Obama quietly moves to de-regulate abortion...

In sum:

hite House quietly announced on Friday that President Barack Obama is starting the process of overturning protections President Bush put in place to make sure medical staff and centers are not forced to do abortions. The move is the latest that will add to Obama's growing pro-abortion record.

Existing federal laws already make it so doctors and hospitals are not required to perform abortions. Because those laws aren't always followed, the Bush administration added additional protections.

Now, the Obama administration is Starting the process to remove them.

See this story...

and this story...

and this story about the Mexico City debacle.

Former Senator Rick Santorum gets it...

From a recent op-ed piece in a Philadelphia paper:

...Sadly, the church hierarchy has been less assertive when public figures' policy positions openly dissent from core teachings.

That's why Scranton Bishop Joseph Martino got so much national attention last fall. Martino, formerly the auxiliary bishop of Philadelphia, made the welcome decision to publicly bar then Sen. Joe Biden and other abortion advocates from receiving Communion in the Scranton Diocese. Then, after the November election, he admonished his brother bishops for their reluctance to deal with the issue faithfully.

Last month, Martino took on the most influential family in his diocese, the Caseys. He excoriated Sen. Bob Casey, who claims to be pro-life, for voting to give taxpayer dollars to overseas organizations that perform abortions. He warned that Casey was "formally cooperating with evil."

Martino was not done. Two weeks ago, the Philadelphia native and St. Joseph's Prep graduate issued a strong statement of disapproval to a local, nominally Catholic college, Misericordia University, that had scheduled a speech on campus by someone advocating same-sex marriage. "The faithful of the Diocese of Scranton should be in no doubt," Martino said, "that Misericordia University in this instance is seriously failing in maintaining its Catholic identity."

Then, last week, Martino took on some more of the biggest guns in the diocese: the Irish clubs that organize the largest public Catholic event of the year, the St. Patrick's Day festivities. Through a letter from his Irish auxiliary bishop, Martino warned that if any of these groups went ahead with plans that in any way honor politicians who are not pro-life, he would close the cathedral where Mass is usually held prior to the parade, as well as other diocesan churches. He said he would not countenance anything that created confusion about the teachings of the church.

The reason for the letter: Scranton's St. Patrick's Day parade last year featured Hillary Clinton.

Many of his brother bishops will look at Martino as they do at other uncompromising defenders of the faith, worrying about the world's reaction. As a Philly guy, though, his excellency knows something about being booed. He also knows his job and calling: to be the good shepherd who faithfully leads and protects his flock from those who would lead them astray.

Yes, scores of people are reportedly protesting and threatening to leave the church. In the end, however, people leaving the church because of a bishop who enforces its teachings are a blessing compared with the alternative: people leaving because bishops and their priests don't teach, much less enforce, those teachings.

Amen, brother!

The media and the left - drumming up hatred in the name of 'tolerance'

Ash Wednesday 2009

Ash Wednesday

Today the Church celebrates : St Ethelbert of Kent

Book of Joel 2,12-18.

Yet even now, says the LORD, return to me with your whole heart, with fasting, and weeping, and mourning; Rend your hearts, not your garments, and return to the LORD, your God. For gracious and merciful is he, slow to anger, rich in kindness, and relenting in punishment. Perhaps he will again relent and leave behind him a blessing, Offerings and libations for the LORD, your God. Blow the trumpet in Zion! proclaim a fast, call an assembly; Gather the people, notify the congregation; Assemble the elders, gather the children and the infants at the breast; Let the bridegroom quit his room, and the bride her chamber. Between the porch and the altar let the priests, the ministers of the LORD, weep, And say, "Spare, O LORD, your people, and make not your heritage a reproach, with the nations ruling over them! Why should they say among the peoples, 'Where is their God?'" Then the LORD was stirred to concern for his land and took pity on his people.

Psalms 51(50),3-4.5-6.12-13.14.17.

Have mercy on me, God, in your goodness; in your abundant compassion blot out my offense.
Wash away all my guilt; from my sin cleanse me.
For I know my offense; my sin is always before me.
Against you alone have I sinned; I have done such evil in your sight That you are just in your sentence, blameless when you condemn.
A clean heart create for me, God; renew in me a steadfast spirit.
Do not drive me from your presence, nor take from me your holy spirit.
Restore my joy in your salvation; sustain in me a willing spirit.
Lord, open my lips; my mouth will proclaim your praise.

Second Letter to the Corinthians 5,20-21.6,1-2.

So we are ambassadors for Christ, as if God were appealing through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who did not know sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him. Working together, then, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain. For he says: "In an acceptable time I heard you, and on the day of salvation I helped you." Behold, now is a very acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.

Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 6,1-6.16-18.

(But) take care not to perform righteous deeds in order that people may see them; otherwise, you will have no recompense from your heavenly Father. When you give alms, do not blow a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets to win the praise of others. Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right is doing, so that your almsgiving may be secret. And your Father who sees in secret will repay you. When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, who love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on street corners so that others may see them. Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go to your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will repay you. When you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites. They neglect their appearance, so that they may appear to others to be fasting. Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that you may not appear to be fasting, except to your Father who is hidden. And your Father who sees what is hidden will repay you.

Commentary of the day :

Pope Benedict XVI
General Audience 06/02/08 (© copyright Libreria Editrice Vaticana)

In the primitive Church at the outset Lent was the privileged time for preparing catechumens to receive the sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist, which were celebrated at the Easter Vigil. Lent was considered as the period in which to become a Christian which was not brought about in an instant but required a long journey of conversion and renewal. The baptized also joined in this preparation, reviving the memory of the Sacrament they had received with renewed communion with Christ, available to them at the joyful celebration of Easter. Thus, Lent had and still has today preserved the character of a baptismal process in the sense that it helps keep alive the awareness that being Christians is always achieved by becoming Christians over and over again: it is never a story that is over once and for all but rather a journey which requires us to start out constantly anew.

As he places the Ashes on the person's forehead the celebrant says "Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return" (cf. Gn 3: 19), or he repeats Jesus' exhortation "Repent, and believe in the Gospel" (cf. Mk 1: 15). Both formulas are a reminder of the truth about human life: we are limited creatures, sinners always in need of repentance and conversion. How important it is to listen to and accept this reminder in our time! When contemporary man proclaims his total autonomy from God, he enslaves himself and often finds himself in comfortless loneliness. The invitation to conversion, therefore, is an incentive to return to the embrace of God, the tender and merciful Father, to entrust oneself to him, to entrust oneself to him as adoptive sons, regenerated by his love... Therefore, to convert is to let oneself be won over by Jesus (cf. Phil 3: 12) and "to return" with him to the Father. Conversion thus entails placing oneself humbly at the school of Jesus and walking meekly in his footsteps.

2 Cardinals on the dangers of secularism

From Chiesa.

Catholics, secularists, and civil society

by Angelo Scola


"The West must decide to understand what influence faith has in the public life of its citizens, it cannot dismiss the problem."

These scorching words, spoken by a Middle Eastern bishop in Amman during the international scholarly conference of the magazine "Oasis," are coming back to my mind in these days, during which a lively debate has been ignited in the media about the activity of Christians in civil society, the dialogue between secularists and Catholics – which, according to some, has reached the end of the line – the presumed defeat of Christianity, and the interference by churchmen in public affairs. In a word, about the manner in which Catholics should or should not address delicate issues of public life, like those of bioethics.

It seems to me that people often lose sight of the heart of the matter: every faith must always be subjected to a public cultural interpretation. It is an inevitable fact. On the one hand, this is because, as John Paul II wrote, "a faith that did not become cultural would not be fully welcomed, not entirely thought out, not faithfully lived." On the other, since the faith – Jewish and Christian – is the result of God's compromise with history, it inevitably has to do with the concreteness of life and death, of love and pain, of work and rest, and of civic action. For this reason, it is inevitably the object of different cultural interpretations, which can be in conflict with each other.

In this phase of "post-secularism," there are two cultural interpretations of Christianity in particular that are at odds with each other. Both seem reductive to me.

The first is the one that treats Christianity as a civil religion, as mere ethical cement, capable of acting as a social adhesive for our democracy and for the European democracies in grave distress. If such a position is plausible in those who do not believe, its structural insufficiency should be evident to those who do believe.

The other, more subtle interpretation is the one that tends to reduce Christianity to the proclamation of the pure, unadorned Cross, for the salvation of "everyone else."

For example, getting involved with bioethics or biopolitics is seen as detracting from Christ's authentic message of mercy, as if this message were in itself ahistorical, without any anthropological, social, and cosmological implications. Such an attitude produces a dispersion, a diaspora of Christians in society, and ends up concealing the human relevance of the faith as such. To such an extent that in the face of life's crises, including public ones, a silence is demanded that risks making adherence to Christ and to the Church meaningless in the eyes of others.

In my view, neither of these two cultural interpretations succeeds in expressing adequately the true nature of Christianity and its activity in social society: the first because it reduces this to its secular dimension, separating it from its specifically Christian dynamism, the gift of an encounter with the personal coming of Christ in the Church; the second because it deprives the faith of its concrete embodiment.

There is another cultural interpretation that to me seems more respectful of the nature of man and his being in relationship. This runs along the ridge that separates civil religion from diaspora and concealment. It presents the coming of Jesus Christ in its entirety – incapable of being reduced to any human federation – and displays the heart of this, which lives in the Church's faith on behalf of all people.

In what way? Through the Church's proclamation of all the mysteries of faith in their entirety, as skillfully compiled in the catechism.

But this leads to the need to explain all of the aspects and implications that always arise from these mysteries. These are interwoven with human affairs in every age, demonstrating the beauty and fecundity of the faith for everyday life.

Just one example: if I believe that man is created in the image and likeness of God, I will have a certain understanding of birth and death, of the relationship between man and woman, of marriage and the family. This understanding inevitably encounters and seeks an exchange with the experience of all men, including nonbelievers. Regardless of their manner of understanding these basic elements of existence.

While respecting the specific responsibility of the lay faithful in the political domain, it is nonetheless evident that if every member of the faithful, from the pope to the last of the baptized, were not to share openly what he believes are the valid answers to the questions that trouble the human heart every day, and bear witness to the practical implications of his own faith, he would take something away from others. He would withhold a positive contribution, he would not participate in the common effort to build up the good life.

And today, in a society that is pluralistic and therefore has a tendency to be highly conflictual, this exchange must extend 360 degrees, to everyone, no one excluded.

In such an encounter, in which Christians, including the pope and bishops, dialogue humbly but firmly with everyone, it can be seen that the action of the Church is not aimed at hegemony, in using the ideal of faith for the sake of power. Its real aim, in imitation of its Founder, is that of offering everyone the consolation of hope in eternal life. This hope can already be enjoyed in the "hundredfold here below,"and helps us to face the crucial problems that make everyone's daily life fascinating and dramatic.

It is only through this untiring testimony, aimed at mutual recognition and respectful of the procedures ratified under the rule of law, that the great practical value unleashed by the fact of living together can be made to bear fruit.

__________


Secularism and the common good

by Camillo Ruini


Reflecting on secularism in relation to the common good seems to me to be a fundamental and somewhat stimulating approach to understanding and appreciating secularism, and in particular for discerning and evaluating the various and very different meanings that the concept of secularism has taken on.

But in order to do this, we must first of all get as clear and specific an idea as possible of the meaning of the expression "common good," in the light of which we will seek to discover the foundations and functions of secularism.

As is well known, "common good" is a typical – if not exclusive – concept of Catholic social thought. It therefore seems proper to refer to the meaning that the term is given in this context. The "Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church," published in 2004 by the pontifical council for justice and peace, considers the common good as the first of the principles of this doctrine, deriving it "from the dignity, unity and equality of all people."

It first of all indicates "the sum total of social conditions which allow people, either as groups or as individuals, to reach their fulfilment more fully and more easily." In concrete terms, the common good is "the good of all people and of the whole person," since "the human person cannot find fulfilment in himself, that is, apart from the fact that he exists 'with' others and 'for' others."

The common good, therefore, "does not consist in the simple sum of the particular goods of each subject of a social entity. Belonging to everyone and to each person, it is and remains 'common', because it is indivisible and because only together is it possible to attain it, increase it and safeguard its effectiveness, with regard also to the future." Although it is thus founded in the nature and dignity of our being, the common good also has a clear historical dimension: in fact, "the demands of the common good are dependent on the social conditions of each historical period and are strictly connected to respect for and the integral promotion of the person and his fundamental rights" ("Compendium, nn. 164-166).

It is not possible, and perhaps it would not even be useful for our purposes, to dispose of such a clear and organic determination of the concept of secularism. But an initial clarification, unnecessary in English, is indispensable for the Italian term "laicità," which can refer either to political secularism or to the non-clerical dimension of the Church. In this context, we are not speaking of "laicità" in the theological and ecclesial sense, concerning which Vatican Council II says in "Lumen Gentium" (no. 31): "The term laity is here understood to mean all the faithful except those in holy orders and those in the state of religious life... these faithful are by baptism made one body with Christ and are constituted among the People of God... and they carry out for their own part the mission of the whole Christian people in the Church and in the world. What specifically characterizes the laity is their secular nature... the laity, by their very vocation, seek the kingdom of God by engaging in temporal affairs and by ordering them according to the plan of God."

This secular nature and the relationship with temporal realities constitute, in a certain way, the bridge that permits a connection and passage to the other major meaning of the terms "laici" and "laicità" [political secularism], which is the one to which we will refer from now on. Here, secular and secularism are, in fact, concepts that indicate and imply an autonomy and distinction from that which is ecclesiastical, from that which refers to the Church, and more broadly to Christianity and religion in general. Still fundamental for understanding the origin of this concept is the comprehensive study by G. de Lagarde "La naissance de l'esprit laïque, au déclin du moyen âge".

Indicative of the plurality and also of the contrast of interpretations given to this concept today is the way in which Giovanni Fornero, in the third edition of Nicola Abbagnano's "Dizionario di filosofia" (which Fornero himself edited), treats the entry "Laicismo," which in ordinary expression indicates a rigid, polemical, and "exclusive" version of secularism. For Fornero, "laicismo" means "the principle of the autonomy of human activities, meaning the demand that these activities be undertaken according to their own rules, that they not be imposed from the outside, for purposes or interests different from those that inspire them."

But this autonomy is affirmed, in terms that are formally rather similar, by Vatican Council II ("Gaudium et Spes, no. 36), which states: "If by the autonomy of earthly affairs we mean that created things and societies themselves enjoy their own laws and values which must be gradually deciphered, put to use, and regulated by men, then it is entirely right to demand that autonomy. Such is not merely required by modern man, but harmonizes also with the will of the Creator. For by the very circumstance of their having been created, all things are endowed with their own stability, truth, goodness, proper laws and order. Man must respect these as he isolates them by the appropriate methods of the individual sciences or arts."

It is also rather interesting that Fornero traces back the origin of the concept of secularism to Pope Gelasius I, who, at the end of the fifth century, clearly formulated the principle of the distinction between the two powers of the pope and the emperor, and on this basis asserted the autonomy of the religious sphere from that of politics. And then-cardinal Joseph Ratzinger expressed himself in similar terms in the book "Without Roots" (pp. 56-57), identifying here as well the origin of a profound difference between Christianity in the West and the East, between Catholicism and Orthodoxy, in which the emperor was also the head of the Church, which appeared to be almost equated with the empire.

* * *

But this convergence, or agreement, on the principle of secularism cannot conceal the divergences that have formed throughout history, and continue to reemerge today. The decisive shift was the "new schism" – to use the words of Cardinal Ratzinger in the book already cited (p. 63) – that was seen above all in France between the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th century, and is still typical especially of the Latin countries of Catholic tradition.

It was here that the defense of reason and freedom asserted with the Enlightenment took on a face that was decisively hostile toward the Church, and, not infrequently, closed to any form of transcendence, while for its part the Church struggled and stalled for a long time in distinguishing between the anti-Christian claims that it clearly could not refrain from opposing, and the defense of social and political freedom which, instead, it could and must accept positively. The "new schism" was therefore between Catholics and "secularists," where the word "secular" took on a meaning of opposition to religion that it did not have before.

It is interesting to note that a similar schism was not seen in the Protestant world, because Protestantism, which from the beginning had understood itself as a movement of liberation and purification from the bonds of ecclesiastical authority, easily developed a kinship with Enlightenment thinking, but with the risk – and sometimes not only the risk – of undermining Christian truth from within and reducing it to an element of culture, rather than of faith in the authentic sense.

The terrain that was immediately the most sensitive – although, in my view, not the most profound – to tensions between Christianity and Enlightenment philosophy was that of relations between Church and state. And here a second and extremely important convergence developed, above all within the Protestant world.

While in Europe the Churches that emerged from the Reformation were constituted as state Churches in a manner that was much more significant than in the case of Catholicism, where the state Churches always had to come to terms with the unity and transnational universality of the Catholic Church, it was entirely different in the United States of America. The country's very origin, in fact, was due to a large extent to those groups of Protestant Christians who had fled from the system of state Churches in Europe, and formed free communities of believers.

The foundation of American society was therefore laid by the free Churches, for which it was essential not to be state Churches, but be founded on the free association of believers. In this sense, it can be said that at the basis of American society is a separation between Church and state that is determined, even demanded by religion and aimed above all at protecting religion itself and its living space, which the state must leave free. We are therefore not far from the intentions and objectives of the distinction asserted by Pope Gelasius I. We are, however, extremely far from that fundamental separation, "hostile" to religion and tending to subordinate the Churches to the state, imposed by the French Revolution and by the state systems that followed it.

As a result, the entire system of relations between the state and non-state spheres in America developed differently than it did in Europe, attributing to the non-state sphere as well a concrete public character, favored by the legal and fiscal system. In this America, with its specific identity, Catholics assimilated well, despite the resistance from the ideology that wanted to reserve full "North American" identity only for Protestants. In concrete terms, the Catholics soon realized the positive character of separation between state and Church linked to religious motivations and the importance of religious freedom thus guaranteed.

* * *

Until Vatican Council II, however, a difficulty remained, or a reservation on principle, which did not the regard American Catholics as such, but the Catholic Church as a whole. This difficulty concerned the recognition of religious freedom, not simply as the acceptance of a given fact, but as the affirmation of a right, founded on the dignity that belongs to the human person by nature. It is not a coincidence that the conciliar decree on religious freedom "Dignitatis Humanae," which clearly affirmed this right – while steering clear basing it on a relativistic approach that would bring the truth of Christianity into question – was drafted with a significant contribution from North American bishops and theologians.

Vatican II did not limit itself to removing the obstacle concerning religious freedom, but represented the overcoming, at least in principle, of the historical stalling of Catholicism to which I referred previously. In fact, it laid the foundations for a true reconciliation between the Church and modernity, and for the rediscovery of the profound correspondence between Christianity and Enlightenment thought.

In concrete terms, the Council made its own the "anthropological revolution" that since the beginning of the modern age had put man at the center: it demonstrated, in fact, the Christian roots of this revolution, and the lack of foundation for the contrast between the centrality of man and the centrality of God. Similarly, it affirmed, as has already been seen, the legitimate autonomy of earthly realities, the rights and freedoms of men and peoples, recognizing at the same time the validity of the great effort that humanity is making to transform the world.

With Vatican II, therefore, a new season in relations between the Church and secularism was inaugurated, and also between the Catholic Church and freedom: a season in which at first there was hope that all of the disputes about secularism were now behind us.

This hope was not without its concrete reasons, in part and especially concerning the "sensitive" terrain of relations between Church and state. With the full recognition of religious freedom on the part of Vatican Council II, in fact, there was a loss of justification in principle for a "state religion," which had constituted the substantial obstacle to the secularism of the state itself, and of its institutions. Even the difference between "concorditarian" regimes and regimes of separation between state and Church came less relevant at this point, since even the Concordats – as exemplified by the agreement on revision of the Concordat stipulated between the Italian state and the Holy See in 1984 – are now expressly situated outside of the context of a state religion. The protocol added to this agreement states, in fact, in relation to article 1: "The principle originally referred to in the Lateran Pacts, of the Catholic religion as the only religion of the Italian state, should be considered as no longer in effect."

* * *

The events of the past two decades seem, however, to shatter such a hope: we find ourselves, in fact, in a new and acute phase of the dispute about secularism.

Considering the issue carefully, however, the object of contention has profoundly changed: it is no longer a matter, at least in principle, of relations between Church and state as institutions. In this regard, in fact, their mutual distinction and autonomy were substantially accepted and shared by both Catholics and secularists, and together with them the pluralistic openness of the democratic and liberal state to the most diverse positions, all of which in themselves have equal rights and equal dignity before the state. The controversies that arose around these issues therefore seem rather fabricated, and are probably the reflection of the other and more substantial dispute to which we must now turn.

This dispute is mainly focused on the major ethical and anthropological problems that have emerged in recent decades, following both the profound changes in customs and behaviors, and the new applications of biotechnology to the human subject, which have opened horizons unimaginable until the recent past.

These problems, in fact, clearly have a dimension that is not only personal and private, but also public, and cannot be answered except on the basis of the understanding of man that is used as the reference: in particular, the fundamental question of whether man is only natural being, the result of cosmic and biological evolution, or instead has a transcendent dimension as well, which cannot be reduced to the physical universe.

It would be strange, then, for the great religions not to say anything about this, and not make their voice heard on the public stage. As is natural, the leading role in this is taken by the religions that predominate in the various geographical and cultural areas: Christianity in the West, and in Italy in particular, the Catholic Church.

In concrete terms, their voice resonates with a force that few would have expected when an increasingly radical secularization was believed to be the inevitable destiny of the contemporary world, or at least of the West: when, that is, it seemed out of the question that there could be that reawakening, on a worldwide scale, of religions and their public role which has been one of the great new developments of the last few decades. I would like to recall, in this regard, the surprise and distress that were provoked, even in Catholic circles, by the statements that John Paul II made at the conference of the Italian Church in Loreto in that long-ago April of 1985, when he called for a rediscovery of "the role, also public, that Christianity can play for the promotion of man and for the good of Italy, with complete respect and even wholehearted promotion of the religious and civil freedom of all and of each one, without in any way confusing the Church with the political community." John Paul II therefore asked the Italian Church to "work, with humble courage and complete trust in the Lord, so that the Christian faith may have or recover – even and especially in a pluralistic and partially de-Christianized society – a role as a guide and effective engine in the journey toward the future."

* * *

The dispute about secularism centered on the major ethical and anthropological questions now has another proponent, which precisely in relation to these problems takes an antithetical stance toward the Church and Christianity. Its conceptual nucleus is the conviction that man is entirely reducible to the physical universe, while on the ethical and legal level his fundamental task is that of individual freedom, in relation to which any form of discrimination is to be avoided.

This freedom, according to which in the final analysis everything is relative to the individual, is set up as the supreme ethical and legal criterion: every other position is admissible only as long as it does not challenge, but remains subordinate to this relativistic criterion. In this way, the moral norms of Christianity are systematically censored, at least in their public influence. In this way, there has developed in the West that which Benedict XVI has repeatedly called "the dictatorship of relativism," meaning a form of culture that deliberately severs its own historical roots and constitutes a radical contradiction not only of Christianity, but more broadly of the religious and moral traditions of humanity.

But this same severing of the roots is far from being shared by everyone in what is typically called "the secular world." On the contrary, many "secularists" maintain that they must reject such a decision, in order to remain faithful to the authentic roots and motivations of liberalism, which they judge as being incompatible with the dictatorship of relativism.

Then-cardinal Ratzinger, in the book previously mentioned, provided an historical and also a theological motivation for this new harmony between secularists and Catholics, to the point of maintaining that the distinction between these "is relative" ("Without Roots," p. 123). In a letter written to Marcello Pera on the occasion of the recent publication of his book "Perché dobbiamo dirci cristiani. Il liberalismo, l'Europa, l'etica [Why we must call ourselves Christian. Liberalism, Europe, ethics]," Benedict XVI again took a strong position in favor of the intrinsic connection between liberalism and Christianity. Moreover, in the address he delivered in Subiaco on April 1, 2005, the day before John Paul II died, he advanced a "proposal to the secularists": to discard the formula of Hugo Grotius "etsi Deus non daretur" – even if God did not exist – now historically outworn because over the course of the twentieth century there has been a steady decline in the extensive communality of content between civil public ethics and Christian morality that constituted the concrete meaning of this formula, and replace it with its inverse, "veluti si Deus daretur" – as if God did exist. That is, even those who are unable to accept God should seek to live and conduct their lives as if God exists: "This does not impose limitations on anyone's freedom; it gives support to all our human affairs and supplies a criterion of which human life stands sorely in need" (J. Ratzinger, "Christianity and the Crisis of Cultures ", pp. 50-52).

It is necessary to add that not all Catholics share this cordial openness toward these kinds of secularists. In fact, there are some who look at them with suspicion – unwarranted, in my view – fearing that they are exploiting the Christian faith for ideological and political purposes. The main reason for this distrust is that not a few of them, although they are Catholics, do not appear to be truly convinced of the necessity of a concerted effort in the field of public ethics. In concrete terms, these Catholics remain rather attached, regarding secularism, to the classical framework of the division of competencies between civil institutions and ecclesiastical institutions, and seem not to grasp fully the significance of the new development constituted by the emergence of the current ethical and anthropological problems.

* * *

The analysis of the concept of secularism in its concrete historical articulation permits us to attempt a specific answer to the question of the relationship between secularism and the common good.

When it is understood as the autonomy of human activities, which must stand according to their own norms, and in particular as the independence of the state from ecclesiastical authority, secularism is certainly required by the common good, as has been amply demonstrated by the history of modern Europe beginning with the wars of religion. Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, in his classic essay on "The formation of the state as a process of secularization," is among those who best highlighted how only the independence of the state from the various religious confessions could ensure the peace of nations, and the very freedom of believers.

It is a different matter, however, when the concept of secularism is extended to include any reference of human activities, and in particular of the laws of the state and of the entire public sphere, to those ethical principles that find their foundation in human existence itself, in addition to that "religious sense" that expresses our intrinsic openness to transcendence.

In fact, as Böckenförde himself demonstrated at the end of the essay that I mentioned, the secularist liberal state lives on presuppositions that it cannot guarantee itself, and among these, as Hegel maintained, a particular role seems to belong to the moral impulses and restrictions arising from religion.

Very recently, Rémi Brague, in a contribution about "Fede e democrazia" published in the magazine "Aspenia" in 2008 (pp. 206-208), proposed a rather interesting update to Böckenförde's thesis: first of all, by extending it from the state to the man of today, who to a great extent has stopped believing in his own value, because of his reduction to nature and the total relativism that are at the origin of the aforementioned interpretations of secularism. It is man, therefore, and not only the state, who today needs a form of support that he is unable to guarantee for himself. In the second place, religion is not only, or even primarily, a source of ethical impulses and restrictions, as Böckenförde seems to think. Today, before verifying limits and boundaries, it is a matter of finding reasons for living, and this is, from the beginning, the function, or better the mission most proper to Christianity: this, in fact, says first of all not "how" to live, but "why" to live, why to choose life, why to rejoice in it and why to transmit it.

These are the reasons why Benedict XVI has repeatedly proposed a secularism that he himself defines as "healthy" and "positive," which would join to the autonomy of human activities and the independence of the state not preclusion, but openness in regard to fundamental ethical principles and the "religious sense" that we bear within ourselves.

Only a relativism so understood really seems to correspond to the current requirements of the common good, because it overturns those strange tendencies that seem to take pleasure in sapping the vital and moral energies by which each of us, our people, and the entire West lives, without considering how to replace them, or better without realizing that in practice they cannot be replaced.

It is precisely the perception of the decisive value of these reserves of energy that today instead unites many Catholics and secularists and that, in my view, indicates a great common effort awaiting us: giving something of ourselves in order to reinvigorate, instead of drawing down, these reserves.

(Jesuit) Catholic universities - a total disgrace

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Fr. Z. parses Doug Kmiec's latest fraud

The Pope’s enemies have skulked out of the forest and are forming packs. They seek to hound the Pope, bite at him, drive him from the direction he is leading the Church.

A couple days ago I posted about the article in TIME by the squishy Doug Kmiec, a professor of law. During the last presidential campaign Kmiec worked to undermine the Catholic view that concern for lives of the unborn outweighs other burning social concerns.

Kmiec, whom I suspect wants to be appointed to something by the Obama Administration, some time ago issued a +3000 word jeremiad/apologia about how badly he was was treated in the blogosphere.

Kmiec’s recent piece in TIME follows the meeting pro-abortion "Catholic" Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) had with Pope Benedict XVI in Rome. Subsequent to that fifteen minute meeting, both Pelosi’s office and the Holy See issued very different statements about what was discussed.

In the Holy See’s statement, released by the Press Office, we read: "His Holiness took the opportunity to speak of the requirements of the natural moral law and the Church’s consistent teaching on the dignity of human life from conception to natural death which enjoin all Catholics, and especially legislators, jurists and those responsible for the common good of society, to work in cooperation with all men and women of good will in creating a just system of laws capable of protecting human life at all stages of its development."

Kmiec wrote in his recent TIME article that this statement effectively changes the Church’s teaching and obliges also jurists in the same way legislators are obliged by the Church.

Now that some other bloggers are picking up on Kmiec’s article in TIME, and since that article was still bugging me, I need to add something.

The real problem with Kmiec’s article is that he dissimulates about what the Holy See’s statement actually says.

Leave aside the question of the original Italian, if the statement said in Italian guiristi or guidici. That is interesting, but it’s not the real problem.

Kmiec wants the reader to accept the premise that the Pope is imposing a new moral duty imposed on jurists, a duty to "undertake an activist, law-changing role".

The Pope didn’t say that at all. The statement does not say that jurists must be activists. It says that jurists should "work for a system of law capable of protecting human life at all stages of its development".

Kmiec says that there is now a "new directive" from Rome. There isn’t.

Here is the slight of hand: Kmiec says the Pope says that judges must use judicial activism in order to limit abortion, implying that they should "legislate from the bench" as judges do when they interpret the US Constitution broadly instead of narrowly or strictly). Kmiec reasons that the Pope is saying that if judges don’t oppose abortion by employing this kind of activism, then they are guilty in the same way as Catholic legislators are when they promote abortion rights.

Again, that is not what the Holy See’s statement says.

The statement did not, as Kmiec claims, impose "moral duties on Catholic jurists that are incompatible with their envisioned judicial role".

Kmiec wrongly interprets the papal statement as putting jurists and legislators in the same category so that their responsibilities about protecting human life must be exercised in the same way. Kmiec says the pope doesn’t recognize that there are different roles.

Remember that Kmiec is writing for the for TIME/CNN machine, which has its expectations. He is using "activist" as the polar opposite of "originalist". I think he uses "originalist" because it sounds more like "fundamentalist" than "strict constructionist" would. On the surface, Kmiec is trying to make it seem that the Pope came out against originalism embraced by Justice Scalia. In other words, you can no longer hide behind originalism. Kmiec says the Pope says you MUST become a judicial activist.

Rubbish.

All of that said….

My biggest problem with Kmiec’s article is how he seeks to undercut the Pope’s authority. He is suggesting that the Pope is being unreasonable. The Pope can’t possibly mean what is said in that statement. It would be a disaster for Catholic jurists. Strong pro-life/anti-abortion statements were already disaster for legislators, after all. Catholics will have to opt out of juridical life, indeed any public role, if the Pope meant what he said because they would be caught between too many rocks and hard places.

The diabolical side of this is that a dimension of what Kmiec is saying veers close to the truth: it is not going to be easy to square the demands of faith in the context of public responsibilities.

How will Catholics be able to participate in public life when our systems reject natural law in favor of a utilitarian ethic?

Must we either opt out of the public square or lead a revolution? Will Catholicism end up being a curious sect, like the Amish?

So, in that sense, and that sense only, Kmiec raises a good point.

But what he is really saying is false and dangerous: "See what an impossible situation the Pope has created even for my enemies the originalists? We are now all in the same sinking boat of extremism because of what the Pope said. We must, for the sake of having a Catholic role in the public square carefully filter out the extremism of the Pope and other Catholic leaders who parrot his hard line position."

That, folks, is Kmiec’s real agenda.

[snip]

Kmiec fogs this distinction and tried to make the Pope look like an extremist. Savvy Catholics, like Kmiec and Pelosi and Kerry and Kennedy and Cuomo and Sebelius and Granholm and Dodd and Biden, etc., must set aside the urgings of extremists and filter out the interpretations of hard-liners in order to save their version of the Church’s message in the public square.

That is his true agenda.

Archbishop Ranjith on the post-conciliar period

The book will be published in English by Roman Catholic Books next September under the title True Development of the Liturgy.

Some practices which Sacrosanctum Concilium had never even contemplated were allowed into the Liturgy, like Mass versus populum, Holy Communion in the hand, altogether giving up on the Latin and Gregorian Chant in favor of the vernacular and songs and hymns without much space for God, and extension beyond any reasonable limits of the faculty to concelebrate at Holy Mass. There was also the gross misinterpretation of the principle of "active participation." ...

Basic concepts and themes like Sacrifice and Redemption, Mission, Proclamation and Conversion, Adoration as an integral element of Communion, and the need of the Church for salvation—all were sidelined, while Dialogue, Inculturation, Ecumenism, Eucharist-as-Banquet, Evangelization-as-Witness, etc., became more important. Absolute values were disdained. ...

An exaggerated sense of antiquarianism, anthopologism, confusion of roles between the ordained and the non-ordained, a limitless provision of space for experimentation—and indeed, the tendency to look down upon some aspects of the development of the Liturgy in the second millennium—were increasingly visible among certain liturgical schools. ...

Confession is back... when did it ever leave?

With comments by Father Z.

February 21, 2009
On Religion
In One Church, Confession Makes a Comeback
By SAMUEL G. FREEDMAN

STAMFORD, Conn. — The day after Msgr. Stephen DiGiovanni was installed in June 1998 as the pastor of St. John the Evangelist Roman Catholic Church here, he walked through the quiet sanctuary, appreciating the English Gothic grandeur and tallying all the repairs it required.

One particular sight seized him. The confessional at the rear of the pews had been nailed shut. The confessional in the front, nearer the altar, was filled with air-conditioning equipment. And these conditions, Monsignor DiGiovanni realized, reflected theology as much as finance. [Theology, yes! This gets it exactly right! The writer has hit this … ehem… nail on the head.]

In the wake of the Second Vatican Council in the mid-1960s, the Catholic Church began offering confession in “reconciliation rooms,” [I know these awful rooms are prevalent, but NOTHING in the documents of the Church required that. As a matter of fact I believe there are still some conditions for the construction of confessionals including a fixed grate, no? Am I wrong?] rather than the traditional booths. Even before the setting changed, habits had. The norm for American Catholics was to make confession once a year, generally in the penitential period of Lent leading up to Easter. [I think a lot of Catholics went to confession pretty regularly and not just once a year. Didn’t they?]

Monsignor DiGiovanni, though, soon noticed that there were lines for the St. John’s reconciliation room the only time it was open each week, for two hours on Saturday afternoon. So within his first month as pastor, he pried open the door to the rear confessional, wiped off the dust of decades and arranged for replacing the lights, drapes and tiles. [Well done!]

Then, in the fall of 1998, Monsignor DiGiovanni rolled back the clock of Catholic practice, having St. John’s priests hear confession in the booths before virtually every Mass. [This is NOT rolling back the clock. What sort of view is behind this? Again, I think it is a interpretive principle of rupture.] By now, as another Lent commences next week with Ash Wednesday, upwards of 450 people engage in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, as confession is formally known, during 15 time slots spread over all seven days of the week. Confessions are heard in English, Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese.

“As humans, we’re always deciding that we are God and breaking his commandments,” said Monsignor DiGiovanni, 58, during an interview this week in his rectory. “But God is savvy enough to know that. And God wants us to come back to Him if there’s a contrite heart. Salvation is not just a one-time deal.” [Did you get that, you Born-Agains?]

His message has stirred scores of consciences at St. John’s. And while the frequency of confession, and the return to booths from the reconciliation room, puts the pastor and the parish on the conservative end of the Catholic spectrum, [having a sense of sin and going to confession, hearing confessions, makes you "conservative".] St. John’s is a standard diocesan church with a varied congregation — corporate executives, Haitian and Hispanic immigrants, Stamford’s longtime Irish and Italian middle class. [Right… it’s just a Catholic parish.]

Rosa Marchetti, an events planner for a family-owned chain of restaurants, had grown up dreading the rite of confession. The reconciliation room, while intended to allow priest and penitent to meet in a reassuring face-to-face manner something like analyst and analysand, filled her with anxiety and shame. Six years ago, Ms. Marchetti began attending St. John’s, and these days she makes a confession at least twice a month. Speaking to an unseen priest through a screen seems to her a comfort. [As it is for the vast majority of people.]

“I’d always feared that the priests would know it was me, and I never wanted to think I’d done something wrong,” she recalled of her earlier experiences. “But at St. John’s, it was explained to me that I go to the doctor for my physical well being and I have to go to confession for my spiritual well being.”

Even so, she recognizes how the practice sets her apart from a national popular culture of celebrity magazines, talk shows, Facebook pages and Twitters that is relentlessly confessional and rarely contrite. [nice phrase: "relentlessly confessional and rarely contrite".]

“You turn on Oprah and you have women crying to her, confessing what they’ve gone through,” Ms. Marchetti said. “Everyone is so quick to tell the world their problems, but they won’t tell a priest.” [And they risk their souls as a result.]

In the hope of reversing those engines, the Catholic diocese of Bridgeport, Conn., has mounted what it calls a “Lenten Confession Campaign.” The diocese’s 87 churches, which include St. John’s, will be offering confession for two hours every Tuesday night in addition to the usual Saturday afternoon or Sunday morning periods. [EXCELLENT]

To promote the campaign, the Knights of Columbus is paying for highway billboards, bus placards and radio and TV commercials — all using a slogan drawn from Corinthians, “Be Reconciled to God” — as well as the printing and distribution of 100,000 pamphlets about confession.

It remains to be seen, of course, whether the multimedia effort can change behavior on a grand scale. Monsignor DiGiovanni has changed it within his parish through a theological version of retail politics: reaching individuals and families through a decade of homilies, conversations and columns in the church bulletin.

The movement to revive confession, using the traditional booth, no less, has plenty of skeptics within American Catholicism.

[Now which progressivist aging-hippe will the writer drag in for counterpoint?]

“Confession as we once knew it is pretty much a dead letter in Catholicism today,” the Rev. Richard P. McBrien, a professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame, wrote in an e-mail message. [Yah… you knew it had to be one of these defeatists.]

Father McBrien, whose support of female ordination and married priest puts him on the theological left wing of the Catholic Church, added in a subsequent e-mail message that “the practice at the Stamford parish is an anomaly, not a sign of anything else” and at best “part of a small minority” of churches. [What would you bet he is happy that it is an anomaly?]

Majority or minority, the congregants at St. John’s firmly believe they are onto something. John F. X. Leydon, Jr., a lawyer in Stamford, has increased his pace of confession from once a year to once a month. The eldest of his four children, Mary, will be making her first confession this spring.

“The explanation we’ve given as parents is that none of us is perfect,” said Mr. Leydon, speaking also for his wife, Stacey. “However, we have to aspire to be perfect. And that should be a lifelong pursuit.”

The media vs. the Church [part II]

The Holy See had to make this announcement due to faulty reporting by the media, spreading rumors as if they were fact.

DECLARATION BY THE DIRECTOR OF THE PRESS OFFICE OF THE HOLY SEE, REV. FR. FEDERICO LOMBARDI, SJ

In the late morning the Director of the Press Office of the Holy See, Rev. Fr. Federico Lombardi, SJ, gave the journalists the following declaration:

Not rarely the information media attribute to the "Vatican", intending by that the Holy See, comments and points of view which cannot be attributed to it automatically. The Holy See, in fact, when it intends to express itself authoritatively, uses the proper ways and appropriate means (communiques, notes, declarations).

No other pronouncement has the same merit.

Also recently, inopportune attributions have been made. The Holy See, in its representative branches, shows respect toward civil authorities, which in their legitimate autonomy have the right to provide for the common good.

The media vs. the Church

A good description of media bias...

Shrove Tuesday
by David Warren
2/24/09

The marvelous thing about penitence is you don't have to be particularly guilty to enjoy it. I write "particularly," of course, out of anxiety to cover my theological position: We are all "generally" or "originally" guilty, all born into the heritage of Adam, and unquestionably needful of Christ's redeeming grace. But penitence is not punishment, and the Lent that begins tomorrow is not for anything in particular we have done. (The expression, "That was for nothing; wait till you do something," teases me from my atheist days.)

The Church herself enjoys penitence, some divinely self-imposed, and some imposed externally; and of that externally imposed, some deserved, and some not. An example of this last I watched as it arrived via the BBC one month ago. The headline on their Web site read, "Pope move ignites Holocaust row." It hadn't quite ignited this yet, at the time it appeared, but it soon would, as the BBC (which, like the rest of the Mainstream Media, is viscerally anti-Catholic) was obviously hoping.

I immediately recalled the viciously irresponsible way in which the "Beeb" belatedly reported Pope Benedict XVI's address at the University of Regensburg in 2006. While other media outlets slept, the BBC became the first international news disseminator to realize that there was a single passage in the speech -- a 600-year-old quotation -- which, if misrepresented in a sufficiently sleazy way in their headlines and leads, and followed by hints that Muslims should riot, would soon have the desired effect. Given the "inverted pyramid" form of journalistic presentation, they could cover themselves later in the story, by factually qualifying the impression left by the lead -- that the pope had intentionally made an incendiary, anti-Islamic remark. The damage would already be done, and they needn't fear their qualification would limit it.

Ditto with their more recent, profoundly sleazy reporting, which likewise spread at electronic speed through the rest of the MSM. A very careful perusal of the whole story, in its original and most sophisticated version, would leave the reader in little doubt of the pope's innocence. But people do not read the media; they "watch" or scan it. And anyone merely watching or scanning could be forgiven for thinking the pope had intentionally lifted an excommunication from a "British" "bishop," in the full knowledge that he was a Holocaust denier. In other words, the Panzer Pope was being openly anti-Semitic.

The various liberal (and, in particular, liberal Jewish) "human rights" organizations were quick to run with this slander, and within 24 hours I had poorly informed Jewish friends forwarding to me a petition from the Simon Wiesenthal Centre that made the BBC's original report look honest by comparison. The beauty of the slander, from the point of view of its perpetrators, was that explaining what had actually happened would take quite a few sentences more than the sound bite for which the contemporary media audience has patience.

Needless to say -- or rather, it should be needless to say -- that the lifting of the excommunications on four bishops the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre appointed after he had broken with Rome had nothing whatever to do with the political and historical views of any of them. While it could perhaps be fairly argued that Vatican bureaucrats should have vetted the men for "other misdemeanors" before exposing the pope to this "media row," it was clear enough from the beginning that Benedict himself had no idea about Richard Williamson's abhorrent "take" on the Nazi death camps -- in which were murdered, among millions of others, René Lefebvre, the very father of the founder of the Priestly Society of St. Pius X.

Read the rest here.

Some thoughts on the post-conciliar period

I heard two very pithy remarks recently:

"The mass should be something that prevents us from being children of our age."

(said in reference especially to music, art, and architecture.)

"The progressivists have dumbed down our theology and catechesis, but when a simple lay man tries to make an analogy - such as one to hunting and waiting at Lent - they go crazy on the left. What gives?"

(said in reference to this article.)

Left is destroying Church, says rabbi

ROME, February 11, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The dissident, leftist movement in the Catholic Church over the last forty years has severely undermined the teaching of the Catholic Church on the moral teachings on life and family, a prominent US Orthodox rabbi told LifeSiteNews.com. Rabbi Yehuda Levin, the head of a group of 800 Orthodox rabbis in the US and Canada, also dismissed the accusations that the Holy See had not sufficiently distanced itself from the comments made by Bishop Richard Williamson of the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) on the Holocaust.

"I support this move" to reconcile the traditionalist faction in the Church, he said, "because I understand the big picture, which is that the Catholic Church has a problem. There is a strong left wing of the Church that is doing immeasurable harm to the faith."

Rabbi Levin said that he understands "perfectly" why the reconciliation is vital to the fight against abortion and the homosexualist movement.

"I understand that it is very important to fill the pews of the Catholic Church not with cultural Catholics and left-wingers who are helping to destroy the Catholic Church and corrupt the values of the Catholic Church." This corruption, he said, "has a trickle-down effect to every single religious community in the world."

"What's the Pope doing? He's trying to bring the traditionalists back in because they have a lot of very important things to contribute the commonweal of Catholicism.

"Now, if in the process, he inadvertently includes someone who is prominent in the traditionalist movement who happens to say very strange things about the Holocaust, is that a reason to throw out the baby with the bathwater and start to condemn Pope Benedict? Absolutely not."

During a visit to Rome at the end of January, Rabbi Levin told LifeSiteNews.com that he believes the media furore over the lifting of the excommunications of the four bishops of the Society of Saint Pius X is a red herring. He called "ridiculous" the accusations that in doing so Pope Benedict VXI or the Catholic Church are anti-Semitic and described as "very strong" the statements distancing the Holy See and the Pope from Williamson's comments.

Read the rest here or here with Fr. Z's commentary.

My icon instructor in action...

Here's Vladislav Andrejev working on the parish of St. Michael, in St. Michael, Minnesota. The first image is the dome bearing the icon of Christ the Teacher. Very cool stuff...
I hope to take another icon class sooner than later.

Williamson hits a homerun in the Der Spiegel interview...

Bishop Richard Williamson's denial of the Holocaust has done serious damage to the Catholic Church. In an e-mail and fax exchange with SPIEGEL, the ultra-conservative bishop says that he is willing to "review the historical evidence."

SPIEGEL: The Vatican is demanding that you retract your denial of the Holocaust, and it is threatening to not allow you to resume your activities as a bishop. How will you react?

Williamson: Throughout my life, I have always sought the truth. That is why I converted to Catholicism and became a priest. And now I can only say something, the truth of which I am convinced. Because I realize that there are many honest and intelligent people who think differently, I must now review the historical evidence once again. I said the same thing in my interview with Swedish television: Historical evidence is at issue, not emotions. And if I find this evidence, I will correct myself. But that will take time.

SPIEGEL: How can an educated Catholic deny the Holocaust?

Williamson: I addressed the subject in the 1980s. I had read various writings at the time. I cited the Leuchter report (eds. note: a debunked theory produced in the 1980s claiming erroneously that the Nazi gas chambers were technically impractical) in the interview, and it seemed plausible to me. Now I am told that it has been scientifically refuted. I plan now to look into it.

SPIEGEL: You could travel to Auschwitz yourself.

Williamson: No, I will not travel to Auschwitz. I've ordered the book by Jean-Claude Pressac. It's called "Auschwitz: Technique and Operation of the Gas Chambers." A printout is now being sent to me, and I will read it and study it.

SPIEGEL: The Society of Saint Pius X has set an ultimatum for the end of February. Are you not risking a break with the group?

Williamson: In the Old Testament, the Prophet Jonah tells the sailors when their ship is in distress: " Take me up, and cast me forth into the sea; so shall the sea be calm unto you: for I know that for my sake this great tempest is upon you." The Society has a religious mission that is suffering because of me. I will now examine the historic evidence. If I do not find it convincing, I will do everything in my power to avoid inflicting any further harm on the Church and the Society.

SPIEGEL: What does the repeal of the excommunication by Pope Benedict XVI mean to you?

Williamson: We just want to be Catholic, nothing else. We have not developed our own teachings, but are merely preserving the things that the Church has always taught and practiced. And in the sixties and seventies, when everything was changed in the name of this Council (eds. note: the Second Vatican Council), it was suddenly a scandal. As a result, we were forced to the margins of the church, and now that empty churches and an aging clergy make it clear that these changes were a failure, we are returning to the center. That's the way it is for us conservatives: we are proved right, as long as we wait long enough.

SPIEGEL: People at the Vatican claimed that they didn't know you. Is that true?

Williamson: Most contacts pass through Bishop Fellay and the General Council, of which I am not a member. But three of us four bishops attended a private dinner with Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos in 2000. It was more about getting to know each other, but we certainly talked about theological issues and even a bit of philosophy. The cardinal was very friendly.

SPIEGEL: The Second Vatican Council counts as one of the great achievements of the Catholic Church. Why do you not fully recognize it?

Williamson: It is absolutely unclear what we are supposed to recognize. An important document is called "Gaudium et spes," or Joy and Hope. In it, the writers rhapsodize about the ability of mass tourism to bring people together. But one can hardly expect a conservative society to embrace package tours. It discusses fears and hardships. And then a nuclear war between the superpowers is mentioned. You see, much of this is already outdated. These Council documents are always ambiguous. Because no one knew what exactly this was supposed to mean, everyone started doing as he wished shortly after the Council. This has resulted in this theological chaos we have today. What are we supposed to recognize, the ambiguity or the chaos?

SPIEGEL: Are you actually aware that you are dividing the Church with your extreme views?

Williamson: Only violation of the dogmas, that is, the infallible principles, destroys faith. The Second Vatican Council declared that it would proclaim no new dogmas. Today the liberal bishops act as though it were some sort of all-encompassing super-dogma, and they use it as justification for a dictatorship of relativism. This contradicts the texts of the Council.

SPIEGEL: Your position on Judaism is consistently anti-Semitic.

Williamson: St. Paul put it this way: The Jews are beloved for the sake of Our Father, but our enemies for the sake of the gospel.

SPIEGEL: Do you seriously intend to use Catholic tradition and the Bible to justify your anti-Semitism?

Williamson: Anti-Semitism means many things today, for instance, when one criticizes the Israeli actions in the Gaza Strip. The Church has always understood the definition of anti-Semitism to be the rejection of Jews because of their Jewish roots. This is condemned by the Church. Incidentally, this is self-evident in a religion whose founders and all important individuals in its early history were Jews. But it was also clear, because of the large number of Jewish Christians in early Christianity, that all men need Christ for their salvation -- all men, including the Jews.

SPIEGEL: The pope will travel to Israel soon, where he plans to visit the Holocaust Memorial. Are you also opposed to this?

Williamson: Making a pilgrimage to the Holy Land is a great joy for Christians. I wish the Holy Father all the best on his journey. What troubles me about Yad Vashem is that Pope Pius XII is attacked there, even though no one saved more Jews during the Nazi period than he did. For instance, he had baptismal certificates issued for persecuted Jews to protect them against arrest. These facts have been distorted to mean exactly the opposite. Otherwise, I hope that the pope will also have an eye and a heart for the women and children who were injured in the Gaza Strip, and that he will speak out in support of the Christian population in Bethlehem, which is now walled in.

SPIEGEL: Your statements have caused great injury and outrage in the Jewish world. Why don't you apologize?

Williamson: If I realize that I have made an error, I will apologize. I ask every human being to believe me when I say that I did not deliberately say anything untrue. I was convinced that my comments were accurate, based on my research in the 1980s. Now I must review everything again and look at the evidence.

SPIEGEL: Do you at least recognize universal human rights?

Williamson: When human rights were declared in France, hundreds of thousands were killed throughout France. Where human rights are considered an objective order for the state to implement, there are constantly anti-Christian policies. When it comes to preserving the individual's freedom of conscience against the democratic state, then human rights perform an important function. The individual needs these rights against a country that behaves like a Leviathan. But the Christian concept of the state is a different one, so that the Christian theories of human rights emphasize that freedom is not an end in itself. The point is not freedom from something, but freedom for something. For good.

SPIEGEL: Your statements and the lifting of your excommunication have triggered protests worldwide. Can you understand this?

Williamson: A single interview on Swedish television has dominated the news for weeks in Germany. Yes, it does surprise me. Is this the case with all violations of the law in Germany? Hardly. No, I am only the tool here, so that action can be taken against the SSPX and the pope. Apparently Germany's leftist Catholicism has not yet forgiven Ratzinger for becoming pope.

Ravenna & the Roman Primacy

An interesting piece from Homiletic & Pastoral Review.

How is it that no other bishop
but the Roman bishop
ever claimed a universal primacy in the Church?

Ravenna and the Roman primacy

by Daniel S. Hamilton



After two decades of modest progress, the Joint International Catholic-Orthodox Theological Commission, meeting in Ravenna, Italy, October 8-14, 2007, issued a study document on ecclesial communion, conciliarity and authority (1) that acknowledged the Roman primacy in the universal Church as a historical fact, but called for an extensive study and clarification of its basis and nature, issues hotly debated for centuries.

My purpose here is to outline the conflicting positions on the basis and nature of the Roman primacy as these issues are presented generally by leaders and scholars of the two Church communions, including Anglicans, and to suggest how these mutually opposed positions may be brought closer together, followed by a personal reflection.

The Catholic position

Some may be surprised to learn that Orthodox leaders and theologians, together with classical Anglicans, do not dispute the historical fact of Rome’s universal primacy from the earliest Christian centuries; but they differ radically with the Catholic Church regarding the basis and nature of this primacy, arguing, in some cases, that because of heresy it has been lost.

The Catholic Church has insisted from time immemorial—and, indeed, has dogmatized this conviction—that our Lord Jesus Christ gave the ministerial leadership of his Church to Peter and intended this office (like the Church itself) to continue permanently and, by the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to continue in the leadership or episcopate of the Roman Church, in the city where Peter (with Paul) exercised Church leadership and where both Peter and Paul were martyred, and in which was the capital and center of the Church’s first principal missionary field—namely, the Roman Empire.

This leadership derived from Peter, the chief apostle, was first exercised, then specified and later defined by the Church itself in the course of history, as a leadership of real and final authority to be invoked when needed for the good and, above all, for the unity of all the churches. This authority was spiritual, doctrinal and governmental—and in all cases decisive. Vatican Council I, reaffirmed by Vatican II, described the office as episcopal, ordinary and immediate; namely, that the Roman bishop has the same authority within the whole Church that a diocesan bishop has within his own diocese, that this universal authority inheres in the Roman bishop’s office and that it can be exercised independently (canonically speaking) and personally without need for recourse to any other authority. Inherent also in this office of the Roman bishop is the charism to teach inerrantly under precise conditions specified by the conciliar definition.

The Catholic teaching on the Roman primacy is thus clear, precise, forthright and, for many, overwhelming.(2) It is accompanied by a long list of supportive testimonies from Scripture, the apostolic and post-apostolic Church, the patristic age and subsequent centuries.(3)

The Orthodox and Anglican position

The Orthodox and the Anglicans generally have no dogmatic position on these issues; but they nonetheless have a long tradition of firmly rejecting the Catholic position. They have evaluated the factual and historical Roman primacy as, variously, 1) an office inconsistent with the nature of the Church as a Eucharistic communion of local churches all of which are equally the Church, where primacy on all levels is exercised only in a conciliar context; 2) an office needed in the universal Church and one that was perhaps providentially initiated but that was actually conferred upon the Roman See and its bishop by the other ancient local churches, as witnessed by ecumenical or other councils such as Nicaea (325), Sardica (342), Constantinople I (381) and Chalcedon (451).(4)

This designation of Rome as having the universal primacy came, it is maintained, by reason of Rome’s position at the center of the world in which the Church was then planted and growing—the Roman Empire. The city and its Church also enjoyed the unique heritage of the two apostles Peter and Paul both having ministered there and been martyred there; and, as the centuries followed, it boasted a Church whose authority grew tremendously in the religious and political circumstance of the times and, also, it is said, by arrogating authority to itself within the communion of churches.

Such commentators view the legitimate original Roman primacy of leadership—in the sense of a norm of faith and practice—as having evolved or devolved into a “papalism” or “papal supremacy,” terms and phrases that signify a kind of distortion or wrongful aggrandizement of the original office, which was Peter’s or was conferred on the Roman See by its ancient sister churches. The Roman primacy became, in this perspective, a supreme, monarchical and dictatorial office analogous to an oppressive secular power.

Thus, though universal primacy may have emerged in the Church because of a need for such leadership, the kind of primacy that factually developed rather quickly, asserting its foundation in the indemonstrable claim of the Lord’s gift to Peter, had, in any case, evolved into an objectionable papal supremacy that ever since has become a stone of stumbling for Christians who do not admit it.(5)

A resolution?

How are these conflicting positions to be harmonized? Clearly, the path of resolution will be neither easy nor short. In 1995, however, Pope John Paul II (in Ut Unum Sint)(6) invited the leaders and theologians of all the Christian church communities (a sparse response) to join him in a dialogue as to how the Roman primacy, its essential mission preserved, may best be exercised in our time. This dialogue was not to obscure, however, the basis and nature of this primacy.

All parties to this dialogue would need to commit themselves to a thorough and objective examination of the extant data, beginning with the Scriptures and the very early Church testimonies and those of the Fathers, of the major councils, and of the Eastern and Western Churches’ twenty centuries of mutual relations and doctrinal teaching, distinguishing the various levels of authority in this teaching. A sifting and evaluating of all this material would follow. Joint committees would appropriately pursue these tasks, as well as individual theologians.

True, this task has been done in large measure before. But, today joint committees of scholars are needed to replicate, authenticate and, if need be, correct the work of the past and accomplish new research called for now. Scholars striving equally for objectivity will evaluate evidence differently. Scholarly thoroughness and objectivity will, therefore, not eliminate all differences but will narrow them. Ultimately conclusions from a scientific point of view will need to be drawn in some cases on the basis of the preponderance of evidence and possible alternative interpretations noted.

But scholarship alone—even the most professional and objective—is not enough. Beyond scholarship there is needed prayerful intercession. The Church is not a community of scholars but the Mystical Body of Christ into which we are ingrafted by faith and baptism for the conversion of hearts, the healing of memories and the gift of reconciliation. We must have an intensified dialogue of love and that mutual cooperation which the Church communions have sought with greater or lesser success over these last fifty years. We must seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit for a full reconciliation and we must dearly want it.(7)

Read the full piece here.

Msgr. Daniel S. Hamilton, Ph.D., a former editor of The Long Island Catholic (1975-1985) and chairman of the Rockville Centre Diocesan Ecumenical Commission (1968-1988), is pastor emeritus of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church, Lindenhurst, New York and consultant to the Anglican Use Society and the Pastoral Provision.

This article appears in the February 2009 issue of HPR.

"The Invisible Mom"

Father Z. posted this, and it is stupendous.

"The Invisible Mom"
[comments and emphasis from the web site where I copied it]
by Anonymous

It all began to make sense, the blank stares, the lack of response, the way one of the kids will walk into the room while I’m on the phone and ask to be taken to the store.

Inside I’m thinking, ‘Can’t you see I’m on the phone?’ Obviously not; no one can see if I’m on the phone, or cooking, or sweeping the floor, or even standing on my head in the corner, because no one can see me at all.

I’m invisible. The invisible Mom. Some days I am only a pair of hands, nothing more: Can you fix this? Can you tie this? Can you open this? Some days I’m not a pair of hands; I’m not even a human being. I’m a clock to ask, ‘What time is it?’ I’m a satellite guide to answer, ‘What number is the Disney Channel?’ I’m a car to order, ‘Right around 5:30, please.’

I was certain that these were the hands that once held books and the eyes that studied history and the mind that graduated summa cum laude – but now they had disappeared into the peanut butter, never to be seen again. She’s going, she’s going, she’s gone!

One night, a group of us were having dinner, celebrating the return of a friend from England .. Janice had just gotten back from a fabulous trip, and she was going on and on about the hotel she stayed in. I was sitting there, looking around at the others all put together so well. It was hard not to compare and feel sorry for myself. I was feeling pretty pathetic, when Janice turned to me with a beautifully wrapped package, and said, ‘I brought you this.’ It was a book on the great cathedrals of Europe .

I wasn’t exactly sure why she’d given it to me until I read her inscription: ‘To Charlotte , with admiration for the greatness of what you are building when no one sees.’

In the days ahead I would read – no, devour – the book. And I would discover what would become for me, four life-changing truths, after which I could pattern my work: No one can say who built the great cathedrals we have no record of their names.

[1] These builders gave their whole lives for a work they would never see finished. [2] They made great sacrifices and [3] expected no credit. [4] The passion of their building was fueled by their faith that the eyes of God saw everything.

A legendary story in the book told of a rich man who came to visit the cathedral while it was being built, and he saw a workman carving a tiny bird on the inside of a beam. He was puzzled and asked the man, ‘Why are you spending so much time carving that bird into a beam that will be covered by the roof? No one will ever see it.’ And the workman replied, ‘Because God sees.’

I closed the book, feeling the missing piece fall into place.. It was almost as if I heard God whispering to me, ‘I see you, Charlotte. I see the sacrifices you make everyday, even when no one around you does. No act of kindness you’ve done, no sequin you’ve sewn on, no cupcake you’ve baked, is too small for me to notice and smile over. You are building a great cathedral, but you can’t see right now what it will become.’

At times, my invisibility feels like an affliction But it is not a disease that is erasing my life. It is the cure for the disease of my own self-centeredness. It is the antidote to my strong, stubborn pride.. I keep the right perspective when I see myself as a great builder. As one of the people who show up at a job that they will never see finished, to work on something that their name will never be on.

The writer of the book went so far as to say that no cathedrals could ever be built in our lifetime because there are so few people willing to sacrifice to that degree. [!]

When I really think about it, I don’t want my child to tell the friend he’s bringing home from college for Thanksgiving, ‘My Mom gets up at 4 in the morning and bakes homemade pies, and then she hand bastes a turkey for three hours and presses all the linens for the table.’ That would mean I’d built a shrine or a monument to myself. I just want him to want to come home. And then, if there is anything more to say to his friend, to add, ‘You’re gonna love it there.’

As mothers, we are building great cathedrals. We cannot be seen if we’re doing it right. And one day, it is very possible that the world will marvel, not only at what we have built, but at the beauty that has been added to the world by the sacrifices of invisible women.

Archbishop Burke closes the issue on Communion for unfaithful politicians....

For cryin' out loud: give this man the cardinal's cap!!!

Vatican Official: Bishops Have no Choice But to Refuse Communion to Pro-Abort Politicians
By Hilary White

ROME, January 30, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Archbishop Raymond Burke, in an exclusive interview last week, told LifeSiteNews.com that the issue of pro-abortion politicians continuing to receive Holy Communion is still one of major concern and that it is the duty of bishops to ensure that they are refused.

He told LifeSiteNews.com, "I don’t understand the continual debate that goes on about it. There’s not a question that a Catholic who publicly, and after admonition, supports pro-abortion legislation is not to receive Holy Communion and is not to be given Holy Communion."

"The Church’s law is very clear," said Archbishop Burke, who was appointed last year by Pope Benedict XVI as the head of the Church’s highest court, the Apostolic Signatura. "The person who persists publicly in grave sin is to be denied Holy Communion, and it [Canon Law] doesn’t say that the bishop shall decide this. It’s an absolute."

Among the US bishops directly to address the issue, Archbishop Burke was one of around a dozen who vigorously supported a directive of the Vatican that said pro-abortion Catholic politicians "must be refused" Holy Communion if they attempt to receive at Mass. Others have refused to abide by the Vatican instruction and the Church’s own Code of Canon Law, saying they would rather focus on "education" of such politicians.

Archbishop Burke called "nonsense" the accusation, regularly made by some bishops, that refusing Holy Communion "makes the Communion rail a [political] battle ground". In fact, he said, the precise opposite is true. The politician who insists on being seen receiving Holy Communion, despite his opposition to the Church’s central teachings, is using that reception for political leverage.

Read the rest here.

Another solid Rabii from NY speaks out on behalf of the pope

Defusing Vatican-Jewish Tensions

Amid the strains and ructions in Catholic-Jewish relations these past few weeks, an Orthodox Jewish Rabbi has been at the Vatican, offering a viable, though less trodden, way to lessen the tensions.

Rabbi Yehuda Levin, spokesman for the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada, visited senior curial officials last week to lobby the Church's support in opposing a gay pride march to be held in Jerusalem later this year. He hopes the Vatican and the apostolic nuncio to Israel can help him build a coalition of other religions and denominations to block the march.

A straight-talking, no-nonsense New Yorker, Levin has a missionary's zeal for defending the pro-life cause. Speaking at the Rome offices of Human Life International Jan. 29, he says he firmly believes that when it comes to Jewish-Catholic relations, defending life and the family should supersede controversies such as the denial of the extent of the Holocaust by Lefebvrite bishop, Richard Williamson.

"Our children are being given a case of moral AIDS," says Levin, a father of nine. "I'm not saying there isn't a place for that [discussion over Williamson] but we should be asking ourselves 'What can we do together to save babies and save young children's minds so that they know right and wrong on life and family issues?'"

He gives his full backing to Benedict XVI over the recent controversy. "People who are saying that Pope Benedict is anti-Semitic and insensitive -- that's ridiculous," he says. "He [the Pope] has a decades-long track record of anti-Nazism and sympathy for the Jews." Levin also says he understands what the Pope is trying to do in reaching out to traditionalists as they have some "very important things" to contribute to Catholicism.

"I absolutely support him. Why? Because he understands the big picture, which is that the Catholic Church has a problem with a strong left wing that is doing immeasurable harm to the faith." The Left, Levin says, "are helping to destroy and corrupt the values of the Church and that has a trickle-down effect on every religious community in the world." He points out that a Church of 1.25 billion members cannot be easily ignored. "When you [Catholics] sneeze," he warns, "the rest of us get a cold – we are affected by what happens."

Rabbi Levin also apologises for the reaction of some of his fellow Jews. "My guys have not acted with great sophistication," he says. "If he [the Pope] inadvertently includes somebody who's prominent in that movement and who says some strange things, is that a reason to throw out the baby with the bathwater and start to condemn Pope Benedict right away?" he asks. "Absolutely not." He also believes the Vatican should do a "better job" in conveying how far the Church has come in relations with Jews and, on the Pope Pius XII controversy, the Church should stress that "the Jewish community wouldn't want to be told what we should do and who we should venerate."

Rabbi Levin, who every year takes part in the March for Life in Washington, has little time for the new U.S. administration. He warns of the "Obamafication" of society -- meaning President Obama's efforts to try to reach consensus on all sides of the abortion debate.

Obama, he says, "doesn't get it." A woman cannot be "a little bit pregnant," nor is it possible to agree to a "little bit of homosexual marriage" and then argue against homosexual marriage. "You can't be all things to all people," Rabbi Levin says. "He [Obama] is prostituting godly values and, as an American, I'm offended. He thinks we're dumb."