Vatican II Speaks To The Election

Maybe like a lot of people, I find the choices for the next president of the USA disappointing. Even if I had bothered to ask for an absentee ballot--I'm registered at home in a very blue state and so I didn't think it mattered much--I don't know if I could vote for either of them.

Amoris laetitia: Pro-Life

This section can go without comment:

Here I feel it urgent to state that, if the family is the sanctuary of life, the place where life is conceived and cared for, it is a horrendous contradiction when it becomes a place where life is rejected and destroyed. So great is the value of a human life, and so inalienable the right to life of an innocent child growing in the mother’s womb, that no alleged right to one’s own body can justify a decision to terminate that life, which is an end in itself and which can never be considered the “property” of another human being. The family protects human life in all its stages, including its last. Consequently, “those who work in healthcare facilities are reminded of the moral duty of conscientious objection. Similarly, the Church not only feels the urgency to assert the right to a natural death, without aggressive treatment and euthanasia”, but likewise “firmly rejects the death penalty”. (83)

The quoted material is from the Relatio finalis of the Synod.

Amoris laetitia: The Cultural Challenges

Freedom of choice makes it possible to plan our lives and to make the most of ourselves. Yet if this freedom lacks noble goals or personal discipline, it degenerates into an inability to give oneself generously to others. Indeed, in many countries where the number of marriages is decreasing, more and more people are choosing to live alone or simply to spend time together without cohabiting. We can also point to a praiseworthy concern for justice; but if misunderstood, this can turn citizens into clients interested solely in the provision of services. (33)

Freedom is highly valued in our world; freedom of choice, self-determination, etc. This is a good thing in itself. But the Holy Father points out rightly that if freedom is not accompanied by "noble goals or personal discipline, it degenerates." If in my 'freedom' to do what I want with myself I do what makes me miserable and makes those around me suffer, I am not free. I am a slave to sin. If I am 'free' in such a way as to compromise or ruin the gifts I have been given for my own flourishing and the good of others, what good is such 'freedom'?

As Pope St. John Paul II famously put it, "Freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought."

Laudato Si': Progress

There is also the fact that people no longer seem to believe in a happy future; they no longer have blind trust in a better tomorrow based on the present state of the world and our technical abilities. There is a growing awareness that scientific and technological progress cannot be equated with the progress of humanity and history, a growing sense that the way to a better future lies elsewhere. (113)

As the variously attributed quote goes, 'God is dead, Marx is dead, and I don't feel so well myself.'

The Holy Father says a lot regarding the aimlessness of our modern culture. In days past it threw off the eschatology of Christianity and replaced it with other, more worldly eschatologies: communism, eugenics, technocracy, better living through chemistry.

The twentieth century is the age of the crumbling of these human ideas of progress, each of which come to nothing after they had given birth to their rotten fruit for the world. (Although we have to say that abortion, as a child of the eugenics movement, is still with us.)

Thus the current 'post-modern' moment represents an opportunity that the Holy Father recommends to us, a moment to make friends again with ourselves and with our own dignity, to learn to love chastely our sister mother earth, to believe in something better that is beyond the hubris of our own ideas of progress, but is hidden in the little mustard seeds of chaste love that are the Kingdom of God planted among us.

A better future does lie 'beyond ourselves' as the Pope says, but it is a 'beyond ourselves' who has identified himself with our joy and struggles in Jesus Christ. His divine humanity is the Kingdom of God, and it is ours to find our own humanity in it.

Laudato Si': The Sanctity of Human Life

A sense of deep communion with the rest of nature cannot be real if our hearts lack tenderness, compassion and concern for our fellow human beings. It is clearly inconsistent to combat trafficking in endangered species while remaining completely indifferent to human trafficking, unconcerned about the poor, or undertaking to destroy another human being deemed unwanted.

(91)

Since everything is interrelated, concern for the protection of nature is also incompatible with the justification of abortion. How can we genuinely teach the importance of concern for other vulnerable beings, however troublesome or inconvenient they may be, if we fail to protect a human embryo, even when its presence is uncomfortable and creates difficulties? (120)

On the other hand, it is troubling that, when some ecological movements defend the integrity of the environment, rightly demanding that certain limits be imposed on scientific research, they sometimes fail to apply those same principles to human life. There is a tendency to justify transgressing all boundaries when experimentation is carried out on living human embryos. We forget that the inalienable worth of a human being transcends his or her degree of development. (136)

Praying for the Unborn

Today here in Rome it's the feast of St. Vincent Pallotti, founder--you guessed it--of the Pallottines. His obligatory memorial creates the potentially confusing liturgical situation of suppressing the optional memorial of his namesake, St. Vincent, deacon and martyr.

But I can't forget that as folks wake up at home in the States, it's neither the feast of one Vincent nor the other, but the Day of Prayer for the Legal Protection of Unborn Children. May I remember in prayer today first of all the unborn who find themselves in danger and for their parents. May I pray for all who by prayer, work, and witness seek to defend the right to life of our sisters and brothers not yet born.

May I pray for the grace of conversion for our culture and our Churches, that our hearts might be softened toward all human life from conception to natural death: the child, the elderly, the foreigner, the sick, the abused, the imprisoned, those suffering from the many forms of poverty, but especially for the unborn because they, unlike the others, enjoy no legal protection and even more, because the disposability of their lives has become--in our tragic confusion--something even to rejoice in.

In my time as a parish priest I received the occasional criticism. Most were easily dismissed either as someone's misunderstanding of Church teaching or my intentions, but some stuck with me. One of these latter is the lady who came up to me after Mass and said,

"You're a good priest, Father Charles, but you're not pro-life enough."

So just as it has become part of my ordinary intentions that the Lord would let me know what I can do in reparation for the crimes of my brother priests who have sexually abused children, today, as I join my prayers to everyone praying at home, I also pray the Lord that he would let me know how I can be more pro-life.

Evangelii Gaudium: My Favorite Parts

I gave the weekend to reading Evangelii gaudium. Broad and unfailingly positive, it is exactly what it says it is, an 'Apostolic Exhortation.' It is a plea that the Church and all her members might become evangelical and missionary in everything. There is much that strikes; for example, the length of the section on homily preparation or how, when Francis speaks of the option for the poor, divine and ecclesial, he speaks first not of helping or even of justice, but of inclusion in society. I was especially grateful for sections that gave expression to certain concerns that have troubled me over the years, such as much of what Francis says about 'pastoral acedia.' (n. 81 ff.)

Given those things, as well as the important passages already reported in a widespread way, here are some of my favorite quotes:

Abortion Ramble

Back when I was at the parish, one night I was locking up the church and a lady stopped me to say something.

"You're a good priest, Father, but you're not pro-life enough."

Homo Novus Novit

The news from Boston started appearing just as I was about to go offline for the night. I haven't been sleeping so well lately, so I tried to pray for everyone, those who were killed, those who were hurt, the scared, those responding. I started to think about how fragile it all is; in my own life-moment before moving here to Italy, one of the most refreshing little islands of peace was my few minutes of standing at the corner of Dartmouth and Boylston at six in the morning, waiting for the bus that would take me to South Boston for the seven o'clock Mass at St. Brigid's.

Paschal Prayers

Thanks to the change of clocks here in Europe, the period during which I had a chance to lie down last night, from 1 to 6 a.m., was only four hours. So when I got up I was even more intent than usual on getting some coffee. But I must not have been very awake when I was on my way to get it, because I had no response for the friar who gave me the classic paschal greeting: Christos anesti!

The College Voice

In these transitional and liminal spells, I often experience a sort of interior compression of the time of life-history, and people and events from the past start to come up in my prayer. There are graces for which I need to be grateful again, moments ready for new interpretation, old sins I need to confess, people before whom I need to repent.

This morning it was one of my college classmates, someone I don't think I ever met.

During our very first semester, he had written a letter to the editor of the school paper. It was published in one of the first issues of the year. Apparently he had been quite shocked and scandalized by what he had found in his first experiences of college life, and wrote strongly about how inappropriate and undignified was this life of binge drinking, recreational drug use, and casual sex.

When the letter was published, it was the hilarious entertainment of the day. Here was this stupid freshman who put his uptight annoyance and out-of-date views on display for everyone to have a good laugh.

I laughed at him too. I guess I didn't know any better.

My own critical turn against college life came a little later. For me it started as a worry about privilege and responsibility. What right did I have to this life of leisure and social and intellectual enjoyment when so much of humanity was suffering so badly? Concerns about the so-called sexual liberation came a little later. I had accepted without a thought that abortion was a matter of 'choice.' Nevertheless, it didn't seem to me like a very good thing or something to be taken lightly. To hear of the procuring of abortions talked about in a matter-of-fact or even joking way made me start to wonder if something wasn't wrong somewhere. How many of my tiny sisters and brothers died around me on that little island of privilege? Probably not that many, but to imagine even one gave me such compunction that I wanted to leave the world right then and there. Also, by the end of my time in college I had known a few women who had suffered date rape. Sure, there were vigils and awareness sessions about the problem, but I never heard anyone criticize the role that binge drinking and the expectation of sexual permissiveness may have played.

So today I just pray for the kid who wrote that letter. I have no idea where he is now. I ask his forgiveness for how I laughed at him and took him lightly. I don't know if his concerns were anything like the ones I came to in my own time, but no matter.

Thoughts on the Debt Crisis

This is one those risky posts, because I'm not an economist and I have a history of eccentric and crackpot political opinions, for which--I brag--I have occasionally accepted corrective criticism from friends with more sense and expertise.

At our provincial chapter this past spring, when we were discussing how to improve our efforts at fund raising, a friar got up and made a spectacular speech about how the problem with development was artificial contraception. The capital in the world had become less because, spiritually, people no longer believed in a future, and practically, because there weren't as many Catholics walking around as there should have been. I don't know if anybody took the brother seriously, but I thought it was one of the best interventions of the whole week.

With that memory wanting to get into some post or other ever since, I was thinking a little about this whole national debut business.

A system of debt and credit is a standard way to make money. But the system depends on people having faith that there will more wealth in the future. It is hard to have such faith in a culture grown decadent and pointless, and in which the making of more people--on which the production of further cultural capital and wealth depend--is an optional life-possibility for those who happen to 'oriented' in such a way that they can reproduce, rather than a constitutive part of human life to which one ought be open.

The Latest Condom Business

The press and everyone else are having fun with this one.

Last night I heard (from a regular commenter on this blog, no less) a fine analogy to what Benedict seems to have said on the moral level: When robbing a bank, just don't shoot the teller.

In other words, the sort of case that the Pope seems to raise is already cut off from openness to new life and is already a case of compounded disorder, injustice, and misery. In such a case, perhaps using a condom to (perhaps) prevent the transmission of HIV could mitigate the tragedy of the whole business and be the beginning of a journey to real morality.

The problem with contraception is that it attempts to divide the unitive and life-giving powers of sexuality. The rotten fruit of this separation--which has been more or less accomplished in our culture--is in evidence all around us. In the sad and sinful case in which the Pope is speaking, neither of these powers is present in the first place, so there is nothing to frustrate through the use of a condom.

Pro-Life: An Examination of Conscience

When I was leaving the parish to return to studies, I received a lot of kind and encouraging words from parishioners. A few in particular have stuck in my mind. One of them went like this: "You're a very good priest, Father, but there's one thing wrong with you. You're not pro-life enough."

I was reminded of this over the past few days by an ad on the subway. It had a picture of a mother and child and proclaimed, "I chose life." The caption said something like, 'unexpected pregnancy, unexpected joy.' I'm not sure I remember it rightly, but it was something like that.

The first time I saw this ad, I thought to myself how good it was to see a pro-life message on one of the subway lines that is always full of students and young people. As I have been shocked and scandalized to notice, even at the 'catholic' school I attend, the false idea of a 'right' to abortion seems to be common. On one campus poster I saw, the so-called 'pro-choice' position was listed among activities of 'social justice.' I thought of taking a picture of the notice and publishing it, but then I decided it was none of my business. (Or was that a rationalization by a Catholic who isn't pro-life enough? After all, it is revealing--and even unmasking!--that abortion is sometimes absent from our catholic discourse on 'social justice.')

But back to the subway. A couple of days later I saw the same, "I chose life" ad. This time someone had taken a marker to it and written "Pro-Choice!" over it. (Perhaps accidentally, but not incidentally, one of the words cut through the baby's face.) At first it made me sad. The so-called 'pro-choice' position is so incomprehensible to me and speaks to me of the terrible confusion of our society. But as I reflected, I thought that perhaps the defacer of the ad wasn't mocking the pro-life position, but making an accusation against the ad. In the end the ad was pro-choice. It held up someone who made the right choice, who had chosen the good over the murderous and dehumanizing violence of our culture, but it still celebrated that there was a choice to be made.

At that moment I realized that I had been tricked. My original appreciation of the ad was partly misplaced. Yes, the ad celebrated the goodness and blessing of life, but embedded in it was the acceptance that life could be a matter of our choice. I didn't even think about that until I saw the ad written upon in the way I described.

Perhaps my friend was right, and that I'm not pro-life enough.

Ramblings on Penances

Being a priest shifts one's relationship to the sacraments in ways that go way beyond simply coming into a new role or function in the sacramental encounter. (Some of those who talk about priests as "presiders" at Mass wish to flatten this sacramental reality by making the priesthood into a mere function or the priest into a facilitator.) Even though these graces have come to be revealed to me in mysterious and sometimes unexpected ways, I have found them to be consistently encouraging and confirming of my vocation.

One of the most practical set of shifts comes in confession. I have found that trying to be a thoughtful and thorough penitent is the best way to try to become a thoughtful and attentive confessor. Being a confessor, in turn, has helped me to become a better penitent.

I was thinking about this yesterday after I received a simple but challenging penance. The priest gave me a decade of the rosary. There's nothing unusual about that. But then he said that I should reflect on which of the mysteries of the rosary suited my spiritual condition, or which one best spoke to the graces I was seeking. I was then to offer that particular decade of the rosary as my penance.

I liked the idea, so now I will probably use it myself. Not that you can give every penitent a whole decade of the rosary, but some would really appreciate it. That's another of the funny things about imposing penances; sometimes people think that the "size" of the penance corresponds to the gravity of the confession. Therefore, when I say that the biggest penance I ever received was to 'say fifteen Our Fathers and then go home and say Evening Prayer with great devotion' those to whom I tell this story presume that my confession must have been pretty serious. But this is not always the case. I think that the most objectively grave confession I ever made got me a single Hail Mary.

For me, the amount of penance I give to a penitent depends on what I can guess about his or her spiritual condition. Sometimes I give the most religious people the smallest penances as an opportunity to combat spiritual pride or Pelagianism. Sometimes I give the least devout a larger penance so as to get them to sit still for a moment and perhaps listen to the Holy Spirit. I often ask penitents not just to say prayers, but to offer them for someone. Many times I ask them to pray for the victims of the sort of sin they have confessed, particularly in the cases of sins that are wrongly viewed by the world as victimless. In this, though, one has to be careful. For example, someone who confesses to having procured or performed an abortion may not be emotionally ready to pray for the dead child, particularly if the penitent is the mother. In other cases such an invitation may be exactly what the penitent needs to release emotion and hurt and begin to repair the relationship with the deceased. So you have to be careful. But as every penitent knows, the inspired confessor who gives us just the right penance is a great spiritual gift, so I pray for the graces I need to be that guy when I can.

Grief

This morning I offered a funeral Mass for a baby. He had two days in this life.

The grief and shock, the tragic wrongness of the whole thing, the pitiful little coffin, it was all so sad.

At the cemetery, while I was waiting for the funeral director to take me back to the friary, I started to think about God's Heart. Take the sadness of this funeral today and multiply it times just the children killed by abortion in one day, and that's a look into the Heart of God.

May he rest in peace.

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed

The other night I had a chance to watch Ben Stein's Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, a film about the scientific and academic conflicts between the Darwinian establishment and the proponents of so-called Intelligent Design. The film tries to illustrate an unscientific dogmatism in the academy which leads to the persecution and professional ruin of those who wish to explore ID. Also detailed are the darker chapters in the history of Darwinism, such as forced sterilizations, eugenics, and even Nazism. The abiding institutional child of the eugenics movement, Planned Parenthood, is also exposed at its rotten origins, and one (non-religious) sociologist articulates clearly the link between the theory of evolution and the acceptance of abortion and euthanasia.

Of course I must confess that I am receptive to such a film; back in theological studies I once submitted a term paper titled, "Why I Still Don't Believe in Evolution." It was coolly received. I am not really a fan of ID, but I do believe that evolution has ceased to be a theory that might explain certain natural phenomena, but has ascended into a irreproachable and universal dogma that informs every aspect of the contemporary worldview. It enforces a competitive model upon reality, reducing us to the Hobbesian "war of all against all." It removes from the human person (and every creature) any intrinsic privilege. In this way it paves the way for abortion, euthanasia, preemptive war, and the many other crimes against life which are destroying humane culture.

These ideas began to occur to me a few years ago during a lonely summer assignment where I read Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations and noticed some striking similarities to On the Origin of Species. Apart from the dangerous doctrines therein, one has to say that they are both beautiful examples of the English language.

The film has been poorly reviewed, but I suppose that Stein would say that this confirms his complaint that one is not allowed to say such things. Nevertheless, it's an interesting work, and I would recommend it.

Priesthood Fail

One thing that really gets me is when someone is evaluated or judged on criteria that have not been articulated or previously agreed upon. It just seems so unjust to me. But am I also guilty, in a way? Here's what I'm thinking about:

One of the most unpleasant duties of my employment as parish priest is when I have to thwart what folks want to do. A couple of examples will illustrate what I'm talking about. Many times in the course of my ministry I have the singularly rotten duty of trying to explain to the recently bereaved that if they choose to cremate their dead, they are still obligated to bury or entomb the remains. Cremated remains are due the same respect, and are to be handled in the same way as a body. On the other side of life, I often have to tell new parents that the persons they have chosen as their child's godparents are ineligible for the role, either because they have not completed their own sacramental initiation, are not (yet) seeking convalidation for marriages contracted outside of canonical form, or are simulating marriage through cohabitation.

To these, and many other similarly combative assertions I have to make, I often receive the very annoyed answer, 'Well, I never heard of that.'

Now I'm not forgiving the voluntary ignorance of Catholics who have not made any effort to be informed about the faith. But have I been complicit with it?

How often have I tried to stir up the eagerness of adults to complete their sacramental initiation through Confirmation? Have I preached that eligibility for joys like sacramental sponsorship presupposes it?

How often have I preached on the expectations of Catholics with regard to marriage? How often have I preached against cohabitation or getting married at city hall? And if I have not preached on the meaning of marriage, should I be surprised when Catholics have such an impoverished sense of what marriage is that they don't automatically see through this nonsense about same-sex marriage being some kind of 'civil right'?

How often have I preached--apart from funerals themselves--on the meaning of Christian death and the destiny of the physical body?

Have I preached against the crime of abortion? Even though the warnings of Humanae vitae have turned out to be uncannily prophetic, am I still afraid to preach against artificial birth control and other so-called 'reproductive technologies' that deny the dignity of the human person?


I say all this because I don't think I've done it, nor is it my experience that priests tend to preach on such things. Most priests want to be nice, so we don't preach in such a way as to make demands, or tell people what they have to do. But if I don't do these things, should I be surprised when folks say, 'Well, I never heard of that.'? If they have never heard of some Catholic teaching or ordinary expectation of Catholic life, it's my fault, and I can expect to be held accountable for it at my judgment, at least in part.

It's not fair for me to call people on their ignorance if I have refused to be their teacher.

May God help me to live up to Presbyterorum ordinis 6:

Priests therefore, as educators in the faith, must see to it either by themselves or through others that the faithful are led individually in the Holy Spirit to a development of their own vocation according to the Gospel, to a sincere and practical charity, and to that freedom with which Christ has made us free. Ceremonies however beautiful, or associations however flourishing, will be of little value if they are not directed toward the education of men to Christian maturity. In furthering this, priests should help men to see what is required and what is God's will in the important and unimportant events of life. Also, Christians should be taught that they live not only for themselves, but, according to the demands of the new law of charity; as every man has received grace, he must administer the same to others. In this way, all will discharge in a Christian manner their duties in the community of men.

Under a Bushel Basket (or Masking Tape)

It is no small thing to stand up for the truth, as we become especially aware in the readings from Maccabees this week.

Yesterday I found myself in the parking lot of a Catholic religious house. I noticed a mess of bumper sticker shaped masking tape on the back of one the cars. Of course I was curious, but I reminded myself that it was none of my business. But I just had to know...what bumper sticker could have been so inappropriate or offensive that it would have to be covered over outside a house of Catholic religious? So I looked. It's probably a venial sin to have indulged my curiosity, but I did.

I peered through the masking tape to read the text obscured below. What did it say?

Abortion stops a beating heart.

For some religious or other, to display this little message in defense of life was just too much. It's no small thing to stand up for the truth. If we find ourselves able to do it, we should be very grateful. Not everyone is able to accept this grace.

Standing Up for Real Health Care

One must rejoice a little when the secular press represents a Catholic position more or less well. From the New York Times this morning:

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, which has lobbied for decades to persuade the government to provide universal health insurance, says it opposes the bill unless it bans the use of subsidies for plans that cover abortion.

The Catholic Church seeks to cooperate with grace in the development of the common good and a more just human society; public health--as an issue of both wellness and justice in our time--is a critical component of this vision. The problem here is that abortion is not health care, but in fact the opposite, both for its specific victims and for the deforming of our imagination around human life that it imposes on all of us.


Full article here. Thanks to the writer, David D. Kirkpatrick.


UPDATE: An old friend, who often does me the great favor of keeping me honest in these posts, reminds me that we should always keep in mind that federal funding for abortion has long been forbidden. So, just to clarify, my point is not to try to say anything about politics, funding, insurance plans or anything else about which I am unqualified to comment. What I do want to point out is that the debate in these days is a good moment to remind ourselves that what the world calls 'health care' is not the same thing as what we Catholics would call 'health care.' Since many of our so-called Catholic politicians do not seem to care about this distinction, I think it's important that we point it out when we can.