CT on Emmaus Ministries

Christianity Today writes about Emmaus Ministries, and its outreach to male prostitutes in Chicago (and Houston).

December 1

Happy birthday to me.

Church and State in Finland

There is a reason we have the First Amendment, which prohibits an established church–freedom. It’s what Finland does not have, as this story illustrates. A pastor was convicted of “criminal discrimination” for refusing to celebrate communion with a female pastor. He was fined 20 days salary. Two members were found guilty for not stopping him.

Johan Candelin, director of World Evangelical Alliance’s Religious Liberty Commission and Finland resident, said it is unclear whether the pastor will attempt to bring the case to a higher court. Candelin said the fine is equivalent to the fine a burglar receives, and the three church members will have a criminal record. …

“It’s a very sad day for the Finnish church when people are taken to court for following their conscience,” Candelin told CT today. “In the future, the court will surely follow this line that they now started.” The case could set a precedent for similar cases concerning discrimination against homosexuals.

Benedict XVI on Hope

On the eve of the season of Advent, Pope Benedict XVI has released his second encyclical: Spe salvi (“Saved by Hope”).

The season of Advent is a season of hope, looking for and expecting the coming of Christ–celebrated in the context of anticipation of Christmas, but looking beyond to the second Advent of Christ, as is clear in the Gospel reading of the First Sunday of Advent in most lectionaries.

This would have been a good opportunity for Benedict to reflect on the second coming of Christ. But he misses the opportunity. Or, should we say instead, what he says is very revealing about the place of the second coming in Catholic theology–it is, for all practical purposes, absent. Now, he starts off in an interesting way. He talks about judgment as something hopeful; he connects it with the Biblical command that we have no other Gods, no images. Adventists have emphasized these points, as they are contained in the First Angel’s Message (Revelation 14:6,7). He says in a sense God is on trial because of the suffering in the world–but God’s vindication is in Christ’s own incarnation. It isn’t for us to try to create a just world here and now to try to cover up for God (the mistake made, we might say, by Catholic movements like Liberation Theology that seek a human justice in the world). Good points–which only make the remainder of the passage all the more disappointing.

Benedict depicts the individual in judgment (at death) as standing naked before Christ. Christ is the judge, the consuming fire who is either torment or purifier. He isn’t our advocate–he isn’t our mediator–we are not clothed in his righteousness–he does not plead his blood to the Father.

From that existential encounter at death the soul goes to its “intermediate state”–bliss, punishment, or purification–that is, purgatory. The rest is a restatement of Catholic dogma on purgatory, and of the usefulness of prayers for the dead.

What of the blessed hope of the return of Christ in glory? What of the earth made new? What of the final eradication of evil from the universe? These are not elements of Benedict’s theology of hope. He turns from purgatory to Mary.

Here are some extracts from the third part of the encyclical that looks forward to the end of time:

41. At the conclusion of the central section of the Church’s great Credo … we find the phrase: “he will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead”. From the earliest times, the prospect of the Judgement has influenced Christians in their daily living as a criterion by which to order their present life, as a summons to their conscience, and at the same time as hope in God’s justice. Faith in Christ has never looked merely backwards or merely upwards, but always also forwards to the hour of justice that the Lord repeatedly proclaimed. This looking ahead has given Christianity its importance for the present moment. In the arrangement of Christian sacred buildings, which were intended to make visible the historic and cosmic breadth of faith in Christ, it became customary to depict the Lord returning as a king—the symbol of hope—at the east end; while the west wall normally portrayed the Last Judgement as a symbol of our responsibility for our lives—a scene which followed and accompanied the faithful as they went out to resume their daily routine. As the iconography of the Last Judgement developed, however, more and more prominence was given to its ominous and frightening aspects, which obviously held more fascination for artists than the splendour of hope, often all too well concealed beneath the horrors.

42. In the modern era, the idea of the Last Judgement has faded into the background: Christian faith has been individualized and primarily oriented towards the salvation of the believer’s own soul, while reflection on world history is largely dominated by the idea of progress. The fundamental content of awaiting a final Judgement, however, has not disappeared: it has simply taken on a totally different form. The atheism of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is—in its origins and aims—a type of moralism: a protest against the injustices of the world and of world history. A world marked by so much injustice, innocent suffering, and cynicism of power cannot be the work of a good God. A God with responsibility for such a world would not be a just God, much less a good God. It is for the sake of morality that this God has to be contested. Since there is no God to create justice, it seems man himself is now called to establish justice. If in the face of this world’s suffering, protest against God is understandable, the claim that humanity can and must do what no God actually does or is able to do is both presumptuous and intrinsically false. It is no accident that this idea has led to the greatest forms of cruelty and violations of justice; rather, it is grounded in the intrinsic falsity of the claim. A world which has to create its own justice is a world without hope. No one and nothing can answer for centuries of suffering. No one and nothing can guarantee that the cynicism of power—whatever beguiling ideological mask it adopts—will cease to dominate the world. This is why the great thinkers of the Frankfurt School, Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno, were equally critical of atheism and theism. Horkheimer radically excluded the possibility of ever finding a this-worldly substitute for God, while at the same time he rejected the image of a good and just God. In an extreme radicalization of the Old Testament prohibition of images, he speaks of a “longing for the totally Other” that remains inaccessible—a cry of yearning directed at world history. Adorno also firmly upheld this total rejection of images, which naturally meant the exclusion of any “image” of a loving God. On the other hand, he also constantly emphasized this “negative” dialectic and asserted that justice —true justice—would require a world “where not only present suffering would be wiped out, but also that which is irrevocably past would be undone.” ³⁰ This, would mean, however—to express it with positive and hence, for him, inadequate symbols—that there can be no justice without a resurrection of the dead. Yet this would have to involve “the resurrection of the flesh, something that is totally foreign to idealism and the realm of Absolute spirit.” ³¹

43. Christians likewise can and must constantly learn from the strict rejection of images that is contained in God’s first commandment (cf. Ex 20:4). The truth of negative theology was highlighted by the Fourth Lateran Council, which explicitly stated that however great the similarity that may be established between Creator and creature, the dissimilarity between them is always greater.³² In any case, for the believer the rejection of images cannot be carried so far that one ends up, as Horkheimer and Adorno would like, by saying “no” to both theses—theism and atheism. God has given himself an “image”: in Christ who was made man. In him who was crucified, the denial of false images of God is taken to an extreme. God now reveals his true face in the figure of the sufferer who shares man’s God-forsaken condition by taking it upon himself. This innocent sufferer has attained the certitude of hope: there is a God, and God can create justice in a way that we cannot conceive, yet we can begin to grasp it through faith. Yes, there is a resurrection of the flesh.³³ There is justice.³⁴ There is an “undoing” of past suffering, a reparation that sets things aright. For this reason, faith in the Last Judgement is first and foremost hope—the need for which was made abundantly clear in the upheavals of recent centuries. I am convinced that the question of justice constitutes the essential argument, or in any case the strongest argument, in favour of faith in eternal life. The purely individual need for a fulfilment that is denied to us in this life, for an everlasting love that we await, is certainly an important motive for believing that man was made for eternity; but only in connection with the impossibility that the injustice of history should be the final word does the necessity for Christ’s return and for new life become fully convincing.

44. To protest against God in the name of justice is not helpful. A world without God is a world without hope (cf. Eph 2:12). Only God can create justice. And faith gives us the certainty that he does so. The image of the Last Judgement is not primarily an image of terror, but an image of hope; for us it may even be the decisive image of hope. Is it not also a frightening image? I would say: it is an image that evokes responsibility, an image, therefore, of that fear of which Saint Hilary spoke when he said that all our fear has its place in love.³⁵ God is justice and creates justice. This is our consolation and our hope. And in his justice there is also grace. This we know by turning our gaze to the crucified and risen Christ. Both these things—justice and grace—must be seen in their correct inner relationship. Grace does not cancel out justice. It does not make wrong into right. It is not a sponge which wipes everything away, so that whatever someone has done on earth ends up being of equal value. Dostoevsky, for example, was right to protest against this kind of Heaven and this kind of grace in his novel The Brothers Karamazov. Evildoers, in the end, do not sit at table at the eternal banquet beside their victims without distinction, as though nothing had happened. Here I would like to quote a passage from Plato which expresses a premonition of just judgement that in many respects remains true and salutary for Christians too. Albeit using mythological images, he expresses the truth with an unambiguous clarity, saying that in the end souls will stand naked before the judge. It no longer matters what they once were in history, but only what they are in truth: “Often, when it is the king or some other monarch or potentate that he (the judge) has to deal with, he finds that there is no soundness in the soul whatever; he finds it scourged and scarred by the various acts of perjury and wrong-doing …; it is twisted and warped by lies and vanity, and nothing is straight because truth has had no part in its development. Power, luxury, pride, and debauchery have left it so full of disproportion and ugliness that when he has inspected it (he) sends it straight to prison, where on its arrival it will undergo the appropriate punishment … Sometimes, though, the eye of the judge lights on a different soul which has lived in purity and truth … then he is struck with admiration and sends him to the isles of the blessed.” ³⁶ In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus (cf. Lk 16:19-31), Jesus admonishes us through the image of a soul destroyed by arrogance and opulence, who has created an impassable chasm between himself and the poor man; the chasm of being trapped within material pleasures; the chasm of forgetting the other, of incapacity to love, which then becomes a burning and unquenchable thirst. We must note that in this parable Jesus is not referring to the final destiny after the Last Judgement, but is taking up a notion found, inter alia, in early Judaism, namely that of an intermediate state between death and resurrection, a state in which the final sentence is yet to be pronounced.

45. This early Jewish idea of an intermediate state includes the view that these souls are not simply in a sort of temporary custody but, as the parable of the rich man illustrates, are already being punished or are experiencing a provisional form of bliss. There is also the idea that this state can involve purification and healing which mature the soul for communion with God. The early Church took up these concepts, and in the Western Church they gradually developed into the doctrine of Purgatory. We do not need to examine here the complex historical paths of this development; it is enough to ask what it actually means. With death, our life-choice becomes definitive—our life stands before the judge. Our choice, which in the course of an entire life takes on a certain shape, can have a variety of forms. There can be people who have totally destroyed their desire for truth and readiness to love, people for whom everything has become a lie, people who have lived for hatred and have suppressed all love within themselves. This is a terrifying thought, but alarming profiles of this type can be seen in certain figures of our own history. In such people all would be beyond remedy and the destruction of good would be irrevocable: this is what we mean by the word Hell.³⁷ On the other hand there can be people who are utterly pure, completely permeated by God, and thus fully open to their neighbours—people for whom communion with God even now gives direction to their entire being and whose journey towards God only brings to fulfilment what they already are.³⁸

46. Yet we know from experience that neither case is normal in human life. For the great majority of people—we may suppose—there remains in the depths of their being an ultimate interior openness to truth, to love, to God. In the concrete choices of life, however, it is covered over by ever new compromises with evil —much filth covers purity, but the thirst for purity remains and it still constantly re-emerges from all that is base and remains present in the soul. What happens to such individuals when they appear before the Judge? Will all the impurity they have amassed through life suddenly cease to matter? What else might occur? Saint Paul, in his First Letter to the Corinthians, gives us an idea of the differing impact of God’s judgement according to each person’s particular circumstances. He does this using images which in some way try to express the invisible, without it being possible for us to conceptualize these images—simply because we can neither see into the world beyond death nor do we have any experience of it. Paul begins by saying that Christian life is built upon a common foundation: Jesus Christ. This foundation endures. If we have stood firm on this foundation and built our life upon it, we know that it cannot be taken away from us even in death. Then Paul continues: “Now if any one builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw—each man’s work will become manifest; for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work which any man has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire” (1 Cor 3:12-15). In this text, it is in any case evident that our salvation can take different forms, that some of what is built may be burned down, that in order to be saved we personally have to pass through “fire” so as to become fully open to receiving God and able to take our place at the table of the eternal marriage-feast.

47. Some recent theologians [NB: he's paraphrasing his own argument in Eschatology: Death and Eternal Life] are of the opinion that the fire which both burns and saves is Christ himself, the Judge and Saviour. The encounter with him is the decisive act of judgement. Before his gaze all falsehood melts away. This encounter with him, as it burns us, transforms and frees us, allowing us to become truly ourselves. All that we build during our lives can prove to be mere straw, pure bluster, and it collapses. Yet in the pain of this encounter, when the impurity and sickness of our lives become evident to us, there lies salvation. His gaze, the touch of his heart heals us through an undeniably painful transformation “as through fire”. But it is a blessed pain, in which the holy power of his love sears through us like a flame, enabling us to become totally ourselves and thus totally of God. In this way the inter-relation between justice and grace also becomes clear: the way we live our lives is not immaterial, but our defilement does not stain us for ever if we have at least continued to reach out towards Christ, towards truth and towards love. Indeed, it has already been burned away through Christ’s Passion. At the moment of judgement we experience and we absorb the overwhelming power of his love over all the evil in the world and in ourselves. The pain of love becomes our salvation and our joy. It is clear that we cannot calculate the “duration” of this transforming burning in terms of the chronological measurements of this world. The transforming “moment” of this encounter eludes earthly time-reckoning—it is the heart’s time, it is the time of “passage” to communion with God in the Body of Christ.³⁹ The judgement of God is hope, both because it is justice and because it is grace. If it were merely grace, making all earthly things cease to matter, God would still owe us an answer to the question about justice—the crucial question that we ask of history and of God. If it were merely justice, in the end it could bring only fear to us all. The incarnation of God in Christ has so closely linked the two together—judgement and grace—that justice is firmly established: we all work out our salvation “with fear and trembling” (Phil 2:12). Nevertheless grace allows us all to hope, and to go trustfully to meet the Judge whom we know as our “advocate”, or parakletos (cf. 1 Jn 2:1).

48. A further point must be mentioned here, because it is important for the practice of Christian hope. Early Jewish thought includes the idea that one can help the deceased in their intermediate state through prayer (see for example 2 Macc 12:38-45; first century BC). The equivalent practice was readily adopted by Christians and is common to the Eastern and Western Church. The East does not recognize the purifying and expiatory suffering of souls in the afterlife, but it does acknowledge various levels of beatitude and of suffering in the intermediate state. The souls of the departed can, however, receive “solace and refreshment” through the Eucharist, prayer and almsgiving. The belief that love can reach into the afterlife, that reciprocal giving and receiving is possible, in which our affection for one another continues beyond the limits of death—this has been a fundamental conviction of Christianity throughout the ages and it remains a source of comfort today. Who would not feel the need to convey to their departed loved ones a sign of kindness, a gesture of gratitude or even a request for pardon? Now a further question arises: if “Purgatory” is simply purification through fire in the encounter with the Lord, Judge and Saviour, how can a third person intervene, even if he or she is particularly close to the other? When we ask such a question, we should recall that no man is an island, entire of itself. Our lives are involved with one another, through innumerable interactions they are linked together. No one lives alone. No one sins alone. No one is saved alone. The lives of others continually spill over into mine: in what I think, say, do and achieve. And conversely, my life spills over into that of others: for better and for worse. So my prayer for another is not something extraneous to that person, something external, not even after death. In the interconnectedness of Being, my gratitude to the other—my prayer for him—can play a small part in his purification. And for that there is no need to convert earthly time into God’s time: in the communion of souls simple terrestrial time is superseded. It is never too late to touch the heart of another, nor is it ever in vain. In this way we further clarify an important element of the Christian concept of hope. Our hope is always essentially also hope for others; only thus is it truly hope for me too.⁴⁰ As Christians we should never limit ourselves to asking: how can I save myself? We should also ask: what can I do in order that others may be saved and that for them too the star of hope may rise? Then I will have done my utmost for my own personal salvation as well.

“Familia”–a Regnum Christi Story

Many Catholic churches use “Familia,” which is for many people an entry into the Regnum Christi movement. Here’s a story about how the movement sought to drive out the founders of that apostolate, Paul and Libbie Sellors. They wrote the materials before it was adopted by the movement, and sought to retain access to them. A court gave that to them, and they’re promoting it under a new name, Together! But that’s not the end of the story, as that first link will tell you.

I was involved in one Regnum Christi apostolate–without being a member. I became involved in College COMPASS through some students at Rice, was invited to speak to a COMPASS gathering in Europe in 2005, helped coordinate a COMPASS national gathering in Houston, and served for a while on the COMPASS advisory board. I stayed for a few days at the Legionary seminary in Rome, and have visited the Legionary seminary in Cheshire, CT. I found the Legionaries I knew to be open to the criticism I gave (they needed to be more upfront with folks about it being a Regnum Christi apostolate, they should not be pressuring students to “incorporate” into RC until at the end of their college years, they should “go in the front door” when starting on a campus or in a diocese, etc.). But there were a lot of things I found very odd about it–including the segregation of men and women (a week before the Houston conference the COMPASS folks were told by the Legion that they couldn’t have men and women stay in the same hotel–some of the students laughed at that and said, “Well, in Europe they had us stay in different countries!”).

The Legionaries Market a Film

The Legionaries of Christ and their Regnum Christi movement have produced a film, “Bella,” and are pulling out all stops to promote it.

Barbara Nicolosi was surprised by the whirlwind–and by the vehemence of the advocates. Via Life-after-RC blog.

Legionary Newspaper Cries Foul

The National Catholic Register, a newspaper owned by the Legionaries of Christ, is complaining. It sees a difference in the number of papers who reported sexual abuse by priests vs. those who published a recent article about sexual abuse by teachers. It thinks someone is picking on the church.

I’m reading another book about sexual abuse by priests. Jason Berry, Lead Us Not into Temptation: Catholic Priests and the Sexual Abuse of Children (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000). This is the first book on the subject, originally published in 1992, expanded from Berry’s research in the mid-1980s into Fr. Gilbert Gauthe, a serial molester in the Diocese of Lafayette, LA. This came out nearly 20 years before Cardinal Law’s problems; it was published ten years before then. Berry weaves the story of his own odyssey into the book–he tried to get various publications interested, but in the mid-1980s, no major daily newspaper would touch the subject. His series first ran in The Times of Acadiana and The National Catholic Reporter. When he wrote the revised forward in 2000, he spoke of a church that was first stunned by lawsuits, and which then learned to fight back hard, suing victims for libel. He wrote of a public that grew tired with the reports, and came to believe that victims were going overboard, and making too big a deal, and who maybe weren’t all that reliable.

Berry wrote another book, which I just ordered: Jason Berry and Gerald Renner, Vows of Silence: The Abuse of Power in the Papacy of John Paul II (Free Press, 2004). It’s about the church politics in the scandal, which reached all the way to the top, involving John Paul II, who thought it a crisis made by the media, who refused ever to meet with any victims or to apologize to them as he had apologized regarding ancient wrongs, and who defended and promoted a man with a long history of accusations of sexual abuse: Fr. Marcial Maciel, founder of the Legionaries of Christ. Renner’s articles in the Hartford Courant were the starting point for this book–a series that wasn’t picked up by other newspapers around the country, either.

It was a long time coming, but Maciel was finally removed from ministry by Pope Benedict XVI (see ReGAIN Network for details about this case). The Legionaries of Christ continue to deny he did any wrong. The National Catholic Register has not reported the cries of his legion of accusers. It continues to defend him. I don’t think that it has reported on Benedict’s quiet ruling releasing members of the order from their secret vows, either.

“The Golden Compass”

Pr. Greg Brothers has some thoughts.  The Golden Compass is, he suggests,

essentially Paradise Lost retold from the view of Satan (as channeled by Jean-Jacque Rosseau), i.e. God is a senile pretender and any rebellion against Him is a Very Good Thing.

He enjoyed the first book, but never could force himself to finish the other two–they were “no fun to read.” He concludes:

I can forgive the fact that Pullman doesn’t like God.

But I’m not entirely sure that he likes his characters — and that, I can’t forgive.

Caught

Catholic blogger Rocco Palmo has had his hand slapped by the Houston Chronicle for pilfering their photos without permission.

12 Days of Christmas

Memo

To: radio station managers, sales managers, newspaper reporters, and whoever else.

Re: 12 Days of Christmas

Please note: The 12 Days of Christmas are December 25-January 5. Not December 6-21, not December 12-24, not any other combination of days I’ve seen in ads and promos.

We are not in the Christmas season now. As of this weekend, we will be in the season of Advent, a season which anticipates both the birth of Christ (his first advent, or coming) and his second advent (his return in glory).  Christmas will start the evening of December 24 (because days in Biblical and liturgical reckoning begin with sunset).

Giuliani’s Pedophile Priest Pal

Andrew Sullivan draws attention (again) to a member of the Giuliani camp who the mainstream media is continuing to ignore–Msgr. Alan Placa. He links to a commentary by Deal Hudson (and an update from Deal).

Since 2002, Msgr. Alan Placa has worked for Rudy Giuliani as a consultant at Giuliani Partners. In 2003 a grand jury report of Suffolk County, NY, accused Placa of sexually abusing multiple victims.

A spokeswoman for Giuliani Partners told Salon Magazine that the former New York City mayor believes Placa was “unjustly accused.” The grand jury report contains accusations from three alleged victims, including two children (Placa is named as “Priest F” in the report.) According to testimony before the grand jury, “Everyone in the school knew to stay away from Priest F.”

Placa has been suspended from his priestly duties for the past five years. He is “priest in residence” at St. Aloysius Church in Great Neck, NY. The pastor, Msgr. Brendan Riordan, is a close friend. In fact, Placa and Riordan co-own a penthouse apartment in Manhattan. The $555,000 apartment is one of six properties the two priests have owned together since the late 1980s. …

Monsignor Riordan himself was named in a sex abuse lawsuit against the Diocese of Worcester, MA; it was settled in the 1990s. [Why hasn't he been suspended?] ….

During the 1980s, Placa was the legal advisor to the House of Affirmation in Worchester, MA, which offered counseling services to priests accused of sexual abuse. One person who worked at this facility called it a “pedophile boot camp.” An abuse victim referred to it as a “breeding ground for sexual predators.”

Riordan was the director of the House of Affirmation, which was founded by Fr. Thomas Kane. Kane sold some of those properties to them–properties which may have been purchased with money Kane embezzled from House of Affirmation. Why is Riordan still in place as pastor, one wonders, despite the fact that his diocese settled a child abuse complaint? Why does his webpage list “Rev. Msgr. Alan J. Placa” as “in residence,” when Placa is suspended, and is not to be performing priestly duties?

The Suffolk Grand Jury report concludes, “Ironically, Priest F [Placa] would later become instrumental in the development of Diocesan policy in response to allegations of sexual abuse of children by priests.”

Sullivan concludes:

One simple question: why has the press not pursued this story more aggressively? Nothing quite highlights Giuliani’s blindness toward friends and cronies like this story. That Giuliani is still paying the guy a salary long after these serious accusations became public boggles the mind. It speaks to an arrogance, flawed judgment and personal contempt for the law that should disqualify Giuliani from any serious aspiration to the presidency.

Ten Gallon (Red) Hat

Smiley Pool of the Houston Chronicle has a picture of a hat given to Cardinardo by Fr. David Noble–a red cowboy hat with tassles. You’ve got to know David to really appreciate this. He and his twin brother, Bruce, are Aussies; David is a hospital chaplain, as was Bruce, before being named pastor of Our Lady of Walsingham Church. They were Anglican priests before converting to Catholicism, and were ordained together by Bishop Joseph Fiorenza. They shared a house most of their years in Houston, a veritable museum (“where people come to see ‘em”) of art and curios collected by their grandfather (an artist), their mother, and themselves over the years–including a uniform on the wall that was worn by a Governor General of Australia, and a rug in the upstairs parlor that was woven at the command of Mughal emperor Jahangir in the early 1600s (his son built the Taj Mahal). They share a delightful sense of humor, and an hour (or three) in their living room is filled with tales. It’s not surprising that they would be the ones to think of a red cowboy hat for the cardinal.

An Evangelical Perspective on Mary

J. I. Packer, Mary: Mother and Disciple of Christ Jesus the Lord, at First Things.

This essay is a plain Bible study focusing on the first two chapters of Luke’s gospel (the annunciation, Elizabeth’s welcome, Mary’s song, the birth narrative, the circumcision narrative, and Jesus in the Temple at age 12), plus Luke 8:19–21 (Jesus’ spiritual family), and on two passages from John’s gospel, 2:1–12 (the Cana wedding) and 19:25–27 (John to care for Mary).

He sets out at the beginning that he’s coming from a conservative evangelical perspective. He believes Luke and John actually wrote their books. He disagrees with the distinctive Catholic dogmas.

I do not believe in Mary’s immaculate conception, nor her perpetual virginity, nor her assumption, nor the appropriateness of prayer to her. As an Anglican, I have been drilled in the liturgical use of Mary’s song, the Magnificat, and have long taught that we should notice how she celebrates God as her Savior and should think of her as head of the line of sinners, saved by the atoning death and resurrection of her own son.

Bottom line: “…Luke and John present mother Mary to us as Jesus’ disciple: a model for us all.”

Buying Your Own Gifts

My daughter went to the mall the other day with a friend; before she left, she asked me for money so that she could get me a birthday present. Nothing like having to pay for your own gifts.

That’s what the cardinals experienced in Rome. They had to buy the biretta and zucchetto they received from the pope (along with all the rest of their regalia) ahead of time, and then send them to the papal MC. This ensures a proper fit (as well as a balanced papal budget, I suppose). They also have to pay for the ring, in the form of a ring “tax.” But they don’t pick up their own, and so don’t get to measure it ahead of time. That led to a humorous moment in the “Ring Mass,” Rocco Palmo reports.

Lest We Forget

Holocaust Museum Houston has a new permanent exhibit–a Danish fishing boat, like the ones used to transport Denmark’s Jews to safety.

Exhibits like this put the lie to the claim that “silence was golden.” Danish Christian leaders spoke up, and Danes courageously acted, and 7,200 Danish Jews were saved.

The current special exhibit, Medical Ethics and the Holocaust, reminds us that Christian leaders protested a Nazi euthanasia program, and forced the Nazis to back down.

Medical Ethics and the Holocaust

Exhibit at Holocaust Museum Houston and speaker series (November 27 through January 17).

Religious Freedom and the Catholic Right

Catholic “Traditionalism,” especially in the form of the SSPX, doesn’t believe in religious liberty. This was one of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre’s major objections to Vatican II. See his book, Religious Liberty Questioned (Kansas City, MO: Angelus Press, 2002).

Gerald Augustinus posts a translation of an article which relates the thoughts of Fr. Franz Schmidberger, who succeeded Lefebvre as superior of the SSPX, on this topic.

The old Catholic opposition to religious freedom is still alive; yes, it is most visible in groups like the SSPX–but where can we find the official Catholic spokesman on record criticizing the SSPX for this?

Sacrilege–Preliminary Thoughts

I’ve been reading Leon Podles’ book, Sacrilege, this weekend. I’m not done, and so this isn’t my review, but I need to vent a little. What I’m reading has made me angry–reminding me of people I knew and trusted, and of the institution I once trusted.

I’ve just read a portion recounting the number of high officials in the Diocese of Springfield, MA, who were implicated in sexual abuse of minors, including Bishop Thomas Dupre and Fr. Francis Lavelle. I knew Fran because he was director of the Newman Center at UMass and received two of my brothers into the Catholic Church. Dupre confirmed them. I later saw Fran at campus ministry meetings, and I saw (and chatted with) Dupre at USCCB meetings I attended. Springfield is but one example of a diocese where a network of abusive homosexual priests promoted and protected one another–even in the case of suspected murder.

I thought of Fr. Jim McShane, who was my supervising chaplain in the Vermont National Guard–he was also diocesan youth director at one time and scouting chaplain. Podles talks about case after case of priests who were assigned to such positions by bishops who knew them to be abusers.

Tonight I learned on the Bishop-Accountability webpage that Fr. Jack Hunt, my boss at St. Patrick’s in Watertown, NY, has been removed from ministry. He’s another priest who spent much time in campus ministry and on the seminary faculty.

I trusted these folks. I trusted Cardinal Law, whom I first met in 1992.

And there are others I could name, since removed for other forms of sexual misconduct.

Podles thinks both liberals and conservatives have valid points–the root problems include the preponderance of homosexuals in the priesthood (including gay subcultures in dioceses and seminaries, and gays who promote and protect each other) , as well as psychological immaturity and narcissism, and a clericalism that feeds off all of these things. But to say they had an “illness” is to misdiagnose. This is why bishops felt they could shunt them off to therapy and then return them to parishes–they failed to acknowledge that these priests weren’t just “sick,” they were engaging in gross criminal conduct and depraved sin. Podles also notes that sacrilege (obscene anti-religious actions that I don’t want to mention here) often played a part–and there are indications of diabolical activity in many cases.

I’ll have more to say, but let me urge you, whether you are Catholic or Protestant or agnostic, read Podles’ book. I don’t think you grasp the big picture. I don’t think you understand the fullness of what these men did–and how the system protected them.

The system is the problem. This clericalist system is entrenched even in those dioceses that aren’t reeling under the weight of accusations and settlements–including the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston, for which I worked for nine years. Cardinal DiNardo is an exemplar of the kind of cleric who allowed this stuff to happen–one who may talk tough before the cameras, but who is fundamentally more concerned about keeping everyone happy than confronting error and injustice in his chancery or in his parishes, as any lay person, in or out of the chancery, has discovered when they brought concerns to him. The message is always the same: “I don’t want to hear that. Don’t come to me with stuff like that.” Podles underscores that’s the kind of bishop Rome likes, and has appointed repeatedly over the past twenty years.

More later.

“Lord of the Rings”?

Rocco said it.

Poland Remembers Luther

Polish Adventists join other Protestants in denouncing posters attacking Luther.

Protestant leaders in one of Poland’s largest cities have condemned a poster campaign denouncing Martin Luther, the 16th century German Protestant leader, as a blasphemer and heretic, a November 7 news release by Ecumenical News International reported.

“What would happen if someone hung placards outside a Catholic church attacking the ‘blasphemy and heresy of John Paul II,’ or the ‘blasphemy of Muhammad’ at a mosque?” said Mariusz Maikowski, a pastor of the Seventh-day Adventist church in Lublin in eastern Poland. “These actions are clearly illegal [in Poland], yet the local council has said and done nothing,” Maikowski told ENI.

The Organization of Polish Monarchists put up the posters to advertise a lecture series. They want to reestablish a Catholic kingdom.

The article concludes by noting:

The Adventist Central Church in Warsaw was the only Protestant church in the country that organized a celebration of the 490th anniversary of Reformation, said church sources in Poland.

Men and Church

Why Orthodox Men Love Church, by Frederica Mathewes-Green. Among the reasons: challenges, clear disciplines, a goal, no sentimentality … and more.

Vincent Arong in the Scarlet Shadow

Vincent Arong, seminarian in Rome (and friend of yours truly and his brother, Jim), found a place at Cardinardo’s side.

Preaching the Lectionary

Ryan Bell, pastor of Hollywood Seventh-day Adventist Church, has some thoughts about The Grace of Preaching the Lectionary, particularly in the upcoming season of Advent.

Rick Steves’ “European Christmas”

Catch Rick Steves’ “European Christmas” on PBS–or order the DVD, CD, and book directly from Rick for only $29.95. A beautiful overview of how Christmas is celebrated across Europe.

Update: They shipped it November 28 and it arrived December 4. The book contains photos and additional info from the show, including all the recipes.

Lincoln’s Thanksgiving

Though we most often associate Thanksgiving with the Pilgrims, it didn’t become a national celebration until 1863, when, in the middle of a war, President Abraham Lincoln called for a national day of Thanksgiving to be held on the last Thursday of November.

That year had been a bloody one: Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Chickamauga—the three bloodiest battles of the war—were fought in that year, with combined casualties of 115,000.

And yet in the midst of war, Lincoln could thank God.

The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God.

He noted that despite being “in the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity,” no foreign nation took advantage of our weakness. In the cities outside of the war zone, “order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed.”

Despite having to divert energy and resources for the war effort, this had “not arrested the plough, the shuttle, or the ship.” The nation continued to expand, mines yielded their treasures, harvests were plentiful, population increased.

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

Because of this, he continued,

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.

Lincoln saw that even in the best of times we get caught up in life and forget to thank God. In time of suffering, we think so much of our loss that we sometimes seek to blame God instead of thanking him. But it is especially at such times that we need to come together in humility. Especially at such times, we need to remember that we are in his hands.

Notice there is no blame in Lincoln’s decree. He didn’t blame the South. He didn’t accuse the South of rebellion. He spoke of the war as a judgment of God for our sins, for “our national perverseness and disobedience.” It wasn’t something to celebrate. It wasn’t something to revel in. But that judgment was tempered with mercy, and God still proved himself to be good.

Racism and the Dutch Christmas

Sinterklaas and Zwart Piet.

Dale Fushek Goes Freelance

Msgr. Dale Fushek was a star in the Catholic world. He was pastor of St. Timothy’s Catholic Church in Mesa, vicar general of the diocese of Phoenix, and founder of LifeTeen, a popular program for teenagers used by Catholic churches around the nation.

He’s been suspended from ministry for two years because of accusations of sexual abuse, for which he has been indicted and is awaiting trial. A civil suit was settled for $100,000.

He faces one count of assault, five counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor and one count of indecent exposure. He is accused of engaging in sexually related discussions with teenagers during confessions and exposing himself to teens as he got into his hot tub.

A Phoenix newspaper has the latest, which is sure to shock many of his defenders: he’s started a “Praise and Worship Center.” He says it isn’t a church, that it is meant to supplement what people get in their churches. Another former priest, Mark Dippre, is working with him. Via Rod Dreher.

The “Praise and Worship Center” webpage has this FAQ:

8. Because of Rev. Dale’s legal situation, will children under 18 be able to attend?

Rev. Dale has carefully adhered to the current requirement of the Justice Court of having no contact with individuals less than 18 years of age. The justice of the peace has allowed him to attend church and to visit other public places where children may be present.

More articles. Amy Welborn comments.

Update: The Diocese of Phoenix isn’t very concerned about Fushek’s actions.

“When he was put on administrative leave, he was told not to administer the sacraments and to not present himself as a priest,” Jim Dwyer, spokesman for the Catholic Diocese of Phoenix, said Friday. “If he is not violating that, we wouldn’t have to know specifically what he is doing.” …

“We heard about some of the promotional materials that were done, but we didn’t know if it was ever going to take place,” Dwyer said. “We made it clear to the Catholics at St. Timothy’s that it wouldn’t be (regarded as) an official Catholic service. But other than that, we have no control on what he does as a Catholic citizen.”

So, he can preach, he can lead worship, he can organize a new ministry–just so long as he doesn’t administer the sacraments or “present himself as a priest.” Even though he is a priest. And a very visible one. A priest with a following. A celebrity. An indicted celebrity. And the diocese has already settled claims with an accuser.

Update (11/27): The current pastor of St. Timothy’s, Jack Spaulding, says of Fushek’s move:

As his friend for over 30 years, and now as pastor of St. Tim’s, I say, with sadness, that I cannot, and do not, support him in this, and that the parish cannot and does not support him on this.

Update (11/28): Statement from the Diocese of Phoenix:

On Thanksgiving Day, November 22, 2007, Dale Fushek, a priest of the Diocese of Phoenix on administrative leave, conducted a praise and worship service that was in opposition to directives given to him to cease all public and sacred ministries. Mark Dippre, a priest who left public priestly ministry to enter into a civil marriage and is not a priest in good standing, also participated in the service. The service was not Catholic nor was it endorsed by the Catholic Church. We encourage the Catholic faithful to keep the Holy Mass, the ultimate form of praise and worship, as the center of their lives.

Update (8/28/2008): Fushek’s trial on sex charges will begin November 17.

Update (10/27/2009): I noticed this post still gets several hits each day, and was curious about the status of the trial. Well, they’ve been haggling for a year over whether he’d get one trial on all counts or separate trials. Judge ruled there was no “pattern” to his misconduct, and so each accusation gets treated separately. This bizarre ruling was upheld on appeal. He continues to do this thing at the Praise and Worship Center.

Chilton’s Children

Chilton’s Children–A webpage devoted to the descendants of James Chilton, passenger on the Mayflower, through his daughters Mary (also on the Mayflower) and Isabella. And here’s a painting depicting the family legend that Mary (my 9th-great-grandmother) was the first female ashore.

The College of Cardinals

Cardinal Taricisio Bertone, the Vatican Secretary of State, writes to John Allen to respond to his analysis of the college of cardinals.

Allen had observed, “Two-thirds of the cardinals come from the global North, while two-thirds of the Catholic people live in the South.”

Bertone responds with a “so what?”

“The pope is free in a sovereign sense in the choice of cardinals,” Bertone said. “If one considers only in a mathematical sense the relationship between the faithful and the cardinals, it could perhaps seem unequal; but if one looks more carefully at the data on the distribution of priests and bishops in the world, the proportions appear more balanced.”

“In any event, the fact remains that the College of Cardinals is not, and cannot be, a mere assembly in which the various local churches are represented using democratic methods. It is entirely different, as popes have repeatedly explained in the speeches and homilies given during the consistories.”

In an accompanying piece, Cardinale observes that the two countries with the largest number of cardinals under the age of 80 and thus able to vote for the next pope, Italy (21) and the United States (13), are also those with the largest numbers of bishops and priests. Italy has more than 51,000 priests and over 500 bishops, while the United States has over 45,000 priests and more than 430 bishops.

How could it be clearer? This isn’t about the laity. This is about clerics.

Secularizing Thanksiving

Erin Manning reflects on attempts to write “thanks giving [to God]” out of the narrative of the first Thanksgiving.

It is clear that the colonists did indeed celebrate a harvest festival, but it is equally clear that the purpose of this festival was to thank the good God for having provided them with so abundant an outpouring of the goods of the earth. The debunkers are right about some things: the food probably didn’t include turkeys; though pumpkins and other squash may have been cooked there weren’t any pies, as there was nothing yet to make pie crust with, no sugar for sweetening, and no ovens; the feast lasted several days, not just one. But they are wrong when they imply that this harvest feast had no religious significance, if for the simple reason that to the Pilgrims practically everything had religious significance; besides, the Pilgrims would have understand that the verb “thank” is a transitive verb, and requires an object, one Who is properly thanked for all His merciful Providence.