Catholic Teaching and Health Care

This weekend will see, according to the latest news reports, the final disposition of Health Care Reform by the House of Representatives. How the vote will go is still a bit of an uncertainty, as is whether it will actually be a vote on the health care bill or some other version of political machinations.

The bishops of the United States have made the true Catholic position clear concerning this bill. His Eminence, Cardinal George issued an explanation of the huge moral problems the bill contains which makes it impossible for Catholics to support the legislation in its current form. His Eminence, Cardinal DiNardo has given a talk emphasizing the same points. The Archbishop of Denver, His Excellency, Archbishop Chaput, has spoken and written numerous times over the past few days on this issue as well, this being the latest.

The teaching of the Church is clear, at least to those that have ears to hear. There have been some vocal dissents to this teaching from those claiming to be Catholic (specifically the Catholic Health Association as well as NETWORK). Interestingly, but not surprisingly, the majority of the dissenters have been women religious who have for years been attacking and undermining the teaching of the Church. Needless to say, this group of "nuns" continues to bank on the credibility they have with the average Catholic who remembers the days when what "sister" lived, taught and said was what the Church lived, taught and said. This situation has become so problematic that the President of the Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious (CMSWR), Mother Mary Quentin, issued the following statement on behalf of the Council. I know that this seems very confusing to most folks, but the CMSWR represents those orders of women religious who are faithful, in full, to the Church. We need to start realizing that many of the "sisters" we all knew and loved have moved beyond the faith they once professed. More importantly, we need to pray for those women religious who are still members of the orders that have dissidents in the leadership roles but who themselves are faithful daughters of the Church. They are suffering a white martyrdom.

While I was not going to create a post concerning this issue, since so many have done so in a way better than I can hope to do, Speaker Pelosi's comments yesterday caused me such frustration that I had to write something. The Speaker invoked the aid of St. Joseph -- on his feastday -- to get the current healthcare reform bill through the House. The woman has no shame and it seems that those who have ecclesiastical jurisdiction over her have chosen to allow her to make comments which are in direct contradiction to the teachings of the Church without any official rebuttal or penalty.

We do ned, however, to invoke the assistance of St. Joseph about this legislation. He, the universal patron of the Church, is a powerful intercessor before God. Speaker Pelosi may ultimately regret asking for his assistance, since he may have a very different outcome in mind.

Wonderful allocution by the Holy Father about the Priesthood

Yesterday the Holy Father gave a brief allocution to the participants in a conference organized by the Congregation for the Clergy. The Vatican Information Service has given the following summary:

VATICAN CITY, 12 MAR 2010 (VIS) - At midday today, the Holy Father received participants in a theological congress promoted by the Congregation for the Clergy, and which is being held on 11 and 12 March in the Pontifical Lateran University on the theme: "Faithfulness of Christ, faithfulness of Priests".

In a time such as our own, said the Pope, "it is important clearly to bear in mind the theological specificity of ordained ministry, in order not to surrender to the temptation of reducing it to predominant cultural models. In the context of widespread secularisation which progressively tends to exclude God from the public sphere and from the shared social conscience, the priest often appears 'removed' from common sense". Yet , the Pope went on, "it is important to avoid a dangerous reductionism which, over recent decades ... has presented the priest almost as a 'social worker', with the risk of betraying the very Priesthood of Christ.

"Just as the hermeneutic of continuity is revealing itself to be ever more important for an adequate understanding of the texts of Vatican Council II", he added, "in the same way we see the need for a hermeneutic we could describe as 'of priestly continuity', one which, starting from Jesus of Nazareth, Lord and Christ, and over the two thousand years of history, greatness, sanctity, culture and piety which the Priesthood has given the world, comes down to our own day".

Benedict XVI affirmed that "it is particularly important that the call to participate in the one Priesthood of Christ in ordained Ministry should flower from the 'charism of prophecy'. There is great need for priests who speak of God to the world and who present the world to God; men not subject to ephemeral cultural fashions, but capable of authentically living the freedom that only the certainty of belonging to God can give. ... And the prophecy most necessary today is that of faithfulness" which "leads us to live our priesthood in complete adherence to Christ and the Church".

Priests, the Holy Father continued, "must be careful to distance themselves from the predominant mentality which tends to associate the value of Ministry not with its being, but with its function". Our "ontological association with God", he said "is the right framework in which to understand and reaffirm, also in our own time, the value of celibacy which in the Latin Church is a charism imposed by Holy Orders, and is held in great esteem by the Oriental Churches. ... It is an expression of the gift of the self to God and to others".

"The vocation of priests is an exalted one, and remains a great mystery. ... Our limitations and weaknesses must induce us to live and safeguard this precious gift with great faith, a gift with which Christ configured us to Himself, making us participants in His mission of salvation. Indeed, the understanding of priestly ministry is linked to faith and requires, ever more strongly, a radical continuity between formation in seminaries and permanent formation".

The Holy Father concluded by telling his audience that "the men and women of our time ask us only to be priests to the full, nothing else. The lay faithful will be able to meet their human needs in many other people, but only in the priest will they find that Word of God which must always be on his lips, the Mercy of the Father abundantly and gratuitously distributed in the Sacrament of Penance, and the bread of new life". 

The entire talk is not yet available in English translation; hopefully this will be forthcoming. In any case, one needs to wonder how the reframing of the understanding of the priesthood over the past 45 years have led to the evil and scandalous sexual abuse of young people by members of the clergy (I am not referring to those cases which are pathological -- i.e., true pedophilia, but cases of personal sinfulness and moral turpitude).
Some have implied that "putting the priest on a pedestal" contributed to a priest thinking himself above the people he serves and above the moral teaching of Christ and His Church, and thus led to the sexual abuse. I think this would be true for only the truly hard of heart. My own experience has been that any acts of deference shown by God's people to me or being "put on a pedestal" has caused me to experience a greater sense of unworthiness and a desire to try, with God's grace, to become a better priest and more faithful to the calling I have received. Coming to appreciate once again what the Church has always taught that priests are, might be the most important step in reversing the "vocation crisis" and the "new springtime" for the faith which Vatican II so hoped for.
Priests exist for the Sacraments, most especially the Holy Eucharist, and prayer, most especially the Divine Office. Anything else they do or any other ministry they have must always be referenced back to this -- as priests move away from this understanding, they betray the essence of their very being: their ontological conformity to Jesus Christ the High Priest through the Sacrament of Holy Orders.
Please pray for priests!

Pray for the Holy Father

The recent revelations of sexual abuse by clerics in Germany and Austria have unleashed another vitriolic attack by the secular press seeking to create connections where none exist and to, by smarmy phraseology to imply that Msgr. Georg Ratzinger (the Holy Father's elder brother) and the Holy Father himself may have engaged in "cover up" activity. Both of these implications are clearly false to anyone who attempts a slightly objective read the accounts.
In any case, we need to offer prayers for the Holy Father so that he may continue to have the strength to feed the Lord's flock, which is his divinely given responsibility:


Let us pray for Benedict, our Pope. May the Lord preserve him, and give him life, and make
him blessed upon the earth, and deliver him not up to the
will of his enemies. [Ps 40:3]

Our Father,  Hail Mary.

O God, Shepherd and Ruler of all Thy faithful people, look
mercifully upon Thy servant Benedict, whom Thou hast chosen
as shepherd to preside over Thy Church. Grant him, we
beseech Thee, that by his word and example, he may edify
those over whom he hath charge, so that together with the
flock committed to him, may he attain everlasting life.
Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Consecration of the Chapel of Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary

Yesterday was an extremely thrilling day for the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter. The chapel of their recently constructed seminary in Denton, Nebraska was consecrated by His Excellency Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz, the Bishop of the Diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska, in the presence of His Eminence William Cardinal Levada, Prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith. The chapel is quite beautiful and is built along Classic lines, and the consecration ceremony took a simple building and set it apart as a dwelling place for the Most High. The four and one half hour ceremony was televised by EWTN and was quite moving. The website for the seminary  promises to have pictures of the consecration posted very soon. Go over and have a look; it is worth the trip!
The priests of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter are a Society of Apostolic Life of Pontifical Right founded with the approval of His Holiness Pope John Paul II in 1988, for the formation and sanctification of priests in the framework of the extraordinary form of the Roman Rite and their pastoral deployment in the service of the Church. They also have many vocations!

Our Lady of the Annunciation of Clear Creek Abbey

Some wonderful news from Our Lady of the Annunciation Monastery of Clear Creek, Oklahoma (a monastic foundation of the French Abbey Notre Dame de Fontgombault; the Divine Office and Holy Mass are celebrated in Latin and sung in Gregorian Chant. The Liturgy of Mass is celebrated according to the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite -- the Traditional Latin Mass. The monks also observe the complete Benedictine horarium).


Because the Monastery has grown significantly since its recent foundation, it has been established as an Abbey in its own right. From the website:

The Monks of Our Lady of the Annunciation of Clear Creek Monastery

Have the honor and joy of announcing to you

Their recent canonical erection as an Abbey sui juris

On February 10^th, feast of Saint Scholastica,

And the nomination and installation of their first abbot,

The Right Reverend Father Dom Philip Anderson,

On February 11^th, feast of Our Lady of Lourdes.

Please pray for the new abbot and his community.  


Take a look at the monks website (clearcreekmonks.org). Their story is quite impressive and inspiring. Too bad they are out west, it seems a wonderful place to make a retreat!

First Sunday of Lent -- Jesus is Tempted in the Desert

The Gospel reading for the first Sunday of Lent in both the Ordinary Form (Novus Ordo) and the Extraordinary Form (Traditional Latin Mass) recounts the temptation of Jesus in the desert after His forty days of prayer and fasting:


Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.  And he fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterward he was hungry. And the tempter came and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread." But he answered, "It is written, `Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.'" Then the devil took him to the holy city, and set him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, `He will give his angels charge of you,' and `On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.'" Jesus said to him, "Again it is written, `You shall not tempt the Lord your God.'" Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them;  and he said to him, "All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me." Then Jesus said to him, "Begone, Satan! for it is written, `You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.'" Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and ministered to him. -- St. Matthew 4:1-11 (RSV translation)


It is interesting that many of the Fathers of the Church have extended commentaries on this passage and they are able to point out so many allegorical meanings to this event. One I found the most interesting was the observation that when Christ Himself suffered wrong at the hands of the Devil, being tempted by him he did not send him away, but only after the Devil usurps the honor due to God that the Lord tells him to begone. In other words, Jesus has given us the example to bear injuries and insults to ourselves with magnanimity, but never to tolerate insult to God.


How often do we look the other way when our society puts forward insult after insult to our God? While God clearly does not need His honor defended, we who love Him are obligated to answer and correct anything or anyone who takes from God what is His due.

Lent is fast approaching, so what are you going to do?

This Wednesday, the 17th of February is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the season of Lent. During these forty days, the Church recommends that we renew and revitalize our relationship with our Lord in order to be able to celebrate well the sacred Easter Triduum. This renewal is to come about through our practice of the traditional trio of prayer, fasting and almsgiving. While many of us try to be attentive to fasting ("giving something up for Lent"), it is easy to neglect, or at least not concentrate on, the other two -- prayer and almsgiving. In a real sense, our fasting should easily lead us to prayer and almsgiving, by freeing up time (to devote to God through prayer and spiritual reading) and money (to ease the material suffering of others by what we save in not giving to ourselves). Try to make this Lent a time of taking up the three together in order to make Lent a real time of spiritual renewal. Fasting alone can be good for the soul, but it often devolves to being only good for our waistline; by adding prayer and almsgiving, fasting becomes good for body and soul!

Some ideas for prayer/spiritual reading during Lent:

1. Pray the Rosary daily, if you do not already do so.
2. Pray the Chaplet of Divine Mercy (ewtn.com/Devotionals/mercy/dmmap.htm)
3. Read a chapter of Sacred Scripture each day. I particularly favor the Prophet Jeremiah or the Gospel of John for Lent.
4. Read some writings of the saints. Fr. Jerabek has arranged various reading plans for Lent and are worth checking out. The advantage is that they can be accessed online so can be read anywhere without having to carry a book around. They are available here: www.lovethechurch.com/lent
5. Assist at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass as often as possible during the weeks of Lent.

Whatever you choose to do, know that our Lord rewards richly those who seek Him with a contrite heart. A blessed Lent to all!