John Paul II and Our Preaching

In 1982, André Frossard, who famously experienced a striking conversion experience from atheism to Catholicism, published a book of conversations he had with John Paul II early in his papacy. As you would expect, such a book contains gems of insight into the Pope and the faith as the Pope spoke with ease and familiarity with Frossard. One striking comment involved the Pope's definition of an "active life." The response was prompted by Frossard's asking about the role of prayer and contemplation in John Paul's life. Here is part of John Paul's response:

If my past and present life can be described as 'active,' let us not forget that the 'act' par excellence of each day is the Holy Mass, which constitutes the most perfect synthesis of prayer and the heart of our meeting with God in Christ. Over thirty years' experience of priestly life has taught me that to reach this summit, to arrive at this synthesis and this fullness, one must approach it through prayer and emerge from it towards the prayer of the whole day, knowing perfectly well that this day will be filled to overflowing with activities and engagements of every sort. . . . On the whole, work takes most of the time, but all activities should be rooted in prayer as though in a spiritual soil.

André Frossard, 'Be Not Afraid': André Frossard in Conversation with John Paul II (London: St. Martin's Press, 1984), p. 33 (original emphasis).

In his recent book Letters to a Young Catholic (just reviewed in Catholic Analysis), George Weigel highly recommends praying the liturgy of the hours, even if in an abridged form. Weigel goes so far as to recommend the use of the monthly prayer magazine Magnificat. Interestingly, in his conversation with Frossard, John Paul makes special mention of how "the priest's day is liturgical, not only thanks to the Mass but also through the liturgy of the hours . . . ." (Ibid.). Certainly, praying the liturgy of the hours is one suggestion worth seriously considering.

But more impressive to me as a writer and relevant to all of us who must inevitably in writing or speech make known what we think throughout the day is John Paul's reference to an "ancient principle":

The ancient principle, Contemplata aliis tradere (hand on to others the fruits of prayer), is still topical and life-enhancing. It concerns in the first place the one who 'hands on', the preacher or servant of the Word: he is entitled to communicate-- uniquely and exclusively only contemplata, thoughts passed through prayer.

Frossard, p. 34 (bold emphasis added).

The Pope refes to the privilege of the preacher "in the first place" to pass on "thoughts passed through prayer." Yet, it is not only the preacher at Mass--priest or deacon--who has this obligation, as the Pope's phrase "in the first place" implies. Lay persons speaking to groups outside Mass, any of us speaking to any other person, and certainly those who write on religious topics have the privilege and I daresay obligation to pass on what has first gone through prayer. Anyone who has attended a charismatic renewal gathering knows that in such gatherings it is not uncommon for people to stand up to share the fruit of their personal prayer with those assembled. Our own sharing may not be as dramatically presented as those in such gatherings, but we seem to be called to do, for all practical purposes, the same thing. What better communication than to communicate the fruit of prayer?

Certainly, I do not mean adopting the posture of a prophet who prefaces his remarks with "thus sayeth the Lord." But what we communicate can be the fruit of prayer even if we do not ostentatiously label it as such. If we are praying Christians, then it should be assumed that our serious remarks to others should be rooted in that prayer. The lay person is also called to communicate in the appropriate venue what has been contemplated. Even the lay lector at Mass by reading the Scripture should make his or her reading the fruit of contemplation by previously praying over the assigned reading. In a way, the lay lector has the privilege of being the instrument of God's own preaching.

This perspective shows how silly it is for those obsessed with usurping clerical roles to try to have lay people, contrary to the rules of the Church, give homilies at Mass. There is no need to usurp the role of the priest or deacon. As lay people, we are in effect engaging in a form of preaching as lectors in the Mass and everytime we engage in a serious conversation outside the liturgy. This perspective exposes the superficiality of those who think that lay people are empowered only to the extent that they encroach on the roles of the ordained. Such misguided crusaders have missed the boat because they forget that all of us in the active life are called to pass on what has been first contemplated. The mindset of those seeking to encroach on the preaching role of the ordained reflects a mindset alien to a life of prayer. It is an impoverished mindset which equates preaching solely with the homily. The Pope's perspective in contrast brings back to mind that in all the activities of life we are in effect preaching if we pass on the fruit of our prayer. From that deeper perspective, there is no need to compete over liturgical roles.

4th Sunday of Easter: Acts 13:14, 43-52; Revelation 7:9, 14b-17; John 10:27-30

All the readings today focus on the mission ad gentes, to the peoples, to the gentiles. In the Acts of the Apostles, those Jews who rejected the Gospel turned on Paul and Barnabas out of envy with "violent abuse." A strange spectacle of our fallen human nature: to reject good news, the news that God is here to save you from spiritual and physical death. Yet, we do it all the time. The teachings of Christ call us to a high standard of love, yet we still descend to the level of pornographic behavior. The teachings of Christ call us to put relationships above the pursuit of money and power, yet we structure our whole lives around that pursuit. Some parents even jockey to put their small children in competitive preschools so that they can gain a career advantage in the long run! Millions put themselves into enormous debt seeking self-justification by means of conspicuous consumption and thus reject the good news that none of that striving and juggling is even remotely necessary for our welfare. And so it is no surprise today that those attempting to follow Christ are still met with jealousy and violent abuse because the teachings of Christ radically call into question the cherished life plans of many.

In Revelation, the fruit of the mission to the peoples is on display. John has a vision of a great multitude from every race taking part in an eternal Palm Sunday waving palm branches and worshipping God. That is the liturgy we participate in at every Mass. And the promise is not vague: "God will wipe away every tear from their eyes." That is why every Mass is simultaneously solemn and joyful. We are rejoicing that the very structure of reality is merciful.

The Gospel reading is quite brief. Jesus says that his sheep hear his voice, that he knows them, and that they will follow them. The one who rose from the dead and thus proved his credentials now promises that we will have eternal life. The sheep follow him from quite disparate backgrounds, cultures, and tastes. In spite of distance from each other, the sheep gravitate to Him. And so the Church is the sign or sacrament of the unity of all mankind. The old classical humanist saying is that "nothing human is alien to me." Well, nothing that is authentically human is alien to Christ-- for sin is not authentically human.

Another Bishop Takes Action

The bishop of the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Indiana, has barred pro-abortion Indiana Governor Kernan from giving a commencement address at a local Catholic high school. You can read about Bishop D'Arcy's action in this Associated Press story.

Cardinal McCarrick: An Invitation to Open Communion?

Some of us have noticed that the comments by Theodore Cardinal McCarrick of Washington, D.C., on the denial of communion to pro-abortion politicians are reminiscent of the kow-towing to political power pioneered by those proto-Anglicans who succumbed to the political bullying of Henry VIII in sixteenth century England.

Well, conservative Anglican Christopher Johnson of the Midwest Conservative Journal seems to see this similarity, although Johnson draws the comparison not with Cranmer but with the present-day weak-as-water bishops of the Episcopal Church USA. Different comparisons, same defects. See Johnson's post for April 29, 2004, entitled "Outbreak" at the Midwest Conservative Journal. Johnson with his usual skill analyzes McCarrick's recent comments to the media and rightfully asks if the Catholic Church is now practicing open communion since McCarrick seems loathe to deny the Eucharist to anyone who comes forward to receive. If Johnson, an Anglican, can see the strange muddle in McCarrick's recent comments, then so should more Catholics and, more importantly, so should McCarrick's fellow bishops.

Double Heresy

Liberals frame the issue of denying the Eucharist to pro-abortion Catholic politicians as one of the Church interfering with politics. Of course, the exact opposite is true. This whole matter is an issue of pro-abortion politicians seeking to revise Church teaching and thus interfering with an intimately religious issue: the sacramental discipline and parameters set by a Christian community. First, they contradict Church teaching by being blatantly and uncompromisingly pro-abortion. Second, they proceed to proclaim that they are "devout" and faithful Catholics. Third, they proceed to prove their good standing as Catholics by receiving the Eucharist. The inevitable conclusion from their actions is that being pro-abortion is reconcilable with the Catholic faith. That conclusion is heretical because the Catholic faith proclaims the direct killing of innocent human life as inherently and gravely evil.

But there is an additional heresy involved in the "three-step" dance by which the pro-abortion politicians mock the Catholic faith. That heresy is the notion that there is an unconditional right to receive the Eucharist. Scripture is clear:

Whoever, therefore eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and the blood of the Lord. Let a man examine himself and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself.

1 Corinthians 11:27-29 (RSV).

Participating in the Eucharist is not unconditional. This teaching was recently reiterated in the just released disciplinary Vatican document on the Eucharist (see Redemptionis Sacramentum, sections 80-86, 91). Canon law provides that Catholics have a right to the assistance of the sacraments, but canon law does not and cannot alter the theological conditions on that participation ("Can. 213 Christ's faithful have the right to be assisted by their Pastors from the spiritual riches of the Church, especially by the word of God and the sacraments." See the 1983 Code of Canon Law at this link.) To give the Eucharist in a situation where those conditions are not met is not "assistance" but rather the condemnation spoken of by St. Paul.

Liberal activists use arguments based on access to the Eucharist to push for the ordination of women and even for erasing the distinction between the ordained and the non-ordained in consecrating the Eucharist. The hypocrisy of this liberal reliance on access to the Eucharist is that the liberals never want to discuss the primary condition under which one can exercise that access: freedom from mortal sin. But, of course, liberals stopped believing in mortal sin a long time ago. Under the liberal version of "fundamental option" theory in moral theology, the rule is simple: "Once a Catholic, always a communicant." It doesn't work that way, and it never will. To the surprise of many in an age of poor catechesis and confusion, merely being Catholic is not enough to allow one to receive the Eucharist. But that is the additional heresy that the pro-abortion politicians and their defenders are pushing, even after being clearly told not to approach the Eucharist.

Influential Bishop Denies Eucharist to Pro-Abortion New Jersey Governor

New Jersey Bishop Joseph Galante of the Camden Diocese, a prominent figure in the U.S. Bishops' Conference, has gone on the record stating that he will deny the Eucharist to New Jersey's pro-abortion Governor McGreevey. Bishop Galante is to be installed today as the new bishop for the Camden Diocese. Galante cited the fact of McGreevey's irregular marriage and anti-Catholic positions on life issues:

Galante said he was taking the stance primarily because the divorced governor, who is Catholic, remarried without receiving a church annulment. Also, he said, McGreevey's record of "pushing" for legalized abortion, stem-cell research, and other positions the church views as immoral "is almost like he throws the gauntlet down."

Philadelphia Inquirer, "Bishop would deny rite to N.J. governor," April 30, 2004, by David O'Reilly.

Add Galante to the list of no nonsense bishops like St. Louis Archbishop Burke and Nebraska Bishop Bruskewitz. Even if the majority of bishops are quiet at the moment, something is changing in the American episcopate. And make no mistake that Galante is a leading member of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Here is an excerpt from a diocesan news release noting Galante's credentials in the conference and the fact that he holds a doctorate in canon law:

He holds a Doctorate in Canon Law (1968, Lateran University, Rome) and a Master of Arts in Spiritual Theology (1991, University of St. Thomas, Angelicum, Rome).
Bishop Galante serves on the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Communications, Committee on Canon Law, Ad Hoc Committee on Sexual Abuse and the Ad Hoc Committee on Economic Concerns of the Holy See. Previously, Bishop Galante was Chair of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Communications and Chair of the U.S. bishops’ Religious Life Committee, as well as committees on Science and Human Values and African American Catholics.

News Release (PDF document), March 23, 2004, Diocese of Camden.

Update: The Boston Globe also covers the action by Bishop Galante (see "Bishop says he won't serve Communion to N.J. governor," by Geoff Mulvihill, May 1, 2004, Nation section.) There is also for May 1st a column in the N.Y. Times (free reg'n required) by liberal religion writer Peter Steinfels predictably calling for bishops to take no action against pro-abortion politicians. Steinfels says the situation is too murky and gives as an example the recent support by strongly pro-life Catholic Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania for the re-election of Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania. Specter is pro-abortion and non-Catholic, while Specter's Republican primary challenger was pro-life. In my view, Steinfels' argument is weak. Santorum is undeniably an extremely strong leader in the pro-life cause in the Senate. Santorum's goal is to preserve procedural control of the Senate by the only pro-life party in the Senate. This control is important because the Senate will vote on confirming, among other things, a future pro-life appointment to the Supreme Court. Specter is a minority within a pro-life Senate Republican majority. To put it bluntly, Specter is being used to keep Senate control in the hands of the pro-life party because Specter is believed to have a better chance of beating the pro-abortion Democratic candidate in the general election. Personally, I would not have voted for Specter and believe the Republicans should have risked going with the pro-life candidate, but the bottom-line is that Santorum supported Specter in order to maintain Republican control of the Senate. Republican control of the Senate translates into pro-life procedural control of the Senate, as shown by the priority given to recent successful pro-life causes in the Senate. Steinfels' attempt to equate what Santorum did with what pro-abortion Senators Kerry, Kennedy, Daschle, Leahy, and others do is absurd. Santorum is a pro-life leader. Catholic senators like Kerry and the others just named are, in contrast, leaders in the crusade to protect abortion in America. Pro-life Catholics would be delighted to have Senator Kerry and the other pro-abortion Catholic senators become clones of Santorum any day. And we would be delighted with a Democratic Party which would facilitate pro-life legislation and judicial appointments in the Senate, rather than seek to derail them through procedural maneuvers. As even Steinfels admits in his column, the Democratic Party has made support of abortion its signature issue on a par with the Republican emphasis on tax cuts. Therefore, denying procedural control of the Senate to the Democrats is a worthy pro-life goal.

Obstacles to Conversion

In our decidedly immoral society, one of the obstacles to conversion in the first place or to the continuing conversion called for by the Church is the understandable feeling by some that we can't live up to the teachings of Christ and to the commandments. The clergy scandals involving longtime priests, who had the privilege of offering the sacraments daily, naturally increase the doubt that the call of Christ is livable in this world. The area of sexual ethics comes to mind first, given how much we are bombarded with sexual images in television, on the internet, in advertising, and in public behavior and dress. But other areas also come to mind. Christ calls us to become indifferent to consumerism and to use our goods to advance the mission of the Church. This material imperative is just as difficult as the call to purity, given that in our society possessing things is the prime marker of one's identity and self-worth. The purchase price of a new house and the brand of car we drive are instinctively considered by legions as the marks of human success, however self-evident the irrationality of this standard is as soon as we dare to explicitly and openly articulate it.

In addition, this pursuit of material "success" deforms our characters. We lack time for human interaction. We lack time for the social graces that make life livable. We lack time for works of charity which may just be a matter of spending a few extra minutes with someone or writing a letter. Recently, there was a media article bemoaning that so few of us any longer write personal letters. That is a sign that we have replaced communio or genuine interpersonal communion with frenetic activity. At the end of the day, activities dissipate, but relationships endure. We should invest ourselves in relationships, and not transient activities. It is telling that when the word "investment" is used in our culture, we instinctively think exclusively of financial investment, as opposed to personal investment. This money-obsession is the driving engine of much of middle class life--especially among the upwardly mobile.

The feeling is that in such a culture it is just impossible to even try to live up to the Beatitudes and to the commandments. And so many twist Christ's words that his kingdom is not of this world into an admission that Christ's teachings are irrelevant. In this situation, a bit of wisdom from an old source may be helpful. Saint Alphonsus Liguori ((1696-1787) discussed temptation in his short work Uniformity with God's Will. On the temptations we face to mimic our surrounding culture, the saint has some good advice for what he terms "unrelenting temptations":

Let us then say: "Lord, do with me, let happen to me what thou wilt: thy grace is sufficient for me. Only let me never lose this grace." Consent to temptation, not temptation of itself, can make us lose the grace of God. Temptation resisted keeps us humble, brings us greater merit, makes us have frequent recourse to God, thus preserving us from offending him and unites us more closely to him in the bonds of his holy love.

St. Alphonsus Liguori, Uniformity with God's Will (Tan, 1977).

Liguori touches on the theme that temptation can, in effect, be a gift, a pathway to growth, a part of the journey to which we are called, although we still pray that we not be led into temptation and duly avoid its unnecessary occasions. Like the epic hero, our temptations are dramatic obstacles to be overcome and by which our character is shaped and formed in the direction of the truth or in the direction of the lie. Through hard experience, even some secular thinkers have managed to stumble, in a hazy and confused way, onto the truth that what at first blush may seem disastrous may in fact be a tremendous opportunity in disguise.

To view temptation in this way takes great faith in God's Providence. Liguori highlights that faith:

God has made the attainment of our happiness, his glory. Since he is by nature infinite goodness, and since as St. Leo says goodness is diffusive of itself, God has a supreme desire to make us sharers of this goods and of his happiness. If then he sends suffering in this life, it is for our own good: "All things work together unto good." Even chastisements come to us, not to crush us, but to make us mend our ways and save our souls . . . ."

Liguori, pp. 14-15 (original emphasis).

And sometimes we fear temptations that we can readily foresee, which is in essence what leads many not to respond to Christ's high calling. Liguori has firm advice for dismissing our hypothetical fears:

Let us dismiss the temptation [posed by these fears] by saying: "By God's grace, I would say or do what God would want me to say or do." Thus we shall free ourselves from imperfection and harassment."

Liguori, p. 18.

At one point, Liguori refers to St. Teresa of Avila's custom of constantly offering herself to God by "placing herself at his entire disposition and good pleasure" (Liguori, p. 16). From the arid plains of Castile, Teresa gave us words that, however much we hear or read them, still calm the soul:

Let nothing disturb you, nothing affright you;
All things are passing; God never changes;
Patient endurance attains to all things;
Who[m] God possesses in nothing is wanting;
Alone God suffices.

Christian Prayer: Liturgy of the Hours (Daughters of St. Paul, 1976), Night Prayer for Tuesday, pp. 1020-21 (original translation by Arthur Symons put in modern language by this writer).

Apologetic arguments are sorely needed, but sometimes the greatest obstacles to conversion do not arise from doctrinal or philosophical difficulties but from the fear that the calling is utterly impossible. Saints Alphonsus Liguori and Teresa have given us some answers worth pondering.

A Timely Book

George Weigel's most recent book Letters to a Young Catholic (Basic Books, 2004), is timely and may become a classic because it captures the historic moment we are experiencing in Catholicism. In his message to young and "not-so-young" Catholics, Weigel offers us a work that is more personal than his other works. Here, we get a peek at his prayer life in which he prays the divine office daily (p. 155), at his taste for the music of Maurice Duruflé (p. 115), at an early disillusionment with a childhood pastor that was later redeemed (p. 118), and at his experience of a strongly Catholic friend from the pro-life movement dying of cancer (p. 183). These hints of the personal make this book more engaging and gripping that his other fine but understandably less personal recent books. That is why I look forward one day to reading his memoirs because they will tell the story of the twists and turns of Catholicism, especially in the United States, a story that will make riveting reading.

The book touches on many themes. In a prior post, I have discussed probably the most pertinent theme for understanding the Catholic situation in the United States and other Western countries: Weigel's contrast between liberal religion defined as the religion we make up and revealed religion (see Catholic Analysis, April 26, 2004). That is the signature conflict permeating Catholicism in the West. But other themes are also worth noting.

Like many, Weigel recognizes the gnostic thread running through modern Western culture which, in spite of its hedonism and materialism, actually "demeans the material" (p. 88). This modern gnosticism ends in nihilism. This demeaning of the material is obviously part of the modern sexual chaos in which the body becomes an instrument for using other people. In contrast, Weigel re-presents the Catholic view of sexuality in which longing is transformed into self-giving (p. 133). And Weigel is not afraid to take on the gay movement which he views as "the most potent example" of the gnostic imagination (p. 137). He even issues a gentle challenge to Catholic gay commentator Andrew Sullivan (pp. 137-38).

Weigel also does not shrink from facing other problems in Western Catholicism. In discussing the importance of beauty to Catholicism, he makes no bones about the "sad fact . . . that a lot of contemporary Catholicism is ugly: ugly buildings, ugly furnishings, ugly decorations, ugly vestments, ugly music" (p. 200). He is calling the younger generations to remedy that. And then there is the more general mediocrity prevalent in the liturgy as "a quickie, forty-five minute affair--'Suburban Lite' " (p. 145). He contrasts with this mediocrity a stirring example of reverent and beautiful liturgy at a Catholic parish in Greenville, South Carolina, a parish that can serve as a model for parishes nationwide in its use of chant and in returning the tabernacle to the central place in the sanctuary (pp. 140, 144).

As an interesting sign of the times, Weigel refers to theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar at several points in the book. In fact, he refers to Balthasar as "a kind of pyrotechnic genius of the modern Catholic world" (p. 56). The references to Balthasar are indeed a welcome sign of the times, an antidote to the muddled legacy of the liberal icon Karl Rahner (p. 79).

Weigel, as a Baltimore native, makes much of John Carroll, who became the first Catholic bishop of the United States with his headquarters in Baltimore. Weigel shows how Carroll viewed Catholicism and the promise of the new United States as complementary. He even points out how Benjamin Franklin and Carroll were the best of friends (p. 208). At this point, I would suggest that Weigel may be putting too good a face on the complementarity of our American origins and the Catholic point of view. From my own reading, it appears that Benjamin Franklin was already at that early date in our history a practitioner of the liberal religion which Weigel criticizes earlier in his book. Franklin was not an orthodox Christian. He was already practicing the liberalism of religion as something we make up. And so the heterodox Enlightenment origins of our nation will always be in tension with Catholicism. Weigel rightly points out that there is also a strong element of medieval Catholic culture that was the historic crucible for the rise of American freedom in the eighteenth century, but it is still undeniable that there is also an inherent tension between the liberal religion of Franklin and Jefferson and authentic Catholicism. That tension is alive and well today even at an institution named for the good bishop, John Carroll University in Cleveland, which at times exemplifies the liberal tilt at Jesuit institutions nationwide.

But, in the end, the big message of the book is one of hope. Weigel tells young Catholics and all other Catholics that in today's world we are not alone in our commitment to revelation. We are in fact on the "cutting edge" of history (p. 236). It is liberal religion that is dying.

The Empty Suit

There must be panic these days in the Kerry camp. David Broder, the "dean" of Washington pundits, a liberal columnist at the liberal Washington Post, has pointed out the obvious: the American public has figured out that Kerry is an unprincipled opportunist. Here is Broder quoting in part, and devastatingly, from the liberal (!) Boston Globe's biography of Kerry:

"Unlike many who are driven to succeed in public life by a core belief system, the arc of Kerry's political career is defined by a restless search for the issues, individuals and causes to fulfill a nearly lifelong" ambition for the White House. The election is still six months away. But Kerry's reputation has been built over 40 years. And the voters seem to be sniffing it out.

David Broder, "Opportunism Knocks," Opinion section, April 25, 2004, Washington Post online.

And what Broder does not say, but implies is that, in contrast, Bush stands for certain core beliefs, however unpopular with the liberal chattering classes and the liberal mainstream media. In this sense, Bush is following in Reagan's footsteps. They hold to core conservative beliefs and stick to them. A public that yearns for strong leadership reacts positively.

But Kerry is a symbol of a larger problem in American politics that emerged most dramatically with the election of John F. Kennedy in 1960. Kennedy was the product of a family obsessively driven to obtain the presidency at all costs. Ask someone what were Kennedy's core beliefs, and they will be hardpressed to be specific about anything. The usual response is that Kennedy's eloquence, glamour, and charm made the nation feel good about itself. "Vigah" is not the basis of a core belief system.

In this sense, Kerry is indeed like Kennedy and like that other politician besotted with Kennedy hero worship: Bill Clinton. Both Clinton and Kerry are empty suits in the Kennedy model of ambition for the sake of ambition. But problematically for both of them, neither are as remotely eloquent or charming as the original. Kennedy didn't stand for much of anything, but he made America feel good. Clinton and Kerry leave American cold. Don't believe the media chatter about Clinton's eloquence or charisma. Clinton can't even approach the Kennedy standard on those traits. Remember this is the same media that in 1988 labelled the Rev. Jesse Jackson's childishly rhyming speech to the Democratic Convention as extraordinarily eloquent. The standards for applying the adjectives "eloquent" and "charismatic" have gone through the floor.

In my view, Kerry, like Clinton, has had presidential political ambitions from a very early age due in no small part to being smitten with Kennedy's glamour. Like Kennedy, both men lack a distinctive core of belief to bring to politics. Unlike Kennedy, both men are personally dull.

But what does this have to do with a Catholic analysis? Well, the empty suit in politics brings that same lack of core conviction to the Catholic Church. The Church is a welcome affiliation in historically Catholic Massachusetts, and is part of the Kennedy legend. The rest is pure "liberal" religion, which George Weigel has aptly defined, as the religion that we make up as we go, as opposed to revealed religion. And so Kerry is the quintessential liberal, cafeteria Catholic. In fact, he is a perfect caricature of the empty suit that is the liberal Catholic. In Kennedy's time, no Catholic politician would publicly diverge from the Church's fundamental moral teachings. American society in 1960 still held to a broad, Judeo-Christian moral consensus. We now know, after the fact, that Kennedy recklessly and compulsively defied that moral consensus in private, but we also know that he correctly feared its ever becoming public because it would end his political career. In today's America in which the moral center of gravity has shifted, Kerry does not share the fear of flaunting his lack of a foundational moral core. And so after rallying pro-abortion forces, he gingerly steps into the communion line.

460,000 Petition to Ban Partial Birth Abortion in Michigan

The front page of the Detroit News said it all: "460,034 sign up to limit abortion -- Petitions aim to let Mich. lawmakers sidestep gov.'s veto" (April 16, 2004, headline, see newspaper article). Pro-abortion Gov. Jennifer Granholm, Democrat, vetoed late last year a bill to ban partial birth abortion in Michigan. This bill defined any partially born child as a legal person entitled to the full protection of the law. In other words, under the bill, you couldn't kill a partially born child because it is illegal to commit murder.

To get around the governor's veto, Michigan Right to Life, the Michigan Catholic bishops, the Knights of Columbus, and many evangelical churches united to launch this petition drive. The petition drive has now concluded and has been wildly successful. All it needed to collect was about 254,000 signatures. It collected over 460,000 signatures. This means that the bill to ban partial birth abortion will again be passed by the Michigan legislature, but this time it won't go to the governor's desk. The ban will automatically become law without the signature of the governor. Through the petition process, 460,000 registered Michigan voters have removed the governor's power to veto the bill. This is a slap in the face to the extreme pro-abortion views of Jennifer Granholm and her ideological twin John Kerry, all in the crucial election year swing state of Michigan.

Over the last few days, the mainstream media has given extended coverage to a pro-abortion march in Washington, D.C. Well, in the nation's heartland, a rebellion took place that knocked a pro-abortion governor off her feet. I, for one, have seen little coverage of this massive pro-life revolt in the national media. But the revolt happened, and the effects will be felt in this election year. The petition drive is a warm-up for a high turnout of pro-life voters in an important swing state for the Nov. 2nd presidential election.

From a Catholic point of view, this pro-life victory has other aspects. Like Kerry, Granholm is an extreme pro-abortion politician who pushes the line that being pro-abortion is perfectly consistent with being a practicing Catholic. This successful petition drive gives the lie to that heretical claim. All the Catholic bishops of Michigan and thousands of other Catholics signed on the dotted line and rejected this revision of the faith. Among Michigan Catholics, Granholm is now a known and undesirable political presence. The petition drive has helped unmask in parish after parish the ambiguity in which pro-abortion Catholic politicians thrive. Catholic voters will remember her push for partial birth abortion in the next governor's election.

All in all, the Church--bishops and laity--took a stand and used the legal process to push back successfully against a renegade Catholic governor. Times are changing. Almost 150 years ago, the new anti-slavery Republican Party was born in Jackson, Michigan--an anniversary that will be celebrated this year. But also this year, a new and more assertive anti-abortion Catholic movement has been born in the same state-- a movement that has taken the cover of ambiguity from the political arsenal of pro-abortion politicians like Granholm and Kerry. Let us hope that this new assertiveness against renegade Catholic politicians will spread to other states.

George Weigel's Letters to a Young Catholic

George Weigel, born in 1951, is a powerful exception to those liberal Catholic baby boomers who have dismembered and watered down Catholic teaching. He is the positive side of a controversial generation. In his recently published Letters to a Young Catholic (Basic Books, 2004), Weigel looks to the rising generations for a more vibrant, faithful, and orthodox Catholicism. He is quite explicit in laying out the welcome generational change. In fact, the book's dust cover bears a telling subtitle, The Art of Mentoring, that emphasizes the generational focus.

To mark the welcome generational change he takes up where John Henry Cardinal Newman left off in challenging "liberal" Christianity, which Weigel concisely defines as "religion-we-make-up" as opposed to the real thing which is properly termed "revealed religion" (p. 74). As one who personally lived through the era of the rise of "liberal Catholicism," Weigel has seen the distortion firsthand. And his conclusion today is very good news:

As you consider what it means to be a Catholic today, here's one of the things you must wrestle with: liberal Christianity is dying. . . . Christian communities that maintain a clear sense of their doctrinal and moral borders flourish [read: official Catholicism, Southern Baptists], while Christian communities whose borders become so porous it's hard to tell who's in and who's out wither and die [read: Episcopal Church USA, United Church of Christ]. . . . Just as liberal Protestantism is dying today, a century and a half after Newman diagnosed the lethal disease that beset it, so is what often calls itself "liberal" or "progressive" Catholicism.

Wiegel, p. 75 (parenthetical remarks added).

What bears repeating again and again, because so many misunderstand it, is that the dichotomy between "liberal" Catholicism and real Catholicism has nothing to do with politically liberal views on taxes, the minimum wage, national health insurance, or foreign policy--all socio-economic issues on which Catholics can legitimately disagree-- but rather on whether there is obedience to revelation as authoritatively interpreted by the Church. So a socialist can be an authentic or "conservative" Catholic, while an economic libertarian can be a "liberal" Catholic. We are talking about the response to revelation, not about typically political issues.

The death throes of what Weigel calls "liberal" Catholicism or "Catholic Lite" can be seen in the demise of "self-consciously liberal religious orders and seminaries," which contrasts with the vigor of orthodox lay renewal movements (pp. 75-76). It is also apparent, to use Philip Jenkins' memorable phrase, in the rise of the "Next Christendom." As Weigel notes,

[I]t's no accident that the Church is in deep, deep trouble in those parts of western Europe, Canada, and Oceania where the romance of orthodoxy has been displaced by the siren songs of what Newman described as 'liberal' religion: of Christianity understood as opinion, or hobby, or lifestyle choice, not truth. Catholic Lite, as I've called it, has no real future.

Weigel, p. 76.

For the benefit of those of us from a younger generation, Weigel traces his own personal path through the years of the heady and disastrous rise of "progressive" Catholicism. He remarks on the promotion of liberalism by theologians intoxicated with power in the sixties and seventies, a phenomenon that is still found in "most Catholic theology departments in the United States today . . . at least among professors over fifty" (Weigel, p. 79). Weigel himself began to question the liberal paradigm when he finished his graduate studies. He admits that liberal icon Karl Rahner had been his "lodestar" (p. 79). But he describes his own awakening when he realized how irrelevant Rahner's description of the modern situation was. He summarizes Rahner's project as that of "a theology whose primary reference point was the contemporary academy and its profound nervousness about the very idea of 'truth' " (p. 79). That outdated reference point is what makes Rahner's focus seem so irrelevant to many of us today. Yet, you will still find some of the aging masters of Catholic Lite trying to pass on the desultory heritage of Rahner. Fortunately, the work of Hans Urs von Balthasar, which is quintessentially focused on obedience to the gift of revelation, has come into its own.

Weigel's critique of liberal Catholicism is devastating and rings true. It is penned by someone who was there. Years ago, Harry Truman's Secretary of State Dean Acheson wrote a book about his career in helping to found NATO and establish the historic and ultimately victorious policy of containment in the forties, a book which he entitled Present at the Creation. Well, Weigel was, as a student, present at the creation of the now comatose progressive distortion of Catholicism. Weigel has written a needed and insightful book for younger Catholics following in his footsteps in the adventure of orthodoxy. That he has written it is an expression of genuine charity for the rising generations.

Next Major Update: Monday, April 26, 2004

The next major update will be on Monday, April 26, 2004.

The American Catholic "Establishment"

In England there has been an Anglican Establishment since the martyrdom of St. Thomas More on July 6, 1535. In that same year John Cardinal Fisher, now St. John Fisher, was also executed by Henry VIII for opposing Henry's usurpation of the pope's role as head of the Church in England. Henry VIII--the corpulent, excessive, lustful, gluttonous emblem of raw power--had his way and imposed his own view of the Church through execution and intimidation. Both More and Fisher died to defend the principle that the only earthly head of the Church was the Bishop of Rome. Surely, they would have also been willing to die defending the Church's teaching on the Eucharist. Even Henry VIII did not seek to challenge that teaching.

Today in America there is an American Catholic "Establishment" that parallels the politicization of the Church accomplished by Henry VIII. The American "Establishment" has cowed most of the bishops in the United States into silence on the issue of Catholic political brokers advancing the agenda of abortion. It is an establishment whose major figures are well-known: Senators Edward Kennedy (who particularly reminds one of the intemperate Henry VIII), Tom Daschle, Patrick Leahy, and, of course, John Kerry, among many others. All of them claim that being Catholic is perfectly consistent with being the leading advocates for abortion in the United States. Just as Henry VIII challenged a central belief of the Church, so these men are challenging a central belief of the Church. Yet, the situation is worse because the modern American Catholic establishment is arguably challenging a belief even more central to the Church's identity than that of the Petrine supremacy. That central belief is the teaching that those advocating and cooperating with grave sin are not worthy to receive the Eucharist. It is an intertwined, simultaneous attack on the teaching against abortion and on Eucharistic theology. It is an attack on the jugular because the Church is the Church of the Eucharist, as noted in the title of John Paul's most recent encyclical. In Catholic belief, authentic Eucharistic faith and practice are the sine qua non of a genuine church. The centrality of the Eucharist can be seen in the fact that the Catholic Church recognizes Eastern Orthodox churches as true particular churches because they have preserved authentic Eucharistic faith and practice, even though they reject papal authority.

St. John Fisher was the only English bishop to stand up to Henry VIII. Today, to my knowledge, only two bishops in the United States have openly stated the obvious. To use the lucid and inspired words of Cardinal Arinze, "If the person should not receive it, then it should not be given." Archbishop Burke of St. Louis and Bishop Bruskewitz of Lincoln, Nebraska, have become the John Fishers of the American episcopate. It is time for their brothers to follow their lead. Cardinal McCarrick of Washington, D.C., who heads the bishops' task force on this issue, runs the risk of playing the role of the new Cranmer, the cleric who helped to consolidate the political control of the Church in England. History will play out, and roles will be inevitably assigned. History will judge, but we know Who will be the real judge of the heart and mind.

The American Catholic Establishment has thus far successfully cowed, with its raw political and financial power and influence (and with the shadow of the mythic Kennedy aura), most of the bishops in the United States into paralysis on the political trivialization of the Eucharist. That is why we can call the pro-abortion politicians as a group an "establishment"--this group exerts real, though illegitimate, power over the bishops. And so it is highly ironic that Kennedy, Kerry, and the other pillars of this modern-day religious establishment complain about religious interference with politics when the exact opposite is true: they are the ones who are in continual and aggressive interference against central theological tenets of the Church. It is time for the Church in the United States to "disestablish" itself from the new Henry VIIIs of our time. It is time for true religious freedom so that the Church can be the Church. It is time to stop the political interference of the pro-abortion political establishment in the teaching and sacramental life of the Church.

Kerry and Kissling Cry That Religion Should Not Be Election Issue

Pro-abortion stalwarts John Kerry and Frances Kissling, President of the misnamed "Catholics for Choice," are upset that Cardinal Arinze has spoken in defense of the Eucharist (see extraordinary Associated Press report). They claim that religion should not be an election issue. The cardinal is not concerned about the election. He is concerned about the Most Blessed Sacrament and its defense. If Kerry does not want this issue to come up, then he can do the honorable thing and stop receiving the Eucharist until such time that he can bring himself to disavow his pro-abortion crusade. Kerry has it in his hands to defuse the issue concerning the Eucharist by taking responsibility for his views instead of trying to have things both ways. You can't receive the Eucharist and support abortion. In politics, taking contradictory positions is considered normal, especially in Kerry's case. The problem is that it doesn't work that way in Catholicism. It is Kerry who is mixing religion and politics by trying to make Catholicism bend to his political position on abortion.

Kissling remarks in disbelief that if the Church refuses the Eucharist to Kerry, the Church must do likewise with numerous other politicians, including the grand, red-faced Old Plutocrat himself, Edward Kennedy. She's right on that narrow point: the Church must disassociate herself strongly from the powerful purveyors of sacrilege, including Kennedy. This can be the Church's finest moment in American history when, in the tradition of Saints Thomas á Becket and Thomas More, she refuses to succumb to the embraces of the powerful. Archbishop O' Malley of Boston has correctly gotten rid of the old episcopal palace in the suburbs of Boston. It is time for him to disentangle the Church from the corrupting embraces of the likes of Kennedy and Kerry. And let the chips fall where they may.

Cardinal Arinze: No Communion for Pro-Abortion Politicians

In a blockbuster, plainspoken statement, Cardinal Francis Arinze of Nigeria, who is the head of the Vatican department or "congregation" overseeing the sacraments and liturgy, has bluntly stated that pro-abortion politicians should not be given the Eucharist:

Cardinal Francis Arinze, the top Vatican cardinal in charge of the sacraments, was asked at a news conference whether priests should refuse communion to a politician who is unambiguously pro-abortion.

"Yes," he replied. "If the person should not receive it, then it should not be given. Objectively, the answer is there."

See Reuters news report, April 23, 2004, "Cardinal: No Communion for Pro-Abortion Politician."

Note that Cardinal Arinze is referring to priests. Thus, priests already have their marching orders straight from Rome, but the reality is that the bishops must get in line with Arinze's common sense analysis. Archbishop O'Malley of Boston has already gone on record as stating publicly that no pro-abortion politician should "dare" present himself or herself for Communion (see N.Y. Times link in Catholic Analysis post for April 12, 2004). Cardinal Arinze has made the obvious inference from the premise stated by O'Malley: "If the person should not receive it, then it should not be given."

News reports have contained lame excuses by some clerics that they are in no position to know who should be denied the Eucharist. That is nonsense. We are not talking about the average, anonymous parishioner. We are talking about prominent politicians who have been the leading crusaders for abortion for years in this country: Kerry, Kennedy, Daschle, Leahy, and others. This list includes on the state level Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm who has even acted as an extraordinary Eucharistic minister! They are well-educated, well-known individuals who are constantly being interviewed by the media. They do not hesitate to take the lead in pushing to protect and perpetuate the current legal regime of abortion in this country. They are accomplices to the abortion-on-demand mentality that is flourishing. They have added to that grave sin the grave sin of scandal whereby they are in effect teaching others that the Catholic faith is reconcilable with abortion. They are false teachers usurping the role of the bishops to preserve authentic and unchangeable Catholic teaching. (And note that this list of politicians would also include California's new Republican Governor Schwarzenegger who is also pro-abortion, although, unlike many of the Democracts like Kerry, he does oppose partial birth abortion.)

The Church has the obligation to speak the truth in season and out of season and to make clear that the bishops, not politicians, are the authentic teachers of the Catholic faith. And, certainly, the Church has the obligation to protect the Eucharist to the point of martyrdom, if necessary. American bishops are being called to be martyrs to the politically correct media. That is a small price to pay to protect the Eucharist and to be able to face our Savior with a clear conscience at the last judgment.

Archbishop O'Malley has done wonderful and long overdue things in a long-corrupt Boston archdiocese. He has one more thing to do for Boston and for all of us. And it may be the greatest thing he will ever do. Here is the link to contact the Archdiocese of Boston to encourage Archbishop O'Malley to do the right thing: Archdiocese of Boston Contact Form . As to Arinze, the hand of God is upon him. No one would be suprised in the least if he should become a successor of Peter.

Update: Arinze's comments discussed above came in the context of a news conference concerning the issuance today of the Vatican document on abuses in the celebration of the Eucharist. This document, Redemptionis Sacramentum ("Sacrament of Redemption") is available in full at the Vatican web site under the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. The document reiterates the teaching that those conscious of grave sin should not present themselves for the Eucharist. Interestingly, the document states as follows concerning lay persons called to assist in liturgical celebrations:

The lay Christian faithful called to give assistance at liturgical celebrations should be well instructed and must be those whose Christian life, morals and fidelity to the Church’s Magisterium recommend them. It is fitting that such a one should have received a liturgical formation in accordance with his or her age, condition, state of life, and religious culture.[117] No one should be selected whose designation could cause consternation for the faithful.[118]

Redemptionis Sacramentum, Section 46 (emphasis added).

Obviously, Michigan's pro-abortion governor, Jennifer Granholm, should no longer be allowed to act as an extraordinary minister of Holy Communion. Other interesting parts of the document encourage the lay faithful to bring liturgical abuses to the attention of bishops and of the Vatican (sections 183-84). In fact, it appears from comments made at the news conference that those complaints are what led to the issuance of this very document in the first place.

A Passing Generation

The "Baby Boom" generation is usually said to encompass those born from about 1946 to about 1964, a period of about 20 years. I myself fall at the very edge of the 1964 boundary. What can we say about a generation that, like all generations, includes so many diverse and disparate individuals and situations? We can say things about significant parts of a generation, although what we say about a part will not apply to other parts. In my view, a significant part of the "Baby Boom" generation has what I call the sixties/seventies mentality. I am particularly concerned with that mentality as expressed in American Catholic circles, especially universities and seminaries that play such an influential role. (For this particular analysis, I would also include in the baby boom generation those born in the late thirties and early forties. Cultural observations should override strict and arbitrary statistical boundaries in a cultural analysis.)

The sixties/seventies mentality is marked by a rejection of the concept of personal sin. In place of personal sin, there is an implicit or explicit embrace of an extreme version of a person's "fundamental option." In this extreme version, the fundamental option of faith made by a person virtually excludes the possibility of mortal sin. So it is no surprise that one result has been the decline in the use of the sacrament of penance that is the ordinary means of seeking forgiveness for mortal sins. It is also not suprising that there is a hostility toward kneeling in the liturgy which is mistakenly viewed as too morbid or penitential. I submit that the wholesale removal of kneelers from churches had much to do with this rejection of the need for penance.

History gives us a way to nail down what is going on with this extreme version of the "fundamental option" point of view. It is nothing more than Luther's discredited ghost revisiting the modern American Catholic Church. The Lutheran view was that we are justified by faith alone apart from the life of charity and hope expressed in good works. The Catholic view brilliantly articulated at the Council of Trent was that justification is a process involving faith plus a life of active charity and hope expressed in good works by which justification is itself increased and by which our merit through the grace of Christ really exists and can grow. Trent also taught, in contrast to Protestantism, that we can lose justification by mortal sin and that the sacrament of penance is necessary to restore us to the justification lost by mortal sin.

The liberal "Baby Boom" Catholic is crypto-Lutheran in the original historic sense. In actual fact, some present-day Lutherans are probably closer to the Catholic view of justification than the pioneer Lutherans of Luther's time. Ironically, the liberal Catholic baby boomers seem stuck in the original, outdated, and extreme views of Martin Luther himself. In place of the term "justification," they use "fundamental option." Like Luther, they emphasize faith alone to the detriment of personal virtue and avoiding personal sin. They de-emphasize the need to observe the commandments as too legalistic, and so the sacrament of penance is demoted and virtually abandoned, especially in the form requiring individual confession.

The result is antinomianism-- a fancy word for those who believe that Christians are free from the moral law. In some of his more extreme outbursts, Luther himself urged Christians to "sin boldly" because all depended on faith alone. Well, the message given in the seventies by the "fundamental option" adherents was for all practical purposes the same. Even today, some in the Church are quite hesitant to advise unmarried couples living together that they are living in a state of mortal sin, even when such couples are preparing to receive the sacrament of matrimony. Even if such couples are advised to go to confession prior to the marriage, what are they going to confess? The obvious mortal sin of their current lifestyle? If they have not been frankly told that they are living in mortal sin, then it is unlikely that they will bring this mortal sin to the confessional. Silence on this particular pastoral issue will understandably be interpreted as a nod and a wink at the conventional realities of the times. And so this particular issue is an example of how the crypto-Lutheran fundamental option still wreaks havoc even today at the grassroots of Catholic life.

The good news is that this significant but destructive portion of the baby boom generation is beginning to pass away. The retirements, the discreet transfers to less prominent positions, and even the obituaries are growing. And many in the newer generations, in seminaries, universities, and parishes, and even some of us baby boomers have learned the historical lesson from the pastoral disasters of the recent past. The change is coming.

More from The Threefold Garland

This commentary is one more in a series that highlights various insights in Hans Urs von Balthasar's short work on the rosary, The Threefold Garland (Ignatius Press, 1982). Needless to say, it is a book I highly recommend. Balthasar is poetry but more than poetry. It is a poetry not about sentiment or fantasy or imagination. It is the poetry of what is most real. Past commentaries have discussed his insights about the Passion of Christ (4/13/04), about the Eucharist (4/14/04), and about the Resurrection and Mary (4/20/04). Today the subject is the language of prayer.

We wonder about prayer. If God knows all, why do we need to pray and tell him about our needs? If God is all-powerful and merciful, why is prayer needed to ask for his favor? When we pray for others, why does God listen? Pages have been written on all of these sorts of questions. Even if we cannot really plumb the mysteries raised by these questions, we do know one thing for certain: Jesus, the God-Man, commands us to pray.

Balthasar ties prayer to mission, a central concept in his theological work. The Son is on a mission sent by the Father. In fact, in the Son, person and mission coincide. Likewise, we are apostles on a mission. Another hallmark of Balthasar's writing is the ever-present Trinitarian context. Balthasar begins his discussion of prayer by noting how the language of prayer is decidedly different from our everyday language:

[E]ach of our prayers should be made in the Spirit who is a Spirit between Father and Son, between the Son become man, whom we know, and the invisible Father, to whom the Son has always referred us. . . . [I]n order to be transformed into authentic prayer, worldly concerns must expressly be transferred into this space. It is not difficult to imagine whether a petition which I present to the Father is conceivable on the lips of the Son. If it is, then this petition will never have a merely private but always an ecclesial character. That prayer would not revolve around an isolated subject, but around one who, as a member of the Church who lives in and for an ecclesial mission, is praying for the necessary grace to fulfill it: for purity and courage, for clarity and trust, for understanding and selflessness-- for everything needed by a person who, through his life and example, would like to be an apostle of Christ.

Balthasar, pp. 122-23 (emphasis added).

The Son was always conscious of his mission and so prayed. His most striking prayer in the Gospels is that of Gethsemane. Likewise, if we are on a mission, all our prayers must ultimately be oriented to that mission. And so petitions about health refer to the carrying out of our mission. Petitons on behalf of others are themselves part of our mission and enable others to pursue their own mission. Prayers for guidance on how to deal with certain situations and persons seek what is best for the common mission of all concerned. Everything radiates from the mission proposed for us by Christ.

This "spirit of mission" is simply expressed:

In the apostolate, therefore, what is imperative is not at all to learn certain catechism truths by heart and then recite them back at people, nor to devise all on one's own a language which one thinks must be understood by the other. The essential thing, rather, is to live, to think and to speak from the wellspring of the triune life. To be sure, understanding belongs to the gifts of the Holy Spirit, but this is an understanding in God which, as with Christ or Paul, can often enough appear to be human foolishness. Neither the Lord nor his apostle veils or thins down the divine truth the better to communicate it. There is a human defenselessness which appeals to the unarmored heart of one's fellow man and gains admittance to it if this heart is willing.

Balthasar, p. 124 (original emphasis).

And so our lives become prayers in action, using the same unveiled language we use in private prayer. We are not on a mission to express our theology or our own spiritual wisdom. We are on a mission to express what has been revealed to the Church. And so we do not hesitate to use the language of the Church even when we ourselves may not fully understand it but yet seek to live by it. Much of the problem faced by the Church in our own country arises from too many seeking to communicate their own novelties instead of the deposit of faith. Balthasar was certainly an innovative and great theologian, but for him the apostolic mission always took priority over his writings, and, surprisingly for one so erudite, many of his writings are of a straightforward devotional style that is aimed at audiences well beyond the theologically sophisticated. But even in his most abstruse theological writings the mission was paramount because for him theology had to be a kneeling or praying theology bowing before divine revelation. So it was not difficult to translate the more technical language of some of his works into the straightforward language found in The Threefold Garland. All the words shared the same mission.

Cheney Reaffirms Opposition to Abortion

CNN reports on a speech by Vice-President Cheney reaffirming the Bush administration's pro-life stance. See CNN Report.

CNN also notes the position of John Kerry:

Bush's Democratic rival, Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, voted against the partial-birth ban and said he would nominate only Supreme Court justices who support abortion rights.

See CNN link above (emphasis added).

Kerry will nominate only pro-abortion justices to the Supreme Court. For Catholics, it is evidence that demands a verdict.

Easter Meditation: Our Resurrection

We are beginning the fifty days of Easter that will end with the feast of Pentecost. It is an apt time to reflect on the future Christ promises us if we take up our cross and if we imitate his divine mercy. Mary cannot be separated from any such reflection. In fact, we invoke her so that we may enter into that new life.

Unlike the sinner, Mary experienced death as something that no longer had the character of "something forcibly imposed" (Balthasar, The Threefold Garland [Ignatius Press, 1982], p. 131). As Balthasar notes, the taking of her earthly life is "only the final form of her letting God do as he will: 'Be it done to me according to your word' " (p. 131). And so in the Hail Mary prayer, we explicitly invoke Mary to pray for us at the hour of our death:

This is why it is fitting to call upon our Mother precisely at the decisive hour of crossing: "now and at the hour of our death". Starting with her first word of assent, she daily died for God and into God; she practiced the act of self-surrender so often that she became the Great Expert in Christian living, so to speak. . . . And when with our last breath we perhaps breathe our last prayer, she will see our poverty, and repeat the word which she uttered in Cana: "They have no more wine." And to the servants who accompany us on our passage-- the angels --she will say: "Do everything he tells you."

Balthasar, p. 131.

So when we say the Hail Mary here on earth we are rehearsing that final decisive moment so that, when it comes in whatever way and at whatever time God chooses it to come, it will already be a familiar moment, not a terrible surprise.

And so the ever-present anxiety about aging, health, and death that lurks everywhere in our culture is defeated. In a way, the mystery of the Resurrection has already begun for Christians while still living on earth and waiting to be crowned with our bodily resurrection into eternal life at the end of time:

If we learn to die from her who learned to die in the manner of her Son, then we need not be worried about what will become of our human totality after our death. It will be God's business that we reach him not as mere halves of ourselves, but as whole persons. With Christ and with Mary the created world has already been taken up into the transformation and transfiguration, and the Last Day has already begun. . . . We cannot, of course, plumb the mystery of our bodily resurrection; it is quite enough for us to know that the heavenly City--Christ, Head and Body, Christ, Bridegroom and Bride--will be there corporeally when we make our crossing to take us up into itself.

Balthasar, pp. 131-32 (emphasis added).

And when we make that crossing, we will still be concerned with the remaking of this present world through the communion of saints:

And just as this Christ in heaven is, at the same time, the Christ who distributes himself eucharistically on earth and thus builds up the earthly Church, so even our heavenly joy will in part consist in our working with Christ in the perfecting of our earthly brothers and in our being connecting links between earth and heaven.

Balthasar, p. 132.

So that eternal life overcomes the barriers of historical time and is continuous with the Christian life here on earth. Yet its delight is beyond our comprehension because in heaven we will participate in the "infinite freedom" of God which means that "heaven will be the opposite of boredom" (p. 138). In Balthasar's words, "[f]or all eternity God will remain a mystery, and we will not ever exhaust the full depth of grace whereby each of us is permitted to participate in this mystery . . . ." (pp. 138-39). And so we will continue to pray the Hail Mary in some form even in eternal life in a "blessed cycle whereby God is always greeting us anew as his children and we are endlessly sending up to him a grateful sacrifice of praise" as modelled by the Annunciation (p. 139).

Why Some Don't Like Gibson's Passion Movie

Those who don't like the Gibson film The Passion of The Christ have reasons as different as you can expect from the inherent diversity of individuals and their backgrounds. In one recent media exercise in wildly misrepresenting Catholic teaching on several points, two liberal Catholics, Chris Matthews of MSNBC and his guest Andrew Greeley, both agreed that they did not like the film. As I recall, Matthews offered that the movie failed to present all of Jesus' teachings, including the "Temple on the Mount." That slip of the tongue is emblematic of the problem: a graduate of a so-called elite northeastern Catholic college, Holy Cross College, whose vehemence and bombast outrun his knowledge. At greater fault is the Rev. Andrew Greeley who falsely stated, for all practical purposes, that opposition to the death penalty is as central to Catholic teaching as opposition to abortion. One comforting factor is that Greeley, a pillar of watered-down Catholicism, is well advanced in years. With the studio makeup on, he already looked embalmed--a fitting image for his failed and out-of-date disfigurement of Catholicism. As I recall, Greeley's comment on the movie focused on the allegedly excessive violence.

Now, I can't read the minds of Matthews and Greeley or others who voice similar negative opinions of the movie. But I am not alone. From the superficial comments made on the air, it appears that neither Matthews himself nor Greeley himself has really read his own mind and confronted the real reasons for disliking the movie. Taking my cue from the cultural ambience of "liberal" Catholicism, I submit some probing reasons that seem more likely than not to be behind these negative reactions to the film.

I go back to someone neither man probably has much time for nowadays: Thomas Aquinas. Thomas considers the question of "Whether There Was Any More Suitable Way of Delivering the Human Race Than by Christ's Passion?" I can imagine that the liberal Catholic would agree that there could have been a less "violent" and "sadistic" way that could have been suitably designed by a diverse and inclusive task force.

But back to the main issue. Thomas offers various reasons, but I focus on one: by Christ's Passion, "man is all the more bound to refrain from sin, according to 1 Cor. vi. 20: Your are bought with a great price: glorify and bear God in your body (Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Pt. III, Q. 46, Art. 3 [4th reason for suitability of Passion; original emphasis]).

One of the categories of sin obviously excluded if we glorify God in our bodies involves violations of chastity. And that is exactly what troubles the liberal Catholic. Matthews opined on the air that Catholicism had a dysfunctional emphasis--he used the typically exaggerated "Jansenist" label and cliche to make this overwrought charge-- on sexual matters as opposed to matters such as the Iraq war or the death penalty. For Matthews, opposition to abortion is the result of an exaggerated focus on matters of sexuality and reproduction. Well, he is wrong: the abortion issue is about personhood. Is the unborn child or partially born child a human person who has a right to life? The question answers itself. (Yet, in fairness to Matthews, he at least did challenge Greeley on the idea that reversing Roe v. Wade would lead to "civic chaos." Greeley, in Roman collar, obviously signalled that he opposed reversing that decision. Matthews, in an unfortunately uncommon display of common sense, asked what would be so wrong with letting the states decide the issue of abortion. Greeley was not responsive to that question.)

But Matthews' distortion and stereotype of Catholic teaching on sexuality point to the liberal problem with the Gibson film: this much suffering and violence for our sake by a loving God surely calls us to respond by glorifying God with our own bodies--and that response includes the dreaded practice of chastity. Chastity involves a constant spiritual and intellectual battle marked with advances and retreats, victories and defeats. But the Passion calls us to that daily battle. The liberal mentality is uncomfortable with the call to battle. It sees no need to enter the battle.

But, as usual, Aquinas offers more. Thomas also considers the question of "Whether Christ's Body Ought to Have Risen with Its Scars?" One of Thomas' reasons will surely clash with the monochrome liberal, sensitive, nicer-than-nice Jesus concocted by the liberal imagination--although Greeley, to his credit, did admit that Jesus was too complex a figure even for his novelistic prowess. In response to the question, Thomas states that the scars on the glorified body of the risen Christ are in part appropriate so that "in the Judgment-day He may upbraid them [the damned] with their just condemnation" (Aquinas, Pt. III, Q. 54, Art. 4 [citing Bede; original emphasis]). The terrible news for those revising Catholic teaching is that the risen Christ is a judge, not just a judge but surely a judge. And the scars are a challenge to us because sacrificial love is a challenge to us. That is why the scars are uncomfortable for some and why Gibson's depiction of how those scars were savagely inflicted causes great discomfort in certain circles.

Update: The transcript of the interview is now available at MSNBC (see Hardball Transcript, April 16, 2004). Matthews' odd reference to the "Temple on the Mount" is transcribed as "the Temple and the Mount"-- I guess the transcriber couldn't make sense of the comment either.

Next Major Update: Monday, April 19, 2004

Due to events surrounding the celebration of Divine Mercy Sunday, the next major update will be on Monday, April 19, 2004.

Divine Mercy Sunday

Tomorrow is again Divine Mercy Sunday. There are many sources from which to learn the details of the appearance of Christ to St. Faustina in Poland. These same sources will give details on the indulgence available to those who participate in the Divine Mercy devotion. One good link for frequently asked questions is sponsored by the Marians of the Immaculate Conception. But in this essay I wish to do something different.

The image of the Divine Mercy is an image of the Risen Christ. Yet it calls us back to the Cross. Emerging from the heart of the Risen Christ are red and white rays standing for the blood and water that flowed from the side of Christ on the Cross. That is the blood and water that purifies us. That purification is the gift of God's mercy. It is indeed fitting that John Paul II has chosen the second Sunday after Easter as Divine Mercy Sunday because the Risen Christ is not just to be commemorated on Easter Sunday: He is to be encountered today and everyday. He is as active today as He was in ancient Palestine. He is the same Christ who died on the Cross, but He is now risen.

The Risen Christ offers mercy. Mercy is primarily for our sins, for our rejection of the God who is perfect love, truth, and beauty and the very meaning of our existence. Mercy includes the healing of sin and the psychological and emotional roots of sin. Christ mercifully healed on earth, and He mercifully heals today. Millions from all ages can testify to that. Mercy is also for assistance in the face of suffering, both spiritual and physical, for our trials, challenges, and daily crosses. Mercy encompasses every aspect of our lives.

So when you think of Divine Mercy, it is not paramount to study the historical details of the rise of this great devotion in the Poland of the nineteen thirties. What is paramount is to behold and respond to the image of the Risen Christ, the same Christ from whom issued blood and water. That blood and water is our health and our medicine. The Risen Christ is actively waiting to encounter you with that medicine on Divine Mercy Sunday and on every day. Christ is still striding through the world, and He is still mercifully healing us. He extends his arms to all people, Catholic or non-Catholic. In fact, Fr. Benedict Groeschel loves to tell how the humble storefront evangelical churches in the poor neighborhoods of New York proudly display the Divine Mercy image, although they are oblivious to its origins in Catholic Poland. Divine Mercy is the message of Easter for all people.

A Detroit Good Friday

On Good Friday evening, there was a big traffic jam in parts of suburban Detroit-- and these cars weren't trying to get out of town for a holiday weekend. They were going to church. Southeastern Michigan is known as having a large Middle Eastern population, but what is less well-known is that a big chunk of it--and a highly successful part I may add--is Christian. Among Chaldean Rite Catholics, Good Friday observances include men carrying on their shoulders a reclining statue of the body of Jesus lying on a bier, through a crowded church, accompanied by lamentations in the ancient Aramaic dialect used in some form by Jesus himself. As the statue is carried around the church, the mourners strain to touch the statue. Finally, the bier with the statue is laid at the front of the church and a long line of people stretching out of the church approaches to venerate the statue of the dead Jesus and make an offering. After venerating the statue with a touch or kiss, the mourners drink a tiny cup of vinegar in an echo from John's account of the Passion (Jn 19:28-30).

For a Latin rite Catholic like myself, it is very much like attending a real funeral on Good Friday and thus a fitting liturgical exercise. All generations are present, from oblivious babies in carriages to older children to the elderly women wrapped in shawls or mantillas. It is a ritual that attracts both the practicing Chaldean Catholic and those who rarely go to church. It is, if the size of the crowds is any indication, a bedrock of the Chaldean Catholic identity.

And so, in addition, to uniting the participants with the events of Good Friday, the whole scenario reinforces the vital importance of ritual for us humans. In a sea of Moslem hostility, denigration, and sometimes violence back in the old country, this group of Middle Eastern Christians has survived. I believe their survival is due in no small part to the stubborn persistence of ritual. Ritual is objectivity in repetition. It is a cycle. We know it will always be there. And we know where and when. Even if we are at certain times in our lives emotionally distant from the Church or even the faith, the ritual events are there waiting for us and calling us. Like God, these rituals do not depend on our feelings or moods. They speak truth which is independent of our emotional ups and downs. Through ritual, God calls us always and is available always at a place and time that is familiar. We can always come back home, and at those times when we are in a period of dryness in our faith we can keep in touch in hope with our true home.

Ritual has preserved the identity of our elder brothers the Jewish people through centuries of discrimination, persecution, and holocaust. Ritual has preserved the ancient Christianity of the Middle East long enough to be transplanted to our shores. Ritual is a sign that God is always faithful even when we are not. So it is not surprising that in our modern secular society that views belief in God as a mere option or convenience to be summoned up at our whim, ritual and its obligations are so absent or minimized. The true Catholic, East and West, knows better.

Protest Hits Home

Indications are beginning to emerge that the outcry against Kerry and the Eucharist is hitting home. The arguments directly from Church teaching and from recent pronouncements by the Pope and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, plus the bold stand of Archbishop Burke of St. Louis and others, can't be ignored. Reliable theologically liberal voices like Prof. Drinan of Georgetown Law School and Ladislas Orsy have already risen to defend Kerry (see Bettnet.com for April 2, 2004 and CBS News story for April 6, 2004). Today, the Boston Globe has a columnist bewailing what she calls the "media frenzy" over Kerry and the Eucharist (Ellen Goodman, "Putting Kerry on the 'wafer watch,' " April 15, 2004, Op-Ed section). But when you read the column closely you see a complete absence of substance and a complete lack of engagement with the arguments made against Kerry. There is no wrestling with the relevant Church documents. Instead, there is an exasperation that the debate is even taking place. The Boston Globe columnist quotes the leader of "Catholics for Free Choice"-- an organization that the U.S. Bishops have labelled as non-Catholic-- bemoaning any questioning of Kerry and the Eucharist. The message seems to be: how can you keep pro-abortion people from the Eucharist since so many of us are pro-abortion?

The leader of "Catholics for Free Choice" even raises the specter that a strong stand against pro-abortion Catholics receiving the Eucharist will empty the churches. Of course, all of this is beside the point and an attempt to evade the clear issue: a prominent public figure openly claims that his extreme support for abortion is fully consistent with the Catholic faith. The result is desecration of the Eucharist and scandal. The prominent public figure persists in this theological attack on the Church. Does the Church roll over, or defend the faith? It is absolutely not a matter of the Church interfering in politics. It is an issue of a politician recklessly disrupting and attacking the sacramental discipline of the Church and the divinely revealed teaching that the direct killing of innocent human life is gravely immoral.

By taking a firm stand in defense of the Eucharist, the Church does what is best for Kerry and for others who are similarly confused. Kerry is the focus because of his leading role as an abortion extremist and his provocative public statements about Catholic teaching. The issue has been created by Kerry. The Church has no choice but to respond to defend herself and the deposit of faith.

As to emptying churches, the best alternative for Kerry and others similarly situated is to stay in the pew and pray rather than desecrate the Eucharist and bring condemnation on themselves and scandal to others. If they choose to stay home, in my opinion, that certainly seems better than desecrating the Eucharist. Honestly recognizing that you are not in full communion with the Catholic Church is surely better for everyone concerned than desecrating the Eucharist. Sometimes leaving is necessary before you can come back home. It worked for the prodigal son. And Kerry and others in the same situation will be eagerly welcomed back with open arms once they have changed as the prodigal son changed. The goal is not to merely count noses, but to count Catholics.

Update: The Associated Press reports today that Kerry has met privately with Cardinal McCarrick of Washington, D.C. The report says that Kerry requested the meeting. The meeting signals that Kerry is concerned about potential sanctions. Since most of us lack the prominence to get a private meeting with Cardinal McCarrick, this meeting should prompt many of us to communicate our views to the Cardinal by e-mail (chancery@adw.org). Readers should also take a long look at Fr. Rob Johansen's post for today, April 15th, in which he aptly describes the current situation. His links to a recent Fox news story and to an extremely disturbing Catholic World News story are well worth the time. In addition, it is clear from the Fox news story that the U.S. Bishops' Conference needs a new spokesperson. A certain Mary Ann Walsh speaking for the bishops has come out and effectively put the abortion issue on the same level as other election issues. That is a gross misrepresentation of Catholic teaching, to put it mildly. Is it too much to insist that a spokesperson for the Catholic Bishops' Conference be familiar with Catholic teaching on a particular issue before she addresses that issue? She needs to find a new job.

Eucharist: Spirit and Flesh

In chapter 6 of John's Gospel, we have the famous "Bread of Life" sermon by Jesus (Jn 6:22-66). Since the time of the Protestant Reformation, this passage has been at the center of disputes about the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. The conflict has not only been between Catholics and Protestants, but even among Protestants themselves. Luther held to some sort of real presence in the Eucharist (termed "consubstantiation") in which the body and blood of Christ "coexist" with the bread and the wine, as described in Fr. Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary. In contrast, others like Zwingli held to a purely symbolic representation of the body and blood of Christ (see, for example, the comments in a 1993 Oxford tutorial paper by Reformed Protestant philosopher Michael Sudduth contrasting Luther and Zwingli on the sacraments).

In contrast to both Luther and Zwingli, the Catholic view is that at the consecration the bread and wine become in substance the body and blood of Christ with only the outward appearances of bread and wine remaining ("transubstantiation") (see Catechism of the Catholic Church, section 1376).

Catholics point in support to the famous passage in the "Bread of Life" sermon:

Anyone who does eat my flesh and drink my blood has eternal life, and I shall raise that person on the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink.

Jn 6:54-55 (New Jerusalem Bible or NJB).

In response, Protestants holding to a symbolic representation like Zwingli point to John 6:63 (NJB):

It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh has nothing to offer. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life.

The inference made by those Protestants holding to a symbolic Eucharist is that Jesus is mitigating his statement that his flesh and blood are real food and drink. The contention is that Jesus is pointing out that he is speaking in a purely spiritual sense that has nothing to do with the "flesh." The problem is that, if this particular interpretation is true, it has Jesus saying in effect that his flesh "has nothing to offer." Going back to the beginning of John's Gospel, we have the famous affirmation that the Word "became flesh" (Jn 1:14). The result is that the symbolic interpretation lands us in a contradiction: that the Incarnation of the Word is of no avail. The belief that the Word did not really take on flesh is an age-old heresy, the heresy of Docetism which affirmed that Christ only appeared to have a body.

The Catholic interpretation is more straightforward and does not entail contradicting the Incarnation. Von Balthasar makes the key point that Jesus is referring to the Holy Spirit who is inseparable from the Eucharist:

The reception of the Spirit and of the Eucharist are two sides of the same thing. Precisely when Jesus emphasizes with greatest urgency the absolute necessity of eating his Flesh and drinking his Blood (Jn 6:53), he adds: "It is the Spirit that gives life; the flesh is of no use" (Jn 6:63). From the instant the Spirit accompanied the Son's incarnation and, in the Son, may in a way be said to have "experienced" the world, the Spirit remains forever inseparable from flesh and blood. This is why the Church assembled at Easter encounters a Spirit-filled but also corporeal Christ: he breathes his Spirit into them (Jn 20:22), but he also wants to be touched by them so that no one will think that he is "a spirit" (Lk 24:39).

Balthasar, The Threefold Garland (Ignatius Press, 1992), pp. 111-12.

The key to a Catholic understanding of the "Bread of Life" sermon is that Jesus is referring to the Holy Spirit as the source for understanding his previous scandalous words that his flesh and blood are real food and drink. This interpretation is consistent with the rest of John's teaching about the Incarnation and about the Holy Spirit (see, for example, Jn 14:26 on the Paraclete). The point is also evident in the Eucharistic liturgy at the crucial point of the epiclesis when the priest invokes the Holy Spirit who will transform the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ (Catechism, 1105). The inseparability of Holy Spirit and flesh is also evident in the infancy narratives where the Holy Spirit overshadows Mary (Mt 1:18; Lk 1:35). Thus, it is a Trinitarian perspective that makes sense of Jesus' words. That Trinitarian emphasis is a hallmark of Balthasar's theology.

In sum, the Catholic interpretation of the Eucharistic passages in John chapter 6 is faithful to the whole of Scripture and to the liturgies of both the West and the East. It is truly catholic in the sense of being true to the whole.

For Us

In a time when the impetus is to level all religions as equally effective ways to salvation, the Christian gospel stands as a great and unique contradiction. In my view, few modern theologians capture that unique Christian essence as well as the late Hans Urs von Balthasar. In his meditations on the rosary, entitled The Threefold Garland, von Balthasar provides prayerful and theologically intense essays on each of the mysteries of the rosary. Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis provides a helpful introduction in which he acquaints the English-speaking reader with the German way of praying the rosary or rosenkranz ("rose garland"):

[A]fter the name of Jesus [in the Hail Mary] a short phrase has been added that resumes [repeats] the mystery of the rosary in question. Repeating the phrase proper to each mystery midway through each Hail Mary of that mystery is a very effective way of aiding the contemplative gaze to center on the event before it. . . . [I]n every instance the phrase is a relative clause that defines the redemptive character of Jesus in some particular way.

Leiva-Merikakis, "Preface," in Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Threefold Garland (Ignatius Press, 1982), 15-16.

So in the fourth sorrowful mystery (the carrying of the Cross), Balthasar uses this phrase from the Hail Mary as the title for his meditation: "And blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus, who bore the heavy cross for us" (Balthasar, p. 91, emphasis added). The words in bold print make up the added relative clause that Leiva-Merikakis refers to.

In this mediation, Balthasar makes clear the uniqueness of Christianity in a time of "equal opportunity" religions:

This "for us" is the first and fundamental word of Christian faith, the root from which developed the entire tree of the Creed and of dogmatics. For us did Jesus become man, for us and because of our sins did he die and rise: and if he was able to do this, then from the very outset he was "truly the Son of God" (Mk 15:39). . . . It is in this that the Christian principle is radically different from all other religions and world views; it is here that its uniqueness lies. In the great religions of the East each person lives for himself and looks after himself, strives for his own liberation from the world's suffering and has his own techniques to achieve this. . . . There is, indeed, talk of compassion, but this compassion can never become transformed into an effective substitution for others.

Balthasar, pp. 91-92.

While in such religions or world views there may be sacrifice for the sake of the group or for one's convictions and a resulting example for others to imitate, the one sacrificing "cannot interiorly communicate to others his own sacrificial power" (pp. 92-93). Only Jesus surrendered everything for the sake of his enemies and did so "efficaciously for all humanity, in the name of a God who is ignored and hated, fully empowered by this God to do so" (p. 93). What made this sacrifice effective was the Incarnation "which is the prerequisite for the 'wondrous exchange' (admirabile commercium) between sin that is borne and grace that is communicated" (p. 93).

What does this "wondrous exchange" mean for us? For Balthasar,

it is indeed the only way that begins to give meaning to our whole existence. It means that the inconceivable burden of this world--everything in the world which is evil, unjust, cruel, destructive of hope--does not necessarily crush the pitiful fellow who undertakes to load it alone on his own shoulders. It means that there exists a counterweight of a wholly different order, because the weight of this defenseless, self-surrendering love is not measurable as it undertakes to remove the sin of the world by allowing its forces to be taxed to the utmost.

Balthasar, p. 94.

The burden of evil has "already been borne" by Christ who alone was able to bear it, yet we are called to "formulate the resolution to be willing to bear what is given us to bear" (pp. 94-95). This efficacious bearing of our sins by the God-Man is unique to Christianity. It is why it would be worth much to be able to see and explore the reactions of those thousands of non-Christians all over the world, whether Moslem, Buddhist, Hindu or, yes, even Jewish, when they see the bearing of that burden by the Incarnate God through Gibson's film.

Time to Speak Out

Over the weekend, various news reports made it clear that there is a split in the Catholic Church in the United States. On the one hand, there are the apparent majority of bishops who take a passive approach to protecting the Eucharist. On the other hand, there are those bishops such as Archbishop Burke of Saint Louis who take a proactive approach to protecting the Eucharist. Cardinal McCarrick of Washington, D.C., places himself in the passive camp:

"I think there are many of us who would feel that there are certain restrictions that we might put on people, that there are certain sanctions that we may put on people," McCarrick said on "Fox News Sunday." "But I think many of us would not like to use the Eucharist as part of the sanctions."

"Kerry Marks Easter With Communion at Catholic Mass," by Patricia Wilson, Reuters (April 11, 2004).

Cardinal McCarrick is heading a task force of U.S. Bishops considering how to deal with pro-abortion Catholic politicians. It is not clear what restrictions the cardinal is referring to. But his comments put him squarely in the passive camp reluctant to use the power that bishops already have and are morally obligated to use to protect the Eucharist. The New York Times report on the same story also characterizes McCarrick as reluctant to bar Kerry from the Eucharist (see "Kerry Ignores Reproaches of Some Bishops," by Katharine Q. Seelye, N.Y. Times, April 11, 2004, free reg'n required).

McCarrick frames the issue exactly backwards. From his public comments, it appears that he views the issue as one of what the Church will do to Kerry. The more accurate way to frame the issue is to focus on what Kerry is doing to the Eucharist and therefore to the Church. Kerry would have the public believe that any efforts to bar him from receiving the Eucharist are a form of political interference by the Church. In fact, the exact opposite is true. Kerry's continued reception of the Eucharist is a politically and theologically aggressive attack on the faith of the Church. The Church must defend the Eucharist and the faith, and let the chips fall where they may. The Church should be oblivious of the political or media consequences of defending the Eucharist. The Church should do the right thing to keep order in the household of faith, and leave the social and political ramifications in the hands of Providence. Yet, McCarrick seems to accept the Kerry outlook that it is the Church that is overstepping her bounds by protecting the Eucharist. In fact, it is Kerry who is aggressively flouting the prerogatives of the bishops by challenging them to protect the Eucharist. Kerry is betting that most of the bishops will lack the spine to perform their mission. He might be proven right if past experience and McCarrick's media comments are good predictors.

Yet, such cowardly behavior would be a betrayal of the specific mission of the pastors of the Church:

The safeguarding and promotion of ecclesial communion is a task of each member of the faithful, who finds in the Eucharist, as the sacrament of the Church's unity, an area of special concern. More specifically, this task is the particular responsibility of the Church's Pastors, each according to his rank and ecclesiastical office.

John Paul II, Encyclical Ecclesia de Eucharistia (2003), 42 (emphasis added).

Moreover, the same Encyclical makes clear that what Kerry is doing is intolerable:

The judgment of one's state of grace obviously belongs only to the person involved, since it is a question of examining one's conscience. However, in cases of outward conduct which is seriously, clearly and steadfastly contrary to the moral norm, the Church, in her pastoral concern for the good order of the community and out of respect for the sacrament, cannot fail to feel directly involved. The Code of Canon Law refers to this situation of a manifest lack of proper moral disposition when it states that those who “obstinately persist in manifest grave sin” are not to be admitted to Eucharistic communion.

Ecclesia de Eucharistia, 37 (emphasis added).

By his public political support for abortion, Kerry has freely chosen to "obstinately persist in manifest grave sin." That fact has already been affirmed by Kerry's own bishop, Archbishop O'Malley of Boston, who has publicly labelled Kerry's conduct as disqualifying him for Communion:

The head of Kerry's Boston diocese, Archbishop Sean O'Malley, has suggested that Catholic elected officials -- without mentioning any by name -- who support abortion rights should abstain voluntarily from Communion, but has not asked priests to stop offering it.

See Reuters news report by Patricia Wilson above.

The Boston archbishop has publicly made the appropriate finding of fact as to the situation freely and persistently created by Kerry. For the "good order of the community and out of respect for the sacrament," priests and bishops must now act forcefully. It is not the judgment of this writer and of other like-minded Catholics that they must fear, but the judgment of the Risen Christ who is the definitive judge of all of us. To whom much responsibility has been given, much will be demanded. The pastors of the Church are on the spot. If you wish to communicate your views to Theodore Cardinal McCarrick of Washington, D.C., here is the appropriate e-mail address (chancery@adw.org) for your use.

Update: The Boston Globe's coverage of Kerry's Easter worship is evidence of the de facto division within the Catholic Church in the United States--a division between those Catholic liberals who reject the non-negotiability of the divinely revealed teaching against abortion and faithful Catholics who accept the divinely revealed teaching against the direct killing of the innocent. The Globe reporter notes that the liberal Paulist parish that Kerry attends appears to have banished kneeling from its Catholic liturgy and so Cardinal Ratzinger's prediction comes true: a liturgy without kneeling becomes dysfunctional. Here are Ratzinger's own words:

It may well be that kneeling is alien to modern culture -- insofar as it is a culture, for this culture has turned away from the faith and no longer knows the one before whom kneeling is the right, indeed the intrinsically necessary gesture. The man who learns to believe learns also to kneel, and a faith or a liturgy no longer familiar with kneeling would be sick at the core. Where it has been lost, kneeling must be rediscovered, so that, in our prayer, we remain in fellowship with the apostles and martyrs, in fellowship with the whole cosmos, indeed in union with Jesus Christ Himself.

See Adoremus.org (emphasis added).

From all indications, Kerry's Paulist parish is highly dysfunctional. And so the new Catholic scandal begins for all America to see throughout the presidential campaign.

Easter Break: Next Major Update Monday, April 12th

The next major update will be Monday, April 12, 2004.

An Unavoidable Season of Protest

We are now in a political season where you will see pro-abortion candidate John Kerry repeatedly send the message that a good Catholic can be pro-abortion. It is a great and bold lie. The question for lay Catholics is whether we will let Kerry redefine our faith. Today's New York Times has a photo of Kerry giving a speech at Georgetown University. You can expect to see the Kerry campaign schedule more appearances at liberal, historically Catholic universities that embrace his pro-abortion mentality and are eager to host him. On the campaign trail, you will see the longstanding de facto schism in American Catholicism between faithful Catholics who refuse to participate in the great Kerry lie and the countermagisterium of liberal, historically Catholic universities eager to provide cover for Kerry. It is not a question of avoiding division. The division has long existed and will become more prominent as the campaign progresses. The challenge is to end the division by uniting in support of the truth.

As protesting faithful laity, we are not promised success. But we have an obligation to speak up. Experience and history show that the ripple effect of the truth can never be underestimated, even when uttered by just one person. And certainly more than one person will speak up. When an historically Catholic university hosts Kerry, we should protest. When our bishops are silent and overcautious, we should protest. If the protests fall on deaf ears, so be it. With trust in God, we can accept any outcome with serenity and still persevere. The value of our protests does not come from our personal influence or standing, but from our objective message of truth: Catholicism rejects the Culture of Death. Write that overdue letter to the editor in your diocesan or local newspaper. Many unseen by you will nod their heads in agreement. Send the e-mail protesting Georgetown University's hosting of Kerry. Send the same e-mail to any other historically Catholic university that undermines the truth of our faith, and the countermagisterium spouting the great lie will know that it is opposed. Write to your bishop notifying him of the fact that you are scandalized when pro-abortion politicians receive the Eucharist or act as Eucharistic ministers, and he will have to begin to wrestle with the issue. Today, Holy Thursday, the feast of the institution of the Lord's Supper, is a perfect day to send the message: protect the Eucharist from insult. Write that e-mail to Georgetown University's president (president@georgetown.edu). Mine is on the way. As the proverb says, a long journey begins with one step. Let the journey begin.

What the Movie is Doing

The success of The Passion of the Christ continues in the U.S. and abroad. What is the secret? The saints have always known it. St. Josemaría Escrivá put it in his customarily aphoristic form:

When you pray, but see nothing, and feel flustered and dry, then the way is this: don't think of yourself. Instead, turn your eyes to the Passion of Jesus Christ, our Redeemer.

The Forge, 753.

The formula for evangelistic "success" is to point to the truth enacted by him who is the Truth. The truth cuts to the core. We wonder what love is, and search for it desperately in many guises. But it is there displayed for all to see. If we do not see our "love" there, then our "love" is not love but something else we may not want to admit.

Every normal parent learns what love is: instinctive self-sacrifice. It is the truth of our being. However overwhelmed we may be with the hedonistic mentality of our culture, when we see self-sacrifice, we are lifted to another plane and know we have finally reached solid ground. The movie is lifting up people because it is showing again what is most real, while our society continues to entice us to live in illusion. Many want us to live in illusion because then we are most easily manipulated and exploited. That is the whole premise of the type of widespread advertising that obsessively exploits our vulnerabilities.

For Paul, the formula was easy: preach "Christ crucified." The crucifix is the message of Christianity. All the elaborate pastoral planning, programming, conferences, reports, and even retreats mean absolutely nothing, if they fail to point to the crucifix. That is the constant remedy for our routine and the routine of many of our ecclesial structures. That is why the movie also makes many uncomfortable. The Passion is not reconcilable with comfortable and "enlightened" suburban Catholicism which fades seamlessly into the mainstream. The Passion is a contradiction that calls us to contradict.

What We Lost and What We Need

Many of us in our youth wasted a lot time, especially with our friends. Some of us just went along with the crowd, even if we were not particularly interested in what the crowd claimed to find interesting. Instead of genuine conversation, we wasted plenty of time in a pristine moment in our lives in loud, smelly, and crowded bars attempting to shout over the noise to each other. The contrast came to me when I read the biography of John Paul II, and the way he spent his university years. The impression made by Weigel's biography of Karol Wojtyla is of a circle of young people intensely interested in cultural matters and thriving on literature and drama.

I for one never saw any of that during my college years. I salute those who did. Ironically, it didn't help that like many other college-age Americans I lived in a secure, peaceful time beyond any real fear for personal safety and in a society with immense cultural resources. In contrast, the young Poles who lived in what we would view as poverty led a rich cultural life of fellowship.

George Weigel describes the college life of the young Karol Wojtyla, known by the nickname "Lolek":

During the year, Lolek also joined several student groups involved in poetry recitations and became a member of the Circle of Scholars of Polish Studies, a student organization that did literary readings, discussed curriculum reform, and resisted the restrictions on Jews studying at the Jageillonian [the name of the university he attended in Kraków]. He began taking private lessons in French. . . . . In the midst of this blizzard of activity, Karol Wojtyla continued to write poetry and worked as a volunteer librarian.

Weigel, A Witness to Hope (Harper Collins, 2001), pp. 40-41.

But with the German invasion of Poland in 1939, this wholesome and secure, although imperfect, atmosphere changed radically:

Polish life between 1939 and 1945 had a bizarre, even surreal quality. It was not a question of knowing whether you would be alive next year. Given the arbitrary terror meted out by the occupiers, the question was whether you would be alive tomorrow.

Weigel, p. 53.

In response, Wojtyla and his "literary friends" formed what was called "The Rhapsodic Theater" which sought to preserve Polish culture through dramatic performances. Wojtyla composed plays that were inspired by the Bible. Polish culture was inseparable from its Christian roots. They resisted "the German attempt to stamp out Polish culture" at the risk of arrest by the Gestapo (Weigel, pp. 62, 65). Now, we see what was the driving force behind the productive use of their college years by these young Polish people: they had a culture, and a Christian Catholic culture at that.

What we Americans have to ask ourselves is: what is our culture? Do we have a culture? Do Americans still recite poetry that evokes what America means, as people in other cultures do in order to define themselves viscerally and from the heart? Do our heroes include literary and cultural heroes? Is our culture Christian and biblical? I cannot help but propose that the reason there was so much waste of our student years is that for all practical purposes there was no American culture to lift us up. There was only hedonism and consumerism. Education became not a liberal art but an occupational pursuit of future status. In the poverty and hardship of Poland in the nineteen thirties and forties, we see confirmed that affluence and security are not the keys to liberating our human spirits. What is liberating is genuine culture, especially a Christian culture.

For Poland, the task was easy compared to ours: Polish culture was and is a Catholic culture. As Americans, we do not have that luxury. Ours is a culture historically defined by Protestantism and by the Enlightenment. From evangelical Protestantism, we are fortunate to have a great love for the Bible in many segments of our society. But the wider society seems emotionally empty compared to cultures such as the Polish which is intimately Catholic. We cannot depend on the wider American culture to nurse our spirits. If we want the abundant life, we must become, as St. Josemaría Escrivá used to say, "Roman . . . . very Roman" (see link).

The Grand Deception

As the presidential election season progresses, the debate among Catholics is heating up. Those Catholics who are committed to voting for John Kerry have started adapting a version of the late Cardinal Bernardin's "Seamless Garment" rhetoric in an attempt to persuade other Catholics that a vote for Kerry is as appropriate for a Catholic as a vote for Bush. The "Seamless Garment" argument itself is a fine option for Catholics. As I understand it, it advocates a consistent ethic of life from abortion to the death penalty and includes the issues of poverty that lie between conception and death.

Yet, however attractive it may be, the "Seamless Garment" argument is not binding in all its particulars on Catholics because Catholic teaching does not preclude the death penalty. John Paul II does not favor the death penalty, but at no time has he taught that the death penalty is intrinsically evil, as abortion clearly is. He hasn't promulgated a new definitive teaching on the death penalty. He upholds the traditional teaching as is stated in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, but makes clear his strongly held view that in modern societies the need for application of the death penalty is rare.

Thus, the "Seamless Garment" viewpoint must be treated with caution. If this viewpoint is distorted to put the Church's teachings on abortion and the death penalty on the same level, then this rhetoric becomes a grave and harmful threat to Church teaching. Likewise, if by a "seamless garment" posture, advocates propose that raising the minimum wage is on the same level as the teaching against abortion they are radically contradicting Church teaching and tradition. The intended audience must be careful. What sounds very high-minded can be in the hands of some a grand deception that blurs the lines between the unique status of the teaching against abortion and other social justice issues.

In Church teaching, this blurring is intolerable. In 1998, consistent with the Pope's encyclical The Gospel of Life or Evangelium Vitae (section 57), the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith confirmed that "the doctrine on the grave immorality of direct and voluntary killing of an innocent human being" is a divinely revealed truth (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Commentary on the Concluding Formula of the 'Professio fidei,' June 29, 1998, section 11, available at EWTN.com) (emphasis added). The same Vatican document labels rejection of a divinely revealed truth as heresy (section 5).

Thus, rejection of the teaching on abortion is heresy. Opposition to the death penalty has never been, and is not now, viewed as a divinely revealed truth. Taking specific positions on the debatable merits of particular anti-poverty spending measures or on concrete economic issues like raising the minimum wage does not directly involve a divinely revealed truth.

Succinctly stated, section 2267 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church does not absolutely preclude capital punishment. In contrast, sections 2270 and 2271 of the Catechism make clear that there is an absolute and unchangeable prohibition against abortion. Readers should find and read these texts for themselves (see online Catechism at Christusrex.org).

As to just war, section 2309 of the Catechism leaves the evaluation of the conditions for just war "to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good" (see Christusrex.org link above). Thus on the issue of the Iraq war, the Church recognizes that the evaluation of the criteria for a just war must be left to the prudential judgment of those who shoulder the responsibility. The American bishops recognized this teaching during the debate that took place when the Iraq war was about to begin (see Catholic Analysis archives for Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2003).

Yet, in typical modus operandi, some liberal Catholics seek to mislead by ambiguity and to portray the Bush administration's view that the Iraq war was a just war and its stance in favor of the death penalty as being on the same level as Kerry's radical commitment to abortion. From the erroneous premise that these issues are all on the same level, they argue in effect that certain Bush positions "cancel out" Kerry's commitment to abortion thereby leaving Catholics free in conscience to vote for Kerry. As has been shown, this is a grand lie. Moreover, Kerry himself voted to authorize the Iraq war and has, in no surprise to political observers, said that he favors the death penalty in cases of terrorism.

Don't take my word for it. Go to the texts themselves as cited above. Recently, EWTN met the issue head on in an interview with Avery Cardinal Dulles, broadcast on April 4, 2004, who was asked precisely about the attempt by some to equate the teaching against abortion with opposition to the death penalty. In no uncertain terms, Cardinal Dulles made clear that the Church has never viewed and does not presently view the death penalty as an intrinsic evil, but that the Church has always viewed abortion as an intrinsic evil. Dulles is authoritative. In his interview, Cardinal Dulles even pointed out cases in which some on death row have experienced conversion because of the urgency to sort out their lives prior to their deaths. He was backed forcefully by former New Orleans Archbishop Philip Hannan who also appeared in the interview.

So beware of the "Seamless Garment" argument in this political season. It is being misused by some in an effort to confuse voters into overlooking Kerry's heretical commitment to abortion. Abortion is the primary social justice and moral issue in this election. Trying to compare apples and oranges can't change that fact for Catholics. As one Midwestern priest put it, Catholics can argue about just war or the death penalty, but Catholics can't argue for the legitimacy of abortion.