Pope Benedict and Jesus: God's Face

Don Julian Carron: All Great Men Need Children

2012-01-22T19:38:00.003-05:00

Don Carron, the Spanish priest at the head of the lay movement Comunione e Liberazione, is a man with the spirit of il Papa Benedetto. In a recent Italian interview for L'Avennire he praises the Holy Father as a giant in Christian optimism and realism saying that this great herald of the Gospel for our age needs "children" to carry on his legacy. Many people need to get into and carry on the mind of the Holy Father as a light of hope for our present world crises.

Great Books College in Maryland

2012-01-20T09:36:00.004-05:00

You've probably heard of Thomas Aquinas College, the elite Great Books college on the West Coast. It is the best in it's class.

But there is another high caliber Great Books college on the East Coast: Saint John's, Annapolis. Though not Catholic, it might be worth a look for it's excellence in classical education.

"Taxes and Fees" Extortion!

2012-01-16T08:51:00.003-05:00

Have you noticed the exorbitant "taxes and fees" on international flights over the past several years? For instance, here is a quote from expedia.com on a flight to Israel.

Summary
1 Ticket / Roundtrip
JFK New York to TLV Tel Aviv
Leave: Sun 27-May
Return: Fri 29-Jun
1 adult $590.00
Taxes & Fees $492.00
Total $1,082.00

The taxes and fees are $492.00! making a $590.00 flight $1,082.00. This is very excessive taxation: over 83%! I wonder why nobody is doing anything about this airway robbery!

Ticket prices have not gone up, it is the "taxes and fees" in many instances which artificially raise the bottom line price on travel. There should be a reasonable ceiling to these extra charges for air travel which is no longer a luxury for most people. The taxes and fees should never exceed 10% of the ticket price!

Fugite Fornicationem

2012-01-15T11:39:00.002-05:00

Fly fornication. (1 Cor. 6:18). That would be a great bumper sticker or billboard for New York, taken from today's second reading. The new translation says "avoid immorality," changing the verb and the noun. Flight is the best fight in matters of licentiousness.

Just a Donkey

2012-01-03T09:55:00.005-05:00

Someone gave me this poem today, this ninth day of Christmas, in response to the donkey on my desk (an Opus Dei mascot).

Just a Little Donkey (by Rita S. Beer)
Just a little donkey, but on my back I bore
The one and only Savior the world was waiting for.
Just a little donkey, but I was strong and proud--
I gladly carried Mary through the chaos of the crowd.
I brought her to a stable where she made a tiny bed...
A place for Baby Jesus to lay His little head.
I pray the world remembers that special Christmas night
When just a little donkey carried Heaven's Precious Light.

The Opus Dei mascot of the donkey is the borrico de noria which is mentioned in The Way 606 and 998.

998 "O blessed perseverance of the donkey that turns the waterwheel! Always the same pace. Always around the same circle. One day after another, every day the same.

"Without that, there would be no ripeness in the fruit, nor blossom in the orchard, nor scent of flowers in the garden.

"Carry this thought to your interior life."

"O Blessed perseverance, most fruitfulful, of the poor waterwheel donkey!: always the same, monotonously, hidden and despised, at his humble pace...,without wanting to know that his perspirations are the aroma of the flower, the beauty of the fruit in season, the cool shade of the trees in the summer heat: all the rich foilage of the orchard, and all of the charm of the garden." (Note from Camino: edicion critico-historico.)

Two Books for the New Year

2011-12-21T08:57:00.003-05:00

Having read one and just begun another of two modern American biographical classics, largely set in New York, I thought I might recommend them to my readers. I have known of them both for over twenty five years and only now gotten around to reading them. The Seven Storey Mountain by Father Thomas Merton and Witness by Whittacker Chambers.

Both works are intensely Catholic in their focus because they are blatant accounts of each man's personal quest for God and each one finding Him in the modern world even among the highest and most corrupt levels of society. Merton became a Trappist monk and Chambers became a Quaker and a top journalist exposing Communist espionage in the U.S. government.

There is a connection between Merton and Chambers in the person of Henry R. Luce (Time magazine's founder). In 1949 the Luces donated the property for Mepkin Abbey, a daughter monastery to Merton's Gethsemani, where Henry Luce himself is buried, and of which his wife Clare Boothe Luce continues to be a great benefactress. Chambers was hired to work for Time during his toughest years after his break with communism and became it's chief editor, with Luce's full support.

Take either book with you for your Christmas travels and you will have no time for direct TV!

There is a Whittacker Chambers blog.

Another great Catholic (Chambers was not Catholic but should have been, given his honesty and insight: his self-effacing integrity was most Catholic) American author which I am recently discovering (and was thoroughly Catholic like neither Merton nor Chambers was) is William Thomas Walsh. He produced the greatest Spanish historical biographies in the English language: e.g. Philip II.

Treatise on the Immaculate Conception

2011-12-05T04:28:00.005-05:00

Here is an definitive introduction to the dogma and history of the dogma of the immaculate conception. It is by Frederick G. Holweck and is taken from The Catholic Encyclopedia, 1910 edition. It contains an extensive historical survey of the feast and the dogma which is most illuminating and appears to be quite thorough.

Immaculate Conception
The doctrine
In the Constitution “Ineffabilis Deus” of 8 December, 1854, Pius IX pronounced and defined that the Blessed Virgin Mary "in the first instance of her conception, by a singular privilege and grace granted by God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ , the Saviour of the human race , was preserved exempt from all stain of original sin."

"The Blessed Virgin Mary..."
The subject of this immunity from original sin is the person of Mary at the moment of the creation of her soul and its infusion into her body.

"...in the first instance of her conception..."
The term conception does not mean the active or generative conception by her parents. Her body was formed in the womb of the mother, and the father had the usual share in its formation. The question does not concern the immaculateness of the generative activity of her parents. Neither does it concern the passive conception absolutely and simply (conceptio seminis carnis, inchoata), which, according to the order of nature, precedes the infusion of the rational soul. The person is truly conceived when the soul is created and infused into the body. Mary was preserved exempt from all stain of original sin at the first moment of her animation, and sanctifying grace was given to her before sin could have taken effect in her soul.

"...was preserved exempt from all stain of original sin..."
The formal active essence of original sin was not removed from her soul, as it is removed from others by baptism; it was excluded, it never was in her soul. Simultaneously with the exclusion of sin, the state of original sanctity, innocence, and justice, as opposed to original sin, was conferred upon her, by which gift every stain and fault, all depraved emotions, passions, and debilities, essentially pertaining to original sin, were excluded. But she was not made exempt from the temporal penalties of Adam -- from sorrow, bodily infirmities, and death.

"...by a singular privilege and grace granted by God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the human race."
The immunity from original sin was given to Mary by a singular exemption from a universal law through the same merits of Christ, by which other men are cleansed from sin by baptism. Mary needed the redeeming Saviour to obtain this exemption, and to be delivered from the universal necessity and debt (debitum) of being subject to original sin. The person of Mary, in consequence of her origin from Adam, should have been subject to sin, but, being the new Eve who was to be the mother of the new Adam, she was, by the eternal counsel of God and by the merits of Christ, withdrawn from the general law of original sin. Her redemption was the very masterpiece of Christ's redeeming wisdom. He is a greater redeemer who pays the debt that it may not be incurred than he who pays after it has fallen on the debtor.

Such is the meaning of the term "Immaculate Conception."

Proof from Scripture
Genesis 3:15
No direct or categorical and stringent proof of the dogma can be brought forward from Scripture. But the first scriptural passage which contains the promise of the redemption, mentions also the Mother of the Redeemer. The sentence against the first parents was accompanied by the Earliest Gospel (Proto-evangelium), which put enmity between the serpent and the woman: "and I will put enmity between thee and the woman and her seed; she (he) shall crush thy head and thou shalt lie in wait for her (his) heel" (Genesis 3:15). The translation "she" of the Vulgate is interpretative; it originated after the fourth century, and cannot be defended critically. The conqueror from the seed of the woman, who should crush the serpent's head, is Christ; the woman at enmity with the serpent is Mary. God puts enmity between her and Satan in the same manner and measure, as there is enmity between Christ and the seed of the serpent. Mary was ever to be in that exalted state of soul which the serpent had destroyed in man, i.e. in sanctifying grace. Only the continual union of Mary with grace explains sufficiently the enmity between her and Satan. The Proto-evangelium, therefore, in the original text contains a direct promise of the Redeemer, and in conjunction therewith the manifestation of the masterpiece of His Redemption, the perfect preservation of His virginal Mother from original sin.

Luke 1:28
The salutation of the angel Gabriel -- chaire kecharitomene , Hail, full of grace (Luke 1:28) indicates a unique abundance of grace, a supernatural, godlike state of soul, which finds its explanation only in the Immaculate Conception of Mary. But the term kecharitomene (full of grace) serves only as an illustration, not as a proof of the dogma.

Other texts
From the texts Proverbs 8 and Ecclesiasticus 24 (which exalt the Wisdom of God and which in the liturgy are applied to Mary, the most beautiful work of God's Wisdom), or from the Canticle of Canticles ( 4:7 , "Thou art all fair, O my love, and there is not a spot in thee"), no theological conclusion can be drawn. These passages, applied to the Mother of God, may be readily understood by those who know the privilege of Mary, but do not avail to prove the doctrine dogmatically, and are therefore omitted from the Constitution "Ineffabilis Deus". For the theologian it is a matter of conscience not to take an extreme position by applying to a creature texts which might imply the prerogatives of God.

Proof from Tradition
In regard to the sinlessness of Mary the older Fathers are very cautious: some of them even seem to have been in error on this matter.

•Origen, although he ascribed to Mary high spiritual prerogatives, thought that, at the time of Christ's passion, the sword of disbelief pierced Mary's soul ; that she was struck by the poniard of doubt ; and that for her sins also Christ died (Origen, "In Luc. hom. xvii").
•In the same manner St. Basil writes in the fourth century: he sees in the sword, of which Simeon speaks, the doubt which pierced Mary's soul (Epistle 259).
•St. Chrysostom accuses her of ambition, and of putting herself forward unduly when she sought to speak to Jesus at Capharnaum ( Matthew 12:46 ; Chrysostom, Hom. xliv; cf. also "In Matt.", hom. 4).
But these stray private opinions merely serve to show that theology is a progressive science. If we were to attempt to set forth the full doctrine of the Fathers on the sanctity of the Blessed Virgin, which includes particularly the implicit belief in the immaculateness of her conception, we should be forced to transcribe a multitude of passages. In the testimony of the Fathers two points are insisted upon: her absolute purity and her position as the second Eve (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:22 ).

Mary as the second Eve
This celebrated comparison between Eve, while yet immaculate and incorrupt -- that is to say, not subject to original sin -- and the Blessed Virgin is developed by:

•Justin (Dialog. cum Tryphone, 100),
•Irenaeus (Contra Haereses, III, xxii, 4),
•Tertullian (De carne Christi, xvii),
•Julius Firmicus Maternus (De errore profan. relig xxvi),
•Cyril of Jerusalem (Catecheses, xii, 29),
•Epiphanius (Hæres., lxxviii, 18),
•Theodotus of Ancyra (Or. in S. Deip n. 11), and
•Sedulius (Carmen paschale, II, 28).
The absolute purity of Mary
Patristic writings on Mary's purity abound.

•The Fathers call Mary the tabernacle exempt from defilement and corruption (Hippolytus, "Ontt. in illud, Dominus pascit me");
•Origen calls her worthy of God, immaculate of the immaculate, most complete sanctity, perfect justice, neither deceived by the persuasion of the serpent, nor infected with his poisonous breathings ("Hom. i in diversa");
•Ambrose says she is incorrupt, a virgin immune through grace from every stain of sin ("Sermo xxii in Ps. cxviii);
•Maximus of Turin calls her a dwelling fit for Christ, not because of her habit of body, but because of original grace ("Nom. viii de Natali Domini");
•Theodotus of Ancyra terms her a virgin innocent, without spot, void of culpability, holy in body and in soul, a lily springing among thorns, untaught the ills of Eve, nor was there any communion in her of light with darkness, and, when not yet born, she was consecrated to God ("Orat. in S. Dei Genitr.").
•In refuting Pelagius St. Augustine declares that all the just have truly known of sin "except the Holy Virgin Mary, of whom, for the honour of the Lord, I will have no question whatever where sin is concerned" (De naturâ et gratiâ 36).
•Mary was pledged to Christ (Peter Chrysologus, "Sermo cxl de Annunt. B.M.V.");
•it is evident and notorious that she was pure from eternity, exempt from every defect (Typicon S. Sabae);
•she was formed without any stain (St. Proclus, "Laudatio in S. Dei Gen. ort.", I, 3);
•she was created in a condition more sublime and glorious than all other natures (Theodorus of Jerusalem in Mansi, XII, 1140);
•when the Virgin Mother of God was to be born of Anne, nature did not dare to anticipate the germ of grace, but remained devoid of fruit ( John Damascene, "Hom. i in B. V. Nativ.", ii).
•The Syrian Fathers never tire of extolling the sinlessness of Mary. St. Ephraem considers no terms of eulogy too high to describe the excellence of Mary's grace and sanctity : "Most holy Lady, Mother of God, alone most pure in soul and body, alone exceeding all perfection of purity ...., alone made in thy entirety the home of all the graces of the Most Holy Spirit, and hence exceeding beyond all compare even the angelic virtues in purity and sanctity of soul and body . . . . my Lady most holy, all-pure, all-immaculate, all-stainless, all-undefiled, all-incorrupt, all-inviolate spotless robe of Him Who clothes Himself with light as with a garment . ... flower unfading, purple woven by God, alone most immaculate" ("Precationes ad Deiparam" in Opp. Graec. Lat., III, 524-37).
•To St. Ephraem she was as innocent as Eve before her fall, a virgin most estranged from every stain of sin, more holy than the Seraphim, the sealed fountain of the Holy Ghost, the pure seed of God, ever in body and in mind intact and immaculate ("Carmina Nisibena").
•Jacob of Sarug says that "the very fact that God has elected her proves that none was ever holier than Mary ; if any stain had disfigured her soul, if any other virgin had been purer and holier, God would have selected her and rejected Mary ". It seems, however, that Jacob of Sarug, if he had any clear idea of the doctrine of sin, held that Mary was perfectly pure from original sin ("the sentence against Adam and Eve ") at the Annunciation.
St. John Damascene (Or. i Nativ. Deip., n. 2) esteems the supernatural influence of God at the generation of Mary to be so comprehensive that he extends it also to her parents. He says of them that, during the generation, they were filled and purified by the Holy Ghost, and freed from sexual concupiscence. Consequently according to the Damascene, even the human element of her origin, the material of which she was formed, was pure and holy. This opinion of an immaculate active generation and the sanctity of the "conceptio carnis" was taken up by some Western authors; it was put forward by Petrus Comestor in his treatise against St. Bernard and by others. Some writers even taught that Mary was born of a virgin and that she was conceived in a miraculous manner when Joachim and Anne met at the golden gate of the temple (Trombelli, "Mari SS. Vita", Sect. V, ii, 8; Summa aurea, II, 948. Cf. also the "Revelations" of Catherine Emmerich which contain the entire apocryphal legend of the miraculous conception of Mary.

From this summary it appears that the belief in Mary's immunity from sin in her conception was prevalent amongst the Fathers, especially those of the Greek Church. The rhetorical character, however, of many of these and similar passages prevents us from laying too much stress on them, and interpreting them in a strictly literal sense. The Greek Fathers never formally or explicitly discussed the question of the Immaculate Conception.

The Conception of St. John the Baptist
A comparison with the conception of Christ and that of St. John may serve to light both on the dogma and on the reasons which led the Greeks to celebrate at an early date the Feast of the Conception of Mary.

•The conception of the Mother of God was beyond all comparison more noble than that of St. John the Baptist, whilst it was immeasurably beneath that of her Divine Son.
•The soul of the precursor was not preserved immaculate at its union with the body, but was sanctified either shortly after conception from a previous state of sin, or through the presence of Jesus at the Visitation.
•Our Lord, being conceived by the Holy Ghost, was, by virtue of his miraculous conception, ipso facto free from the taint of original sin.
Of these three conceptions the Church celebrates feasts. The Orientals have a Feast of the Conception of St. John the Baptist (23 September), which dates back to the fifth century; it is thus older than the Feast of the Conception of Mary, and, during the Middle Ages, was kept also by many Western dioceses on 24 September. The Conception of Mary is celebrated by the Latins on 8 December; by the Orientals on 9 December; the Conception of Christ has its feast in the universal calendar on 25 March. In celebrating the feast of Mary's Conception the Greeks of old did not consider the theological distinction of the active and the passive conceptions, which was indeed unknown to them. They did not think it absurd to celebrate a conception which was not immaculate, as we see from the Feast of the Conception of St. John. They solemnized the Conception of Mary, perhaps because, according to the "Proto-evangelium" of St. James, it was preceded by miraculous events (the apparition of an angel to Joachim, etc.), similar to those which preceded the conception of St. John , and that of our Lord Himself. Their object was less the purity of the conception than the holiness and heavenly mission of the person conceived. In the Office of 9 December, however, Mary, from the time of her conception, is called beautiful, pure, holy, just, etc., terms never used in the Office of 23 September (sc. of St. John the Baptist ). The analogy of St. John's sanctification may have given rise to the Feast of the Conception of Mary. If it was necessary that the precursor of the Lord should be so pure and "filled with the Holy Ghost " even from his mother's womb, such a purity was assuredly not less befitting His Mother. The moment of St. John's sanctification is by later writers thought to be the Visitation ("the infant leaped in her womb"), but the angel's words ( Luke 1:15 ) seem to indicate a sanctification at the conception. This would render the origin of Mary more similar to that of John. And if the Conception of John had its feast, why not that of Mary ?

Proof from Reason
There is an incongruity in the supposition that the flesh, from which the flesh of the Son of God was to be formed, should ever have belonged to one who was the slave of that arch-enemy, whose power He came on earth to destroy. Hence the axiom of Pseudo-Anselmus (Eadmer) developed by Duns Scotus, Decuit, potuit, ergo fecit , it was becoming that the Mother of the Redeemer should have been free from the power of sin and from the first moment of her existence ; God could give her this privilege, therefore He gave it to her. Again it is remarked that a peculiar privilege was granted to the prophet Jeremiah and to St. John the Baptist. They were sanctified in their mother's womb, because by their preaching they had a special share in the work of preparing the way for Christ. Consequently some much higher prerogative is due to Mary. (A treatise of P. Marchant, claiming for St. Joseph also the privilege of St. John, was placed on the Index in 1833.) Scotus says that "the perfect Mediator must, in some one case, have done the work of mediation most perfectly, which would not be unless there was some one person at least, in whose regard the wrath of God was anticipated and not merely appeased."

The Feast of the Immaculate Conception
The older feast of the Conception of Mary (Conception of St. Anne), which originated in the monasteries of Palestine at least as early as the seventh century, and the modern feast of the Immaculate Conception are not identical in their object.

Originally the Church celebrated only the Feast of the Conception of Mary, as she kept the Feast of St. John's conception, not discussing the sinlessness. This feast in the course of centuries became the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, as dogmatical argumentation brought about precise and correct ideas, and as the thesis of the theological schools regarding the preservation of Mary from all stain of original sin gained strength. Even after the dogma had been universally accepted in the Latin Church, and had gained authoritative support through diocesan decrees and papal decisions, the old term remained, and before 1854 the term "Immaculata Conceptio" is nowhere found in the liturgical books, except in the invitatorium of the Votive Office of the Conception. The Greeks, Syrians, etc. call it the Conception of St. Anne (Eullepsis tes hagias kai theoprometoros Annas , "the Conception of St. Anne, the ancestress of God").

Passaglia in his "De Immaculato Deiparae Conceptu," basing his opinion upon the "Typicon" of St. Sabas: which was substantially composed in the fifth century, believes that the reference to the feast forms part of the authentic original, and that consequently it was celebrated in the Patriarchate of Jerusalem in the fifth century (III, n. 1604). But the Typicon was interpolated by the Damascene, Sophronius, and others, and, from the ninth to the twelfth centuries, many new feasts and offices were added.

To determine the origin of this feast we must take into account the genuine documents we possess, the oldest of which is the canon of the feast, composed by St. Andrew of Crete, who wrote his liturgical hymns in the second half of the seventh century, when a monk at the monastery of St. Sabas near Jerusalem (d. Archbishop of Crete about 720). But the solemnity cannot then have been generally accepted throughout the Orient, for John, first monk and later bishop in the Isle of Euboea, about 750 in a sermon, speaking in favour of the propagation of this feast, says that it was not yet known to all the faithful (ei kai me para tois pasi gnorizetai ; P. G., XCVI, 1499). But a century later George of Nicomedia, made metropolitan by Photius in 860, could say that the solemnity was not of recent origin (P. G., C, 1335). It is therefore, safe to affirm that the feast of the Conception of St. Anne appears in the Orient not earlier than the end of the seventh or the beginning of the eighth century.

As in other cases of the same kind the feast originated in the monastic communities. The monks, who arranged the psalmody and composed the various poetical pieces for the office, also selected the date, 9 December, which was always retained in the Oriental calendars. Gradually the solemnity emerged from the cloister, entered into the cathedrals, was glorified by preachers and poets, and eventually became a fixed feast of the calendar, approved by Church and State.

It is registered in the calendar of Basil II (976-1025) and by the Constitution of Emperor Manuel I Comnenus on the days of the year which are half or entire holidays, promulgated in 1166, it is numbered among the days which have full sabbath rest. Up to the time of Basil II, Lower Italy, Sicily, and Sardinia still belonged to the Byzantine Empire; the city of Naples was not lost to the Greeks until 1127, when Roger II conquered the city. The influence of Constantinople was consequently strong in the Neapolitan Church, and, as early as the ninth century, the Feast of the Conception was doubtlessly kept there, as elsewhere in Lower Italy on 9 December, as indeed appears from the marble calendar found in 1742 in the Church of S. Giorgio Maggiore at Naples.

Today the Conception of St. Anne is in the Greek Church one of the minor feasts of the year. The lesson in Matins contains allusions to the apocryphal "Proto-evangelium" of St. James, which dates from the second half of the second century (see SAINT ANNE ). To the Greek Orthodox of our days, however, the feast means very little; they continue to call it "Conception of St. Anne", indicating unintentionally, perhaps, the active conception which was certainly not immaculate. In the Menaea of 9 December this feast holds only the second place, the first canon being sung in commemoration of the dedication of the Church of the Resurrection at Constantinople. The Russian hagiographer Muraview and several other Orthodox authors even loudly declaimed against the dogma after its promulgation, although their own preachers formerly taught the Immaculate Conception in their writings long before the definition of 1854.

In the Western Church the feast appeared (8 December), when in the Orient its development had come to a standstill. The timid beginnings of the new feast in some Anglo-Saxon monasteries in the eleventh century, partly smothered by the Norman conquest, were followed by its reception in some chapters and dioceses by the Anglo-Norman clergy. But the attempts to introduce it officially provoked contradiction and theoretical discussion, bearing upon its legitimacy and its meaning, which were continued for centuries and were not definitively settled before 1854. The "Martyrology of Tallaght" compiled about 790 and the "Feilire" of St. Aengus (800) register the Conception of Mary on 3 May. It is doubtful, however, if an actual feast corresponded to this rubric of the learned monk St. Aengus. This Irish feast certainly stands alone and outside the line of liturgical development. It is a mere isolated appearance, not a living germ. The Scholiast adds, in the lower margin of the "Feilire", that the conception (Inceptio) took place in February, since Mary was born after seven months -- a singular notion found also in some Greek authors. The first definite and reliable knowledge of the feast in the West comes from England ; it is found in a calendar of Old Minster, Winchester (Conceptio S'ce Dei Genetricis Mariae), dating from about 1030, and in another calendar of New Minster, Winchester, written between 1035 and 1056; a pontifical of Exeter of the eleventh century (assigned to 1046-1072) contains a "benedictio in Conceptione S. Mariae "; a similar benediction is found in a Canterbury pontifical written probably in the first half of the eleventh century, certainly before the Conquest. These episcopal benedictions show that the feast not only commended itself to the devotion of individuals, but that it was recognized by authority and was observed by the Saxon monks with considerable solemnity. The existing evidence goes to show that the establishment of the feast in England was due to the monks of Winchester before the Conquest (1066).

The Normans on their arrival in England were disposed to treat in a contemptuous fashion English liturgical observances; to them this feast must have appeared specifically English, a product of insular simplicity and ignorance. Doubtless its public celebration was abolished at Winchester and Canterbury, but it did not die out of the hearts of individuals, and on the first favourable opportunity the feast was restored in the monasteries. At Canterbury however, it was not re-established before 1328. Several documents state that in Norman times it began at Ramsey, pursuant to a vision vouchsafed to Helsin or Æthelsige, Abbot of Ramsey on his journey back from Denmark, whither he had been sent by William I about 1070. An angel appeared to him during a severe gale and saved the ship after the abbot had promised to establish the Feast of the Conception in his monastery. However we may consider the supernatural feature of the legend, it must be admitted that the sending of Helsin to Denmark is an historical fact. The account of the vision has found its way into many breviaries, even into the Roman Breviary of 1473. The Council of Canterbury (1325) attributes the re-establishment of the feast in England to St. Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury (d. 1109). But although this great doctor wrote a special treatise "De Conceptu virginali et originali peccato", by which he laid down the principles of the Immaculate Conception, it is certain that he did not introduce the feast anywhere. The letter ascribed to him, which contains the Helsin narrative, is spurious. The principal propagator of the feast after the Conquest was Anselm, the nephew of St. Anselm. He was educated at Canterbury where he may have known some Saxon monks who remembered the solemnity in former days; after 1109 he was for a time Abbot of St. Sabas at Rome, where the Divine Offices were celebrated according to the Greek calendar. When in 1121 he was appointed Abbot of Bury St. Edmund's he established the feast there; partly at least through his efforts other monasteries also adopted it, like Reading, St. Albans, Worcester, Gloucester, and Winchcombe.

But a number of others decried its observance as hitherto unheard of and absurd, the old Oriental feast being unknown to them. Two bishops, Roger of Salisbury and Bernard of St. Davids, declared that the festival was forbidden by a council, and that the observance must be stopped. And when, during the vacancy of the See of London, Osbert de Clare, Prior of Westminster, undertook to introduce the feast at Westminster (8 December, 1127), a number of monks arose against him in the choir and said that the feast must not be kept, for its establishment had not the authority of Rome (cf. Osbert's letter to Anselm in Bishop, p. 24). Whereupon the matter was brought before the Council of London in 1129. The synod decided in favour of the feast, and Bishop Gilbert of London adopted it for his diocese. Thereafter the feast spread in England, but for a time retained its private character, the Synod of Oxford (1222) having refused to raise it to the rank of a holiday of obligation.

In Normandy at the time of Bishop Rotric (1165-83) the Conception of Mary, in the Archdiocese of Rouen and its six suffragan dioceses, was a feast of precept equal in dignity to the Annunciation. At the same time the Norman students at the University of Paris chose it as their patronal feast. Owing to the close connection of Normandy with England, it may have been imported from the latter country into Normandy, or the Norman barons and clergy may have brought it home from their wars in Lower Italy, it was universally solemnised by the Greek inhabitants. During the Middle Ages the Feast of the Conception of Mary was commonly called the "Feast of the Norman nation", which shows that it was celebrated in Normandy with great splendour and that it spread from there over Western Europe. Passaglia contends (III, 1755) that the feast was celebrated in Spain in the seventh century. Bishop Ullathorne also (p. 161) finds this opinion acceptable. If this be true, it is difficult to understand why it should have entirely disappeared from Spain later on, for neither does the genuine Mozarabic Liturgy contain it, nor the tenth century calendar of Toledo edited by Morin. The two proofs given by Passaglia are futile: the life of St. Isidore, falsely attributed to St. Ildephonsus , which mentions the feast, is interpolated, while, in the Visigoth lawbook, the expression "Conceptio S. Mariae" is to be understood of the Annunciation.

The controversy
No controversy arose over the Immaculate Conception on the European continent before the twelfth century. The Norman clergy abolished the feast in some monasteries of England where it had been established by the Anglo-Saxon monks. But towards the end of the eleventh century, through the efforts of Anselm the Younger, it was taken up again in several Anglo-Norman establishments. That St. Anselm the Elder re-established the feast in England is highly improbable, although it was not new to him. He had been made familiar with it as well by the Saxon monks of Canterbury, as by the Greeks with whom he came in contact during exile in Campania and Apulin (1098-9). The treatise "De Conceptu virginali" usually ascribed to him, was composed by his friend and disciple, the Saxon monk Eadmer of Canterbury . When the canons of the cathedral of Lyons, who no doubt knew Anselm the Younger Abbot of Bury St. Edmund's, personally introduced the feast into their choir after the death of their bishop in 1240, St. Bernard deemed it his duty to publish a protest against this new way of honouring Mary. He addressed to the canons a vehement letter (Epist. 174), in which he reproved them for taking the step upon their own authority and before they had consulted the Holy See. Not knowing that the feast had been celebrated with the rich tradition of the Greek and Syrian Churches regarding the sinlessness of Mary, he asserted that the feast was foreign to the old tradition of the Church. Yet it is evident from the tenor of his language that he had in mind only the active conception or the formation of the flesh, and that the distinction between the active conception, the formation of the body, and its animation by the soul had not yet been drawn. No doubt, when the feast was introduced in England and Normandy, the axiom "decuit, potuit, ergo fecit", the childlike piety and enthusiasm of the simplices building upon revelations and apocryphal legends, had the upper hand. The object of the feast was not clearly determined, no positive theological reasons had been placed in evidence.

St. Bernard was perfectly justified when he demanded a careful inquiry into the reasons for observing the feast. Not adverting to the possibility of sanctification at the time of the infusion of the soul, he writes that there can be question only of sanctification after conception, which would render holy the nativity, not the conception itself (Scheeben, "Dogmatik", III, p. 550). Hence Albert the Great observes: "We say that the Blessed Virgin was not sanctified before animation, and the affirmative contrary to this is the heresy condemned by St. Bernard in his epistle to the canons of Lyons" (III Sent., dist. iii, p. I, ad 1, Q. i).

St. Bernard was at once answered in a treatise written by either Richard of St. Victor or Peter Comestor. In this treatise appeal is made to a feast which had been established to commemorate an insupportable tradition. It maintained that the flesh of Mary needed no purification; that it was sanctified before the conception. Some writers of those times entertained the fantastic idea that before Adam fell, a portion of his flesh had been reserved by God and transmitted from generation to generation, and that out of this flesh the body of Mary was formed (Scheeben, op. cit., III, 551), and this formation they commemorated by a feast. The letter of St. Bernard did not prevent the extension of the feast, for in 1154 it was observed all over France, until in 1275, through the efforts of the Paris University, it was abolished in Paris and other dioceses.

After the saint's death the controversy arose anew between Nicholas of St. Albans, an English monk who defended the festival as established in England, and Peter Cellensis, the celebrated Bishop of Chartres. Nicholas remarks that the soul of Mary was pierced twice by the sword, i.e. at the foot of the cross and when St. Bernard wrote his letter against her feast ( Scheeben, III, 551). The point continued to be debated throughout the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and illustrious names appeared on each side. St. Peter Damian, Peter the Lombard, Alexander of Hales, St. Bonaventure, and Albert the Great are quoted as opposing it.

St. Thomas at first pronounced in favour of the doctrine in his treatise on the "Sentences" (in I. Sent. c. 44, q. I ad 3), yet in his "Summa Theologica" he concluded against it. Much discussion has arisen as to whether St. Thomas did or did not deny that the Blessed Virgin was immaculate at the instant of her animation, and learned books have been written to vindicate him from having actually drawn the negative conclusion. Yet it is hard to say that St. Thomas did not require an instant at least, after the animation of Mary, before her sanctification. His great difficulty appears to have arisen from the doubt as to how she could have been redeemed if she had not sinned. This difficulty he raised in no fewer than ten passages in his writings (see, e.g., Summa III:27:2, ad 2). But while St. Thomas thus held back from the essential point of the doctrine, he himself laid down the principles which, after they had been drawn together and worked out, enabled other minds to furnish the true solution of this difficulty from his own premises.

In the thirteenth century the opposition was largely due to a want of clear insight into the subject in dispute. The word "conception" was used in different senses, which had not been separated by careful definition. If St. Thomas, St. Bonaventure, and other theologians had known the doctrine in the sense of the definition of 1854, they would have been its strongest defenders instead of being its opponents.

We may formulate the question discussed by them in two propositions, both of which are against the sense of the dogma of 1854:

•the sanctification of Mary took place before the infusion of the soul into the flesh, so that the immunity of the soul was a consequence of the sanctification of the flesh and there was no liability on the part of the soul to contract original sin. This would approach the opinion of the Damascene concerning the holiness of the active conception.
•The sanctification took place after the infusion of the soul by redemption from the servitude of sin, into which the soul had been drawn by its union with the unsanctified flesh. This form of the thesis excluded an immaculate conception.
The theologians forgot that between sanctification before infusion, and sanctification after infusion, there was a medium: sanctification of the soul at the moment of its infusion. To them the idea seemed strange that what was subsequent in the order of nature could be simultaneous in point of time. Speculatively taken, the soul must be created before it can be infused and sanctified but in reality, the soul is created and sanctified at the very moment of its infusion into the body. Their principal difficulty was the declaration of St. Paul (Romans 5:12) that all men have sinned in Adam. The purpose of this Pauline declaration, however, is to insist on the need which all men have of redemption by Christ. Our Lady was no exception to this rule. A second difficulty was the silence of the earlier Fathers. But the divines of those times were distinguished not so much for their knowledge of the Fathers or of history, as for their exercise of the power of reasoning. They read the Western Fathers more than those of the Eastern Church, who exhibit in far greater completeness the tradition of the Immaculate Conception. And many works of the Fathers which had then been lost sight of have since been brought to light.

The famous Duns Scotus (d. 1308) at last (in III Sent., dist. iii, in both commentaries) laid the foundations of the true doctrine so solidly and dispelled the objections in a manner so satisfactory, that from that time onward the doctrine prevailed. He showed that the sanctification after animation -- sanctificatio post animationem -- demanded that it should follow in the order of nature (naturae) not of time (temporis); he removed the great difficulty of St. Thomas showing that, so far from being excluded from redemption, the Blessed Virgin obtained of her Divine Son the greatest of redemptions through the mystery of her preservation from all sin. He also brought forward, by way of illustration, the somewhat dangerous and doubtful argument of Eadmer (S. Anselm) "decuit, potuit, ergo fecit."

From the time of Scotus not only did the doctrine become the common opinion at the universities, but the feast spread widely to those countries where it had not been previously adopted. With the exception of the Dominicans, all or nearly all, of the religious orders took it up: The Franciscans at the general chapter at Pisa in 1263 adopted the Feast of the Conception of Mary for the entire order; this, however, does not mean that they professed at that time the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. Following in the footsteps of their own Duns Scotus, the learned Petrus Aureolus and Franciscus de Mayronis became the most fervent champions of the doctrine, although their older teachers (St. Bonaventure included) had been opposed to it. The controversy continued, but the defenders of the opposing opinion were almost entirely confined to the members of the Dominican Order. In 1439 the dispute was brought before the Council of Basle where the University of Paris, formerly opposed to the doctrine, proved to be its most ardent advocate, asking for a dogmatical definition. The two referees at the council were John of Segovia and John Turrecremata (Torquemada). After it had been discussed for the space of two years before that assemblage, the bishops declared the Immaculate Conception to be a doctrine which was pious, consonant with Catholic worship, Catholic faith, right reason, and Holy Scripture; nor, said they, was it henceforth allowable to preach or declare to the contrary (Mansi, XXXIX, 182). The Fathers of the Council say that the Church of Rome was celebrating the feast. This is true only in a certain sense. It was kept in a number of churches of Rome, especially in those of the religious orders, but it was not received in the official calendar. As the council at the time was not ecumenical, it could not pronounce with authority. The memorandum of the Dominican Torquemada formed the armoury for all attacks upon the doctrine made by St. Antoninus of Florence (d. 1459), and by the Dominicans Bandelli and Spina.

By a Decree of 28 February, 1476, Sixtus IV at last adopted the feast for the entire Latin Church and granted an indulgence to all who would assist at the Divine Offices of the solemnity (Denzinger, 734). The Office adopted by Sixtus IV was composed by Leonard de Nogarolis, whilst the Franciscans, since 1480, used a very beautiful Office from the pen of Bernardine dei Busti (Sicut Lilium), which was granted also to others (e.g. to Spain, 1761), and was chanted by the Franciscans up to the second half of the nineteenth century. As the public acknowledgment of the feast of Sixtus IV did not prove sufficient to appease the conflict, he published in 1483 a constitution in which he punished with excommunication all those of either opinion who charged the opposite opinion with heresy (Grave nimis, 4 Sept., 1483; Denzinger, 735). In 1546 the Council of Trent, when the question was touched upon, declared that "it was not the intention of this Holy Synod to include in the decree which concerns original sin the Blessed and Immaculate Virgin Mary Mother of God" (Sess. V, De peccato originali, v, in Denzinger, 792). Since, however, this decree did not define the doctrine, the theological opponents of the mystery, though more and more reduced in numbers, did not yield. St. Pius V not only condemned proposition 73 of Baius that "no one but Christ was without original sin, and that therefore the Blessed Virgin had died because of the sin contracted in Adam, and had endured afilictions in this life, like the rest of the just, as punishment of actual and original sin" (Denzinger, 1073) but he also issued a constitution in which he forbade all public discussion of the subject. Finally he inserted a new and simplified Office of the Conception in the liturgical books ("Super speculam", Dec., 1570; "Superni omnipotentis", March, 1571; "Bullarium Marianum", pp. 72, 75).

Whilst these disputes went on, the great universities and almost all the great orders had become so many bulwarks for the defense of the dogma. In 1497 the University of Paris decreed that henceforward no one should be admitted a member of the university, who did not swear that he would do the utmost to defend and assert the Immaculate Conception of Mary. Toulouse followed the example; in Italy, Bologna and Naples; in the German Empire, Cologne, Maine, and Vienna; in Belgium, Louvain; in England before the Reformation. Oxford and Cambridge; in Spain Salamanca, Toledo, Seville, and Valencia; in Portugal, Coimbra and Evora; in America, Mexico and Lima. The Friars Minor confirmed in 1621 the election of the Immaculate Mother as patron of the order, and bound themselves by oath to teach the mystery in public and in private. The Dominicans, however, were under special obligation to follow the doctrines of St. Thomas, and the common conclusion was that St. Thomas was opposed to the Immaculate Conception. Therefore the Dominicans asserted that the doctrine was an error against faith (John of Montesono, 1373); although they adopted the feast, they termed it persistently "Sanctificatio B.M.V." not "Conceptio", until in 1622 Gregory XV abolished the term "sanctificatio". Paul V (1617) decreed that no one should dare to teach publicly that Mary was conceived in original sin, and Gregory XV (1622) imposed absolute silence (in scriptis et sermonibus etiam privatis) upon the adversaries of the doctrine until the Holy See should define the question. To put an end to all further cavilling, Alexander VII promulgated on 8 December 1661, the famous constitution "Sollicitudo omnium Ecclesiarum", defining the true sense of the word conceptio, and forbidding all further discussion against the common and pious sentiment of the Church. He declared that the immunity of Mary from original sin in the first moment of the creation of her soul and its infusion into the body was the object of the feast (Densinger, 1100).

Explicit universal acceptance

Since the time of Alexander VII, long before the final definition, there was no doubt on the part of theologians that the privilege was amongst the truths revealed by God. Wherefore Pius IX, surrounded by a splendid throng of cardinals and bishops, 8 December 1854, promulgated the dogma. A new Office was prescribed for the entire Latin Church by Pius IX (25 December, 1863), by which decree all the other Offices in use were abolished, including the old Office Sicut lilium of the Franciscans, and the Office composed by Passaglia (approved 2 Feb., 1849).

In 1904 the golden jubilee of the definition of the dogma was celebrated with great splendour (Pius X, Enc., 2 Feb., 1904). Clement IX added to the feast an octave for the dioceses within the temporal possessions of the pope (1667). Innocent XII (1693) raised it to a double of the second class with an octave for the universal Church, which rank had been already given to it in 1664 for Spain, in 1665 for Tuscany and Savoy, in 1667 for the Society of Jesus, the Hermits of St. Augustine, etc., Clement XI decreed on 6 Dec., 1708, that the feast should be a holiday of obligation throughout the entire Church. At last Leo XIII, 30 Nov 1879, raised the feast to a double of the first class with a vigil, a dignity which had long before been granted to Sicily (1739), to Spain (1760) and to the United States (1847). A Votive Office of the Conception of Mary, which is now recited in almost the entire Latin Church on free Saturdays, was granted first to the Benedictine nuns of St. Anne at Rome in 1603, to the Franciscans in 1609, to the Conventuals in 1612, etc. The Syrian and Chaldean Churches celebrate this feast with the Greeks on 9 December; in Armenia it is one of the few immovable feasts of the year (9 December); the schismatic Abyssinians and Copts keep it on 7 August whilst they celebrate the Nativity of Mary on 1 May; the Catholic Copts, however, have transferred the feast to 10 December (Nativity, 10 September). The Eastern Catholics have since 1854 changed the name of the feast in accordance with the dogma to the "Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary."

The Archdiocese of Palermo solemnizes a Commemoration of the Immaculate Conception on 1 September to give thanks for the preservation of the city on occasion of the earthquake, 1 September, 1726. A similar commemoration is held on 14 January at Catania (earthquake, 11 Jan., 1693); and by the Oblate Fathers on 17 Feb., because their rule was approved 17 Feb., 1826. Between 20 September 1839, and 7 May 1847, the privilege of adding to the Litany of Loretto the invocation, "Queen conceived without original sin", had been granted to 300 dioceses and religious communities. The Immaculate Conception was declared on 8 November, 1760, principal patron of all the possessions of the crown of Spain, including those in America. The decree of the First Council of Baltimore (1846) electing Mary in her Immaculate Conception principal Patron of the United States, was confirmed on 7 February, 1847.

Passaglia, De Immac. Conceptu. B.M.V. (3 vols., Rome, 1855); Ballerini, Sylloge monumentorum ad myster. Immac. Conc. Pectantium (Rome, 1854-6); Scheeben, Dogmatik III, 279 sq.; Idem in Kirchenlexicon, s.v. Empfangnis unbefleckte; Roskovany, De b. Virginie Maria in suo conceptu immaculate (13 vols., Budapest, 1873-1892); Le Bachelet, L’Immac. Conc. (Paris, 1903); J. and P. Hobeika, Temoignage de l’Eglise Syro-maronite en faveur de l’Imm. Conc. Et l’Eglise de Paris (Paris, 1905); Sardi, La solenne Definizione etc. (2 vols., Rome, 1904); Petrides, L’Imm. Conc. Et les Grecs modernes in Echos d’Orient (1905), 275 sqq.; Kellner, Heortologie, 174 sqq. (2nd ed., Freiburg, 1906, Eng. Tr. London, 1908); Preuss, Zum Lobe der unbefl. Empf. (Freiburg, 1879); Bishop, On the Origins of the Feast of the Conc. B.M.V. (London, 1904); De Meester, La Festa della Conc. Di Maria SS. Nella Chiesa Greca (Rome, 1904); Ullathorne, The Imm. Conc. Of the Mother of God (Westminster, 1905); Livius, The Bl. V.M. in the Fathers of the first six centuries (London, 1893); Toscani and Cozza, De Imm. Deip. Conc. Hymnologia Graecorum (Rome 1862); Holweck, Fasti Mariani (Freiburg, 1892); Bourasse, Bullarium Marianum in Summa Aurea, VII (Paris, 1866); Waterson, Pietas Mariana Britannica (London, 1879); Schutz, Summa Mariana (2 vols., Paderborn, 1903-9); Coleridge, The Mother of the King (New London, 1890); Hunter, Outlines of Dogmatic Theology (New York, 1894); Kosters in Buchberger, Kirchliches Handlexikon, s.v. Empfangnis Maria, Unbefleckte; Berington, Kirk and Waterworth, The Faith of Catholics (St. Louis), 433 sqq.

Plenary Indulgences

2011-11-21T07:36:00.004-05:00

The 1968 Enchiridion Indulgentiarum is the official catalogue of indulgences granted by the Holy See. Here and below I provide the plenary indulgences listed in that book with their respective number in the list. Please note that there are many other plenary indulgences available at privileged altars, etc. which are not listed in the Enchiridion.

Only one plenary indulgence can be obtained per day (except at the moment of death), and it is applicable to one's own soul or to the souls in purgatory, with the normal conditions for a plenary indulgence (again except in articulo mortis): Sacramental Confession, Communion, and Prayer for the intention of the Holy Father, all to be performed within eight days of the indulgenced work. Under those conditions, the first four listed below may be obtained anytime.

Adoration of the Most Blessed Sacrament at least 1/2 hour. (3)

Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary in a Church or in the family. (48)

Bible, devout prayerful reading of at least 1/2 hour. (50)

Via Crucis, devoutly exercised (going from station to station with at least some mental prayer on the Passion and Death of the Lord at each station). When done in a group it suffices that at least the leader go from station to station. Those "impeded" can gain the same indulgence with at least 1/2 hour pious reading and meditation on the Lord's Passion and Death. (63)

Roman Major Basilicas, devout visit to any of the four reciting there a Pater and Credo, on the titular feast, on any holyday of obligation, or once a year on any day. (11)

Urbi et Orbi Papal Blessing devoutly received, even via live broadcast. (12)

Cemetery visit devoutly praying (at least mentally) for the departed during the Octave of all Souls: 1-8 November, applicable only to the Souls in Purgatory. (13)

Veneration of the cross of Good Friday during that service. (17)

"Look down upon me, good and gentle Jesus..." prayer after receiving Holy Communion, any Friday of Lent, before an image of Christ crucified. (22)

Eucharistic Congress, participation in the closing Liturgy. (23)

Retreat (spiritual exercises) of at least three whole days. (25)

Sacred Heart Solemnity, publicly saying The Act of Reparation--"Most Sweet Jesus...". (26)

Christ the King Solemnity, publicly saying The Act of Dedication of the Human Race to Jesus Christ the King. (27)

In Articulo Mortis (at the moment of death), for the faithful who habitually recited some prayers during their lifetime, even if unable to be assisted by a priest and the sacraments. (28)

Saints Peter and Paul Solemnity (29 June) pious use of an object blessed by a bishop or the Pope saying the Creed. (35)

Parish Mission, hearing some of the sermons and participating in the solemn closing thereof. (41)

First Holy Communion, one's own or that of others. (42)

Solemn First Mass, one's own or that of others. (43)

Priestly anniversary upon 25, 50, 60 anniversary renewing his faithful purpose, and the faithful who assist at that solemn Mass. (49)

Station Church (Lent in Rome) visited on the proper day and attending a sacred function. (56)

Diocesan Synod devoutly visiting the Church thereof and saying a Pater and Credo. (58)

Tantum Ergo solemnly recited on Holy Thursday and Corpus Christi. (59)

Te Deum publicly recited on the last day of the year. (60)

Veni Creator publicly recited on the first day of the year and Pentecost. (61)

Parish church titular feast visit, or on the "Portiuncula" (2 August) saying a Pater and Credo. (65)

Church or altar on the day of its consecration, visit saying a Pater and Credo. (66)

All Souls Day visit a church or oratory, applicable only to the Souls in Purgatory, saying a Pater and Credo. (67)

Feast of the canonized Founder (of an Order), visit a church or oratory of the Order saying a Pater and Credo. (68)

Pastoral Visitation, attending a sacred function thereof to be obtained only once during the visitation. (69)

Renewal of Baptismal vows during the Easter Vigil or the anniversary of one's baptism. (70)

Playmobil Nativity Sets

2011-11-18T07:32:00.007-05:00

The German toy maker Playmobil is offering a line of high-quality Nativity sets this Christmas for children 4-10 years old. Check them out. They are not for children under 3 years because the small figures may be a choking hazard. They are wonderful for grade school!

Nativity Manger with Stable 4884 $29.99

Nativity Scene With Stable 5958 $19.99

Nativity Scene 4885 $10.99

Three Wise Kings 4886 $10.99

Saint Nicholas and Angel 4887 $4.99

Southern Tridentine Monastery

2011-11-07T08:58:00.004-05:00

This past Divine Mercy Sunday (1 May 2011) Christ the King, a small and quaint SSPX Abbey in the Diocese of Birmingham, Alabama reconciled with Rome. It is in Cullman, an hour north of EWTN, and just an half hour north of Mother Angelica's Hanceville Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament/Our Lady of the Angels Monastery. The newly reconciled extraordinary form monastery is just another reason to visit that increasingly Catholic part of our beloved South! All of this is two hours west of Atlanta.

For flying there the Birmingham airport is just minutes away from the Irondale studios of EWTN. I'll see about making my annual retreat at the Cullman Abbey.

If you like Conyers you should love Cullman!

The Psalter Saint

2011-10-17T09:31:00.002-04:00

14 October 1060 was the holy death of Saint Dominic Loricatus, whom we could call "The Psalter Saint." He prayed the entire psalter every day and often various times in one day, while flagellating himself, doing penance to make up for corrupt clergy and all of the sins of the world.

I think about him especially now that I have taken up the 1962 breviary, which is more demanding than the reformed breviary. The previous breviary did the who psalter every week while the new one does the entire psalter monthly (in four weeks). Saint Dominic said the whole psalter by dawn every day!

Saint Dominic Loricatus pray for the penitence of today's clergymen.

Maternitatis Beatae Mariae Virginis

2011-10-11T10:26:00.001-04:00

In 1931 Pope Pius XI, in commemoration of the 1500 anniversary of the conclusion of the Council of Ephesus, declared 11 October the feast of The Maternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Blessed Pope John XXIII chose this same feast in 1962 to begin the Second Vatican Council under the patronage of the Theotokos with these words: "Mother Church rejoices that, by the singular gift of Divine Providence, the longed-for day has finally dawned when--under the auspices of the virgin Mother of God, whose maternal dignity is commemorated on this feast--the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council is solemnly opened beside Saint Peter's tomb."

A week earlier he had concluded his last pre-Council general audience with these words of extreme affection. "Only a week separates us from the Council: and the first thought turns naturally to the Most Holy Mother of Jesus and our Mother, Mary, who represents for the light of our eyes and the beating of our hearts all that is most tender and most dear in our families."

It is a bit ironic that the revised Roman Calander took this feast off the calendar and now it is the feast of Blessed Pope John XXIII! I'm sure he is not happy with that. This is iconic for the confusion, liturgical and otherwise, that continues to reign in the post-conciliar Church. Let me give just one other timely example of the ongoing confusion in the Reform of the Reform.

The newly translated Roman Missals have just arrived, to be implemented the first Sunday of Advent. The translation is a great improvement from the 1970 disaster. However, the greatest part of the previous edition was excised--the Latin appendix! The new addition has no Latin! Here is another great post-Conciliar irony with which Blessed Pope John cannot be happy. The new edition of the English Missal--with its countless improvements--has no trace of Latin (or Greek [e.g. Kyrie]) anywhere! I would have expected, after all we have been through, the Latin option in the text, especially for the silent prayers of the priest during the Mass. So that I have to see this as another transitional Missal! Simultaneous Latin in the text should be normative for all translations, if it is to be truly an option!

Another matter brought up by the local liturgists is how many times to strike the breast during the Confiteor. They say once! contrary to the constant and long standing tradition and contrary to the usage in the other translations (e.g. Spanish) where the people have always done the three stikes. The rubrics are not clear saying "striking" but not specifying the number of times. Here again the anti-traditional and wrong-headed interpretation of the "experts" continue to be a tug-of-war resisting the continual Reform of the Reform. We will strike three times!

Christopher Columbus Brought the Immaculate Conception to America

2011-10-10T09:25:00.005-04:00

On 11 October 1492 the sailors sang the Salve on sighting land, thus bringing the patronage of the Immaculate Conception to our hemisphere. The ship that brought Columbus was Holy Mary of the Immaculate Conception. Spanish Catholics have had a clear and unrelenting devotion to the Immaculate Conception of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary for at least five hundred years.

Just thirty nine years later Our Lady herself from Guadalupe converted millions in New Spain to faith in Jesus Christ. There were countless tireless and very effective Spanish missionaries in the first century of the evangelization of America, including the Apostle of South America. It is no accident that the patroness of USA, therefore, is The Immaculate Conception. She was brought here on Columbus Day!

It is noteworthy that the official US patronage of the Immaculate Conception (1846) came eight years before the dogmatic definition. This request for a patronage so dear to the Spanish shows a great international sense of the faith and unity of spirit among the bishops, transcending national borders. Below is a great article from 1954 (the dogmatic centenary) on the whole issue.

LAND OF MARY IMMACULATE
Marion A. Habig, O.F.M.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the year 1846, on May 10, the Fourth Sunday after Easter, Archbishop Samuel Eccleston and twenty-two bishops of the United States were gathered in the city of Baltimore, in the Cathedral of the Assumption of Our Lady, for the opening of the First Session of the Sixth Provincial Council of Baltimore.
Archbishop Eccleston offered up a Solemn Holy Mass, and Bishop Purcell of Cincinnati preached an appropriate sermon.

The ecclesiastical province of Baltimore at this time comprised the whole United States, and hence the Sixth Provincial Council was able to issue decrees for the entire country.

On May 13 the bishops of the United States who were gathered in the residence of the Archbishop and under his chairmanship for the third private meeting of the Council, which began at nine in the morning, adopted a decree by which they chose the Blessed Virgin Mary, conceived without sin, as Patroness of the United States.

This decree, translated from the Latin into English, is as follows:

With enthusiastic acclaim and with unanimous approval and consent, the Fathers [of the Council] have chosen the Blessed Virgin Mary, conceived without sin, as the Patroness of the United States of America; without, however, adding the obligation of hearing Mass and abstaining from servile work on the feast of the Conception of Blessed Mary. And, therefore, they decided that the Supreme Pontiff be humbly asked to transfer the solemnity, unless the feast fall on a Sunday, to the nearest Sunday, on which both private and solemn Masses may be celebrated of the feast thus transferred, and the vesper office of the same feast may be recited.

Shea tells us that it was "to gratify a pious desire pervading the whole United States," that "the Fathers of the Council petitioned the Sovereign Pontiff to ratify their choice of the Blessed Virgin Mary, conceived without sin, as Patroness of the United States, and to transfer the solemnization of the feast to the following Sunday."1

In the fourth private meeting of the Council, held on May 15, same time and same place, the bishops of the United States agreed to ask the Holy See for permission, in all the dioceses of the country, to add the word "Immaculate" in the orations and preface of the divine office and Mass of the Conception of Mary; and also to add in the Litany of the Blessed Virgin the invocation: "Queen, conceived without sin, pray for us."

The latter favors were granted first, by Pope Pius IX, in an audience on Sept. 13, 1846, and announced by the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda (to which the Church in the United States was subject at that time) in a decree published two days later. When the Sixth Provincial Council of Baltimore met the ruling Pontiff was Gregory XVI. He died on June 1 of that year, and was succeeded by Pius IX on June 16.

The choice of Our Lady in her Immaculate Conception as Patroness of the United States was approved by Pope Pius IX in an audience on Feb. 7, 1847; and this approval was announced in a decree of Propaganda dated July 2, the same year. Both of these decrees of Propaganda have the signature of Cardinal Fransoni.

Two more decrees, issued by the Congregation of Sacred Rites on April 10, 1848, answered questions which had arisen. (1) The Mass of the Immaculate Conception, transferred to Sunday, has the Gloria and Credo and the Gospel of the Sunday at the end; and, if the Mass is sung, it has a commemoration only of the Sunday; if it is a private Mass, it has commemorations also of other feasts observed on that day. (2) The obligation of reciting the vespers of the divine office is satisfied by attendance at the vespers of the Immaculate Conception on the Sunday to which the feast is transferred.

It will be of interest to list the bishops who signed the decree by which the Immaculate Conception was chosen Patroness of the United States. The first was, of course, that of Archbishop Samuel Eccleston of Baltimore, the chairman of the Council. Then followed the signatures of twenty-two bishops, three of whom were coadjutor bishops (Louisville, New York, and Boston), one an administrator (Detroit), and one a vicar apostolic (Texas). The twenty-two bishops signed their names in the following order:

(1) Michael Portier, Bishop of Mobile
(2) Francis Patrick Kenrick, Bishop of Philadelphia
(3) John Baptist Purcell, Bishop of Cincinnati
(4) Guido Ignatius Chabrat, Coadjutor of Louisville
(5) Anthony Blanc, Bishop of New Orleans
(6) Matthias Loras, Bishop of Dubuque
(7) John Hughes, Bishop of New York
(8) Richard Pius Miles, Bishop of Nashville
(9) Celestine Rene Lawrence Guynemer de la Hailandiere, Bishop of Vincennes
(10) John Joseph Chanche, Bishop of Natchez
(11) Richard Vincent Whelan, Bishop of Richmond
(12) Peter Paul Lefevere, Administrator of Detroit
(13) Peter Richard Kenrick, Bishop of Saint Louis
(14) John Mary Odin, Vicar Apostolic of Texas
(15) Michael O'Connor, Bishop of Pittsburgh
(16) Andrew Byrne, Bishop of Little Rock
(17) William Quarter, Bishop of Chicago
(18) John McCloskey, Coadjutor of New York
(19) William Tyler, Bishop of Hartford
(20) Ignatius Aloysius Reynolds, Bishop of Charleston
(21) John Henni, Bishop of Milwaukee
(22) John Bernard Fitzpatrick, Coadjutor of Boston

The request of the American bishops for permission to add the word "Immaculate" in the orations and preface for the feast of the Conception of the Blessed Virgin requires some explanation. The feast of the Conception of Mary was celebrated in some places already in the thirteenth century; however, it did not clearly teach the Immaculate Conception. That was done in the Office "Sicut Lilium" and the Mass "Egredimini" of Leonard of Nogarolis, which was approved in 1477 by Sixtus IV; in fact, these had the same oration we have today for the feast of the Immaculate Conception. When Pius V revised the Roman Breviary in 1568, though the Franciscans were allowed to retain the Office and Mass of Nogarolis, this office was dropped for the rest of the Church and the office of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin was substituted, the word "Conception" being substituted for "Nativity."

When the American bishops asked for permission to add the word "Immaculate," they anticipated and perhaps influenced a step taken by Pope Pius IX a year after he had granted the petition of the American bishops. On Sept. 30, 1847, this Pope authorized for the diocese of Rome a new office and Mass proper to the feast of the Immaculate Conception and clearly teaching the doctrine of Mary's Immaculate Conception; and, two years later, he extended the new office and Mass to the universal Church.

On Dec. 8, 1854, eight years and four months after the American bishops had chosen Mary Immaculate as the Patroness of the United States, Pope Pius IX solemnly declared the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary to be an article of faith. Numerous petitions for the definition of this doctrine had poured in during the preceding years; and Pope Pius IX had written the encyclical Ubi primum in which he asked the bishops of the world (1) how great the devotion of the faithful was toward the Immaculate Conception and how great their desire for the definition of this doctrine; and (2) what was the opinion and desire of the bishops themselves.

The American bishops, assembled in the Seventh Provincial Council of Baltimore, May 5-13, 1849, had given a favorable reply to both questions (in decrees I and II, on May 12), informing the Holy Father that the faithful in the United States were animated with a great devotion to the Immaculate Conception, and that they the bishops, would be pleased if the Holy Father declared the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception an article of faith.

The documents in which are recorded all of the facts mentioned concerning the Sixth and Seventh Councils of Baltimore are contained in volume three of the so-called Collectio Lacensis, containing the acts and decrees of the Councils of the bishops of North America and Great Britain from 1789 to 1869, and published by Herder at Freiburg in Breisgau in 1875.

It is interesting to note that among these documents there is one which tells us that Bishop Carroll had chosen the Blessed Virgin as patroness of the diocese of Baltimore at the time he was made bishop. The document in question is the minutes of the fifth session, on November 10, of the Diocesan Synod of Baltimore held in 1791, which was really the first national synod of the United States.

Long before the American bishops, in 1846, chose the Immaculate Conception as Patroness of the United States, a large portion of our country, namely that which has been called "Our Spanish Borderlands," had been placed under the patronage of Mary Immaculate.

It was in 1760 that Pope Clement XIII approved of the choice of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary as the principal and universal Patroness of Spain and its possessions; and that included Our Spanish Borderlands-the states of Florida, Georgia, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California.

Long before that, however, the Spaniards, both in their homeland and in their world-wide colonies, excelled all other nations and countries in their love and veneration of Nuestra Senora de la Purisima Concepcion. The flagship of Christopher Columbus on his epoch-making voyage across the Atlantic in 1492 was named not merely Santa Maria, but according to some historians Santa Maria de Concepcion. To the second island he found in the New World, Columbus gave the name of La Concepcion after he had named the first San Salvador. From that time on, countless rivers, lakes, towns, missions in Hispanic America were named for and placed under the tutelage of La Purisima Concepcion.

In our own Spanish Borderlands no less than ten missions were dedicated to the Immaculate Conception, four in Florida, two in Texas, two in New Mexico, and two in California. The two in New Mexico, at Hawikuh and Quarai, were the first; and one of those in Texas, Mission La Purisima Concepcion near San Antonio, still stands today as it did when completed in 1762-the oldest church of the Immaculate Conception in the United States. The church adjoining the Franciscan friary at St. Augustine, Florida, founded in 1584 and dedicated to Mary Immaculate, was the first church of the Immaculate Conception in territory now a part of the United States.

As early as 1644 Pope Innocent X permitted the feast of the Conception of the Blessed Virgin to be made a holy day of obligation in Spain and its possessions, while it was only in 1708, under Clement XI, that the feast of the Conception of Mary became such for the whole Church.

In 1761, the year after the choice of the Immaculate Conception as Patroness of Spain had been approved by Clement XIII, Spain and its possessions also received permission to make use of the office and Mass of the Immaculate Conception, which was then in use among the Franciscans and which clearly taught and praised Mary's singular privilege of the Immaculate Conception.

A further concession was made to Spain and its possessions in 1767, when this office and Mass of the Immaculate Conception were permitted, not merely on December 8, but on every Saturday of the year except during Advent and Lent.

A symbol as well as instance of Spain's devotion to Mary Immaculate are the beautiful paintings of the Immaculate Conception by the great Spanish artist, Bartolome Esteban Murillo (1617-82). El Maestro, as Murillo is called, painted numerous pictures of the Immaculate Conception, the most famous of which is in the Louvre. It represents the Blessed Virgin surrounded by cherubs and standing upon the crescent, her hands folded on her breast and her eyes turned upwards. Similar to it is his famous painting of the Assumption, also in the Louvre.

The spirit of Murillo is indicated by the fact that he never began a religious painting without prayer and penance, and also by the practice of the pupils of the art school which he founded, who met with the salutation: "Praised be the Most Holy Sacrament and the pure Conception of Our Lady!"

The latter became, in fact, a favorite greeting and aspiration among Spaniards everywhere, particularly in the following form: "Alabado sea el Santisimo Sacramento del Altar! Bendita sea la Limpia y Purisima Concepcion de Nuestra Senora Maria Santisima sin mancha de pecado original!-Praised be the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar! Blessed be the stainless and most pure Conception of Our Lady Mary Most Holy without the taint of original sin!"

In all the missions of Our Spanish Borderlands the Indians were taught to sing the beautiful Alabado at services in the church, similarly as we sing the Psalm Laudate after Benediction, and also at other times. The first verse of the Alabado praised the Blessed Sacrament; the second, the Immaculate Conception; and the third, St. Joseph. The first two verses are as follows:

Alabado y ensalzado
Sea el Divino Sacramento,
En quien Dios oculto asiste,
De las Almas el sustento.

Y la limpia Concepcion
De la Reina de los Cielos,
Que quedando Virgen Pura,
Es Madre del Verbo Eterno.

The following is a literal translation:

"Praised and exalted be the Sacrament Divine in which God is present in a hidden manner and offers Himself as the food of souls! Praised also be the Immaculate Conception of the Queen of Heaven, who while remaining a pure virgin, became the Mother of the Eternal Word!"

Fr. Owen da Silva's book, Mission Music of California, has the following version in verse:

Lift your heart in joy and exalt Him
In the Blessed Sacrament all Holy,
Where the Lord, His glory veiling,
Comforts souls true and lowly.

Laud the glorious Conception
Of the Queen in God's Kingdom supernal,
Who remaining Virgin stainless,
Bore for men the Word eternal.

There is another form of the Alabado which combines these two verses into one:

Alabado sea el Santisimo
Sacramento del altar,
Y la Virgen concebida
Sin pecado original.

And this followed by:

Ave, Ave,
Ave Maria!
Ave, Ave,
Ave Maria!

In 1846, therefore, when the bishops of the United States dedicated our land in a special manner to the Immaculate Conception, choosing the Blessed Virgin under this title as the special Patroness of our country, it was a re-dedication as far as that part was concerned which had once belonged to Spain-Our Spanish Borderlands, which were placed under the patronage of Mary Immaculate already in 1760.

In his History of Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary in North America, MacLeod tells us that in 1862, of more than eight hundred churches in North America which were dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, 145 were named for the Immaculate Conception. Another count made by Fr. Maynard Geiger, O.F.M., in 1943, shows that out of 4,817 churches and institutions in the United States dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, 637 honor the Immaculate Conception.

The United States of America is indeed the land of Mary Immaculate. Very fittingly the beloved poet-priest of the South, Fr. Abram J. Ryan, wrote one of his most beautiful poems in Baltimore on the night of Dec. 8, 1880, opening with these verses:

Fell the snow on the festival's vigil
And surpliced the city in white;
I wonder who wove the pure flakelets?
Ask the Virgin, or God, or the night.

It fitted the Feast: 'twas a symbol,
And earth wore the surplice at morn,
As pure as the vale's stainless lily
For Mary, the sinlessly born;

For Mary, conceived in all sinlessness;
And the sun, thro' the clouds of the East,
With the brightest and fairest of flashes,
Fringed the surplice of white for the Feast.

And round the horizon hung cloudless,
Pure stoles to be worn by the Feast;
While the earth and the heavens were waiting
For the beautiful Mass of the priest.

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ENDNOTES

1 John Gilmary Shea, History of the Catholic Church in the United States (New York, 1886-92), IV, 28-30.
Franciscan Friary
St. Louis, Missouri

Taken from the June 1954 issue of "The American Ecclesiastical Review."

San Luis Beltran (Saint Louis Bertrand)

2011-10-09T19:43:00.002-04:00

Today is the feast of yet another great Spanish Saint who has been largely neglected. A Dominican from Valencia he was related to Saint Vincent Ferrer and ordained priest by the Archbishop of Valencia, Santo Tomas de Villanova.

San Luis is the "Apostle of South America", baptizing tens of thousands of natives. Even before he went to the missions he attracted throngs with his incisive preaching in Valencia. He was one of the persons consulted by Saint Teresa about her projects of reform in the Carmelite Order and occasionally was consulted by government officials in the affairs of Spain.

"In demeanor he was grave, and apparently without any sense of humor, yet withal possessed of a gentle and sweet disposition that greatly endeared him to those with whom he came in contact." Catholic Encylopedia 1913

"Saint Louis was one of the earliest missionaries to raise his voice against the rapacity and bad example in general of his countrymen in America."

He died on this day 420 years ago (1581) at the age of 55.

Viva la Espana Catolica!

Modus Operandi Sanctorum

2011-10-03T07:12:00.009-04:00

During last week's parish mission, the wise old missionary priest (Father Angelus Shaughnessy, OFM, National Executive Director of the Archconfraternity of Christian Mothers) gave me the following advice, quoting from Blessed Pope John XXIII's Journal of a Soul:

See everything.

Say little.

Overlook much.

Besides being the standard for diplomatic conduct and the basic manners of any gentleman, that is a sure recipe for spreading holiness when it is done for Christ's sake by his saints.

In this regard I have in mind His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI's supreme graciousness, humility, brevity and clarity before his potentially hostile hearers at the German Parliament. They loved him because he is a thoroughly Christian gentleman, and fellow Teuton, sympathetically calling them to overcome their barbaric tendencies by digging into the treasures of their great Christian heritage!

Would that all men of God should acquire the virtue of saying the good things men need to hear briefly, clearly and sympathetically. In a word: tact! It is most fitting for and very effectively exercised by our Supreme Cooperator Veritatis. Viva il Papa Ratzinger!

Pope Benedict Address to the German Parliament 22 September 2011

2011-09-28T08:43:00.005-04:00

Here is the unedited historic discourse (with a little glitch in the middle) on the need for true justice in politicians and in politics and the indispensable role of Christianity in ensuring the integrity of our claims of truth and justice by promoting the right relationship between faith and reason. The origin of our culture comes from the relationship between Jerusalem, Athens and Rome: the harmony between faith in the one true God, the highest achievements of human reason and philosophy and the proper ordering of society with civil law. We need God to regain our bearings and certainty regarding our nature and dignity, and our consequent responsibility to respect that same nature. The "is" and the "ought" need to be brought together again and they can be authoritatively joined only by the living God: that man is made in the image and likeness of the Truth Himself. We have the capacity to know the truth about ourselves and have duties consequent upon that reasonable knowledge because God is true. Because the Absolute exists and we exist in relationship to him. Without God everything is relative and government becomes the rule of the most clever crooks. "Man is mind and will but he is also nature!" God alone guarantee's it.

Above is the video in German. Below is the complete English translation text.

We could say that this discourse is a particular application of what was called for in the Regensburg Address: a cultural re-birth established upon our necessary Christian-Hellenic cradle!

APOSTOLIC JOURNEY TO GERMANY
22-25 SEPTEMBER 2011

VISIT TO THE BUNDESTAG

ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI

Reichstag Building, Berlin
Thursday, 22 September 2011

The Listening Heart
Reflections on the Foundations of Law

Mr President of the Federal Republic,
Mr President of the Bundestag,
Madam Chancellor,
Madam President of the Bundesrat,
Ladies and Gentlemen Members of the House,

It is an honour and a joy for me to speak before this distinguished house, before the Parliament of my native Germany, that meets here as a democratically elected representation of the people, in order to work for the good of the Federal Republic of Germany. I should like to thank the President of the Bundestag both for his invitation to deliver this address and for the kind words of greeting and appreciation with which he has welcomed me. At this moment I turn to you, distinguished ladies and gentlemen, not least as your fellow-countryman who for all his life has been conscious of close links to his origins, and has followed the affairs of his native Germany with keen interest. But the invitation to give this address was extended to me as Pope, as the Bishop of Rome, who bears the highest responsibility for Catholic Christianity. In issuing this invitation you are acknowledging the role that the Holy See plays as a partner within the community of peoples and states. Setting out from this international responsibility that I hold, I should like to propose to you some thoughts on the foundations of a free state of law.

Allow me to begin my reflections on the foundations of law [Recht] with a brief story from sacred Scripture. In the First Book of the Kings, it is recounted that God invited the young King Solomon, on his accession to the throne, to make a request. What will the young ruler ask for at this important moment? Success – wealth – long life – destruction of his enemies? He chooses none of these things. Instead, he asks for a listening heart so that he may govern God’s people, and discern between good and evil (cf. 1 Kg 3:9). Through this story, the Bible wants to tell us what should ultimately matter for a politician. His fundamental criterion and the motivation for his work as a politician must not be success, and certainly not material gain. Politics must be a striving for justice, and hence it has to establish the fundamental preconditions for peace. Naturally a politician will seek success, without which he would have no opportunity for effective political action at all. Yet success is subordinated to the criterion of justice, to the will to do what is right, and to the understanding of what is right. Success can also be seductive and thus can open up the path towards the falsification of what is right, towards the destruction of justice. “Without justice – what else is the State but a great band of robbers?”, as Saint Augustine once said. We Germans know from our own experience that these words are no empty spectre. We have seen how power became divorced from right, how power opposed right and crushed it, so that the State became an instrument for destroying right – a highly organized band of robbers, capable of threatening the whole world and driving it to the edge of the abyss. To serve right and to fight against the dominion of wrong is and remains the fundamental task of the politician. At a moment in history when man has acquired previously inconceivable power, this task takes on a particular urgency. Man can destroy the world. He can manipulate himself. He can, so to speak, make human beings and he can deny them their humanity. How do we recognize what is right? How can we discern between good and evil, between what is truly right and what may appear right? Even now, Solomon’s request remains the decisive issue facing politicians and politics today.

For most of the matters that need to be regulated by law, the support of the majority can serve as a sufficient criterion. Yet it is evident that for the fundamental issues of law, in which the dignity of man and of humanity is at stake, the majority principle is not enough: everyone in a position of responsibility must personally seek out the criteria to be followed when framing laws. In the third century, the great theologian Origen provided the following explanation for the resistance of Christians to certain legal systems: “Suppose that a man were living among the Scythians, whose laws are contrary to the divine law, and was compelled to live among them ... such a man for the sake of the true law, though illegal among the Scythians, would rightly form associations with like-minded people contrary to the laws of the Scythians.”[1]

This conviction was what motivated resistance movements to act against the Nazi regime and other totalitarian regimes, thereby doing a great service to justice and to humanity as a whole. For these people, it was indisputably evident that the law in force was actually unlawful. Yet when it comes to the decisions of a democratic politician, the question of what now corresponds to the law of truth, what is actually right and may be enacted as law, is less obvious. In terms of the underlying anthropological issues, what is right and may be given the force of law is in no way simply self-evident today. The question of how to recognize what is truly right and thus to serve justice when framing laws has never been simple, and today in view of the vast extent of our knowledge and our capacity, it has become still harder.

How do we recognize what is right? In history, systems of law have almost always been based on religion: decisions regarding what was to be lawful among men were taken with reference to the divinity. Unlike other great religions, Christianity has never proposed a revealed law to the State and to society, that is to say a juridical order derived from revelation. Instead, it has pointed to nature and reason as the true sources of law – and to the harmony of objective and subjective reason, which naturally presupposes that both spheres are rooted in the creative reason of God. Christian theologians thereby aligned themselves with a philosophical and juridical movement that began to take shape in the second century B.C. In the first half of that century, the social natural law developed by the Stoic philosophers came into contact with leading teachers of Roman Law.[2] Through this encounter, the juridical culture of the West was born, which was and is of key significance for the juridical culture of mankind. This pre-Christian marriage between law and philosophy opened up the path that led via the Christian Middle Ages and the juridical developments of the Age of Enlightenment all the way to the Declaration of Human Rights and to our German Basic Law of 1949, with which our nation committed itself to “inviolable and inalienable human rights as the foundation of every human community, and of peace and justice in the world”.

For the development of law and for the development of humanity, it was highly significant that Christian theologians aligned themselves against the religious law associated with polytheism and on the side of philosophy, and that they acknowledged reason and nature in their interrelation as the universally valid source of law. This step had already been taken by Saint Paul in the Letter to the Romans, when he said: “When Gentiles who have not the Law [the Torah of Israel] do by nature what the law requires, they are a law to themselves ... they show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness ...” (Rom 2:14f.). Here we see the two fundamental concepts of nature and conscience, where conscience is nothing other than Solomon’s listening heart, reason that is open to the language of being. If this seemed to offer a clear explanation of the foundations of legislation up to the time of the Enlightenment, up to the time of the Declaration on Human Rights after the Second World War and the framing of our Basic Law, there has been a dramatic shift in the situation in the last half-century. The idea of natural law is today viewed as a specifically Catholic doctrine, not worth bringing into the discussion in a non-Catholic environment, so that one feels almost ashamed even to mention the term. Let me outline briefly how this situation arose. Fundamentally it is because of the idea that an unbridgeable gulf exists between “is” and “ought”. An “ought” can never follow from an “is”, because the two are situated on completely different planes. The reason for this is that in the meantime, the positivist understanding of nature has come to be almost universally accepted. If nature – in the words of Hans Kelsen – is viewed as “an aggregate of objective data linked together in terms of cause and effect”, then indeed no ethical indication of any kind can be derived from it.[3] A positivist conception of nature as purely functional, as the natural sciences consider it to be, is incapable of producing any bridge to ethics and law, but once again yields only functional answers. The same also applies to reason, according to the positivist understanding that is widely held to be the only genuinely scientific one. Anything that is not verifiable or falsifiable, according to this understanding, does not belong to the realm of reason strictly understood. Hence ethics and religion must be assigned to the subjective field, and they remain extraneous to the realm of reason in the strict sense of the word. Where positivist reason dominates the field to the exclusion of all else – and that is broadly the case in our public mindset – then the classical sources of knowledge for ethics and law are excluded. This is a dramatic situation which affects everyone, and on which a public debate is necessary. Indeed, an essential goal of this address is to issue an urgent invitation to launch one.

The positivist approach to nature and reason, the positivist world view in general, is a most important dimension of human knowledge and capacity that we may in no way dispense with. But in and of itself it is not a sufficient culture corresponding to the full breadth of the human condition. Where positivist reason considers itself the only sufficient culture and banishes all other cultural realities to the status of subcultures, it diminishes man, indeed it threatens his humanity. I say this with Europe specifically in mind, where there are concerted efforts to recognize only positivism as a common culture and a common basis for law-making, reducing all the other insights and values of our culture to the level of subculture, with the result that Europe vis-à-vis other world cultures is left in a state of culturelessness and at the same time extremist and radical movements emerge to fill the vacuum. In its self-proclaimed exclusivity, the positivist reason which recognizes nothing beyond mere functionality resembles a concrete bunker with no windows, in which we ourselves provide lighting and atmospheric conditions, being no longer willing to obtain either from God’s wide world. And yet we cannot hide from ourselves the fact that even in this artificial world, we are still covertly drawing upon God’s raw materials, which we refashion into our own products. The windows must be flung open again, we must see the wide world, the sky and the earth once more and learn to make proper use of all this.

But how are we to do this? How do we find our way out into the wide world, into the big picture? How can reason rediscover its true greatness, without being sidetracked into irrationality? How can nature reassert itself in its true depth, with all its demands, with all its directives? I would like to recall one of the developments in recent political history, hoping that I will neither be misunderstood, nor provoke too many one-sided polemics. I would say that the emergence of the ecological movement in German politics since the 1970s, while it has not exactly flung open the windows, nevertheless was and continues to be a cry for fresh air which must not be ignored or pushed aside, just because too much of it is seen to be irrational. Young people had come to realize that something is wrong in our relationship with nature, that matter is not just raw material for us to shape at will, but that the earth has a dignity of its own and that we must follow its directives. In saying this, I am clearly not promoting any particular political party – nothing could be further from my mind. If something is wrong in our relationship with reality, then we must all reflect seriously on the whole situation and we are all prompted to question the very foundations of our culture. Allow me to dwell a little longer on this point. The importance of ecology is no longer disputed. We must listen to the language of nature and we must answer accordingly. Yet I would like to underline a point that seems to me to be neglected, today as in the past: there is also an ecology of man. Man too has a nature that he must respect and that he cannot manipulate at will. Man is not merely self-creating freedom. Man does not create himself. He is intellect and will, but he is also nature, and his will is rightly ordered if he respects his nature, listens to it and accepts himself for who he is, as one who did not create himself. In this way, and in no other, is true human freedom fulfilled.

Let us come back to the fundamental concepts of nature and reason, from which we set out. The great proponent of legal positivism, Kelsen, at the age of 84 – in 1965 – abandoned the dualism of “is” and “ought”. (I find it comforting that rational thought is evidently still possible at the age of 84!) Previously he had said that norms can only come from the will. Nature therefore could only contain norms, he adds, if a will had put them there. But this, he says, would presuppose a Creator God, whose will had entered into nature. “Any attempt to discuss the truth of this belief is utterly futile”, he observed.[4] Is it really? – I find myself asking. Is it really pointless to wonder whether the objective reason that manifests itself in nature does not presuppose a creative reason, a Creator Spiritus?

At this point Europe’s cultural heritage ought to come to our assistance. The conviction that there is a Creator God is what gave rise to the idea of human rights, the idea of the equality of all people before the law, the recognition of the inviolability of human dignity in every single person and the awareness of people’s responsibility for their actions. Our cultural memory is shaped by these rational insights. To ignore it or dismiss it as a thing of the past would be to dismember our culture totally and to rob it of its completeness. The culture of Europe arose from the encounter between Jerusalem, Athens and Rome – from the encounter between Israel’s monotheism, the philosophical reason of the Greeks and Roman law. This three-way encounter has shaped the inner identity of Europe. In the awareness of man’s responsibility before God and in the acknowledgment of the inviolable dignity of every single human person, it has established criteria of law: it is these criteria that we are called to defend at this moment in our history.

As he assumed the mantle of office, the young King Solomon was invited to make a request. How would it be if we, the law-makers of today, were invited to make a request? What would we ask for? I think that, even today, there is ultimately nothing else we could wish for but a listening heart – the capacity to discern between good and evil, and thus to establish true law, to serve justice and peace. I thank you for your attention!

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[1] Contra Celsum, Book 1, Chapter 1. Cf. A. Fürst, “Monotheismus und Monarchie. Zum Zusammenhang von Heil und Herrschaft in der Antike”, Theol.Phil. 81 (2006), pp. 321-338, quoted on p. 336; cf. also J. Ratzinger, Die Einheit der Nationen. Eine Vision der Kirchenväter (Salzburg and Munich, 1971), p. 60.

[2] Cf. W. Waldstein, Ins Herz geschrieben. Das Naturrecht als Fundament einer menschlichen Gesellschaft (Augsburg, 2010), pp. 11ff., 31-61.

[3] Cf. Waldstein, op. cit., pp. 15-21.

[4] Cf. Waldstein, op. cit., p. 19.

© Copyright 2011 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana

Canon 230 (par.1) of the 1983 Code of Canon Law: A Dead Letter

2011-09-19T06:42:00.005-04:00

The Vatican II Code of Canon Law has the provision for laymen to be permanently instituted as lectors and acolytes. Canonically speaking those are the only "lay ministries" in the Church. It seems that there are no bishops in the world who promote or confer these ministries on our lay men. Perhaps it is because the ministries are to be conferred exclusively upon males (viri laici) and not females, and many of our bishops, being swayed by the current fashions and political pressures prefer to neglect our illustrious millennial traditions by feminizing our sanctuaries. I propose that it is precisely why they should promote these ministries: because they are exclusively male!

The lay ministries of acolyte and lector would be a very dignified way to give a boost to our Catholic religion and to the men and women of our parishes by enabling our male parishioners to take ownership of our liturgical lives, under the priest, with the blessing of the bishop.

In a world in which true femininity and true masculinity are increasingly distorted and conflated, whatever we can do to accent the difference and complementarity of the sexes will prove to be a great service to the building of a Christian civilization. Note, for instance, the recent heroic decision of CUA to re-institute single sex dormitories, with the ensuing litigation.

Most priests could greatly benefit from one such close circle of men to support their ministry as a man. For, one of the things that is greatly lacking in homes and in parishes is true Christian manhood. That is one of the reasons there is so much abuse, which is mainly perpetrated by men, even in the Church. We need virtuous Christian men associating with one another and with the priests, exemplifying Jesus Christ without fear. The strength of our Christian men is the greatest buttress for the dignity and virtue of our wives and daughters and of all the women of the world who want to be truly feminine. We need to form and support strong men if we want to support and strengthen the women of the world. In other words, convert the abusers and you eliminate the abuse! In fact, that is the only sure way to eliminate it.

And our bishops should boldly take the lead in this duty to sanctify the sanctuary availing themselves of all of the resources provided by our Catholic tradition and the canonical norms. May the bishops finally begin to promote and install worthy men to the lay ministries of the Church to further what Pope Benedict has called "the reform of the reform"!

Communists Spied on Ratzinger and Included Clergy!

2011-09-16T21:16:00.007-04:00

The news story below reminds me of the small book AA-1025 by Marie Carre. Very interesting! Some of the disorder in the Church is organized disorder, organized by people hired to enter her hierarchical ranks and destroy her from within! It makes you wonder about some of our "self-hating Catholics" in the Church hierarchy! Perhaps they hate the Church and the Catholic faith because they are communists. In any case, men like Albany's homosexualist Hubbard, are certainly hired by Satan, to do and promote the work of the devil in the Church!

East German Stasi Considered Ratzinger a Fierce Foe
Report Reveals How Secret Police Spied on Future Pope

By Edward Pentin

ROME, SEPT. 15, 2011 (Zenit.org).- In 1974, a Trabant -- an old East German car -- was chugging through the Thuringian countryside, a province in the communist German Democratic Republic.

In its passenger seat sat Professor Joseph Ratzinger and at the wheel was Father Joachim Wanke, then an assistant at a local seminary -- the only one in the GDR.

The two priests, writes Rainer Erice, a journalist for the German radio station Mitteldeutsche Rundfunk Thüringen (MDR), were on a harmless sightseeing tour, taking in the historic cities of Jena and Weimar. It was a moment of relaxation during Father Ratzinger's short visit to East Germany, the purpose of which was to give several lectures to students and theologians in Erfurt, Thuringia's capital.

What gave this visit added significance, however, was that it marked the beginning of covert surveillance of Father Ratzinger by the East German "Stasi", or secret police.

That Professor Ratzinger was spied upon by Stasi informants is already known. In 2005, it was revealed that the East German agents had had files on the newly elected Pope. But now new files, uncovered this week by MDR, add more light on how the secret police viewed the future Pontiff, and who was employed to inform on him.

The documents reveal that in 1974, the Stasi were well aware that Father Ratzinger was a rising star in the Church, but they lacked suitable spooks to track him. All they knew at that stage (from an unofficial informant called Birke, an employee of the bishop of Meissen) was that Professor Ratzinger had given lectures on modern theology to students and academics during his visit.

Intensified efforts

As the theology professor's role in the Church grew, however, so the East German secret police began to take more of an interest in his activities and stepped up their efforts, according Erice's report. By the time Archbishop Joseph Ratzinger of Munich visited Berlin in 1978 for a meeting with Cardinal Alfred Bengsch, chairman of the Berlin Bishops' Conference, the foreign section of East Germany's homeland security had taken over the task of spying on him and had assigned numerous unofficial informants in both East and West Germany.

The GDR secret service viewed Professor Ratzinger as "conservative, reactionary and authoritarian," Erice writes, and contended that John Paul II had appointed the then-Cardinal Ratzinger as organizer for "counter-revolutionary development in Poland." More Stasi notes reveal they considered him as "one of the fiercest opponents of communism"; they believed he supported nuclear deterrence between the East and West military blocs, and that he considered pacifism "unrealistic."

But Erice adds that despite "several hundred pages" of information on Joseph Ratzinger, there was "little that was meaningful," and individual reports of foreign espionage had been "almost completely deleted." The discovered documents related only to "basic information about the author and the occasion of when the information was gathered."

Yet the documents reveal some interesting facts, namely details about the Stasi agents employed to inform on Joseph Ratzinger. Erice writes that "at least a dozen unofficial employees" were assigned to the task. These included two East German university professors known to the Stasi as "reliable": Agent "Aurora" was a professor of scientific atheism in Jena and Warnemünde, while Agent "Lorac" worked undercover as a theology professor in Leipzig. Agent "Georg" was in the executive committee of the Berlin Bishops' Conference and was apparently well versed on the internal workings of the Church.

In West Germany, the Stasi's network included a Benedictine monk in Trier known by the codename "Lichtblick" (Ray of Hope). Lichtblick spied for the Stasi for decades and, according to Erice, "shared very extensive and reliable reports about Vatican events." Another unofficial agent, known as "Antonius" was a journalist with the German Catholic news agency KNA and provided "masses" of information about the Pope, Cardinal Ratzinger and the Vatican.

Another journalist was hired in Munich under the alias "Chamois", while a particularly prominent spy was a politician belonging to the Christian Social Union party and a former confidant of Franz Josef Strauss, once a leader of the party. The agent was known by the codenames "Lion" and "Trustworthy". Their network also went beyond the borders of Germany. In Italy, the Stasi employed Agent "Bernd" who provided information on the Holy See's foreign policy.

Shy, but charming

With all these informants in place, Erice writes that the Stasi were well prepared when Joseph Ratzinger travelled to Dresden in 1987 to meet a group of Catholics. "The Stasi mounted a huge effort in monitoring the meeting," Erice says, and they strove to avoid drawing attention to any surveillance that was taking place, especially when passing through the border. "The security forces were instructed to give him preferential and polite treatment at the border crossing," say the reports, and that "worldly evils such as customs inspections" usually applied to Western visitors "had to be omitted."

But despite their great efforts, Erice says the Stasi made some basic mistakes. They incorrectly spelled Cardinal Ratzinger's native town Merkl instead of Marktl. And although they wanted to portray him negatively, they couldn't help but make the occasional positive observation. In addition to praising his high intelligence, they noted: "Although he would be shy at first with an interlocutor, he possesses a winning charm."

Benedict XVI is, of course, not the first Pontiff to have had much of his life closely monitored by secret agents. Blessed Pope John Paul II was heavily spied upon by the KGB and the SB (Poland's secret police). According to research revealed by George Weigel in his recent book "The End and the Beginning," the agencies began taking a keen interest in Karol Wojtyla's activities after he was made auxiliary bishop of Krakow in 1958.

Weigel recalls that between 1973 and 1974, Polish authorities considered arresting Karol Wojtyla and charging him with sedition. Secret police stalked him on kayaking trips and tried to compromise his closest associates, occasionally bungling their operations. And it wasn't just the Pope who was in their sights; the Vatican was, too.

"What most surprised me was the sheer magnitude of the effort, which involved millions of man-hours and billions of dollars," Weigel said in an interview with the National Catholic Register last year. "I was also unaware of the degree to which Soviet-bloc intelligence agencies attempted to manipulate the Second Vatican Council for their purposes -- and how unaware of this assault the Vatican seemed to be (and continued to be until 1978)."

This week's disclosures come just days before Benedict XVI makes a Sept. 22-25 state visit to Germany, which will include a stop in Erfurt.

He will be welcomed to the city by the current bishop of the diocese, his driver on that 1974 visit, Joachim Wanke.

Planned Parenthood's New Name

2011-09-12T10:53:00.003-04:00

How should we more correctly name that organization which militates so effectively against the good health and well-being of women, fecundity, spousal love and the family?

Planned Sterility

Anti-Parenthood

In a recent interview Mayor Bloomberg said that he should like his legacy as mayor to be public health and education. Well, the first thing he needs to do is learn that public health and education begin in the home under the watchful eye of mom and dad.

New York needs a "Say No To Fornication" campaign followed by a "Say No To Adultery" and a "Say No To Sodomy" campaign.

Could the city institute a ban on public displays of homosexual affection? That would be a very effective way to improve public health and education especially among the young.

We need to get serious about promoting decency and forcefully opposing immorality.

Immorality is dirty, by definition, bad for your health. Much worse than cigarette smoke! Mr. Mayor, you can't be pro-immorality and pro-public health and education!

Also, immorality is often coupled with ignorance of morality. We need Jesus Christ to enlighten our cities on right and wrong and mayors can do a great deal to help foster the city environment to be friendly to the Messiah, without being sectarian! Families like that.

Families prefer not having their children taught sex-ed in school. Families prefer not to see lewd conduct (e.g. homosexual displays of affection). Families prefer not to have condoms pushed into their face on our city streets. And families begin male and female, with the two becoming one flesh.

Christ at the US Open Continued

2011-09-10T18:38:00.003-04:00

Please note that the top woman player and the top man player in the world, who will be playing in the US Open final Sunday and Monday successively both wear a cross! Jesus Christ is alive and well on planet earth, even among the youth of the world. God bless their witness, and their games!!

In light of the prevalence of the cross among the players, I would have to say that the cross seems to be the most popular logo on the court! More players advertise the Cross of Jesus Christ than they do for Nike or Adidas. And what is certain is that none of the players are paid anything for advertising for our blessed Lord and his way! They do it for free. Many of the best athletes in the world wear the logo of the Church without charge! That is remarkable. Who said that economics rules the world. No, my friends, Jesus Christ is forever Lord over all. Praised be Jesus Christ.

However I have one question. Why is Novak Djokovic's cross so cheap and so distracting his game? In the match today against Federer he had to continually tuck the plain wooden cross on a string back in under his shirt. Is he under the common misunderstanding that everything dedicated to God should be rustic, bare and of low material quality and value? Get the best for God, man, and drive a crummy car if you want! Your cross should cost at least as much as your sneakers!!!

When young men start giving their fiancees a bag of cement instead of the best diamond rings, only then will I accept that we should not use the best we have for God! Throughout scripture God demands that the best be given for his worship: e.g. the first born and the first fruits, without defect. Christ defends Mary Magdalene when she anoints his with the ointment worth a year's salary! Judas alone objected to the great expense as unnecessary.

Caroline Wozniacki wears a fashionable cross at the Open, as seen in the picture.

Saint Pambo (+385)

2011-09-06T11:31:00.004-04:00

Distrust You Self!

As a youngster Saint Pambo asked Saint Antony of Egypt (his mentor) "Teach me, my Father, to live well." To which the elder Saint replied "My son, to live well, one must have a great distrust of oneself, with every effort watch over one's heart and mind, do penance, and seek God alone in all things."

In Butler's and a German devotional I am using he is the saint for 6th of September.

Birthday of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary

2011-09-05T09:23:00.005-04:00

This Thursday, 8th of September, is the very happy birthday of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary. Just one more way in which the Catholic Church has continually honored the Mother of our Blessed Lord in every age, fulfilling her prophesy recorded in the Gospels:

"...For behold from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed." Luke 1:48

These words are a prediction of that honour which the church in all ages should pay to the Blessed Virgin. Let Protestants examine whether they are any way concerned in this prophecy. (Lk. 1:48 footnote, Douay-Rheims Bible)

Pope Benedict XVI on Whether it is Proper to Celbrate Mary's Birthday

"The celebration of Mary's birth forms an exception to the way in which the Church usually celebrates the feast days of her saints. In contrast to the ancient world, in which the birthdays of important personages--a Caesar or an Augustus--were celebrated with great pomp as days of good tidings, as days of redemption, the Church ordinarily does not celebrate the birthdays of saints. The Church reasons quite simply that it is premature to celebrate birthdays because there is too much ambiguity in human life. At the time of birth no one knows whether this life is a cause for celebration or not, whether this person will some day have reason to be glad he was born; whether the world can be glad that this person existed or whether it will curse the day he was born. For twelve years Germans had to celebrate a birthday that marked the advent of the Fuhrer who was to save their nation but whom the world has since come to curse as one of the bloodiest tyrants of all times. By comparison, the Church celebrates only the day of death. The only one whose life is worthy of celebration is one who can give thanks for his life in the face of death and the severity of judgment; one whose life is acceptable also on the other side of the grave. The Church has made only three exceptions to this basic rule--or more exactly one exception to which the other two are so inextricably linked that they can be counted together as one. The exception is Christ. There is no ambiguity about his birth, only praise: Glory to God in the highest! He who became man though he was God; he whose birth was based on pure love; his birth can be celebrated. What is more: his birth is the real reason why we humans 'have anything at all to be happy about', that we have anything at all to celebrate and need no longer fear that life as a whole is only a plaything of death and is, consequently, even in its finest moments, only a mockery of joy. Through him who was born in Bethlehem, and through him alone, human life was become rich in promise and meaning. The birthday of John the Baptizer is also celebrated because he was so closely associated with Jesus [and himself sanctified in the womb cf. Lk 1:15b, 41]. He was born for no other reason than to light the way for him; the birth of Jesus is the fundamental reason and purpose of his birth. The other exception is Mary, the Mother of Jesus, without whom Jesus' own birth could not have taken place. She is the portal through which he came into the world--and not just the external portal. As Augustine once said, she received Jesus in her heart before she became his Mother according to the flesh. Mary's soul was the place from which God was able to enter our humanity. In contrast to the great and mighty ones of earth, she who believed, who bore the light of the world in her heart, changed the world from its foundation. Only by the powers of the soul can the world be truly changed and saved." Co-Workers of the Truth (entry for 8 September), p. 287-288

US Open and Christ

2011-09-02T20:25:00.004-04:00

Have you noticed how many of this year's players are wearing crosses? They are especially prevalent among the female players. 18 year old American Jack Sock is wearing a manly cross in his match against Roddick! God bless the young man from Lincoln, Nebraska!

Another note. Notice the modesty of the traditional female tennis skirt. The young tennis stars are true models of real culture, at least on court.

A third note. I have yet to see a tattoo!!! or eccentric piercings with either gender, except for Donald Young's earrings.

Young should really get rid of the earrings, it is a confusing message for the young fans. What does it mean for a man to don earrings? After his impressive win against Wawrinka he admitted that he is maturing, referring to his more disciplined game "I've grown a lot the last few years. I've learned from all those mistakes. Everybody's light comes on at a different time, and I feel like mine's coming on." Would that his light should come on about the pendants, especially if he progresses. Maybe he can wear a cross around his neck instead. It is certainly more helpful and less ambiguous.

It is nevertheless most refreshing to see that there are many young people worldwide who publicly witness to Jesus Christ and portray an wholesome and innocent image, as it should be. Those players are representative of a new generation in great wide world, as were the 2 million participants in World Youth Day 2011 in Madrid. There is hope for the world yet in the Christianity and the integrity of the young. May they be better than their parents as Christ Himself was (e.g. the "son of David"), and as the Most Blessed Virgin Mary was, the perfect daughter of Israel!

Three Saints for the 31st

2011-09-01T09:47:00.002-04:00

Yesterday I learned of three remarkable medieval saints celebrated on the 31st of August. All three happen to be Spanish (Isabella being a daughter of Blanche of Castille).

Saint Raymond (Raymundus) Nonnatus (+1240) Whose mother died before he was born! Hence, he is the patron saint of midwives.

Saint Dominguito del Val (+1250) An altar boy who was ritually crucified by Jews in Zaragossa!

Saint Isabella of France (+1270) Princess and virgin, the sister of Saint King Louis IX.

The 13th Century is known as the greatest Catholic century. Here are three more reasons why. And all made in Spain! Vale!

Vatican Newspaper Responds to New York Sex Education

2011-08-31T17:47:00.003-04:00

The Question of Sex Education
Not Just Any Matter

Now it is New York’s turn: Dennis Walcott, Chancellor of the city’s Department of Education, has mandated that with the new school year students between the ages of 11 and 18 will be required to attend a course in sexual education for at least one semester. The new course is part of an initiative launched by Mayor Bloomberg to improve the lives of black and latino teenagers, saving them from a misery to which they seem destined. To avoid religious controversy, chastity will be cited among birth control methods and teachers will have to speak about sex with some caution. But this is not enough according to Archbishop Timothy Dolan, who criticized the initiative, stating that in this way authorities allow “the public school system to substitute its beliefs and values for those of the parents”.

Once again, we see the repetition of a model already tried by many other countries: the State decides to include compulsory sexual education in schools, and the Catholic Church opposes it, earning the image of an obscurantist force, cruel because of it indifference to the consequences its refusal could have among young people, that is, unwanted pregnancies and disease. However, that is not how things stand.

It is not clear why public institutions in the West continue to have such magical trust in the effectiveness of sex education. After years of courses, focused, of course, on contraceptive methods, we see that – for example in the UK – boys and girls continue to have early sexual intercourse without any kind of protection, and the number of pregnancies and abortions among adolescents has multiplied. By now, it is clear that to avoid these tragedies it is not enough to explain to them how they can use contraceptives, and where to easily find them, but that the problem is further upstream, in education and in the family.

At heart, Italy – where there is no compulsory sex education in schools –is one of the countries which is better off from this point of view: here young people have a lower risk of disease and early pregnancy. This is thanks to the family, to the loving vigilance of parents over their children, to the fact that kids are not left to themselves with a box of contraceptives as the only defense against their passions and mistakes.

And, in part, it is also thanks to the Catholic Church, who continues to teach that sexual relations are much more than some kind of pleasurable exercise to be practiced in an unbridled and risk-free way. In fact, the Church considers the sexual life of human beings to be one of the most meaningful proofs of their human and spiritual maturity, a test to be faced with preparation and seriousness, that is, to be connected to life’s fundamental choices like marriage, and therefore, to the foundation of family in which procreation is one of the principal ends. The Church teaches respect for one’s own body, which means giving importance and weight to the acts that are done with it, not just taking into consideration the possibility of enjoyment or narcissistic gratification: and this is precisely contrary to what those who criticize her say.

In Catholic tradition the body is extremely important, it plays a central role in the human and spiritual life of every person. Catholics, therefore, cannot accept that sexual life become considered a subject for teaching like that of any other activity, setting out a few dangers it would be best to avoid; for, as is well known, young people are often attracted to danger, and will strive to avoid it only if they are educated in the underlying reasons of a different kind of moral behavior.

Of course, for increasingly dysfunctional families it’s very difficult to teach a sexual morality that is not testified to by the parents and or the environment in which children live. So, it seems easier to renounce any kind of moral teaching and leave the problem to schools, which substitute moral education with technical information. If the results are disastrous, you pretend not to know it: it is much easier to ignore the problem, pretend to resolve it with useless, and even harmful, school courses, rather than address the issue which underlies it… that is, the resounding failed utopia of the sexual revolution and subsequent breakdown of the first institution of moral education, the family.

Lucetta Scaraffia
August 31, 2011

Another German Journalist to the Fold

2011-08-30T11:49:00.002-04:00

The German Journal "Vatican Magazin" has an article by Barbara Wenz which is a laudatory synopsis of these six years of the pontificate to which she attributes her discovery of the Catholic faith: "The Pope of my life. Six years ago I was not Catholic."

Hopefully the German nation will hear this type of message in preparation for the Holy Father's first state visit to Germany and Berlin in September.

Nobel Prize Laureate Praises Benedict's Spanish World Youth Day

2011-08-29T11:51:00.005-04:00

Mario Vargas Llosa, the 2010 Nobel Prize for Literature, wrote the following article published in yesterday's Spanish daily El Pais. The Peruvian author's is one of many eloquent un-biased testimonies to the grand event. The vice president of the Madrid Jewish Community, David Hatchwell, was another.

La Fiesta y La Cruzada

PIEDRA DE TOQUE. Creyentes y no creyentes debemos alegrarnos del éxito de la visita del Papa a Madrid. Mientras no tome el poder político la religión no solo es lícita, sino indispensable en una sociedad democrática.

El País, Madrid

Bonito espectáculo el de Madrid invadido por cientos de miles de jóvenes procedentes de los cinco continentes para asistir a la Jornada Mundial de la Juventud que presidió Benedicto XVI y que convirtió a la capital española por varios días en una multitudinaria Torre de Babel. Todas las razas, lenguas, culturas, tradiciones, se mezclaban en una gigantesca fiesta de muchachas y muchachos adolescentes, estudiantes, jóvenes profesionales venidos de todos los rincones del mundo a cantar, bailar, rezar y proclamar su adhesión a la Iglesia católica y su "adicción" al Papa ("Somos adictos a Benedicto" fue uno de los estribillos más coreados).

Salvo el millar de personas que, en el aeródromo de Cuatro Vientos, sufrieron desmayos por culpa del despiadado calor y debieron ser atendidas, no hubo accidentes ni mayores problemas. Todo transcurrió en paz, alegría y convivencia simpática. Los madrileños tomaron con espíritu deportivo las molestias que causaron las gigantescas concentraciones que paralizaron Cibeles, la Gran Vía, Alcalá, la Puerta del Sol, la Plaza de España y la Plaza de Oriente, y las pequeñas manifestaciones de laicos, anarquistas, ateos y católicos insumisos contra el Papa provocaron incidentes menores, aunque algunos grotescos, como el grupo de energúmenos al que se vio arrojando condones a unas niñas que, animadas por lo que Rubén Darío llamaba "un blanco horror de Belcebú", rezaban el rosario con los ojos cerrados.

Hay dos lecturas posibles de este acontecimiento, que EL PAÍS ha llamado "la mayor concentración de católicos en la historia de España". La primera ve en él un festival más de superficie que de entraña religiosa, en el que jóvenes de medio mundo han aprovechado la ocasión para viajar, hacer turismo, divertirse, conocer gente, vivir alguna aventura, la experiencia intensa pero pasajera de unas vacaciones de verano. La segunda la interpreta como un rotundo mentís a las predicciones de una retracción del catolicismo en el mundo de hoy, la prueba de que la Iglesia de Cristo mantiene su pujanza y su vitalidad, de que la nave de San Pedro sortea sin peligro las tempestades que quisieran hundirla.

Una de estas tempestades tiene como escenario a España, donde Roma y el gobierno de Rodríguez Zapatero han tenido varios encontrones en los últimos años y mantienen una tensa relación. Por eso, no es casual que Benedicto XVI haya venido ya varias veces a este país, y dos de ellas durante su pontificado. Porque resulta que la "católica España" ya no lo es tanto como lo era. Las estadísticas son bastante explícitas. En julio del año pasado, un 80% de los españoles se declaraba católico; un año después, solo 70%. Entre los jóvenes, 51% dicen serlo, pero solo 12% aseguran practicar su religión de manera consecuente, en tanto que el resto lo hace solo de manera esporádica y social (bodas, bautizos, etcétera). Las críticas de los jóvenes creyentes -practicantes o no- a la Iglesia se centran, sobre todo, en la oposición de ésta al uso de anticonceptivos y a la píldora del día siguiente, a la ordenación de mujeres, al aborto, al homosexualismo.

Mi impresión es que estas cifras no han sido manipuladas, que ellas reflejan una realidad que, porcentajes más o menos, desborda lo español y es indicativo de lo que pasa también con el catolicismo en el resto del mundo. Ahora bien, desde mi punto de vista esta paulatina declinación del número de fieles de la Iglesia católica, en vez de ser un síntoma de su inevitable ruina y extinción es, más bien, fermento de la vitalidad y energía que lo que queda de ella -decenas de millones de personas- ha venido mostrando, sobre todo bajo los pontificados de Juan Pablo II y de Benedicto XVI.

Es difícil imaginar dos personalidades más distintas que las de los dos últimos Papas. El anterior era un líder carismático, un agitador de multitudes, un extraordinario orador, un pontífice en el que la emoción, la pasión, los sentimientos prevalecían sobre la pura razón. El actual es un hombre de ideas, un intelectual, alguien cuyo entorno natural son la biblioteca, el aula universitaria, el salón de conferencias. Su timidez ante las muchedumbres aflora de modo invencible en esa manera casi avergonzada y como disculpándose que tiene de dirigirse a las masas. Pero esa fragilidad es engañosa pues se trata probablemente del Papa más culto e inteligente que haya tenido la Iglesia en mucho tiempo, uno de los raros pontífices cuyas encíclicas o libros un agnóstico como yo puede leer sin bostezar (su breve autobiografía es hechicera y sus dos volúmenes sobre Jesús más que sugerentes). Su trayectoria es bastante curiosa. Fue, en su juventud, un partidario de la modernización de la Iglesia y colaboró con el reformista Concilio Vaticano II convocado por Juan XXIII.

Pero, luego, se movió hacia las posiciones conservadoras de Juan Pablo II, en las que ha perseverado hasta hoy. Probablemente, la razón de ello sea la sospecha o convicción de que, si continuaba haciendo las concesiones que le pedían los fieles, pastores y teólogos progresistas, la Iglesia terminaría por desintegrarse desde adentro, por convertirse en una comunidad caótica, desbrujulada, a causa de las luchas intestinas y las querellas sectarias. El sueño de los católicos progresistas de hacer de la Iglesia una institución democrática es eso, nada más: un sueño. Ninguna iglesia podría serlo sin renunciar a sí misma y desaparecer. En todo caso, prescindiendo del contexto teológico, atendiendo únicamente a su dimensión social y política, la verdad es que, aunque pierda fieles y se encoja, el catolicismo está hoy día más unido, activo y beligerante que en los años en que parecía a punto de desgarrarse y dividirse por las luchas ideológicas internas.

¿Es esto bueno o malo para la cultura de la libertad? Mientras el Estado sea laico y mantenga su independencia frente a todas las iglesias, a las que, claro está, debe respetar y permitir que actúen libremente, es bueno, porque una sociedad democrática no puede combatir eficazmente a sus enemigos -empezando por la corrupción- si sus instituciones no están firmemente respaldadas por valores éticos, si una rica vida espiritual no florece en su seno como un antídoto permanente a las fuerzas destructivas, disociadoras y anárquicas que suelen guiar la conducta individual cuando el ser humano se siente libre de toda responsabilidad.

Durante mucho tiempo se creyó que con el avance de los conocimientos y de la cultura democrática, la religión, esa forma elevada de superstición, se iría deshaciendo, y que la ciencia y la cultura la sustituirían con creces. Ahora sabemos que esa era otra superstición que la realidad ha ido haciendo trizas. Y sabemos, también, que aquella función que los librepensadores decimonónicos, con tanta generosidad como ingenuidad, atribuían a la cultura, esta es incapaz de cumplirla, sobre todo ahora. Porque, en nuestro tiempo, la cultura ha dejado de ser esa respuesta seria y profunda a las grandes preguntas del ser humano sobre la vida, la muerte, el destino, la historia, que intentó ser en el pasado, y se ha transformado, de un lado, en un divertimento ligero y sin consecuencias, y, en otro, en una cábala de especialistas incomprensibles y arrogantes, confinados en fortines de jerga y jerigonza y a años luz del común de los mortales.

La cultura no ha podido reemplazar a la religión ni podrá hacerlo, salvo para pequeñas minorías, marginales al gran público. La mayoría de seres humanos solo encuentra aquellas respuestas, o, por lo menos, la sensación de que existe un orden superior del que forma parte y que da sentido y sosiego a su existencia, a través de una trascendencia que ni la filosofía, ni la literatura, ni la ciencia, han conseguido justificar racionalmente. Y, por más que tantos brillantísimos intelectuales traten de convencernos de que el ateísmo es la única consecuencia lógica y racional del conocimiento y la experiencia acumuladas por la historia de la civilización, la idea de la extinción definitiva seguirá siendo intolerable para el ser humano común y corriente, que seguirá encontrando en la fe aquella esperanza de una supervivencia más allá de la muerte a la que nunca ha podido renunciar. Mientras no tome el poder político y este sepa preservar su independencia y neutralidad frente a ella, la religión no sólo es lícita, sino indispensable en una sociedad democrática.

Creyentes y no creyentes debemos alegrarnos por eso de lo ocurrido en Madrid en estos días en que Dios parecía existir, el catolicismo ser la religión única y verdadera, y todos como buenos chicos marchábamos de la mano del Santo Padre hacia el reino de los cielos.

© Derechos mundiales de prensa en todas las lenguas reservados a Ediciones EL PAÍS, SL, 2011.

© Mario Vargas Llosa, 2011.

ISI's College Ratings

2011-08-27T19:59:00.005-04:00

The Intercollegiate Studies Institute has listed the top ten and the bottom ten colleges in America. Check it out.

The two Catholic colleges in the top ten are #7 Providence College (Dominican) and #10 Christendom College.

New Jersey's Princeton University is #1!!! Go New Jersey!

There is also a Catholic college in the bottom ten, #3 Holy Cross (Jesuit).

Those rated the worst are the worst colleges only relatively, i.e. having deteriorated far below their prestigious reputations they are considered the most retrograde. That is what ISI means by "train wreck" colleges. They are the greatest examples of the numerous erstwhile excellent colleges which have fallen from their former glory: corruptio optima pessima!

Spain Says No to Communion in the Hand, Standing

2011-08-21T21:32:00.003-04:00

Here is a great video by Michael Voris on the heretical history of communion standing and in the hand and the Spanish history rejecting it in favor of kneeling and directly on the tongue, to our own day! the Prefect for the Congregation of Divine Worship, from Toledo Spain (Canizares), leading the way.

Unfortunately, the organizers of the World Youth Day Masses are still getting it very wrong with countless people stretching out one hand to haphazardly grab hosts in the chaotic communion mob distribution which is so typical of those massive Masses. The candles of the altar we not properly designed to stay lit nor was the distribution of Holy Communion properly organized. The diocesan liturgical organizers need to pay more serious attention to every detail of the Mass so that so obvious problems not occur. Anyone should know that you need a special type of torch or candle or candle covering to keep a flame on the altar at an airstrip! and that it should be tested beforehand if there is any doubt. Probably the regular tabernacle sanctuary vigil candles in a bottle would work fine, especially if they are partially consumed.

The problem of communion distribution should be entrusted to a group like Opus Dei. I heard once of a Eucharistic Congress in Spain for which they organized the distribution of Holy Communion. The isles were in the form of spokes from a central point radiating out and a limousine in each isle with a tabernacle in each limo stopped at each communion station along the isle, the priest opened the door and took a ciborium and distributed communion and later waited for the returning limo at the end of the distribution and the ciboria, which had been brought from the parishes of that region where later reverently taken back to their respective parishes by the priests that had brought them from their parishes for that purpose. Consider how edifying it would be for the world to see us using our best modern vehicles exclusively for God.

Communion at Papal Masses should never be out of order. That needs to stop immediately! And for that to stop the poor bishops need to be liturgically more pro-active in union with the reform of the reform!!! The Holy Father is doing his part by marking the way and setting the standard (communion only on the tongue and kneeling), but that needs to trickle down soon, now! Enough with chaotic communions! Don't tell us about successful World Youth Days in which our Eucharistic Lord is handed around as if a simple cracker!

World Youth Day 2011 Official Number of Participants 1.5 Million

2011-08-21T20:45:00.007-04:00

Why is it so difficult for the world media to get an accurate estimate of the number of participants at the massive World Youth Day gatherings? I sense some bias here.

The BBC this morning said "hundreds of thousands" while the New York Times reports "more than a million." Participants on the ground told me over the phone that there were "about two million people" at the airstrip today for the closing Mass. Finally, I googled the question in Spanish and the first hit from a Spanish daily paper said 1.5 million, which, the Vatican spokesman, Federico Lombardi, said would be a very safe estimate.

Is the world's media afraid to admit that there are still many many youth in the world who are capable of and actually enjoy good clean fun and that the Pope is well suited in leading them in that noble action? I would think that we could get more accurate estimates in our age of such great sophistication in such a controlled and examined event viewed by the most savvy journalists. Enough with the anti-Catholic foul play. It is prime-time for the media and for the world to admit that the Catholic faith is relevant, very relevant today, just as relevant as ever.

Apropos, Jesus Himself, in the Gospel reading of today's Mass (Mt. 16:19) tells Saint Peter (the first Pope) that the gates of Hell would not prevail against the Church: the Catholic Church, the Church built on Peter the Rock. Well, perhaps the world media might fit nicely in the "gates of Hell" category in downplaying the magnificence and wonder of the thriving of the Church of Peter in our antagonistic age. Christ Himself promises: "they will not prevail!" The Church of Peter will prevail!!! Why, because Jesus Christ guarantees it and He is alive and real and is with His Church and with the Pope and with all who are with Him in the unity of the Papal faith.

We Are All Learners: "Faith Cannot be Presupposed!"

2011-08-20T10:08:00.005-04:00

"Do not be called 'Rabbi'; for one is your Master, and all you are brothers." (Mt. 23:8, Gospel for Saturday XX per annum.)

Some quotes are evoked by this lesson of Our Blessed Lord, all of which indicate that every human being, be he Pope, Bishop, Priest, Layman, Man, Woman, or Child, every one is an apprentice, a humble learner under Christ our common Master. There are no true experts in Christianity. Holiness is the proper possession and characteristic of God alone and each person must cling to Him to have it. The clinging itself is the acquisition. Holiness is real union with the living God Jesus Christ. He is the only Expert Saint and all others who are truly expert are so by divine union, by being with Him.

"For you I am a bishop, with you I am a Christian (a fellow follower [of Christ])." --Saint Augustine

"The decisive thing [in true religion] is not (as in the great religious personalities of the 'mystical religions) one's own religious experience, but the divine call. Therefore, in the last resort, everyone who believes in that call is in the same situation: each one is being called in the same way...

"...While in mystical religion the mystic has 'firsthand' and the believer 'secondhand' religion, here God alone deals at 'first hand'. All men without exception are dealing at second hand: servants of the divine call." Ratzinger, Truth and Tolerance, 44

His Holiness re-echoed the same thought (with the consequent urgent need for a new evangelization of the living God) at this year's annual Convention for the Diocese of Rome, 13 June.

"In this very Basilica, in an intervention during the Synod for Rome, I quoted a few words that Hans Urs von Balthasar wrote to me in a short letter: “Faith must never be presupposed but proposed”. This is just how it is. Faith is not preserved in the world by itself, it is not automatically passed on to the human heart, but must always be proclaimed...

"If people forget God it is partly because the Person of Jesus is often reduced to that of the figure of a wise man and his divinity weakened, if not denied. This manner of thinking is an obstacle to understanding the radical newness of Christianity, because if Jesus were not the Only Son of the Father then God did not come to visit human history either. We only have human ideas about God. The incarnation, on the other hand, belongs to the heart of the Gospel! Therefore may there be a growing commitment to a renewed season of evangelization, which is not only the task of some of the members of the Church but rather of them all. Evangelization tells us that God is close: God has shown himself to us. In this period of history, is this not the mission that the Lord entrusts to us: to proclaim the newness of the Gospel, like Peter and Paul when they reached our city? Should we not today too show the beauty and reasonableness of faith, carry God’s light to the people of our time, with courage, with conviction, with joy? There are many people who have not encountered the Lord: special pastoral care should be dedicated to them. Beside the children and young people of Christian families who ask to begin the process of Christian initiation, there are adults who have not received Baptism or who have drifted away from the faith and from the Church. This pastoral attention is especially urgent today and asks us to commit ourselves with confidence, sustained by the certainty that God’s grace works in the human heart today too..."

And now at World Youth Day in Madrid

"Above all, seek the Truth, which is not an idea or an ideology or a slogan, but a person: Christ, God himself, who has come into our midst! "

"God is looking for a responsible interlocutor, someone who can dialogue with him and love him. Through Christ we can truly succeed and, established in him, we give wings to our freedom. Is this not the great reason for our joy? Isn’t this the firm ground upon which to build the civilization of love and life, capable of humanizing all of us?" (Welcome Ceremony Plaza de Cibeles, Thursday 18 August)

"Many of the [youth] have heard the voice of God, perhaps only as a little whisper, which has led them to search for him more diligently and to share with others the experience of the force which he has in their lives. The discovery of the living God inspires young people and opens their eyes to the challenges of the world in which they live, with its possibilities and limitations. They see the prevailing superficiality, consumerism and hedonism, the widespread banalization of sexuality, the lack of solidarity, the corruption. They know that, without God, it would be hard to confront these challenges and to be truly happy, and thus pouring out their enthusiasm in the attainment of an authentic life. But, with God beside them, they will possess light to walk by and reasons to hope, unrestrained before their highest ideals, which will motivate their generous commitment to build a society where human dignity and true brotherhood are respected. Here on this Day, they have a special opportunity to gather together their aspirations, to share the richness of their cultures and experiences, motivate each other along a journey of faith and life, in which some think they are alone or ignored in their daily existence. But they are not alone. Many people of the same age have the same aspirations and, entrusting themselves completely to Christ, know that they really have a future before them and are not afraid of the decisive commitments which fulfill their entire lives. That is why it gives me great joy to listen to them, pray with them and celebrate the Eucharist with them. World Youth Day brings us a message of hope like a pure and youthful breeze, with rejuvenating scents which fill us with confidence before the future of the Church and the world." (Airport Welcoming Ceremony Thursday, 18 August)

San Juan de Avila Doctor of the Church

2011-08-20T07:37:00.003-04:00

At the end of the Madrid Cathedral Seminarian Mass this morning His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI announced that he shall solemnly declare Saint John of Avila, the patron saint of diocesan priests of Spain, a Doctor of the Church. "Laus Deo Matrique Sua!"

Pedophilia is the Number One Problem in Hollywood

2011-08-17T18:47:00.003-04:00

Actor Corey Feldman says that there are very powerful abusers in Hollywood who seem to be "above the Law." Corey, 40, says he was abused repeatedly from the time he was 14, and that his fellow actor and friend, Corey Haim's, death was due to his abuse by a Hollywood mogul who needs to be stopped.

Looks like Hollywood needs a clean up like the Catholic Church has gotten. Then we should go to the school teachers and physicians, etc. Abuse is deep in this corrupt culture. The clergy crisis is just the tip of the iceberg and a sign of the immorality of our times. When you reject God then there is no moral sanity.

You Will Take It With You

2011-08-15T16:56:00.003-04:00

On this Solemnity of the Glorious Assumption of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary that is my concise reflection.

You will take it with you: your body, that is, as Mary did; and, hopefully, to the same place.

What you do with your body is gravely important, therefore. It has eternal consequences.

"Now the body is not for immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. Now God has raised up the Lord and will also raise us up by his power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot? By no means! Or do you not know that he who cleaves to a harlot, becomes one body with her? 'For the two,' it says, 'shall be one flesh.' but he who cleaves to the Lord is one spirit with him. Flee immorality. Every sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your members are the temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought at a great price. Glorify God and bear him in your body" 1Cor. 6:13

"Our citizenship is in heaven from which also we eagerly await a Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ, who will refashion the body of our lowliness, conforming it to the body of his glory by exerting the power by which he is able also to subject all things to himself. So then, my brethren, beloved and longed for, my joy and my crown, stand fast thus in the Lord, beloved." Phil. 3:21-4:1.

This idea of the grandeur of human flesh as accented by the Virgin's Glorious Assumption was triggered by Ratzinger's meditation for 15 August in Co-Workers of the Truth.

Condoms Can't Protect You New York

2011-08-14T07:18:00.006-04:00

Contraception can't protect you because it does not cover your heart.

Sin always harms you: spiritually, intellectually, in your social capacity and creativity, emotionally and, yes, physically too.

Condoms do not protect the heart, nor do they address the heart of the matter, which is sin. That is why contraception is bad. It doesn't deal with the problem, just the symptoms. Using a condom is like putting a band-aid on gangrene. Cut out the gangrene and the band-aid is not necessary.

The goal is not simply external cleanliness. We are not pharisees or puritans. We believe in the heart. We believe in the human person. We believe in Jesus Christ who said that it's not about keeping the outside of the cup clean but rather the inside! "Thou blind Pharisee! clean first the inside of the cup and of the dish, that the outside too may be clean." Mt. 23:26

The problem is being good and not just looking good.

For...beauty passes and virtue remains.

New York Sex Education: Elementary Perversion

2011-08-12T08:27:00.005-04:00

Compulsory sex education has been mandated by Mayor Bloomberg without any public hearings or release of curriculum and teaching texts to the media.

The mandated course contains a conflicting and perverse message because it instructs children to abstain while training them how to use condoms and have "safe sex," beginning at 11 years old. All of this without parental consent. That, simply stated, is a violation of all New York families and parental rights. The material, being sexually suggestive, is pornographic and, therefore, sexual abuse of children.

One of the evils of child pornography is that it is the introduction of sexually provocative material to under age children. The City of New York is mandating the systematic corruption of our kids. This needs to be stopped. It is, at the very least, indecent!

Yes, instruct the children about the dangers and encourage them to abstain and encourage and assist their families to help their children "say no to fornication." New York should begin a "SAY NO TO FORNICATION" campaign similar to the nationwide anti-smoking campaign which has proven so effective. It should be a categorical and uncompromising battle to eliminate the evil of child sex. The evil here is the sexual immorality and the problem is that those who are most vocal in the campaign to stop the diseases and the unwanted pregnancies do not want to stop the fornication. They believe extramarital sex is OK. Or they are, at least indifferent to the morality of it. They want to smoke and be healthy too. It does not work.

Sexual immorality is always unhealthy. Sexual sins always damage the person(s) involved: spiritually, physically, intellectually, creatively, and emotionally, with or without a condom, with or without "the pill." To willfully expose our children to an evil which is so personally damaging is criminal, even under the false guise of "education" and "risk prevention." For City Hall to undertake such a project, without hearing the New York parents and the larger community is unjust and tyrannical.

Contact Bloomberg’s Press Secretary, Stu Loeser: sloeser@cityhall.nyc.gov.

Pope Benedict's Popularity Grows in Sweden

2011-08-09T20:50:00.004-04:00

Book by Ambassador Ulla Gudmundson: Pope Benedict: The Church and the World

This article is by Ulf Jonsson, SJ
L'Osservatore Romano, 10 August 2011

The Catholic Church is a tiny minority of less than two percent of the population in the Nordic countries. After the Lutheran reformation in the 16th century adherence to Catholicism was declared criminal, and civic society and cultural life have for centuries been marked by strong anti-Catholic sentiments. Remnants of those attitudes can sometimes be found also today even among otherwise well educated persons.

In Nordic mass media and public life, influences from the Catholic Church – if not completely ignored – are usually being described in pejorative terms as unhelpful or directly detrimental. True enough, during the last decades Catholicism has often been presented somewhat less negatively in the public square compared to earlier times, especially in the aftermath of the successful visit of the late Pope John Paul II to the Nordic countries in 1989. However, reports about pedophilia among Catholic clergy in different parts of the world have lately tended to corroborate old anti-Catholic attitudes.

Given this somewhat rough context for Catholicism in the Nordic countries it is worth noticing the new booklet ”Pope Benedict, the Church and the World” (Påven Benedictus, Kyrkan och världen) published by Ulla Gudmundson, Sweden’s Ambassador to the Holy See, in the series ”Issues of Contemporary World Politics” (Världspolitikens Dagsfrågor) by The Swedish Institute of International Affairs. It provides something that is not often to be found in the Nordic context: an informative, well-balanced and easily read presentation of the current Pontificate and of the role of the Holy See on the international level. It is no surprise that it was commented on by Sweden’s largest daily newspaper ”Dagens Nyheter” as a unique and valuable source of information for understanding the role of Catholicism in today’s world.

Ambassador Gudmundson writes as the person she is: eloquent, reflecting, respectful and straightforward. I vividly remember meeting her for a first interview for the Swedish Jesuit journal ”Signum” in 2008, shortly after she had been appointed Ambassador to the Holy See. Being not a Catholic herself, she made it clear how eager and serious she was to arrive at a deeper knowledge and understanding of the Catholic Church. In her typically straightforward manner she immediately also conveyed that she had her own views about things, and that probably not all of them would be the Catholic ones. That mixture of a respectful wish to understand the other and a straightforward articulation of her own points of view also permeates her account of the present Pope and of the Catholic Church in her new publication.

The picture of the person of the Pope that shines forth from the booklet is that of a devout academic intellectual, a Professor of Theology, who rather spends his time in the library than with board meetings and public ceremonies. This side of the Pope readily evokes the esteem of the author. Her appreciation for the intellectual strain of the Catholic tradition she has, by the way, made clear also in other ways. For instance by providing us the honor of her presence at the opening of the one and only Catholic academic institution in the Nordic countries, the Jesuit university college ”Newman Institute” in Uppsala, that was solemnly inaugurated by the General Superior of the Society of Jesus, Fr. Adolfo Nicolás SJ, on September 5th, 2010.

In her booklet ”Pope Benedict, the Church and the World” Ulla Gudmundson begins by presenting the historical roots of the Papacy, as well as those of the former Papal state and, later on, of the Vatican state. She thereby explains the historical developments that have led to the contemporary role of the Holy See as a key player on the arena of international affairs. For her readers in Sweden, where many have quite dizzy notions about the status of the Holy See in international diplomacy, she disentangles the role and impact of the Vatican in organizations such as the UN and the OSSE.

Just like many contemporaries, Ambassador Gudmundson shares the impression that we are today witnessing a come back of influence from religion also in the fields of diplomacy and politics. Despite her respect and esteem for the spiritual values inherent in religious belief, she nevertheless makes it clear that she has mixed feelings with regard to that present day development. The relation between religious belief and the world of politics is a tricky topic. The world does actually listen when the Pope speaks, she writes, but this does not mean that the world always agrees with him. It sometimes even reacts with fury.

On the following pages of ”Pope Benedict, the Church and the World” the author expands on the first five years of Joseph Ratzinger as Pope Benedict XVI. ”Hermeneutics of continuity”, ”Inter religious dialogue”, ”Climate change”, ”Catholic sexual ethics”, ”The Vatican and the Middle East” and ”The Pedophilia crisis” are among the topics that she reports about and reflects upon. A lot of interesting information about the Pope’s position on different pressing issues of our time is to be found here. The facts are reported correctly and the tone is always respectful, also when the author explains why she looks at things in a different way than the church does.

Special attention is also given to a set of events that have stirred exceptional reactions in the mass media during the Pontificate of Benedict XVI, such as the Pope’s lecture at the University of Regensburg on September 12th, 2006, and the abhorrent interview with SSPX-bishop Richard Williamson broadcasted by Swedish Television in January 2009 on the topic of the Holocaust. It is suggested that the handling with these and some other exceptional events have necessitated the Pope to develop a more modern and accurate way of confronting problems within the Church.

Under the heading ”A Dialectical Pope” Gudmundson suggests that these exceptional events have caused the Pope to express his position more clearly on a number of issues, while trying to solve problems that followed from these moments of crisis within the church and in its relations to different other groups. Moreover, many of these responses – lengthy interviews published as books, public letters formulated in a more personal language, and also including humble excuses for failures and mistakes on the part of the Church – are here being described as indicating a more up to date way of reacting to problems. Some of the responses and decisions that were first propelled under such circumstances of crisis have later actually opened up new possibilities for future positive developments within the church, Ambassador Ulla Gudmundson concludes her well written contribution about Pope Benedict XVI and the role of the Catholic Church on the contemporary global arena.

Ulf Jonsson SJ, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the Newman Institute in Uppsala and Editor-in-chief of the Jesuit journal ”Signum”.

On Lookin' Good

2011-08-03T20:52:00.005-04:00

"If you're not bad, and yet you seem to be, then you're a fool. And that foolishness--a cause of scandal--is even worse than being bad." --Escriva The Way, 370

This is a common predominant fault among otherwise very saintly Catholics in our own time who often ignore, disregard or neglect, how they are perceived by others. Holy people should also make a reasonable effort to make themselves presentable and agreeable, and not ridiculous!

Ratzinger begins the first chapter of Introduction to Christianity referring to Kierkegaard's famous story of the clown and the burning village, to sum up the ridiculous appearance of the convinced Christian making a case for faith in the modern world. "[There is an] oppressive reality in which theology and theological discussion are imprisoned today and [a] frustrating inability to break through accepted patterns of thought and speech and make people recognize the subject-matter of theology as a serious aspect of human life." p. 16

"For the children of this world are more astute in dealing with their own kind than are the children of light." Luke 16:8

Jesus Christ was like us in every way (indistinguishable among the ordinary men of Nazareth), except regarding sin.

The Catholic University of America Looks Forward to Single-Sex Dormitories

2011-08-02T10:24:00.007-04:00

Check out this long overdue first-step to common sense in campus living, as reported by Barbara Curtis on her blog: Mommy Life. She includes CUA President John Garvey's Wall Street Journal article in full. This very eloquent and clear headed President also gave an interview to Raymond Arollo of EWTN's World Over Live last week on the urgent need for virtue formation in college. (Go to the 17:38 minute of the news hour.)

June 13, 2011 8:43 AM
Catholic University returning to single-sex dorms
Absolutely brilliant! Please check my comments below. From today's Wall Street Journal:

Why We're Going Back to Single-Sex Dorms
Student housing has became a hotbed of reckless drinking and hooking up.
By JOHN GARVEY
My wife and I have sent five children to college and our youngest just graduated. Like many parents, we encouraged them to study hard and spend time in a country where people don't speak English. Like all parents, we worried about the kind of people they would grow up to be.

We may have been a little unusual in thinking it was the college's responsibility to worry about that too. But I believe that intellect and virtue are connected. They influence one another. Some say the intellect is primary. If we know what is good, we will pursue it. Aristotle suggests in the "Nicomachean Ethics" that the influence runs the other way. He says that if you want to listen intelligently to lectures on ethics you "must have been brought up in good habits." The goals we set for ourselves are brought into focus by our moral vision.

"Virtue," Aristotle concludes, "makes us aim at the right mark, and practical wisdom makes us take the right means." If he is right, then colleges and universities should concern themselves with virtue as well as intellect.

I want to mention two places where schools might direct that concern, and a slightly old-fashioned remedy that will improve the practice of virtue. The two most serious ethical challenges college students face are binge drinking and the culture of hooking up.

Alcohol-related accidents are the leading cause of death for young adults aged 17-24. Students who engage in binge drinking (about two in five) are 25 times more likely to do things like miss class, fall behind in school work, engage in unplanned sexual activity, and get in trouble with the law. They also cause trouble for other students, who are subjected to physical and sexual assault, suffer property damage and interrupted sleep, and end up babysitting problem drinkers.

Hooking up is getting to be as common as drinking. Sociologist W. Bradford Wilcox, who heads the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, says that in various studies, 40%-64% of college students report doing it.

The effects are not all fun. Rates of depression reach 20% for young women who have had two or more sexual partners in the last year, almost double the rate for women who have had none. Sexually active young men do more poorly than abstainers in their academic work. And as we have always admonished our own children, sex on these terms is destructive of love and marriage.

Here is one simple step colleges can take to reduce both binge drinking and hooking up: Go back to single-sex residences.

I know it's countercultural. More than 90% of college housing is now co-ed. But Christopher Kaczor at Loyola Marymount points to a surprising number of studies showing that students in co-ed dorms (41.5%) report weekly binge drinking more than twice as often as students in single-sex housing (17.6%). Similarly, students in co-ed housing are more likely (55.7%) than students in single-sex dorms (36.8%) to have had a sexual partner in the last year--and more than twice as likely to have had three or more.

The point about sex is no surprise. The point about drinking is. I would have thought that young women would have a civilizing influence on young men. Yet the causal arrow seems to run the other way. Young women are trying to keep up--and young men are encouraging them (maybe because it facilitates hooking up).

Next year all freshmen at The Catholic University of America will be assigned to single-sex residence halls. The year after, we will extend the change to the sophomore halls. It will take a few years to complete the transformation.

The change will probably cost more money. There are a few architectural adjustments. We won't be able to let the ratio of men and women we admit into the freshman class vary from year to year with the size and quality of the pools. But our students will be better off.

Mr. Garvey is president of The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.

While Catholic University is national university of the Catholic Church in the United States with direct ties to Rome, it has pretty much followed the lead of America's secular colleges many areas of campus life. This year looks like a turning point.

As one of his first acts as president elect, John Garvey rallied with CUA students then marched with his wife beside him in the 2011 March for Life. The next day he was inaugurated.

Today he revealed the kind of leadership we can expect from him. In a bold move, President Garvey not only made a sweeping change in campus policy, but also rather than waiting for the onslaught of media backlash he's sure to receive, he carefully laid out his reasons in a Wall Street Journal op-ed.

What strikes me about this brilliant but reader-friendly piece is the amount and range of persuasion in 660 words, the confident manner in which it is written, as though it will be received by reasonable people.

Of course nowadays, that's not so certain. . . .

President Garvey offers his experience/hope as a parent, the philosophical underpinnings of the knowledge/virtue relationship (a big theme at CUA), and cold hard statistics to show why mixed sex dorms have failed our children.

When you think about it, it has been a ludicrous situation. Thank you, President Garvey for your common sense and caring about the students entrusted to your care.

Our confidence in Maddy's future at Catholic University has just increased exponentially.
Love,
Barbara

Website Tracking "Pro-Choice" Violence

2011-08-01T18:39:00.005-04:00

Human Life International has launched its expanded and improved "pro-choice" violence website on July 5, 2011. Pro-lifers all over the world can use this tool to document the frequent and extreme violence committed by "pro-choicers," and to prove that pro-lifers belong to the most peaceful social movement of its kind in history.

The main body of the site consists of a state-by-state and city-by-city listing of more than eleven thousand documented incidents of "pro-choice" violence and lawbreaking, from mass murder, rape, arson, cannibalism, kidnapping and maiming to cheating in sports events, animal neglect and cruelty, indecent exposure, child sexual molestation and bank robbery. Each incident is backed up by references so that "pro-choice" people cannot claim the site is mere "anti-choice propaganda."

In addition to more than 1,200 pages of descriptions and documentation, the site includes:

An spreadsheet summarizing the types of "pro-choice" violence;

A list of hundreds of women killed by so-called "safe and legal" abortion;

Short summaries of the stories of pregnant women who were murdered by their boyfriends or husbands because they refused to get abortions;

A PowerPoint document that can be used for presentations.

This is the largest compendium of "pro-choice" violence ever assembled. Even pro-lifers are astonished when they see hard evidence that "pro-choicers" have committed more than 300 murders since Roe v. Wade and an incredible 192 murders just since the year 2000, most of these against women who refuse their demands to have abortions. Add to this the at least 550 fatal botched abortions committed by abortionists, and we can see that the "pro-choice" movement is responsible for more than 850 deaths since Roe v. Wade. In fact, "pro-choicers" have averaged more murders per year since 1985 than supposed "pro lifers" have in the history of the entire conflict over abortion.

But, of course, all we hear about in the press is the people killed by allegedly "pro-life" people. Not surprisingly, abortionists, whose entire business is killing, are the most violent members of the "pro-choice" movement. They have murdered their wives, butchered women during abortions and walked away to let them die; some have even committed such hideous crimes as cannibalism and the production of child pornography. This database provides detailed information on the crimes committed by more than 350 abortionists, from Mehrdad Aalai to Theresa Zumwalt.

The site comes with a warning, as it relates often gruesome details of crimes that might not be suitable for young or sensitive readers. It thoroughly investigates and presents many aspects of the abortion mentality that most pro-lifers are not even aware of:

It proves that abortion is essential to covering up child molestation, giving nearly one hundred detailed accounts of how older men have molested very young girls and, when they get pregnant, have taken them to abortion mills where the abortionists ask no questions. All they do is take the man's money, perform the abortion, and send the girl home to be raped over and over again.

The "pro-choice" mentality leads not only to deadly violence, but to sexual violence as well. HLI has documented more than 2,500 sex crimes by "pro-choicers," including more than 200 cases of rape, more than 500 incidents of sexual assault of children, and more than 700 cases of sexual abuse and assault.

Abortionists have committed more than 3,000 medical crimes, from gross negligence and incompetence to grave robbery and forced abortions. In fact, since abortionists occupy the lowest rung of the medical profession, it is almost impossible to find one who has not committed such crimes in their mad dash to accumulate as much cash as quickly as possible.

Abortion is also the sex slave trader's best friend, and this database gives information on how "pro-choicers" use it to keep their sex slaves "in line."

When abortionists murder or sexually molest women, the "pro-choice" groups always take the side of the [usually male] abortionist against the victims. This proves once and for all that the "pro-choice" movement values the availability of abortion above the health and the very lives of women it claims to care about.

The site shows that murderous "pro-choice" violence does not only occur in North America, but all over the world. It presents dozens of examples of abortion supporters committing violence in other countries.

Not only have "pro-choicers" murdered pro-lifers (Jim Pouillon being only the latest victim), but they have attempted to murder pro-lifers more than thirty times. This database also documents nearly 400 "pro-choice" physical assaults against pro-lifers, including nearly fifty by abortionists. "Pro-choice" people have violently attacked pro lifers with guns, cars, acid, hypodermic syringes, and baseball bats, and other "pro-choicers" have actually applauded and supported these actions.

There are many particularly hideous and depraved crimes committed by "pro-choicers," crimes committed to frame pro-lifers to make us look violent, detailed accounts of many disgusting and dangerous "front-alley" abortion mills, and the racism and hate crimes committed by "pro-choicers."

Throughout history, many of the worst mass murderers and fiends have been "pro-choice." For example, the Marquis de Sade -- whose novels celebrated the torture and murder of pregnant women -- advocated the legalization of abortion in France more than two centuries ago. After he escaped Germany at the end of World War II, one of the most notorious Nazis of all, Josef Mengele, known as the "Angel of Death" from the Auschwitz concentration camp, moved to Argentina and set up shop as an abortionist. And Chicago abortionist Henry Howard Holmes, known as "America's Arch-Fiend," was our nation's first serial killer, murdering more than fifty people by slowly burning them to death and dissolving them in acid.

The pro-life movement, contrary to its portrayal in the media, is remarkably non-violent among social movements, by any historical standard. In contrast, this site documents extreme violence by the "gay rights," animal rights, environmentalist, anti-apartheid, Communist and union movements.

The "pro-choice" violence website is located at http://www.prochoiceviolence.com/. Every pro-lifer should bookmark the site so that they can use it to refute errors encountered on the Internet. It's about time we put to rest the myth that pro-lifers are the violent ones in the struggle over abortion.

This article was by Matt C. Abbott (Posted on renewamerica.com 15 July 2011)
(A version of this article, written by Brian W. Clowes, Ph.D., appeared in a recent issue of The Wanderer.)

Noticieros Catolicos de Primera

2011-08-01T09:38:00.006-04:00

Tres grandes y excelentes fuentes de noticias en espanol son:

Religion en Libertad (Madrid, Espana)

ACI Prensa (Agencia Catolica de Informaciones Lima, Peru)

Zenit (Roma, Italia)

Traditional Liturgical Conference in August

2011-07-26T10:49:00.006-04:00

Though too late for my planning, I just found this announcement of an upcoming traditional liturgical conference especially catering to priests. Looks very good! Hope they do it next year too. This year's conference in Herzogenrath, Germany is Cologne's 14th such conference.

Did you know that there is a Traditional (Extraordinary Form) Trappist Monastery, also in Germany? Check it out. They went back to their (our) traditional form with the Motu Proprio! God bless them. Would that some American Trappists might get the same idea.

It is a wonder to me and a liturgical and monastic tragedy that they all just threw away their Latin liturgical treasures with Concilium, against the express directives of Vatican II! Perhaps some of the dying monasteries in America might reconsider that mistake and recover this Catholic monastic patrimony-- and thereby get many young and zealous vocations with this timely reform.

Will the Trappists of the "stricter" observance (viz. more loyal to the liturgical past and to the present Magisterium of the Holy Father Benedict) please stand up!!!

Meanwhile, it looks like we need to brush up on our "Deutsches sprache!"

Kreuz.net mentioned the upcoming conference in June.

Passing Beauty

2011-07-26T09:04:00.005-04:00

Beauty passes,
Virtue stays.

I recently came across this German proverb (Shonheit vergeht, Tugend besteht.): which is a source of consolation for my middle age.

May it be so for yours,--and the glory for old age!

Saint Hedwig's: The Real Berlin Cathedral

2011-07-26T07:22:00.007-04:00

The dramatic picture in my previous post is not the Catholic Cathedral but an Evangelical (Protestant) parish church, though it is called "The Berlin Cathedral."

Here is a picture of the Catholic Cathedral of Berlin in it's reconstructed present, post-War, form.

The dome looks like a bomb shelter. Probably not a bad idea after what happened to the first one-- just in case.

First Official German Visit by The German Pontiff

2011-07-20T19:15:00.003-04:00

In Light of the World (p. 117) the Holy Father admitted that "...I have not yet visited Germany officially... [T]he capital, too, has to be visited at some point. If the Lord grants me the strength, I would be very happy to visit Germany again."

Today the Vatican Information Service posted the schedule for the visit to take place 22-25 September 2011. Looks like some massive Masses are planned for the visit: e.g. a Berlin Olympic Stadium Mass and a closing Mass at an airport.

Spanish Sermonic Superiority

2011-07-19T16:11:00.003-04:00

During his student days at Columbia (early 1940's), Thomas Merton went to Cuba and noted the great poetical adeptness of the Spanish language for preaching. He knew the language from his youth, having been born in Prades, a French border town in the foothills of the Pyrenees, and later spending some of his grade school years in France. He was fluent in English, French, Italian and Spanish, and very good at Latin.

"Often I left one church and went to hear another Mass in another church, especially if the day happened to be Sunday, and I would listen to the harmonious sermons of the Spanish priests, the very grammar of which was full of dignity and mysticism and courtesy. After Latin, it seems to me there is no language so fitted for prayer and for talk about God as Spanish: for it is a language at once strong and supple, it has its sharpness, it has the quality of steel in it, which gives it the accuracy that true mysticism needs, and yet it is soft, too, and gentle and pliant, which devotion needs, and it is courteous and suppliant and courtly, and it lends itself surprisingly little to sentimentality. It has some of the intellectuality of French but not the coldness that intellectuality gets in French: and it never overflows into the feminine melodies of Italian. Spanish is never a weak language, never sloppy, even on the lips of a woman."

"The fact that while all this was going on in the pulpit, there would be Cubans ringing bells and yelling lottery numbers outside in the street seemed to make no difference. For a people that is supposed to be excitable, the Cubans have a phenomenal amount of patience with all the things that get on American nerves and drive people crazy, like persistent and strident noise. But for my own part, I did not mind any of that any more than the natives did." The Seven Storey Mountain , 280

Requiem Mass for Archduke Otto Von Habsburg

2011-07-16T22:28:00.003-04:00

Here is some footage from today's Requiem Mass for the last crown prince of the Habsburg empire , the penultimate surviving son of Blessed Karl Von Habsburg.

The last surviving son of the holy Emperor is the Archduke Felix. The current head of the house of Habsburg is the successor of Prince Otto and his eldest son Karl Von Habsburg: Prince Imperial and Archduke of Austria; Prince Royal of Hungary and Bohemia

Two observations from the funeral video. Notice the traditional Roman style vestments in BLACK for the funeral! And also notice that cardinal Shonborn, the main celebrant of the concelebrated Mass, distributes communion to the congregation kneeling at the communion rail!

Are these privileges reserved for royal funerals or are they not part of our common Catholic heritage to be used far and wide!

Primacy of Gregorian Chant

2011-07-16T20:36:00.003-04:00

This past April, for this year's Confirmation Mass, the bishop forbade the pastor of the parish from including hymns or chants in Latin. He said: "no Latin." And, unfortunately, the pastor obeyed him, which he had no obligation to do since the bishop is clearly contradicting the liturgical laws of the Roman Catholic liturgy.

Not only is Latin chant allowed, it is highly preferred for any and all Masses, especially the ones with the bishop, especially even cathedral Masses!!! Would that the bishops would get in line with the laws of holy mother Church regarding the liturgy! It would make our worship more sublime and our obedience to our bishops less perplexing! Thank God for His Holiness the Bishop of Rome who is doing his part in fidelity to the Latinitas of our liturgy.

"The Church recognizes Gregorian chant as being specially suited to the Roman liturgy. Therefore, other things being equal, it should be given pride of place in liturgical services."

Sacrosanctum Concilium, 116.

In the excellent autobiography on his conversion and priestly/monastic vocation, The Seven Storey Mountain, Thomas Merton (who nevertheless later in life went off to dubious doctrines and practices) mentions the sublimity of Gregorian chant and its timeless profundity in a couple of eloquent passages.

"But the cold stones of the Abbey church ring with a chant that glows with living flame, with clean, profound desire. It is an austere warmth, the warmth of Gregorian chant. It is deep beyond ordinary emotion, and that is one reason why you never get tired of it. It never wears you out by making a lot of cheap demands on your sensibilities. Instead of drawing you out into the open field of feelings where your enemies, the devil and your own imagination and the inherent vulgarity of your own corrupted nature can get at you with their blades and cut you to pieces, it draws you within, where you are lulled in peace and recollection and where you find God.

"You rest in Him, and He heals you with His secret wisdom.

"That first evening in choir I tried to sing my first few notes of Gregorian chant with the worst cold I had ever had in my life...

"It was the second vespers of St. Lucy and we chanted the psalms of the Commune virginum, but after that the capitulum was of the second Sunday of Advent, and presently the cantor intoned the lovely Advent hymn, Conditor Alme Siderum.

"What measure and balance and strength there is in the simplicity of that hymn! Its structure is mighty with a perfection that despises the effects of the most grandiloquent secular music--and says more that Bach without even exhausting the whole range of one octave. That evening I saw how the measured tone took the old words of St. Ambrose and infused into them even more strength and suppleness and conviction and meaning than they already had and made them flower before God in beauty and in fire, flower along the stones and vanish in the darkness of the vaulted ceiling. And their echo died and left ours souls full of peace and grace.

"When we began the chant the Magnificat I almost wept..." 379-380

He speaks of the Holy Saturday triple "alleluia" and the "Easter invitatory that is nothing short of gorgeous in its exultation."

"How mighty they are, those hymns and those antiphons of the Easter office! Gregorian chant that should, by rights, be monotonous, because it has absolutely none of the tricks and resources of modern music, is full of a variety infinitely rich because it is subtle and spiritual and deep, and lies rooted far beyond the shallow level of virtuosity and 'technique,' even in the abysses of the spirit, and of the human soul. Those Easter 'alleluias,' without leaving the narrow range prescribed by the eight Gregorian modes, have discovered color and warmth and meaning and gladness that no other music possesses. Like everything else Cistercian--like the monks themselves, these antiphons, by submitting to the rigor of a Rule that would seem to destroy individuality, have actually acquired a character that is unique, unparalleled." 401

It seems to me that there are no Trappist monasteries of men in America that do the Gregorian Chant so exalted by Merton! Why not a traditional Trappist monastery in America? I suppose it would be very attractive. Take one of the existing monasteries and just turn back to pre-1962. It probably would be relatively easy. Many of them perhaps still have the old books and the old monks who remember how to use them. With some traditionalist younger vocations it would probably make for a wonderful combination and a great success. I am thinking in particular of Mepkin Abbey in Moncks Corner South Carolina which has had a significant role in my life.

Spousal School of Love

2011-06-18T16:15:00.004-04:00

In the West you marry the person you love.
In India you love the person you marry. --Gandhi

This thought was triggered by that moving central scene of "Fiddler on the Roof" where the couple of twenty five years (from a Russian Jewish pre-arranged marriage) considers the maturation of their love.

Would that we of the Christian civilization saved love for marriage and learned to love in marriage.

Atheist Logic

2011-05-27T12:00:00.001-04:00

Woodstock + Satanism = Hellfest

2011-05-25T18:30:00.005-04:00

Speaking of the opposition, check out the fastest growing and most popular international heavy metal orgy: Hellfest.

It is ironic that many people who worship the devil also claim to be atheists or people who believe in the absolute rule of reason. Reason Worship is Satanism!

Freemasonry is institutional irreligion par excellence. It is the institutional for of the religion for those who hate religion (by which they mostly mean the Catholic religion: i.e. True Religion!). Their greatest ally? Darkness! Satan!

Indeed, one of the most conclusive proofs for the truth of Catholicism is the untiring (perpetually unsuccessful) mission of those who claim to believe in nothing to attack, malign and attempt to destroy her. They will unscrupulously ally with any power to try to destroy the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.

Reason Worship

2011-05-25T11:21:00.003-04:00

O.K. you want us to measure out for you Whom is entirely Immeasurable!

Well, the world is immeasurable, time is immeasurable, no one can show you the absolute beginning or the absolute end or perfect love, for that matter.

So don't believe in the world or in time or in love.

"Scientific" proof is not the only type of evidence.

FYI Thunderfoot is very articulate, very popular and apparently very fair. But, again, reason worship, worship of self. He should apply himself equally to indicating the limits of the human intellect.

The Thinking Atheist

2011-05-25T10:50:00.003-04:00

I am including a website from the opposition for two reasons.

1) In order to occasionally hear the objections to our religious tenets, to see if there is anything respectable in their arguments and that needs to be answered by us.

2) To show how religiously oriented these men are. Their content is highly religious, which buttresses my thesis that atheists are really gnostic and not atheistic at all. They worship the god of reason, honor, money, pleasure--ultimately--the Self. They worship the self and/or humanity, the earth, anything except the one true living and personal God: Christ our blessed Lord.

The Thinking Atheist

Sin is Radical Denial

2011-05-24T09:23:00.013-04:00

"Jesus revealed that God loves life and wants to deliver it from every denial, even to the point of rescuing it from that radical denial which is spiritual evil, sin, a poisonous root that contaminates all things."

Pope's Address to World of Culture in Venice
"The Glory of God Is the Full Health of Man"
VATICAN CITY, MAY 21, 2011

Your Heart Was Made For God

2011-05-23T08:03:00.002-04:00

The human heart is a container which is content specific. It can only be filled with love--true love--which is Divine love. Only the love of Jesus can satisfy your heart because only He can really enter into it, only if and only insofar as you open yourself to Him.

Grace Builds on Nature

2011-05-20T12:41:00.003-04:00

Having watched "The Philadelphia Story" (1940) this morning with close attention (it being shown on TCM with a line of films in honor of James Stewart's birthday) I came up with a principle of holiness which captures the heart of that story:

YOU MUST BE A MAN IN ORDER TO BE A SAINT!

This is an instance of the general philosophical principle: grace builds on nature.

His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI made a similar point in a Wednesday Audience on the saints saying that saints do not come ready made from heaven. Saints are made on the earth and in homes and in neighborhoods and at school and at work, etc. They are sinners who recognize and confess their failures and ever strive for perfection, with the help of God. Here is the relevant quote.

"...Paul and Barnabas, disagreed at the beginning of the second missionary journey because Barnabas was determined to take with them as a companion John called Mark, whereas Paul was against it, since the young man had deserted them during their previous journey (cf. Acts 13:13;15:36-40).

"Hence there are also disputes, disagreements and controversies among saints. And I find this very comforting, because we see that the saints have not 'fallen from Heaven'. They are people like us, who also have complicated problems.

"Holiness does not consist in never having erred or sinned. Holiness increases the capacity for conversion, for repentance, for willingness to start again and, especially, for reconciliation and forgiveness." (Wednesday Audience 31 January 2007)

That is exactly what happened at the end of the movie.

May God reward his servant Mr. James Stewart for his wonderful and exemplary artistic nobility as a first class Hollywood star! May he have a great reward in heaven!

This same point about holiness is in Spe Salvi, 46

"For the great majority of people--we may suppose--there remains in the depths of their being an ultimate interior openness to truth, to love, to God. In the concrete choices of life, however, it is covered over by ever new compromises with evil--much filth covers purity, but the thirst for purity remains and it still constantly re-emerges from all that is base and remains present in the soul..."

He concludes by speaking of a fundamental human need, therefore, for...Purgatory! Everyone needs purification in order to become a saint.

Saint Josemaria Escriva made the same point saying: "Holiness consists in beginning again!"

BBC SACRED MUSIC SERIES

2011-05-17T10:58:00.006-04:00

You will love the superb cinematography of great Catholic architecture in these hour-long documentaries exploring the development of the art of sacred music. Here are the first two of the four in the series.

Part 1: The Gothic Revolution

Part 2: Palestrina and the Popes

Saint Thomas' "Unparalleled" Treatise on the Life of Christ

2011-05-11T15:57:00.001-04:00

When our incisive Pontiff repeats a point it is worth studying that point. He has recently repeatedly referred to and superlatively praised Saint Thomas Aquinas' treatment of the life of Christ in the Summa.

"In the third part of the Summa, Saint Thomas writes pages as yet unparalleled on the mystery of the Incarnation and Passion of Jesus..." (Wednesday Audience [the last of three audiences on Aquinas] 23 June 2010).

He compares what he is attempting with Jesus of Nazareth to what the Angelic Doctor did:
"[My intention can be compared] with the theological treatise on the mysteries of the life of Jesus, presented in its classic form by Saint Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologica (S. Th. III, qq. 27-59). While my book has many points of contact with this treatise, it is nevertheless situated in a different historical and spiritual context, and in that sense it also has a different inner objective that determines the structure of the text in essential ways." (Jesus of Nazareth: Part Two, Intro., xvi)

Here the Holy Father also alludes to the different theological questions of our age, which come from a historically critical and materialistic mentality, which he must answer in Jesus of Nazareth.

Given Pope Benedict's use and praise of the same, it seems to me that it should be very advantageous to take an in-depth look at that "unparalleled" part of the Summa and use it in our catechesis and preaching.

The Bread of God: Proof of God in the Flesh

2011-05-11T09:00:00.005-04:00

Today's Mass gospel text is John 6:35-40.

"I am the bread of life. He who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst." v. 35

Christ proves that He is food for the soul by making Himself apparent bodily food--taking the form of bread and wine: "My flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed." v. 56 The accidents of bread and wine are indeed present with all of their nutritive qualities while being really and substantially the Flesh and Blood of Christ. That is why He calls it "the Bread of God."v.33 It has all of the physical properties of bread but is really and essentially the incarnated God Himself, Christ, and only apparently bread.

This apparent food is a sign of the true spiritual food which is Christ Himself, personally present and given, for the person (body and soul) of the believer who worthily receives the Lord sacramentally. The Eucharist is God's Flesh and Blood, the living Person of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Catholic Environmentalism Begins with the Human Person: Human Ecology

2011-05-10T09:00:00.009-04:00

The first step toward a correct relationship with the world around us is the recognition by humans of their status as created beings. Man is not God; he is His image. For this reason he must seek to be more sensitive to the presence of God in his surroundings. In all creatures, and especially in human beings, there is an epiphany, or manifestation, of God.

The human being will be capable of respecting other creatures only if he keeps the full meaning of life in his own heart. Otherwise he will come to despise himself and his surroundings, and to disrespect the environment, the creation, in which he lives. For this reason, the first ecology to be defended is "human ecology."

This is to say that, without a clear defence of human life from conception until natural death; without a defence of the family founded on marriage between a man and a woman; without an authentic defence of those excluded and marginalized by society, not overlooking, in this context, those who have lost everything in natural calamities, we will never be able to speak of authentic protection of the environment.

(Excerpts from 9 March Message of Pope Benedict XVI to Archbishop Geraldo Lyrio Rocha of Mariana, president of the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil; taken from front page of The Wanderer 31 March 2011 Issue)

The Decalogue is Essential for Democracy

2011-05-09T11:03:00.004-04:00

In his chapter "Modern Democracy" of Memory and Identity Pope Blessed John Paul II shows that freedom and morality go together saying that "...a State of law accomplishes the purpose of every democracy: that of forming a society of free citizens who jointly pursue the common good." p.132

"...Essentially, the Law [of Israel] consisted of the Decalogue: the ten commandments, the ten principles of conduct, without which no human community, no nation, not even the international community, can function...

"...The divine law of the Decalogue is also binding, as natural law, for those who no not accept Revelation: do not kill, do not steal, do not bear false witness, honor your father and your mother...Each of these commands from the Sinai code seeks to defend a fundamental good of human and social life. If such a law is placed in doubt, ordered human society becomes impossible and mans's moral existence is put at risk. Moses is not the author of the tablets of the Commandments which he brought down from the mountain. Rather, he is the servant and the spokesman of the Law given to him by God on Sinai." p. 133

This text reminded me of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI's historic address at the Synagogue of Rome last year in which he showed the fundamental agreement between Jewish and Catholic moral teachings. Here is the relevant text.

5. Many lessons may be learnt from our common heritage derived from the Law and the Prophets. I would like to recall some of them: first of all, the solidarity which binds the Church to the Jewish people "at the level of their spiritual identity", which offers Christians the opportunity to promote "a renewed respect for the Jewish interpretation of the Old Testament" (cf. Pontifical Biblical Commission, The Jewish people and their Sacred Scriptures in the Christian Bible, 2001, pp. 12 and 55); the centrality of the Decalogue as a common ethical message of permanent value for Israel, for the Church, for non-believers and for all of humanity; the task of preparing or ushering in the Kingdom of the Most High in the "care for creation" entrusted by God to man for him to cultivate and to care for responsibly (cf. Gen 2: 15).

6. In particular, the Decalogue the "Ten Words" or Ten Commandments (cf. Ex 20: 1-17; Dt 5: 1-21) which comes from the Torah of Moses, is a shining light for ethical principles, hope and dialogue, a guiding star of faith and morals for the people of God, and it also enlightens and guides the path of Christians. It constitutes a beacon and a norm of life in justice and love, a "great ethical code" for all humanity. The "Ten Commandments" shed light on good and evil, on truth and falsehood, on justice and injustice, and they match the criteria of every human person's right conscience. Jesus himself recalled this frequently, underlining the need for active commitment in living the way of the Commandments: "If you wish to enter into life, observe the Commandments" (Mt 19: 17). From this perspective, there are several possible areas of cooperation and witness. I would like to recall three that are especially important for our time.

The "Ten Commandments" require that we recognize the one Lord, against the temptation to construct other idols, to make golden calves. In our world there are many who do not know God or who consider him superfluous, without relevance for their lives; hence, other new gods have been fabricated to whom man bows down. Reawakening in our society openness to the transcendent dimension, witnessing to the one God, is a precious service which Jews and Christians can and must offer together.

The "Ten Commandments" call us to respect life and to protect it against every injustice and abuse, recognizing the worth of each human person, created in the image and likeness of God. How often, in every part of the world, near and far, the dignity, the freedom and the rights of human beings are trampled upon! Bearing witness together to the supreme value of life against all selfishness, is an important contribution to a new world where justice and peace reign, a world marked by that "shalom" which the lawgivers, the prophets and the sages of Israel longed to see.

The "Ten Commandments" call us to preserve and to promote the sanctity of the family, in which the personal and reciprocal, faithful and definitive "Yes" of man and woman makes room for the future, for the authentic humanity of each, and makes them open, at the same time, to the gift of new life. To witness that the family continues to be the essential cell of society and the basic environment in which human virtues are learned and practised is a precious service offered in the construction of a world with a more human face.

7. As Moses taught in the Shema (cf. Dt 6: 5; Lev 19: 34) and as Jesus reaffirms in the Gospel (cf. Mk 12: 19-31), all of the Commandments are summed up in the love of God and loving-kindness towards one's neighbour. This Rule urges Jews and Christians to exercise, in our time, a special generosity towards the poor, towards women and children, strangers, the sick, the weak and the needy. In the Jewish tradition there is a wonderful saying of the Fathers of Israel: "Simon the Just often said: The world is founded on three things: the Torah, worship, and acts of mercy" (Avoth 1: 2). In exercising justice and mercy, Jews and Christians are called to announce and to bear witness to the coming Kingdom of the Most High, for which we pray and work in hope each day.

8. On this path we can walk together, aware of the differences that exist between us, but also aware of the fact that when we succeed in uniting our hearts and our hands in response to the Lord's call, his light comes closer and shines on all the peoples of the world. The progress made in the last forty years by the International Committee for Catholic-Jewish Relations and, in more recent years, by the Mixed Commission of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel and of the Holy See, is a sign of our common will to continue an open and sincere dialogue. Tomorrow here in Rome, in fact, the Mixed Commission will hold its ninth meeting, on "Catholic and Jewish Teaching on Creation and the Environment"; we wish them a profitable dialogue on such a timely and important theme.

9. Christians and Jews share to a great extent a common spiritual patrimony, they pray to the same Lord, they have the same roots, and yet they often remain unknown to each other. It is our duty, in response to God's call, to strive to keep open the space for dialogue, for reciprocal respect, for growth in friendship, for a common witness in the face of the challenges of our time, which invite us to cooperate for the good of humanity in this world created by God, the Omnipotent and Merciful...

Roe v. Wade plaintiff stars in pro-life film

2011-05-09T10:13:00.003-04:00

Norma McCorvey stars in "Doonby", a pro-life film to come out this September. As you may know she is a great Catholic pro-life activist, having converted consequent to her pioneering for the 1973 pro-abortion law.

Here is a Reuters article on the new film. Click the line above for the trailer.

Cogito Ergo Credo!

2011-05-09T09:13:00.008-04:00

Credo ergo cogito.
Credo ergo sum...

...et credo quia sum, quia sum cogitans.

Sum ergo credo.

(Turning an enlightened phrase.)

New Series on Prayer

2011-05-04T10:34:00.005-04:00

Today the Holy Father began his second cycle of Wednesday audience catechesis. The first series was on the great Catholic saints and thinkers of all ages. Now he begins a series on prayer.

Bravo!

Christian Faith in the Village

2011-05-04T10:00:00.004-04:00

Here is an amazing and young Christian community which has recently begun in New York's East Village! Check it out.

What I find most amazing is that the founder, Guy Wasko's, teachings seem so thoroughly Catholic!

Buy the way, I just sent that community a message inviting them all to the upcoming (15 May) Solemn High Traditional Mass for Artists at the Church of Our Savior in Midtown.

Perhaps I'll even go down to Manhattan with some flyers to hand out on the street to local artists who might be interested in that Mass for them!

Duchess Catherine has always been Anglican

2011-05-02T10:17:00.004-04:00

Contrary rumors notwithstanding, it is important to note that Catherine was never Catholic and therefore not bound to have the dispensation from the Catholic parish, which would otherwise have been necessary for the validity of the royal marriage. She was baptized Anglican on the 2 June 1982 at Saint Andrew's Bradfield.

Catholicity of the Royal Wedding

2011-04-29T15:34:00.004-04:00

What struck me most about the Wedding of Prince William and his Princess was how thoroughly Catholic the entire ceremony was.

Everything from the kneelers to the vows (emphasizing fidelity, permanence and mutual self-gift) to the Our Father (omitting the typical Protestant addendum: "for thine is the kingdom..."), and even the sermon: quoting only Catholic authors: Saint Catherine of Siena and Chaucer. There was a prominent icon of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Child, and the Church of Westminster Abbey itself is the Church of Saint Peter!

The ceremony began with the clergy explaining the purpose of marriage: procreation, a check for concupiscence, and mutual spousal assistance.

The central theme of the sermon echoed the thought of Pope Benedict in Deus Caritas Est where he says that marital love must mature and reach a selfless nature in order to be real and truly satisfying.

It is, for this reason, very fitting that the Catholic Church declares that for baptized non-Catholics marriage is truly a sacrament.

It is a bit ironic however, that the Anglican communion and it's clergy should not blush at such a ceremony while officially upholding moral positions which directly contradict the sanctity of this august sacrament: e.g. contraception, divorce and "re-marriage", same-sex "unions". Is it any wonder that that community of believers is experiencing a mass exodus to the true Church of St. Peter: that of Rome?

Universal Call to Conversion

2011-04-29T14:05:00.004-04:00

"Jesus did not turn anyone away, nor do we."

So reads a large banner, flanking the doorway with a homosexualist rainbow flag, on the front of a Montclair, New Jersey Protestant "Church"; just blocks south of Immaculate Conception, the prominent Catholic Church in town, and as an unmistakable implied attack against the Catholic Church's clarity on this matter of fundamental human morality: the absolute immorality of homosexual activity, as taught by God Himself and repeatedly recalled in Sacred Scripture and in the constant Christian Tradition.

As often as I see the bold and bigoted Protestant banners I think the neighboring Catholic Church should perhaps hang a banner of its own modestly proclaiming:

"Jesus taught THE TRUTH FOR EVERYONE....And so do we!"...

Catholics distinguish between tendency and act!

Immigration Crisis: No Standards for the Movement of Laborers

2011-04-25T22:13:00.005-04:00

Here is the recent concise and provocative lecture given by the Most Reverend Jose H. Gomez, Opus Dei Archbishop of Los Angeles. It is an authoritative and responsible response to the immigration humanitarian crisis of our country which affects us all.

This is a must read for anyone who wants to get some Catholic clarity regarding this complex issue! I'll follow up later with an outline of the main points.

The Immigration Debate and U.S.- Mexico Relations:A Catholic Perspective
Most Rev. José H. Gomez
Archbishop of Los Angeles
Chairman, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops
Committee on Migration
Catholic University of America
March 21, 2011

I want to say thank you to Archbishop Romo, Ambassador Sarukhan, and Assistant Secretary Schwartz for your participation in tonight’s program.

We are at an important moment in the relationship between Mexico and the United States. I want to talk about that relationship tonight as it relates to migration between our two countries, and especially the debate over immigration here in the United States.

I have three basic goals tonight: First, I want to outline what I believe to be the root issues with U.S.-Mexican migration. Second, I want to explain the Catholic Church’s approach to these issues. Third and finally, I want to make some suggestions and observations about the current debate in light of Catholic principles.

To start, I need to say two things. First, this issue is personal for me. I am an immigrant myself. My people come from both Mexico and America. I was born and raised in Monterrey, Mexico. My ancestors have been in what’s now Texas since 1805, when it was still under Spanish rule. I still have family on both sides of the border.

I am also a proud citizen of the United States. I love this country and I love the values that it was founded to defend and promote.

I also need to point out something obvious. I am not a politician or a diplomat or an expert in the global economy. I am a Catholic archbishop. That means I am a priest and a pastor of souls. In everything, my concern is to be faithful to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and to defend and promote the dignity of the human person who is made in the image of God.

I don’t have technical solutions or statistical analysis to offer. But I do think the Catholic Church has a unique and important perspective to offer on these issues.But before I talk about that I want to outline briefly what I think are the root issues underlying the immigration crisis facing our two countries.

For me, the issue is rooted in the processes of economic globalization.

Globalization has expanded opportunities for businesses and for workers. But it has also created new problems in the relationships between our nations. The biggest problem is that while we have developed laws and policies to govern the flow of capital and money, we have no standards for the movement of laborers.

For instance, the North American Free Trade Agreement eliminated tariffs and many restrictions on trade and business in the U.S., Mexico, and Canada. But it didn’t include a treaty concerning the mobility of persons.

Money, capital, and other resources now flow more freely between our nations. But human beings — the men and women who do the work — cannot. In the new global economy, there are many safeguards for businesses and financial institutions but very few for workers.

Globalization has exposed — and in some cases made worse — the economic inequalities that exist within and between our nations. To put it very simply: As long as workers can earn more in one hour in the U.S. than they can earn in a day or a week in Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America, they will continue to seek, by any means necessary, to migrate to this country.

That’s my first point. The primary issues effecting migration between our two countries are economic. People are not so much fleeing tyranny or persecution as they are seeking work and a better future for their families.

My second point is this: The Catholic Church’s approach to immigration is not about politics or economics. It is rooted in the vision of human society that was taught to us by Jesus Christ.

The Catholic Church, from the time of the first Pentecost, has been a family of nations. By definition, the Catholic Church is "universal," one family of God drawn from all nations, peoples, and languages.

In fact, the Catholic Church in the United States is a kind of microcosm of what Jesus intended his Church to be. We are in this country a Church of nearly 60 different ethnic groups — from Asia, Africa, the Near East and Latin America. More than one-third of the Catholics in our country today are Hispanic.

The point is that in the Catholic Church and in the eyes of God, no one is a stranger or an alien. Practically speaking also, U.S.-Mexican immigration for us is a religious and family issue. Because the vast majority of the immigrants we are talking about are Catholics, they are our brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ.

The Church’s approach to these issues starts from Christ’s command to preach the good news of God’s love for all peoples. It starts from Christ’s call that we transform the city of man into the family of God.

What many people don’t realize is that Jesus Christ himself was an immigrant and a refugee.

This is how the Church understands the account in the Gospel of how Jesus, Mary and Joseph were forced into exile in Egypt when Herod sought to kill Jesus.

Pope Benedict XVI has said this:

"In this misfortune experienced by the family of Nazareth, obliged to take refuge in Egypt, we can catch a glimpse of the painful condition in which all migrants live. … The hardships and humiliations, the deprivation and fragility of millions and millions of migrants. …. The family of Nazareth reflects the image of God safeguarded in the heart of every human family, even if disfigured and weakened by emigration."i

Those are beautiful words of concern. And they reflect a long tradition in the Church that goes back to the Gospels.

Christians have always practiced hospitality. The Church has always worked to defend the stranger and care for the immigrant. Even the Roman emperors, who hated the Christians, were amazed by their "benevolence to strangers."ii

Catholics care for immigrants because Jesus commanded it. Because he told us that we must seek God and serve God in the least of our brothers and sisters. Jesus said that when we serve those who are hungry and homeless, in prison and sick, we are serving him.

He even made a point of talking about immigrants and refugees. He said: "I was a stranger and you welcomed me . . . As you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me" (Matt. 25:35, 40).

In the course of 2,000 years, the Church has developed a body of social teachings that are based on the principles of reason and the values of the Gospel. I wish more people knew the Church’s social teaching — including more Catholics. Because this teaching is a real contribution to human civilization. It offers us a powerful vision for how human society can function for the common good and the dignity of all people.

On immigration, the Church has formed three basic principles.The first principle is this: The human family is one, although we have different ethnic origins and we are spread across different continents, regions, and national boundaries. God has made us to be one family.

And God did not create the good things of this earth — its natural resources and opportunities — only for the privileged few. Or only for people in certain countries. God intends the good things of his creation to be shared by all, no matter where we are born or where we find ourselves living.

The second principle is the sanctity of the human person and the family. Our right to life comes from God. That right does not depend on the whims of politicians or powerful people. That right does not depend on economic or political forces. Our rights come from God. And no man, no institution, and no set of circumstances can justify denying those rights.

On this point of the inalienable rights of the person, we should notice that the Church’s teachings are consistent with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations in 1948 and also with the charter of liberties in the U.S. Declaration of Independence.

For us, the universal human rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness imply the right to emigrate — to leave our country if we must, to seek a better life for our families and ourselves. In a world divided by war, famine, persecution, and economic dislocations, immigration becomes a crucial guarantee of our right to life.

The Church’s third principle is that governments have the right to control migration into their countries and to defend their borders. This is important. It means that nations must look at their security and their economic interests in making decisions about who and how many people they allow into their countries. It means that immigrants must respect the laws of the countries they emigrate to.

But the Church also teaches that national sovereignty should never be used as an excuse to deny the rights of needy and decent people who are seeking their livelihood. No country can deny this basic human right to migrate out of exaggerated fears for national security or selfish concerns about threats to domestic jobs or standards of living.

Those are the Church’s principles. Based on these principles, the American bishops have supported a comprehensive reform of our immigration policies that would secure our borders and give undocumented immigrants the chance to earn permanent residency and eventual citizenship.

Also based on these principles the bishops have started our "Justice for Immigrants" campaign. And back in 2003, the U.S. and Mexican bishops wrote an important joint pastoral letter called "Strangers No Longer." All of these initiatives are intended as a thoughtful response to the crisis facing our two countries. I recommend them to you. I believe you will find in them many concrete proposals that could be embraced by all people of good will.

As my final point tonight, let me offer some observations on the current impasse we have reached in the debate over immigration in this country.

I understand the political frustration over this issue. There has been a failure of leadership — and this failure of leadership cuts across party lines. The reasons for the stalemate on this issue are understandable — from a political standpoint. But from a moral standpoint, the results are intolerable and inexcusable.

Again, I am not a politician, but a pastor of souls. As a pastor, I am deeply concerned about the costs of this impasse in the lives of millions of men, women, and children.

Not just the souls of the 12 million without papers who are living at the margins of our society. I am worried about their physical, moral, and spiritual health. When you are a stranger in a strange land — and unwanted — you are easy prey for exploitation. But more than that. When you are a stranger who is despised, it gets harder every day to hold onto your cultural identity, your moral compass, your religion, your dignity. You start to believe what people say about you — that you are no good.

But I’m also worried about our social fabric and civic debate. Right now in this country, there are a lot of people — a lot of good people — who are saying things they know they should never be saying about immigrants. Their anger and frustration is understandable. But their rhetoric and many of their political responses are not worthy of America’s proud history as a beacon of hope for the world’s poor and persecuted.

Our current policies of enforcement — detentions, and deportations — are a humanitarian tragedy. We are destroying families in the name of enforcing our laws.

It is true that many immigrants are in our country illegally. That bothers me. I don’t like it when our rule of law is flouted. And I support just and appropriate punishments. But right now, we are imposing penalties that leave wives without husbands, children without parents. We are deporting fathers and leaving single mothers to raise children on little to no income.

We are a better people than that. We have always been a nation of justice and law. But we have also been a nation of mercy and forgiveness. We can find a better way. I think it begins with the Catholic perspective. It begins in seeing immigrants as human beings. As mothers and fathers. As children of God.

Practically speaking, I would like to see a moratorium on new state and local immigration legislation. And, as the U.S. bishops have called for, I would like to see an end to the severe deportation policies.We need to push for protections of the most vulnerable migrants — children and women, who often fall prey to unscrupulous traffickers and others. We also need reforms in how we issue visas, especially for immigrants and people here illegally who have families.

I also would like to see our two governments begin to talk about some of the underlying issues. We need to find ways to encourage economic reforms and developments throughout Latin America, especially in the poorest countries in the region. We need to find ways to target economic development so that far fewer Mexicans will feel compelled to leave their homes to seek jobs and money in other countries. It is especially important that we work to promote small business and agriculture.

All of these measures would make a real difference in the lives of millions of people. But they are only temporary. We need to muster the political will to fix our broken immigration system. We need to find a way to make the strangers in our midst our fellow citizens.

I believe that today’s immigrants — like generations of immigrants before them — are the hope for tomorrow’s America.

I appreciate your attention tonight, my brothers and sisters. And I am grateful for all that you are doing — and will continue to do — to promote the cause of human dignity and the common good in every aspect of the relationships between our two countries. I look forward to continuing our conversation.

i Message for 93rd World Day of Migrants and Refugees (2007).
ii See the comments of Julian the Apostate in Macmullen and Lane, Paganism and Christianity, 100–425 C.E.: A Sourcebook, 271–272.

Baptizing the Historical-Critical Method

2011-04-25T10:56:00.003-04:00

The Holy Father clearly states the purpose of his new work, Jesus of Nazareth in the foreword to the second volume of that work. He intends to help the scientific approach to Sacred Scripture progress beyond it's limited materialistic framework which has brought it to a dead end.

"One thing is clear to me: in two hundred years of exegetical work, historical-critical exegesis has already yeilded its essential fruit. If scholarly exegesis is not to exhaust itself in constantly new hypotheses, becoming theologically irrelevant, it must take a methodological step forward and see itself once again as a theological discipline, without abandoning its historical character. It must learn that the positivistic hermeneutic on which it has been based does not constitute the only valid and definitively evolved rational approach; rather, it constitutes a specific and historically conditioned form of rationality that is both open to correction and completion and in need of it. It must recognize that a properly developed faith-hermeneutic is appropriate to the text and can be combined with a historical hermeneutic, aware of its limits, so as to form a methodological whole.

"Naturally, this combination of two quite different types of hermeneutic is an art that needs to be constantly remastered. But it can be achieved, and as a result the great insights of patristic exegesis will be able to yeild their fruit once more in a new context, as Reiser's book (Murius Reiser Bibelkritik und Auslegung der Heiligen Schrift [2007]) demonstrates. I would not presume to claim that this combination of the two hermeneutics is already fully accomplished in my book. But I hope toa have taken a significant step in that direction. Fundamentally this is a matter of finally putting into practice the methodological principles formulated for exegesis by the Second Vatican Council (in Dei Verbum 12), a task that unfortunately has scarcely been attempted thus far." p. xv

The point about the need of the method to correct itself based on its own principles was made by Cardinal Ratzinger at his historic 1988 Erasmus Lecture in New York City. Click on the link in the text above for a full treatment on that topic.

WQXR, NEW YORK PUBLIC RADIO'S ANTI-CATHOLIC BIAS

2011-04-25T08:51:00.006-04:00

Someone needs to inform the directors of WQXR that it is Easter! We are presently in the Octave of Easter en route to the Ascension and Pentecost, and the classical station of the metropolitan area is apparently unaware. As far as I can tell there was no scheduled programming for music on the radio to commemorate the Sacred Triduum for which some of the greatest music has been created over the centuries by the greatest composers and with countless historic performances.

It is unconscionable that classical public radio for the metropolitan area, which is composed largely of Christian believers, should neglect to air these all time musical treasures during the feasts for which they were created! Besides, there are many non-Christians who appreciate the great artistic quality of those works and love to hear them, even during these most sacred days!

It seems that the Anti-Christian conspiracy noted in today's Gospel reading (Mathew 28:8-15) continues with our public radio station.

At WQXR 105.9 FM Good Friday 2011 was replaced by "earth day"! whatever that is. Holy Saturday was replaced by the celebration of "Shakespeare's birthday", the date of which is uncertain. And Easter Sunday was simply apparently ignored. No "Happy Easter" from anyone on staff at classical radio. And the greatest records of all time are simply collecting dust in their studios under the present bigoted leadership (or, at the very least, negligently and culpably ignorant).

Francesco and the Pope

2011-04-23T19:04:00.004-04:00

Check out the trailer for a new film which was just released in Germany and Switzerland featuring His Holiness Pope Benedict XXI. It is an inside look into the life of an 11 year old member of the Vatican Boys Choir who sings solo for the Pope. Superb!

Francesco und der Papst

Jewish Vicarious Expiation is "Astonishing"

2011-04-22T08:29:00.008-04:00

In his remarks on the end of the Temple, Pope Benedict XVI says that the idea that the blood of bulls offered in the Temple touches God and thereby presents and purifies humanity is "an astonishing idea both in its grandeur and its incompleteness, an idea that could not remain the last word in the history of religions or the last word in the faith history of Israel." Jesus of Nazareth, Part Two p. 39

The idea that sacrificing animals and their blood can somehow make things right between a sinner and God is sheer superstition except in its fulfillment in the Suffering Servant, foretold by the prophets: the death and life giving Redemption of the Messiah. Jesus Christ is the true Lamb, Who takes away our sins.

Sluggish Disciples

2011-04-20T10:03:00.005-04:00

The Holy Father gave an extraordinary spontaneous reflection, in today's General Audience, on the lack of vigilance of the apostles in Gethsemane, saying that throughout history Christ's disciples often are asleep with their complacent insensitivity to the great horrors of evil, which lethargy comes from personal insensitivity to God: ignoring God.

Bravo Benedetto! as you usher in your seventh year as the Vicar of Christ (yesterday being your sixth anniversary) and your 85th year (having turned 84 last Saturday). Ad multos annos pluros!

Vanitas Mundanorum

2011-04-20T09:20:00.005-04:00

Today, Spy Wednesday, is the day of Judas' treason. Judas' pusillanimous sycophancy reminded me of a footnote in the Douay Rheims Bible on the weakness and futility of worldly pursuits:

Psalm 89:9b "Our years shall be considered as a spider..."

"As a spider. As frail and weak as a spider's web; and miserable withal, whilst like a spider we spend our bowels in weaving webs to catch flies."

Simple Non-Sexual Indiscretion Must be Distinguished From Acts of Sexual Abuse

2011-04-18T10:20:00.016-04:00

The recent Philadelphia skewed report coupling 21 innocent priests with 2 priests accused of sexual misconduct highlights the need to distinguish accusations regarding non-sexual indiscreet conduct and accusations of sexual actions, and that the procedures for assessing and handling these claims should likewise be quite different given the difference in gravity in the two types of cases.

Father Robert Connor of Opus Dei has posted an article detailing the gross mishandling of that case and the general injustice and lack of support by diocesan officials nationwide for their accused priests, generally treating the accused with the same absolutely intolerant rigor instead of carefully applying the proper procedure for each case for the sake of justice for all parties involved, even the clergy.

In the present reactionary and quite anti-clerical environment it is ironic that the Ordinary/Diocesan Bishop has become the priests' greatest enemy!!!

This general lack of understanding and personal and confidential assistance for accused priests (including priests who might approach their bishops with personal problems in the area of boundaries) should only serve to isolate, reject and destroy many completely innocent and loyal priests.

Homosexualism = Theophobia

2011-04-12T10:05:00.004-04:00

Pope Benedict states, in the below citation from a 2005 Address, that the homosexual agenda promoting the confusion and immorality of homosexualism is ultimately an attack on the reality of God, being a contradiction of reality itself. It is an attempt to destroy God the Author and Guarantor of reality.

"Dear Brothers and Sisters, [the] profound bond between God and man, between the love of God and human love, is...confirmed by some negative tendencies and developments, whose weight we all experience. The degradation of human love, the suppression of the authentic capacity to love appears in our time as the most effective weapon for man to crush God, to remove God from man's sight and heart. However, the desire to 'liberate' God's nature makes one lose sight of the very reality of nature, including man's nature, reducing it to an enable of functions, which can be disposed of according to one's pleasure to build a so-called better world and a happier humanity. But on the contrary, the plan of the Creator is destroyed as is the truth of our nature."

In the first part of that same Address he clearly condemns the anarchy which is being promoted in the name of freedom:

"The different forms of the dissolution of marriage, as well as free unions and 'trial marriage,' including the pseudo-marriage between persons of the same sex, are on the contrary expressions of an anarchic freedom that appears erroneously as man's authentic liberation. A pseudo-freedom like this is based on a banalization of the body, which inevitably includes the banalization of man."

Homosex is a Sin

2011-04-12T09:20:00.003-04:00

SOME CITATIONS FROM SACRED TRADITION ON HOMOSEXUALITY

Tertullian (2nd century): All other frenzies of lusts which exceed the laws of nature and are impious toward both bodies and the sexes we banish…from all shelter of the Church, for they are not sins so much as monstrosities.” (De pudicitia, IV).

The Council of Elvira (305-306) excluded from communion, even in articulo mortis, the
corrupters of boys…

The Council of Ancyra (314) established penances of at least 15 years for sodomy

St. John Chrysostom (4th century): “… There is nothing, absolutely nothing more mad
or damaging than this perversity.” (Homilia in Epistula Pauli ad Romanos)

The Third Lateran Oecumenical Council (1179) decreed: “Anyone caught in the
practice of the sin against nature, on account of which the wrath of God was unleashed upon the children of disobedience (Eph. 5:6), if he is a cleric, let him be demoted from his state and kept in reclusion in a monastery to do penance; if he is a layman, let him be excommunicated and kept rigorously distant from the communion of the faithful.

Saint Albert the Great (12th to 13th c) gives four reasons for condeming homosexuality: they are born from an ardent frenzy; they are disgustingly foul; those who become addicted to them are seldom freed from that vice; they are as contagious as disease, passing quickly from one person to another. (In Evangelium Lucae XVII, 29).

St. Thomas Aquinas (13th c): Just as the ordering of right reason proceeds from man, so the order of nature is from God Himself: wherefore in sins contrary to nature, whereby the very order of nature is violated, an injury is done to God, the Author of nature. Hence Augustine says (Conf. iii, 8): Those foul offenses that are against nature should be everywhere and at all times detested and punished, such as were those of the people of Sodom, which should all nations commit, they should all stand guilty of the same crime, by the law of God, which hath not so made men that they should so abuse one another…(ST II, II, Q. 154, a. 12, Reply Obj. 1)

Saint Catherine of Siena (14th c) recorded a mystical locution from Our Lord in which
He said: “For Me, this sin against nature is so abominable that, for it alone, five cities were submersed, by virtue of the judgment of My Divine Justice, which could no longer bear them…”

Pope Saint Pius V on April 1, 1566, during his attempt to counter Renaissance
homosexuality, ordered those guilty to be abandoned to the secular arm.

The 1917 Code of Canon Law punished guilty priests, saying: “Let them be declared infamous and suspended from every post, benefit, dignity, deprived of their eventual stipend and, in the gravest cases, let them be deposed” (Canon 2359, par.2).

Jesus of Nazareth, Part Two, Chapter Two

2011-03-30T09:54:00.003-04:00

The second chapter is more complicated than the first, but basically there are three points:

1) The Temple disappeared because it's purpose in salvation history was accomplished: Christ the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

2) The Jews will be with us until the time appointed by God.

3) Any talk of the end of the world is properly focused on Christ. Christian vigilance and fidelity to Christ under trial is the main concern here: the urgency of following Him in this life. This is the theme of the Holy Father's encyclical on hope Spe Salvi--that heaven is a Person, and is personal; insofar as we are with Christ we are in heaven, and insofar as we are not with Christ we are lost and indeed doomed to confusion and auto-destruction: Hell, here and hereafter.

The End of the Temple: Christ

"[T]he early Church's conviction [was] that long before its outward destruction, the era of the Temple in salvation history had come to an end--as Jesus had declared with his references to the 'deserted house' and the new Temple...Saint Paul taught that the belief that all sacrifices are fulfilled in the Cross of Jesus Christ, that in him the underlying intention of all sacrifices is accomplished, namely expiation, that Jesus in this way has taken the place of the Temple, that he himself is the new Temple..." p. 38 In Romans 3:23-25 he says "'Since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, they are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as an expiation by his blood, to be received by faith...'"

The word expiation comes from the Greek hilasterion with the Hebrew equivalent kapporet "designating the covering of the Ark of the Covenant. This is the place over which YHWH appears in a cloud, the place of the mysterious presence of God. This holy place is sprinkled with the blood of the bull killed as a sin-offering on the Day of Atonement--the Yom ha-Kippurim (cf. Lev 16), 'whose life is offered up to God in place of the life forfeited by sinful men'...The thinking here is that the blood of the victim, into which all human sins are absorbed, actually touches the Divinity and is thereby cleansed--and in the process, human beings, represented by the blood, are also purified through this contact with God: an astonishing idea both in its grandeur and its incompleteness, an idea that could not remain the last word in the history of religions or the last word in the faith of Israel." p.39

"When Paul applies the word hilasterion to Jesus, designating him as the seal of the Ark of the Covenant and thus as the locus of the presence of the living God, the entire Old Testament theology of worship (and with it all the theologies of worship in the history of religions) is 'preserved and surpassed' [aufgehoben] and raised to a completely new level. Jesus himself is the presence of the living God. God and man, God and the world, touch one another in him. The meaning of the ritual of the Day of Atonement is accomplished in him. In his self-offering on the Cross, Jesus, as it were, brings all the sin of the world deep within the love of God and wipes it away. Accepting the Cross, entering into fellowship with Christ, means entering the realm of transformation and expiation...The risen Lord is the new Temple, the real meeting place between God and man..." p.39

The End of the World:Christ

"...First, we must of course note the element that is genuinely new: the coming Son of Man, of whom Daniel had spoken (7:13-14), without being able to give him personal features, is now identical with the Son of Man addressing the disciples. The old apocalyptic text is given a personalist dimension: at its heart we now find the person of Jesus himself, who combines into one the lived present into the mysterious future. The real 'event' is the person in whom, despite the passage of time, the present truly remains. In this person the future is already here. When all is said and done, the future will not place us in any other situation than the one to which our encounter with Jesus has already brought us..." p.50

"This personalistic focus, this transformation of the apocalyptic visions--which still corresponds to the inner meaning of the Old Testament images--is the original element in Jesus' teaching about the end of the world: this is what it is all about." p.51

Distinguishing Tendency and Act at the UN

2011-03-29T08:56:00.003-04:00

Holy See Statement on "Sexual Orientation"

"Human Sexuality ... Is Not an 'Identity'"

GENEVA, MARCH 24, 2011 (Zenit.org).- Here is the address Archbishop Silvano M. Tomasi, permanent representative of the Holy See to the United Nations and Other International Organizations in Geneva, delivered Tuesday at the 16th Session of the Human Rights Council on "sexual orientation."

* * *

Mr. President,
The Holy See takes this opportunity to affirm the inherent dignity and worth of all human beings, and to condemn all violence that is targeted against people because of their sexual feelings and thoughts, or sexual behaviors.

We would also like to make several observations about the debates regarding "sexual orientation."

First, there has been some unnecessary confusion about the meaning of the term "sexual orientation," as found in resolutions and other texts adopted within the UN human rights system. The confusion is unnecessary because, in international law, a term must be interpreted in accordance with its ordinary meaning, unless the document has given it a different meaning.[1] The ordinary meaning of "sexual orientation" refers to feelings and thoughts, not to behavior.[2]

Second, for the purposes of human rights law, there is a critical difference between feelings and thoughts, on the one hand, and behavior, on the other. A state should never punish a person, or deprive a person of the enjoyment of any human right, based just on the person's feelings and thoughts, including sexual thoughts and feelings. But states can, and must, regulate behaviors, including various sexual behaviors. Throughout the world, there is a consensus between societies that certain kinds of sexual behaviors must be forbidden by law. Pedophilia and incest are two examples.

Third, the Holy See wishes to affirm its deeply held belief that human sexuality is a gift that is genuinely expressed in the complete and lifelong mutual devotion of a man and a woman in marriage. Human sexuality, like any voluntary activity, possesses a moral dimension: It is an activity which puts the individual will at the service of a finality; it is not an "identity." In other words, it comes from the action and not from the being, even though some tendencies or "sexual orientations" may have deep roots in the personality. Denying the moral dimension of sexuality leads to denying the freedom of the person in this matter, and undermines ultimately his/her ontological dignity. This belief about human nature is also shared by many other faith communities, and by other persons of conscience.

And finally, Mr. President, we wish to call attention to a disturbing trend in some of these social debates: People are being attacked for taking positions that do not support sexual behavior between people of the same sex. When they express their moral beliefs or beliefs about human nature, which may also be expressions of religious convictions, or state opinions about scientific claims, they are stigmatized, and worse -- they are vilified, and prosecuted. These attacks contradict the fundamental principles announced in three of the Council's resolutions of this session.[3] The truth is, these attacks are violations of fundamental human rights, and cannot be justified under any circumstances.

Thank you, Mr. President.

NOTES

[1] Vienna Convention of the Law of Treaties, Article 31(1): "A treaty shall be interpreted in good faith in accordance with the ordinary meaning to be given to the terms of the treaty in their context and in the light of its object and purpose" (emphasis added). Article 31(4): " A special meaning shall be given to a term if it is established that the parties so intended. " These rules of treaty interpretation are based on customary international law, and are applicable to "soft law."

[2] Moreover, many publications have given definitions of "sexual orientation," and all of the ones that we have seen are similar: they do not refer to behavior; they refer to sexual feelings and thoughts.

(1) "sexual orientation means the general attraction you feel towards" another person or persons. Equality Commission (The United Kingdom); See, www.equalityhumanrights.com, under "What does sexual orientation mean?

(2) "sexual orientation may be broadly defined as a preference for sexual partners …." International Labour Office, ABC of Women Workers' Rights and Gender Equality (2nd ed., 2007), p. 167). A "preference" is a mental-emotional state; it is not conduct.

(3) "sexual orientation refers to a person's sexual and emotional attraction to people …." Amnesty International, Crimes of Hate, Conspiracy of Silence (Amnesty International Publications, London, 2001), p. vii (emphasis omitted).

(4) "'Sexual orientation' refers to each person's capacity for profound emotional, affectional and sexual attraction to, and intimate and sexual relations …." Asia Pacific Forum, ACJ Report: Human Rights, Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (15th Annual Meeting, Bali, 3-5 Aug. 2010), p. 8.

[3] L-10 on freedom of opinion and expression; L.14 on freedom of religion or belief; L. 38 on combating intolerance, negative stereotyping and stigmatization.

New Life

2011-03-28T11:30:00.003-04:00

Jesus of Nazareth, vol. 2 is filled with provocative thought on taking Christ seriously in the modern world, with the modern mind, perhaps especially for the Jew, for those Jews of our day who are sincerely searching for the truth. It seems to me that the Holy Father's purpose with this work is to take the perspective, perhaps especially, of his Jewish readers, and to honestly answer their legitimate questions, so that they may believe, so that we may all believe more, in the one true God.

He is focusing on, and being especially sensitive to, the legitimate sensibilities of the Jewish people. In the introduction (p. xvi) he explicitly states that this is not just another presentation of the life of Christ.

He says that he is attempting to do what Saint Thomas Aquinas did in his treatise on the mysteries of the life of Jesus in the Summa Theologiae (S. Th. III, qq. 27-59), in a different historical and spiritual context, and therefore with a different inner objective which determines the structure of the text in essential ways: viz., trying to appeal to the modern disbelief. Pope Benedict uses the Enlightenment mentality with the Historical Critical Method to prove the truth of God, Jesus Christ, the Gospels and salvation. Saint Thomas Aquinas appropriated aristotelianism and answered the Islamic interpretations of Christ and of Aristotle. Pope Benedict is appropriating all of the post-enlightenment scientific rigor while answering the present day interpretations of Christ, which are most characteristically beset with woeful ignorance. So, in the process, he is educating the Jews on the deep and unadulterated meaning of Judaism, which many have perhaps forgotten. A Jew who does not know what the scripture says about Judaism cannot know anything about the coming of the Messiah, and, therefore, of the truth of God.

One of the Pope's numerous insights, which, since I read it a couple of days ago, has given me renewed evangelical enthusism and a largely different perspective, is his definition of eternal life. "'Eternal life' is life itself, real life, which can also be lived in the present age and is no longer challenged by physical death. This is the point: to seize "life" here and now, real life that can no longer be destroyed by anything or anyone...[A] distinguishing feature of the disciple of Jesus is the fact that he 'lives': beyond the mere fact of existing, he has found and embraced the real life that everyone is seeking. On the basis of such texts, the early Christians called themselves simply 'the living' (hoi zontes). They had found what all are seeking--life itself, full and, hence, indestructible life." p. 83

That idea is also present throughout the Old Testament. For example, the last verses of the book of Tobias (Douay Version) says: "[Tobias--the younger] saw his children's children to the fifth generation. And after he had lived ninety-nine years in the fear of the Lord, with joy they buried him. And all his kindred, and all his generations continued in good life, and in holy conversation, so that they were acceptable both to God, and to men, and to all that dwelt in the land."

Life on earth should not, shall not, be drudgery for those who live the new life of God, viz. the life of Christ. Everything is a joy when you live for Him, even death! That is eternal life, that my life should depend on nothing except on the love of the one true God, my communion with Him in all things, starting in this life!!!...and, later, passing joyfully to the life hereafter, at His good will.

Prince of Peace

2011-03-21T10:09:00.007-04:00

That is my title for the first chapter of Pope Benedict's newly published book Jesus of Nazareth, Volume 2 (Holy Week: From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection), with my summary of the content below. The Holy Father's title of that first chapter is "The Entrance into Jerusalem and the Cleansing of the Temple"

Christ enters regally into Jerusalem and "cleanses the temple" not in violent revolution but peaceably. Because "[v]iolence does not build up the kingdom of God, the kingdom of humanity. On the contrary, it is a favorite instrument of the Antichrist, however idealistic its religious motivation may be. It serves, not humanity, but inhumanity...The cruel consequences of religiously motivated violence are only too evident to all." p.15

His fundamental purpose in cleansing the temple is to open a space for God in the world by "...remov[ing] whatever obstacles there may be to the common recognition and worship of God..." p.18 And He does that "...with the 'zeal' of self-giving love." p.22 His numerous Temple healings show "...the true cleansing of the Temple...Jesus brings his healing goodness...Jesus does not come as a destroyer." p.23

Jesus never killed anyone, nor encouraged the harming or killing of anyone, and healed everyone who came to Him for healing. "He reveals God as the one who loves and his power as the power of love." p.23 "The 'zeal' that would serve God through violence He transformed into the zeal of the Cross." p.22

The Two Wings of Prayer

2011-03-15T09:09:00.003-04:00

Prayer has two wings. One is fasting and the other is alms.

"Lent...is a privileged time for prayer. St. Augustine says that fasting and almsgiving are 'the two wings of prayer,' which gives them greater impulse to reach God. He states: 'In this way our prayer, made with humility and charity, in fasting and almsgiving, in temperance and the forgiveness of offenses, giving good things and not returning bad things, removing ourselves from evil and doing good, seeks peace and obtains it. With the wings of these virtues our prayer flies safely and is taken with greater certainty to heaven, where Christ, our peace, has preceded us' (Sermon 206, 3 on Lent: PL 38, 1042). "

(Quote from Pope Benedict XVI Ash Wednesday General Audience 9 March 2011)

El Sol de Buenos Aires

2011-03-12T07:39:00.005-05:00

On my recent visit to Buenos Aires I happily noticed the ubiquitous town seal with the Holy Spirit hovering above with the brilliance of the Sun. Would that Argentina should be bathed once again by the light of the Holy Spirit and prosper in the light of it's foundational Catholic faith, in the light of Christ with the guidance of the Pope.

Andrew Cusack has an article on a hopeful Pilgrimage to Argentina's National Marian Shrine of Nuestra Senora de Lujan.

Wicca Teen Becomes Catholic

2011-02-20T20:14:00.003-05:00

How a ‘teen witch’ found the Church

By Liz Dodd, UK Catholic Herald
2/20/2011
The Catholic Herald (UK) (www.catholicherald.co.uk/)

In her teens Elizabeth Dodd delved into the world of Wicca, casting spells and conjuring 'spirits'. Then one day she went to Mass in secret. 'One day I came across the Teen Witch Kit by Wiccan author Silver Ravenwolf. It comprised a thin introduction to witchcraft, a pop-up cardboard altar, charms (from a small bell to a pentacle necklace, the five-pointed emblem for Wicca). The book laid out the basic tenets of witchcraft and, crucially, the practice of "magick"

LONDON, England (UK Catholic Herald) - My parents bought me a cauldron for my 16th birthday. Providing no explanation, I had asked for that and a chalice. At a loss, mum suggested it would look nice outside with the geraniums.

My interest in Wicca began as I entered my teens. Wicca and Witchcraft: Understanding the Danger, the booklet I wrote recently as part of the Catholic Truth Society's Explanations series, condenses - after some factual basics about the philosophy and practice of "white" witchcraft - the conversations I had with a Catholic friend and her family that eventually led to my conversion to the Catholic faith. The booklet has caused controversy on the blogosphere: it sold out on Amazon.com and cropped up on the websites of the Telegraph and Daily Mail. What began as a small document to inform Catholics about the realities of Wicca - eg that it isn't Satanism - appears to have re-ignited the persecution complex among Wiccans that I was hoping to diffuse.

I am concerned that as a culture, perhaps as a Church, we can too easily dismiss the spiritual needs of young people. In my family, religion was something to explore and debate. Both my parents are Oxford graduates and historians, my father a Doctor of Maths and Philosophy. His atheism prevailed over my mother's Anglicanism, and neither I nor my sister were baptised.

One day I came across the Teen Witch Kit by Wiccan author Silver Ravenwolf. It comprised a thin introduction to witchcraft, a pop-up cardboard altar, charms (from a small bell to a pentacle necklace, the five-pointed emblem for Wicca). The book laid out the basic tenets of witchcraft and, crucially, the practice of "magick". Wiccan spell casting is governed by two ethics: karma (that what you send out will return threefold) and "an' it harm none, do what you will". I cast my first spell, for protection, when my mother travelled abroad for a work trip: it was the first time she'd been in an aeroplane. As a teenager, with only a limited amount of say in what I'd have for dinner, for example, the idea of unmitigated supernatural power, coupled with such a self-governed morality, was very appealing.

My interest in Wicca increased, even in the face of frequent magickal failure. In the booklet I suggest that Wicca can be an important stage in spiritual growth for a young person. Like many of my generation, I was looking for a religious home. Wicca is far removed from mainstream western religion; it has no hierarchy or clergy, no central texts or commandments. It is a framework upon which young, spiritually hungry people can construct a religious identity independent of their parents. Wicca suited me because it was, quite literally, an unorthodox religious choice. I embraced the Wiccan "holy days" and the duotheism - belief in a goddess and god - that underpinned them. I lobbied my school to include "Wicca" as an option on their registration database; I gave presentations in Religious Studies classes about the heroines of modern witchcraft.

But within a year I had exhausted the canon of literature marketed to teenage Wiccans. An innate respect for history, if not tradition, led to an uncomfortable awareness that the religion as I knew it had existed for little over 20 years, and had manifestly been created by people. I began to study Wicca's older literature: books written by Gerald Gardner, the witch who ostensibly re-introduced Britain to witchcraft and others of his circle (literally and figuratively), including the notorious Victorian occultist Aleister Crowley. I learned about ceremonial magic, branched out into the Jewish Kabbalah and familiarised myself with H P Blavatsky's works on Theosophy. I bought a book about self-initiation into the Golden Dawn tradition - a quasi-Masonic occult order - and began to follow the steps toward its first grade. But my interest in politics, environmentalism and feminism had expanded beyond the questions Wicca could address. If the earth was a deity, did earthquakes suggest she was malicious? Worse, despite some feminist trappings, the occult witchcraft I was studying was at core misogynistic. Crowley wrote some unpleasant things about women; in the works of Anton LaVey, the self-appointed Satanist and a friend of Crowley's, I encountered rants about women's intellectual inferiority.

Finally, inevitably, about three years into my study of witchcraft - like any teenager who has ever played with a Ouija board - I became convinced I had communicated with a "spirit" whom I had failed to banish. The accompanying sense of dread lasted for weeks. A Catholic schoolfriend wrote out the Hail Mary for me - I'd never heard it before - and suggested I say it when I felt spiritually threatened. I stopped practising witchcraft soon afterwards.

My subsequent conversion to Catholicism was gradual. I had been exposed for years to the best means of evangelisation in the Church: the example of a generous, loving Catholic family (the parents and siblings of my schoolfriend) who were ready to argue philosophy over the dinner table. I had always known my friend was a better Catholic than I was a Wiccan. She took my foray into witchcraft with a seriousness that I didn't, challenging me intellectually and morally. She lent me books to explain her Christianity; out of loyalty, I fought her side in the RS lessons in which she was the only vocal Christian. I went to Mass with her family on the eve of a school trip we were taking together. Finally, I sent her a faltering, confused email about where I was, spiritually. Her discretion and her patience were inspiring: it took another three years until I was received into the Catholic Church.

By then I was a fiercely Left-wing, politically active Buddhist vegan: rumours of my conversion would have startled most of my schoolmates. Recognising this, we kept the process low-key. I would accompany her family to the Easter Vigil, amazed by the beauty of the liturgy. I began attending Mass after school, in secret. My life was turbulent. I'd sit in the peace of the Church until the last person was leaving. I realised that the spiritual core of the Buddhism I was trying to practise was Catholicism. I believed in God. From the example of the Catholic family I had grown up around, I believed that Catholicism made you a better person, that it increased your capacity to love.

Soon after leaving school, in my gap year before university, my schoolfriend put me in touch with a wonderful priest. We met almost every week; I studied the Catechism and he, somehow, managed to handle the demands of an intellectually stubborn teenager about to leave to study Theology at Cambridge. After a year's catechesis I realised that nothing intellectual or spiritual separated me from a faith to which I had never imagined I would subscribe. I was baptised and received into the Church at the Easter Vigil - my schoolfriend was my sponsor and "fairy godmother".

My experience of neo-pagans had in fact been largely positive: many Wiccans are intelligent, kind, sincere people. Wicca attempts to meet the needs of a generation terrified of hypocrisy: if even our coffee is Fairtrade, a faith needs to be outstanding to convince us. I was now surrounded by outstanding Catholics; as a Catholic, I know the example I should be setting.

Wicca was an important step in a spiritual journey that led me to Catholicism, but when I was asked to write about it in a booklet, written by a Catholic for Catholics, I felt it would be irresponsible not to mention its inherent dangers - not least the lack of a real support structure. Wicca may be adaptable and relevant; but ultimately I found it intellectually and spiritually unfulfilling.

I still struggle with and face challenges in my faith; I know there are areas I need to better understand. But you can love a work of art without translating every reference. If it is beautiful enough, you can accept that there are elements you won't understand until you meet the artist. The values that brought me into Wicca - ecological, feminist, pacifist - are addressed more deeply by the Catholic Church. It is our responsibility as Catholics to let young people know that these are issues we care about, questions which are posed and answered throughout salvation history.

I passed the cauldron on to my sister: she stores magazines in it.

Wicca and Witchcraft: Understanding the Danger by Elizabeth Dodd is available from the CTS, priced £1.95

Edify

2011-02-20T10:32:00.005-05:00

It is much easier to scramble an egg than to unscramble it.

Criticism is cheap; counsel is laborious.

Strive to unscramble the world.

Schedule for Beatification of Blessed John Paul II

2011-02-19T09:19:00.002-05:00

The Vatican has released a schedule of events for the beatification of Pope John Paul II, outlining “a major ecclesial event” that will be divided into 5 separate ceremonies.

•On Saturday evening, April 30, a prayer vigil will be organized by the Rome diocese in the Circus Maximus. Cardinal Agostino Vallini, the vicar for Rome, will preside; Pope Benedict XVI will participate by a video link to the Vatican.

•The beatification ceremony will take place in St. Peter’s Square beginning at 10 on Sunday morning, May 1. The Vatican has already announced that no tickets will be required for the ceremony, which is expected to draw 2 million people or more. However the announcement notes that “access to the square and surrounding areas will be regulated by the police.”

•Immediately following the ceremony itself, the remains of Pope John Paul II will be exposed for veneration in St. Peter’s basilica, in front of the Altar of Confession, “for as long as the faithful continue to arrive.”

•On Monday, May 2, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican Secretary of State, will preside at a Mass of thanksiving in St. Peter’s Square.

•Finally, the remains of Blessed John Paul II will be re-interred in the Vatican basilica: in the chapel of St. Sebastian, near the main doorway. This ceremony will be held privately, the Vatican has indicated.

Police will undoubtedly close streets near the Vatican as the time of the beatification approaches, and even pedestrian traffic will be slow on the morning of May 1. Security measures and procedures for gaining access to St. Peter’s Square will be announced as the date approaches.

MSNBC PRO-ABORTION ADVERTISEMENT

2011-02-18T08:28:00.006-05:00

The network is airing an incendiary advertisement explicitly maligning the pro-life stance as anti-woman, with the worn out and patently erroneous argument of making abortion "safe."

"Safe abortion" is an oxymoron! Legal abortion kills women and abuses girls and distorts femininity, in addition to destroying maternity in the destruction of the child. It is anti-woman and anti-girl and especially anti-mother; not just anti-baby, though it is also that.

The point in all of this is that pregnancy is a relationship, a personal relationship. Abortion destroys the relationship in destroying one (and at times, both) persons in that most intimate maternal, filial relationship. When that relationship is violently destroyed both persons are violated and damaged.

Abortion is against women and especially against the most innocent women, the young women, the girls, and it is a cover-up for the abuse of women, especially minors. Abuse of women is the major cause of abortion! It is false and deceptive, not to mention, way out-dated, to portray it as their salvation: "safe."

Go to liveaction.org for exposure of Planned Parenthood's conspiracy against women.

Muting the Screen

2011-02-13T08:31:00.005-05:00

In line with the last blog entry, I suggest a new function on television and video controls: a "mute" for the screen. In other words, to facilitate home censorship of gratuitous sex scenes on the screen, we need (and have long needed) a "shield", "screen", or "block" button to blacken the screen (at will) during the sexually explicit scenes.

A more advanced form of the same thing would be to have a firewall feature built in to all videos and all television programing to make them decency friendly with one press of a button, sort of like what is already widely available for the Internet.

At the very least, what the ubiquitous mute button is for the audio, we also need for the video a "shield" button.

This could greatly facilitate seeing Jesus in our home theater for "Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God". It could also help create a safer home environment especially for the youth.

Censored Cinema Need

2011-02-13T07:21:00.006-05:00

What might be of great use would be a sort of league of decency to clean up the blockbuster films and market them under a trademark such as "Decency Films". Perhaps EWTN or even Vatican Television could do that.

This is necessary and, with digital technology, should be very easy. Excise the gratuitous sex scenes from many of the top movies world-wide and you would open the cinematic world to many men and women who hitherto refuse to watch, show or promote those very films because of their indecency and pornographic scenes. Opening that world to holy people might increase the involvement and influence of virtuous people on that world, which is presently so corrupt.

Volume 2 Jesus of Nazareth

2011-02-12T08:32:00.005-05:00

Jesus of Nazareth second volume is coming to bookstores on 10 March, published in English by Ignatius Press. The theme is the final phase of Christ's life on earth: His passion, death and resurrection.

The Holy Father, a world-wide best selling author, is meanwhile working on Volume 3 of Jesus of Nazareth which will treat the infancy of the Lord: drawing from Matthew and Luke texts on the annunciation and nativity narratives.

This information comes from Vatican journalist Andrea Tornielli's great Italian blog.

Condoms are Bad for Your Health

2011-02-12T07:47:00.003-05:00

That was basically the corrective message of Pope Benedict en-route to Africa a couple of years ago and more recently in his comments in Light of the World. The point is that condoms do not technically prevent sexually transmitted diseases, and, more importantly, their use damages the very logic of true love (which is all or nothing) and thereby kills people interiorly (in the depths of their beings [the soul]). That is what we call mortal sin. An act such as condomastic sex is mortally sinful because it destroys the person interiorly and the interior destruction has exterior consequences, viz. venereal disease.

Cardinal Ratzinger clearly made these points in his 29 May 1988 letter to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the full text which I include below.

On "The Many Faces of AIDS"
Letter to Archbishop Pio Laghi
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
May 29, 1988

The lively discussion, widened and sometimes distorted by the press worldwide, which followed the publication of the NCCB Administrative Board's well-known document, "The Many Faces of AIDS," and in which were involved distinguished representatives of the episcopate, has generated in many of the faithful, and not only in the United States, a good deal of confusion regarding the authentic Catholic position on the moral problems involved. The Holy See wishes, therefore, to express its deep concern that the unity so necessary among the bishops in the teaching of Christian moral doctrine be clearly and publicly demonstrated.

In the first place, and on a more general level, one must keep in mind the problem posed by the worldwide reaction which accompanies certain documents issued by various episcopal conferences. This requires a particular sense of responsibility and prudence in the choice of themes to be treated and in the manner in which these statements are published, not to mention a careful composition of the texts themselves. At least in some cases, when the subjects under discussion are of interest to the universal church, it would seem advisable to consult in advance with the Holy See.

Secondly, regarding the precise moral issue in question here, I want to draw attention to the clarification which appeared in the March 10 edition of L'Osservatore Romano, in an unsigned article entitled "Prevention of AIDS: Christian Ethical Aspect," and I quote,

"To seek a solution to the problem of infection by promoting the use of prophylactics would be to embark on a way not only insufficiently reliable from the technical point of view, but also and above all, unacceptable from the moral aspect. Such a proposal for 'safe' or at least 'safer' sex -- as they say -- ignores the real cause of the problem, namely, the permissiveness which, in the area of sex as in that related to other abuses, corrodes the moral fiber of the people."

In the case here under discussion, it hardly seems pertinent to appeal to the classical principle of tolerance of the lesser evil on the part of those who exercise responsibility for the temporal good of society. In fact, even when the issue has to do with educational programs promoted by the civil government, one would not be dealing simply with a form of passive toleration but rather with a kind of behavior which would result in at least the facilitation of evil.

The problem of educational programs in specifically Catholic schools and institutions requires particular attention. These facilities are called to provide their own contribution for the prevention of AIDS, in full fidelity to the moral doctrine of the church, without at the same time engaging in compromises which may even give the impression of trying to condone practices which are immoral, for example, technical instructions in the use of prophylactic devices.

In a society which seems increasingly to downgrade the value of chastity, conjugal fidelity and temperance, and to be preoccupied sometimes almost exclusively with physical health and temporal well-being, the Church's responsibility is to give that kind of witness which is proper to her, namely an unequivocal witness of effective and unreserved solidarity with those who are suffering and, at the same time, a witness of defense of the dignity of human sexuality which can only be realized within the context of moral law. It is likewise crucial to note, as the board statement does, that the only medically safe means of preventing AIDS are those very types of behavior which conform to God's law and to the truth about man which the church has always taught and today is still called courageously to teach.

I am confident that these considerations, which are known to His Holiness and have his fullest support, will be welcomed by the cardinal and bishop members of the conference and I wish to express my sincerest hope for a successful conclusion of this important meeting of the entire episcopate of the United States."

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
Prefect, Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith

Great Films From Around the World

2011-02-09T07:40:00.006-05:00

Yesterday, having watched "Adam's Apples" (Denmark, 2002) I concluded that it was among the best movies I had ever seen in it's technical quality combined with it's deep intellectual creative genius--and no nudity or sex scenes!!!

This movie is one of hundreds of selections distributed by Film Movement (based in New York) which seeks to give wider access to the top films from the worlds' top film festivals. Bravo, Film Movement!

A word of caution regarding the nudity in many of their offerings, which is typically limited to one or two skip-able scenes.

Where did I find this resource? My local library!

P.S. This post replies to a previous post.

There Be Dragons

2011-02-02T15:27:00.003-05:00

In New York last Wednesday evening I saw a pre-release screening of There Be Dragons. It is a most secular movie. In fact, it is probably the most secular movie you'll ever see about a saint. That is my assessment.

I would say that it is an honest portrayal of a saint as he might be viewed by a non-believer, and can therefore be very effective for our time. Every agnostic, atheist or any non-Christian or lukewarm Christian should see it. It is not a religious movie though religion is featured in it. It is extraordinary for it's lack of triumphalism and it's lack of clericalism. It is a testimony to the unobtrusiveness of holiness. The saint never draws unnecessary attention to himself. This movie is remarkable in that the saint simply passes by without any flare, so that, if you don't pay close attention, you won't even notice that he was there or what his presence did. The bar is very low here. The message is that a saint (like Christ) does none harm and is only humbly trying to help fix a very broken world in which everyone needs to cooperate for the necessary repair. And he does not need center stage to do it!

This movie very well portrays what is said of Christ in Matthew 12:15-21.

"Jesus withdrew from the place; and many followed him and he cured them all, and warned them not to make him known; that what was spoken through Isaias the prophet might be fulfilled, who said, 'Behold, my servant, whom I have chosen, my beloved in whom my soul is well pleased: I will put my Spirit upon him, and he will declare judgment to the Gentiles. He will not wrangle, nor cry aloud, neither will anyone hear his voice in the streets. A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoking wick he will not quench, till he send forth judgment unto victory; and in his name will the Gentiles hope.'"

The Conversion of Saint Paul

2011-01-25T08:48:00.002-05:00

You don't really know God until you know Jesus.

You don't really know the Truth until you know Jesus.

You don't really know how to love--what love is--until you love Jesus, until you experience His mercy and love for you.

And if you love Him you must love His Church: the Body of believers: His Body.

He identifies (Himself) with His followers: "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me? (Acts. 9:4)

If you hate and malign and oppose the Church you hate and malign and oppose God!--"You did it to Me." (Matt. 25:40)

Love, defend, support and promote all things Catholic--to love Christ as Saint Paul does!

Preaching Funerals

2011-01-05T10:13:00.005-05:00

A friend recently summed up the purpose of the funeral sermon with this short sample of a most direct (and, of course, undeliverable) sermon.

It is important at this funeral Mass to pray for N., who is in the box (pointing to the casket); that is very important; it is essential, in fact.

But the greatest reason I am preaching to you is to remind you that we are all going to end up in the box!

Prepare your soul for death with a holy life.

The 1962 Burial Service Rite has a prayer with the same idea somewhat more eloquently expressed in the PRAYERS FOR THE BYSTANDERS AT THE GRAVE.

Grant, O Lord, we beseech Thee, that whilst we lament the departure of our brother/sister, Thy servant out of this life, we may bear in mind that we are most certainly to follow him/her. Give us grace to make ready for that last hour by a devout and holy life, and protect us against a sudden and unprovided death. Teach us how to watch and pray that when Thy summons comes, we may go forth to meet the Bridegroom and enter with Him into life everlasting. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Holy Family Compass

2010-12-26T10:51:00.007-05:00

Saint Joseph is the compass of the Holy Family. The angel of the Lord appears to him in a dream and directs him to fly with his family to Egypt, and again later, revealing to him the time of the return from Egypt. And, on the return, Saint Joseph weighs the new political situation and decides where to settle the family: Nazareth.

God did all of that through the head of the Holy Family: Saint Joseph. His adoptive Son was perfect as was his wife (the Immaculate Conception and ever Virgin Mary) and yet both needed to obediently follow Saint Joseph for, as the husband and putative father, he was chosen to lead them. (cf. Matthew 2:13-23 [the Gospel for today's Mass: The Feast of the Holy Family])

Every husband and every father is called by God to lead his family under God; and his wife and children should follow him in everything except sin; for God himself has placed him as the family compass, as is so clear in the Holy Family.

God Offers Us Freedom From Whatever Weighs Us Down

2010-12-26T08:04:00.004-05:00

HOLY FATHER'S CHRISTMAS MESSAGE AIRED ON THE PROGRAM "THOUGHT FOR THE DAY" OF THE BBC , 24 DECEMBER 2010

On the morning of Christmas Eve the BBC of London transmitted a radio message, recorded last Wednesday, by the Holy Father Benedict XVI for the "Thought of the Day" program, in which, recalling his September visit, the Pope sends Christmas greetings to the citizens of the United Kingdom and to all listeners. Here is the transcript of the message.

THE HOLY FATHER'S MESSAGE

Recalling with great fondness my four-day visit to the United Kingdom last September, I am glad to have the opportunity to greet you once again, and indeed to greet listeners everywhere as we prepare to celebrate the birth of Christ. Our thoughts turn back to a moment in history when God's chosen people, the children of Israel, were living in intense expectation. They were waiting for the Messiah that God had promised to send, and they pictured him as a great leader who would rescue them from foreign domination and restore their freedom.

God is always faithful to his promises, but he often surprises us in the way he fulfils them. The child that was born in Bethlehem did indeed bring liberation, but not only for the people of that time and place - he was to be the Saviour of all people throughout the world and throughout history. And it was not a political liberation that he brought, achieved through military means: rather, Christ destroyed death for ever and restored life by means of his shameful death on the Cross. And while he was born in poverty and obscurity, far from the centres of earthly power, he was none other than the Son of God. Out of love for us he took upon himself our human condition, our fragility, our vulnerability, and he opened up for us the path that leads to the fullness of life, to a share in the life of God himself. As we ponder this great mystery in our hearts this Christmas, let us give thanks to God for his goodness to us, and let us joyfully proclaim to those around us the good news that God offers us freedom from whatever weighs us down: he gives us hope, he brings us life.

Dear Friends from Scotland, England, Wales, and indeed every part of the English-speaking world, I want you to know that I keep all of you very much in my prayers during this Holy Season. I pray for your families, for your children, for those who are sick, and for those who are going through any form of hardship at this time. I pray especially for the elderly and for those who are approaching the end of their days. I ask Christ, the light of the nations, to dispel whatever darkness there may be in your lives and to grant to every one of you the grace of a peaceful and joyful Christmas. May God bless all of you!

Fight Banal Sex (No al Sexo Banal)

2010-12-23T08:22:00.006-05:00

That would make a great bumper sticker to summarize the in-context meaning of the Holy Father's recent statement on the harmful trivialization of sexuality, which recently brought so much publicity.

"...[T]he sheer fixation on the condom implies a banalization of sexuality, which, after all, is precisely the dangerous source of the attitude of no longer seeing sexuality as the expression of love, but only a sort of drug that people administer to themselves. This is why the fight against the banalization of sexuality is also a part of the struggle to ensure that sexuality is treated as a positive value and to enable it to have a positive effect on the whole of man's being..." (Light of the World, p. 119)

Immediately after comes the distorted message.

"Merry Christmas" Apostolate

2010-12-23T07:51:00.005-05:00

Just say it!

Say it loud and clear, with cheer, and for all to hear!

Don't be defensive. Take the initiative! Beat them to the punch line! Greet them before they greet you. See how many times you can say it in a day! Say it especially after the 25th of December (at least until the day of the Circumcision [octave day of Christmas: 1 January; and after until the feast of the Three Kings--6 January)! And, actually, 2 February is the final feast of Christmas (the Presentation of the first born in the temple on the 4oth day!). Christmas is 40 days!

Say it even after people think it's gone in the hopes to perplex and elicit questions to instruct about the octave day (his naming and Circumcision according to the Jewish law--New Year's is Christmas!) or about the Three Kings' feast (which is the day for presents in many national traditions.

Merry Christmas!

If someone says "Happy Holidays" look him intently and lovingly in the eye and serenely respond with a less cliche Christmas greeting. Say, for example:

"Jesus Christ is born."

"Emmanuel: God is with us."

"The Virgin conceived and bore the Son of God."

"Glory to God in the highest and peace to his people on earth."

"Praised be Jesus Christ."

"Long live Christmas and the Christ child!" (My personal favorite.)