly embody warnings from a primitive knowledge that can still speak to us.

Let's stay with the Tower of Babel. The Bible gives us here a remarkable piece of information: "The Lord said, Behold, they are all one people, and they have one language. But this is only the beginning of what they will do. Nothing in all their plans will be impossible for them. Very well, let us go down! We will confuse their language down there, so that none of them any longer understands what the other is saying." That sounds rather arbitrary.

Yes, almost as if God were envious and didn't want to let man get too big. What we have here is picture language that makes use of the material then available to Israel. It is still not altogether free of certain pagan elements; only as the interpretation developed were these things set aside. Of course it isn't a matter of God being anxious about man becoming too powerful and wanting his throne, but rather that he sees how man, in assigning to himself an inflated importance, damages his true self.

We can perhaps interpret this image in this way: In Babel, both the unity of mankind and the temptation to become like God, and to reach up to his height, are linked solely with technical ability. But unity on this basis, we are being told here, will not hold and leads to confusion.

In the world of today we could well be following the same pattern. Town centers look the same in South Africa as in South America, as in Japan, in North America, and in Europe. The same jeans are worn everywhere; the same hits are sung; people watch the same things on TV and admire the same stars. In that sense, there is a unity of civilization, right down to the McDonald's and a single menu for mankind.

While at first sight this growth of uniformity seems right and good, as a power to effect reconciliation -- just like the unity of language in the building of the Tower of Babel -- at the same time people are being increasingly alienated from one another. They don't really get any closer to one another. Instead of that, we are experiencing an increase of regionalism, a revolt on the part of the various cultures that just want to be themselves or that feel oppressed by others.

Is that a plea against the uniformity of culture?

Yes, because people are losing their true selves and what belongs to them. Any deeper communication between people is being lost now if it cannot be produced and imparted by these superficial outward forms of relationship and by having mastery of the same technical apparatus. Man is far more profound. If he is united with others merely on this superficial level, at the deeper level within, he will rebel against this uniformity, because he unconsciously recognizes that it reduces him to slavery.

We can say that the story of the Tower of Babel takes a critical view of a certain way of uniting the ways in which man arranges his life and his world, a way that achieves only apparent unity and only seems to make man greater. In reality, it robs him of his depth and of his greatness. Besides this, it makes him dangerous, because, on the one hand, he has great power, but, on the other, his moral capacity lags behind his technical capacity. Moral strength has not grown in correspondence with the power to make or destroy things that man now has. That is why God intervenes to oppose this kind of unification and is creating unity of a quite different kind.

What do you mean by that?

For us Christians, the Old Testament and the New always belong together. The texts of the Old Testament are the first step along the way. We are persuaded that they remain incomprehensible unless one takes the next step in reading. We will be able to look at that later with respect to the connection between Adam and Christ and some other examples. The story of Pentecost, in which God sets in motion his model of unity, also belongs here. This story is the counterpart to that of the Tower of Babel and thereby completes the picture and makes it properly comprehensible. The apostles are not speaking some kind of common language in this story, and yet everyone there understands one another. Multiplicity remains, but is now transformed, by a unity at heart, into an inner unity.

Pentecost shows the opposite pattern to the Tower of Babel: a unity in which all the richness of humanity is preserved. God does wish for unity. It is to that end that his whole activity in history is directed; to that end Christ came into the world; to that end he creates the Church. But he wishes for a unity that is both higher and more profound.

from an interview with Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, in God and the World, "The Fundamental Evidence of the Universe"

Labels: church, communion, Lent, pope benedict xvi, technology

...During a visit to the Roman Seminary, I had to interpret and comment on Galatians 5:13-15. I was surprised at the directness with which that passage speaks to us about the present moment: "Do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love be servants of one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself’. But if you bite and devour one another, take heed that you are not consumed by one another." I am always tempted to see these words as another of the rhetorical excesses which we occasionally find in Saint Paul. To some extent that may also be the case. But sad to say, this "biting and devouring" also exists in the Church today, as expression of a poorly understood freedom. Should we be surprised that we too are no better than the Galatians? That at the very least we are threatened by the same temptations? That we must always learn anew the proper use of freedom? And that we must always learn anew the supreme priority, which is love? The day I spoke about this at the Major Seminary, the feast of Our Lady of Trust was being celebrated in Rome. And so it is: Mary teaches us trust. She leads us to her Son, in whom all of us can put our trust. He will be our guide – even in turbulent times. And so I would like to offer heartfelt thanks to all the many Bishops who have lately offered me touching tokens of trust and affection, and above all assured me of their prayers. My thanks also go to all the faithful who in these days have given me testimony of their constant fidelity to the Successor of Saint Peter. May the Lord protect all of us and guide our steps along the way of peace. This is the prayer that rises up instinctively from my heart at the beginning of this Lent, a liturgical season particularly suited to interior purification, one which invites all of us to look with renewed hope to the light which awaits us at Easter.

From Pope Benedict XVI's letter to the Catholic bishops concerning the remission of excommunication of the four bishops consecrated by Archbishop Lefebvre, March 10, 2009

Labels: church, communication, communion, Lent, pope benedict xvi

One should not... regard the worship of God as an external occupation for man, as if God wanted to be praised or as if he needed to be flattered. That would of course be childish and, as a matter of fact, irritating and ridiculous....

Worship, understood in the correct sense, means that I am truly myself only when I form relationships, that only then am I true to the inner ideal of my being. And my life is then tending toward the will of God, that is to say, toward a life more closely in agreement with truth and with love. It's not a matter of doing something to please God. Worship means accepting that our life is like an arrow in flight. Accepting that nothing finite can be my goal or determine the direction of my life, but that I myself must pass beyond all possible goals. That is, pass beyond them into being inwardly at one with him who wished me to exist as a partner in a relationship with him and who has given me freedom precisely in this.

from an interview with Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, in God and the World, "God"

Labels: communion, Lent, pope benedict xvi, prayer

Man and woman belong to each other. They both have their gifts, which they have to develop so as to realize and to bring to fruition the whole breadth of what it means to be human. That this diversity in unity includes tensions and can lead to attempts to break apart is something we well know. That is the case in every friendship. The closer you are, the easier it is to get in each other's hair.

Love makes a demand that cannot leave me untouched. In love I cannot simply remain myself, but I always have to lose myself by having my rough edges taken off, by being hurt. And it is just this--that it hurts me so as to bring out more of my potential--it seems to me, that constitutes the greatness of love, that is part of its healing power. To that extent we should not think of love just as romantic love, so that, so to speak, heaven comes down to earth for the two lovers when they find each other, and they then live happily ever after.

We must think of love as suffering. Only if we are ready to endure it as suffering and thus ever again to accept each other and once again to take the other to ourselves, only then can a lifelong partnership develop. If, on the contrary, we say when we get to the critical point, I want to avoid that, and we separate, then what we are really renouncing is the true opportunity that is to be found in man and woman being turned toward each other and in the reality of love.

from an interview with Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, in God and the World, "Men and Women"

Labels: communion, friendship, Lent, marriage and family, pope benedict xvi

The StarTribune carries a story this morning about Saint Stephen's in Minneapolis. Largely a puff piece in support of the dissenting community, the Spirit of St. Stephen's. Pretty standard fare for the StarTribune.

Many tantrums in the combox. A personal favorite:

Hopefully, President Obama will bring a regime change to the Vatican...... I can't wait for Obama to do something about the Pope. Too many churches have become hateful and insults to the Democratic party.

Well, interesting to know that someone from the Reign of Terror has figured out time-travel...

More from the point-of-view of Spirit of St. Stephen's here.

We gather every Sunday morning at Park House (which, ironically, is owned by the archdiocese) to “share and break open the Word” and to celebrate Eucharist.

Fr. Joseph Williams has inherited an unenviable situation. This would be a good time to offer a prayer for Fr. Williams, and the parish.

(hat tip to Stella Borealis)

Previous posts about St. Stephen's:
In the archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis: clarity, at last! (3/2/08)
Disciples of Christ, or of Hegel? (3/6/08)

Labels: communion, dissent, prayer

John Paul II once wrote that the opposite of love is not hate, but use.

That insight has haunted me during this last election cycle, as the spectacle unfolded of Catholic politicians and activists promoting themselves with adjectives such as 'good,' 'ardent,' 'faithful,' or 'lifelong' and then taking positions contrary to Church teaching. The whole game is becoming increasingly transparent.

First of all, do we really accept self-endorsements of faithfulness? Is there any credibility in such a claim?

Second of all, do these adjectives really mean anything? What, in the minds of these people, does it mean to love the Church?

One sometimes hears people speak of "faithful dissent," but this is simply an insult to intelligence. There's a difference between an oxymoron and a paradox. Some people claim to be "prophetic voices," but a cursory glance over the prophets of the Old Testament makes this assertion laughable. I mean, when did the prophets ever champion the path of least resistance in the culture?

So why do dissenting Catholics in the public sphere often make claims of loving the Church? Let's assume their sincerity for a moment.

Perhaps they mean they feel at home in the Church, that they have fond memories of growing up in the Church, etc. Could be. But this might simply be sentimentality, not love.

Maybe they feel a sense of belonging, a kind of allegiance because the Church educated them, formed their worldview, etc. Fair enough. But this might simply be tribal loyalty, and not love.

It could be that they recognize the Church as a valuable vehicle for communication -- given its resources and network. But this might be simply opportunism, not love.

Love considers the good of the beloved. So the one who takes up the mantle of 'good,' 'ardent,' 'faithful,' or 'lifelong' ought to ask themselves: Do you really love the Church? What would you be willing to sacrifice to attend to her good? Has love led you to make her cause your own?

I can understand why bishops may feel a bit used by some Catholics in the public square after this election cycle. The question these Catholics need to ask themselves is this: have they been treating the Church like a beloved, or a personal escort?

This issue isn't going away anytime soon...

Setting the stage for the US hierarchy's first "Armageddon" with the Obama administration, transition sources have floated two pro-choice Catholics -- Sebelius and former Senate majority leader Tom Daschle -- as the leading candidates to head the Department of Health and Human Services, the agency with the Federal government's lead responsibility for abortion policy (and, ergo, the official charged with shepherding the proposed Freedom of Choice Act through Congress). (source)

Labels: church, communion, dissent, politics