Oh, it’s a great experience, C.P.E. is. Lots of seminarians of lots of denominations go through it. Some of us have good experiences. Mine, at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, was mostly good, because I had a very good supervisor. But others suffer through it. It seems at times and at some centers that the purpose of C.P.E. is to produce ministers who act like the woman in the video below … experts in Rogerian reflection who have forgotten that the purpose of a minister is to proclaim the Gospel.
So, if you went through C.P.E., tell me … how did that make you feel?
Footnote: I mentioned my own C.P.E. supervisor at Walter Reed. He was a Lutheran army chaplain, LTC-P, with combat experience in Vietnam. When I, a nervous 23-year-old 2d Lieutenant, expressed my fears of my inadequacy–what could I say in situations of life and death?–he asked, “Do you believe Luther’s explanation of the third article of the creed?” I hesitated, so he recited:
I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him; but the Holy Ghost has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith; even as He calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian Church on earth, and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith; in which Christian Church He forgives daily and richly all sins to me and all believers, and at the last day will raise up me and all the dead, and will give to me and to all believers in Christ everlasting life. This is most certainly true.
25,703 primates were imported into the US last year–98% of which were macaque monkeys imported for vivisection. 58% of primates imported into the US come from China, where this picture was taken.
The Second District Court of Appeal in Los Angeles has announced it will reconsider its decision that would have made it illegal for anyone without a teaching credential to homeschool their children. It has asked for amicus briefs from a variety of educational organizations. San Francisco Chronicle. California Catholic Daily.
Back on February 20, George Weigel asked some questions of the new Jesuit general in his column for the Denver Catholic Register. Among them:
What will Father Nicolas do about Jesuits who are manifestly not obedient to the Pope or to the teaching authority of the Church? Take, for example, the case of Father James Keenan, S.J., of Boston College. Several years ago, Father Keenan testified before the Massachusetts Legislature, arguing that the principles of Catholic social doctrine did not merely tolerate “gay marriage,” they demanded it. That position is manifestly not “in communion” with the teaching of popes past and present on the nature of marriage; now what?
Father Nicolas cannot be unaware of Jesuit colleges and universities whose Catholicism — measured by curriculum, faculty, and mode-of-life on campus — is vestigial at best. Does he think it appropriate for Jesuit institutions to honor Jesuits who taught the precise opposite of what the popes have taught about abortion, and distorted the meaning of papal teaching in counseling others? Georgetown University’s Law School has an endowed chair in international human rights law named after the late Father Robert Drinan, S.J., who did more than anyone else to convince Catholic legislators that the settled teaching of the Church on the grave immorality of abortion had no bearing on their legislative work. Father Drinan gave Catholic legislators a pass on the great civil rights issue of our time, yet a Jesuit university hosts a human rights chair named for him; how does this square with the Society’s commitment to social justice and with the obedient fidelity St. Ignatius bade his followers to observe in their relationship to the Church’s magisterium and to the Bishop of Rome?
Then there is the third-rail issue in religious orders today: homosexuality. In a letter to the General Congregation, Pope Benedict suggested that there were serious problems with how some Jesuits undertook the pastoral care of persons with homosexual desires. He could have gone farther and addressed this problem within the Society of Jesus itself; it was not that long ago, after all, that the Web site of the Jesuits’ California Province featured photos of “Pretty Boy” and “Jabba the Slut” in gay drag at a novices’ party. Will Father Nicolas demand that Jesuits observe their vows of chastity, whatever their sexual preferences? Will there be consequences for those who violate those vows, or cover for those who do? Will Jesuit vocations offices and novitiates obey the 2005 Vatican instruction which states that “those who practice homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies, or support the so-called ‘gay culture’” must not be admitted to seminaries or to holy orders?
A fourth point: the tendency among some Jesuit theologians to minimize the unique salvific role of Christ. That problem is most apparent in Asia, where Father Nicolas has lived for decades; the Holy See has addressed it in recent disciplinary actions against Jesuit theologians. Does Ignatian communion with the Pope still require Jesuits to affirm the Nicene Creed, the Council of Chalcedon’s teaching on the hypostatic union, and the teaching of Dominus Iesus on Christ as unique savior of the world?
CatholicSan Francisco,the official publication of the Archdiocese of San Francisco, carried a rejoinder to Weigel, written by Stephen Privett, SJ, the president of the Jesuit University of San Francisco (go to page 19 of the pdf). Privett is shocked — shocked!! – that someone would accuse Jesuits of unfaithfulness, and that the Archdiocese of Denver would publish it. How, he asks, could Weigel suppose that Fr. Keenan was arguing in favor of gay marriage? Weigel explains here.
Deal Hudson looks at the columns, and gives some more data backing Weigel here.
