Virtues | The Lay Catholic

Pope: Satan Tricks People Into Being Selfish, Leaving Them Loveless

May 14, 2013 Carol Glatz Virtues

If people want to follow Jesus, they have to “live life as a gift” to give to others, “not as a treasure to keep” for one’s own,” he said.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Payback with Satan is rotten as he pushes people to be loveless and selfish, finally leaving them with nothing and alone, Pope Francis said.

“Satan always rips us off, always!” he said during a morning Mass homily.

The pope concelebrated Mass May 14 with Archbishop Ricardo Tobon Restrepo of Medellin, Colombia, in the chapel of his residence, the Domus Sanctae Marthae.

During the Mass, attended by employees of the Vatican Museums and a group of alumni from Rome’s Pontifical Portuguese College, the pope said selfish people don’t understand what giving and love are.

Judas exemplified this self-centeredness when he complained that the expensive oil Mary used to anoint Jesus’ feet could have been sold for money to give to the poor, the pope said.

The account from the Gospel of John explains that Judas didn’t care about the poor and wanted the money instead because he was a thief and would steal the contributions.

The account from the Gospel of John suggests that Judas’ attitude toward money was a form of idolatry, the pope said…..

“This is the first reference that I have found in the Gospels of poverty as an ideology,” Pope Francis said, according to the Vatican Radio website.

“The ideologist doesn’t know what love is because he doesn’t know how to give himself,” he said.

Judas was “distant in his solitude” and his selfishness grew to the point of betraying Jesus, he said.

The selfish person “takes care of his own life, grows in this egoism and becomes a traitor, but always alone.”

People who isolate their conscience within their egotistical world end up losing their conscience, like Judas who “was an idolater, attached to money.”

“This idolatry led him to isolate himself” from the community and from others.

“This is the ordeal of an isolated conscience, when a Christian begins to isolate himself, he also isolates his conscience from the sense of community, the sense of the church and from the love that Jesus gives us,” he said…..

On the other hand, it’s only by giving one’s life and by “losing” it, as Jesus says, that one regains it in fullness, the pope said.

People who “give their lives for love are never alone, they’re always in a community, in a family,” he said, reflecting on the day’s reading from the Gospel of John in which Jesus tells his disciples, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

People, like Judas, who want to keep their life all for themselves end up losing it, he said. That is why “Satan’s payback is rotten,” he’s always tricking people into a bad deal.

If people want to follow Jesus, they have to “live life as a gift” to give to others, “not as a treasure to keep” for one’s own, he said.

Pope Francis asked people to pray to the Holy Spirit “to give me this big heart, this heart that is able to love with humility, with meekness.” May people also call on the Holy Spirit to “always free us from that other path of selfishness, which eventually ends badly.”

No comments Human Virtues, Pope Francis, Poverty

Only Defense Against Devil & Hatred Is Word of God & Humility Pope Says

May 6, 2013 Carol Glatz Virtues

There is no Christian life without the vitality of the Holy Spirit.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Dialogue doesn’t work with the devil; the only defense is the word of God, humility and meekness, especially in response to his works of hatred and persecution, Pope Francis said.

“Humility and meekness: These are the weapons that the prince of the world, the spirit of the world does not tolerate, because he makes proposals for worldly power, proposals of vanity, proposals for riches,” he said in his daily morning Mass homily May 4.

The pope celebrated Mass in the chapel of the Domus Sanctae Marthae, where he lives, with members of the Swiss Guard, including their commander, Col. Daniel Anrig.

In his homily, the pope talked about the origin of hatred and how Jesus told his disciples of the spite and persecution awaiting them, as told in the day’s reading from chapter 15 of the Gospel according to St. John.

“Remember the word I spoke to you, ‘No slave is greater than his master.’ If they persecute me, they will also persecute you,” he cited from the Gospel.

The Christian journey is Christ’s journey; there is no other way to follow him, the pope said…..

“Many Christian communities are persecuted today, more now than in the early days of the church: today, right now, on this day and at this hour,” Pope Francis said. The reason for this persecution comes from the devil and his hatred; the path of persecution “is a consequence of the hatred of the world and the prince of this hatred in the world.”

The devil hates Christians, he said, because “we have been saved and the prince of the world doesn’t want us to be saved, he hates us and gave rise to the persecutions from the time of Jesus to today.”

With his death and resurrection, Christ “ransomed us” and all humanity from worldly power and the devil’s grasp, the pope said.

Just as the devil tried to trick and tempt Jesus, he tries to trick others, too, Pope Francis said. Jesus did not respond by bargaining with the devil or trying to fight him on his own; he responded with the word of the God.

“You cannot dialogue with the prince of this world. This is clear,” the pope said.

“Dialogue comes from charity, from love,” and it comes from habit, he said. It is necessary for peace and it must be the way “we hear each other, understand each other.”

However, dialogue doesn’t work with the devil, he said. He tries to “soften us” with flattery, convincing people to do something small, just “a tiny swindle” or scam that seems insignificant, but then it’s just the beginning of leading people along the wrong path and “we fall into the trap.”

Jesus told his disciples that he was “sending you out like sheep among wolves. Be cautious, but innocent,” he said.

If people let themselves be taken over by a spirit of vanity and think they can fight the wolves by being wolves themselves, then the wolves “will eat you alive,” the pope said.

He prayed that “we all stay sheep so that way we will have a shepherd who defends us.”

That is why the best defense against the devil’s “seductions, fireworks and flattery” is Jesus, the word of God, and Jesus’ own example of humility and meekness, he said.

In his morning homily May 6, the pope talked about the role of the Holy Spirit as a friend and guide leading the way to Jesus.

Celebrating Mass with workers who are in charge of the maintenance and upkeep of St. Peter’s Basilica, the pope said the Holy Spirit is God who “defends us” and “is always by our side supporting us.”

There is no Christian life without the vitality of the Holy Spirit, he said. Otherwise, “it would be a religious, pagan, pious life that believes in God but without the vitality that Jesus wants for his disciples.”

It is the Holy Spirit who opens people’s hearts and prepares them for knowing Jesus, the pope said.

“The Holy Spirit works in us during the whole day, during our whole life as a witness that tells us where Jesus is” and “what Jesus is saying to us,” he said.

Jesus told his disciples he would not leave them all by themselves, and he left the Holy Spirit “as a friend” and “traveling companion.”

The pope asked that at the end of every day, people pray and reflect on the ways the Holy Spirit worked in them. This “examination of conscience” is an exercise “that does us good,” he said.

END

No comments Defense Against Devil, Holy Spirit, The Catholic Religion, Virtue

Higher Education and ‘Breaking Good’

April 25, 2013 John Garvey Virtues

Breaking-Bad-S05-1080p-WEB-DL-DD5-1-H-264-720p

“A person “breaks bad” by making bad choices and developing bad habits.”

“Breaking Bad” is a television series on AMC about a high school chemistry teacher who becomes a drug kingpin. It has quickly become a favorite of mine. Educator Walter White puts his chemistry skills to work in his own meth lab after he learns he has advanced-stage lung cancer and just two years to live. His teaching job, he reasons, will not provide nearly enough for his pregnant wife and his son, who has cerebral palsy.

White enters the drug trade for reasons that are understandable, even sympathetic. But his first poor decision leads to others that rapidly drag him into worse and worse behavior. Several hours into the first season, he murders a pair of rival dealers. As he expands his enterprise, he adopts the thuggish business methods that drug dealers typically employ.

White’s story is a brilliant illustration of virtue ethics. Aristotle argued that we constantly choose what sort of people we become by our actions, virtuous or vicious. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts. And we become unjust, intemperate and cowardly by repeatedly doing vicious acts of those kinds. Once we’ve worn a path in either direction, it becomes easier to travel the next time.

A person “breaks bad” by making bad choices and developing bad habits. As he gives in to increasingly bad habits again and again, his vices gradually disorient his moral compass until he has completely lost his way.

White’s story is a bit out of the ordinary because his criminal turn arises out of a real midlife crisis. Most of us form our most deeply ingrained habits — good and bad — at a younger age, and they become more difficult (though never impossible) to change later on…..

This is why college, often the first opportunity for young adults to exercise moral freedom, is such a critical time in the formation of character. Those four years can leave students well formed in habits of patience, faith, industry and continence. Or they can become the opposite kind of people — wrathful, impious, lazy and excessively fond of drink.

In 1988, the late James Q. Wilson gave the commencement address at his alma mater, the University of Redlands. He said that students who form good habits can mostly thank their parents; that it’s not the business of colleges to instill virtue. At best, he asserted, moral virtue and higher education are “uneasy allies.”

Wilson was right about the importance of families. But as the president of The Catholic University of America and a longtime academic, I disagree strongly with his latter point. Higher education took a wrong turn when it embraced the teaching of intellectual virtues to the exclusion of moral ones.

The life of the mind is not a game or a series of brainteasers. There are right and wrong answers; good and bad art; true and false ideas; better and worse ways of acting and living. Good teachers inspire their students not just to think for themselves, but to act on those judgments as well.

In past generations, students at Catholic colleges and universities were inspired by Jesuits, Dominicans and Sisters of Mercy. These priests and nuns not only taught them but lived alongside them in residence halls and prayed alongside them in chapels. They had a lasting effect on the kind of people their students became.

Today, fewer of our teachers have taken religious vows. But lay teachers can, and should, see their jobs as the founders of our Catholic colleges and universities did — not just to tell their students about virtue, but to show them how to live it.

—

Garvey is president of The Catholic University of America in Washington.

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Christian Credibility Undermined by Hypocrisy, Pope Says

April 15, 2013 Cindy Wooden Virtues

“I would like you to answer it honestly: Have I considered which idol lies hidden in my life that prevents me from worshipping the Lord?”

ROME (CNS) — The credibility of Christianity is undermined by pastors and faithful who preach one thing and do another, Pope Francis said.

“One cannot proclaim the Gospel of Jesus without the tangible witness of one’s life,” the pope said April 14 during a homily at Rome’s Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls.

Before beginning the evening Mass, Pope Francis walked down to St. Paul’s tomb under the main altar. He blessed the area with incense, and then bowed deeply in prayer for several minutes.

He was welcomed to the basilica by U.S. Cardinal James M. Harvey, the archpriest, who spoke of the importance of Rome’s two patron saints — Peter and Paul — and how their martyrdom in Rome should be a lesson to all believers that the “renewal of the church” requires that all Christians live their faith in their daily lives.

In his homily, Pope Francis said people outside the church “must be able to see in our actions what they hear from our lips.”

“Inconsistency on the part of the pastors and the faithful between what they say and what they do, between word and manner of life, is undermining the church’s credibility,” the pope said…..

Pope Francis said St. Paul teaches Christians that following Christ requires a combination of three things: proclaiming the Gospel; bearing witness to the faith in one’s life, even to the point of martyrdom; and worshipping God with all one’s heart.

The proclamation of the faith made by the apostles, he said, was not merely or primarily in words. Their lives were changed by their encounter with Christ, and it was through their actions and their words that Christianity spread.

In the day’s Gospel reading, Jesus tells Peter to feed his sheep.

“These words are addressed first and foremost to those of us who are pastors: We cannot feed God’s flock unless we let ourselves be carried by God’s will even where we would rather not go, unless we are prepared to bear witness to Christ with the gift of ourselves, unreservedly, not in a calculating way, sometimes even at the cost of our lives,” Pope Francis said.

“The testimony of faith comes in very many forms,” the pope said. “In God’s great plan, every detail is important even yours, even my humble little witness, even the hidden witness of those who live their faith with simplicity in everyday family relationships, work relationships, friendships.”

While most Christians are called to the “middle class of holiness” of fidelity and witness in the normal business of everyday life, Pope Francis noted how in some parts of the world even average Christians suffer, are persecuted and even die for their faith in Christ.

Looking at what it means to worship God with all one’s heart, the pope said it, too, has a very practical, concrete expression. Worshipping God is not simply a matter of prayer — although that is a big part of it — but rather it means demonstrating in one’s life that God alone is God.

“This has a consequence in our lives: We have to empty ourselves of the many small or great idols that we have and in which we take refuge, on which we often seek to base our security,” he said.

“They are idols that we sometimes keep well hidden,” like ambition, careerism or a drive to dominate others, he said. “This evening I would like a question to resound in the heart of each one of you, and I would like you to answer it honestly: Have I considered which idol lies hidden in my life that prevents me from worshipping the Lord?”

At the end of the Mass, the Jesuit Pope Francis went into the basilica’s Chapel of the Crucifix where a 13th-century icon of the Madonna and Child hangs. St. Ignatius of Loyola and his first Jesuit companions made their vows as religious before the image in 1541.

Earlier in the day, the pope recited the “Regina Coeli” prayer with tens of thousands of people gathered in St. Peter’s Square. In brief remarks, he commented on the same Scripture readings used at Mass that evening.

Talking about the apostles’ courage in the face of persecution, Pope Francis told the crowd, “We cannot forget that the apostles were simple people; they weren’t Scribes or doctors of the law and they did not belong to the priestly class.”

Yet, he said, their faith was based on “such a strong and personal experience of Christ, who died and was risen, that they feared no one and nothing; in fact, they saw persecution as an honor that allowed them to follow in the footsteps of Jesus.”

END

04/15/2013 10:17 AM ET

No comments Human Virtues, Pope Francis, Vatican

Meekness Sows Harmony In Church; Gossip Sows Division, Pope Says

April 9, 2013 Cindy Wooden Virtues

“The virtue of meekness has been a bit forgotten.”

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Christians need to recover the value of meekness, particularly when they are tempted to speak ill of one another or gossip about each other, Pope Francis said April 9 during his early morning Mass.

Complaining behind each other’s backs is a temptation that comes “from the Evil One who does not want the Spirit to dwell among us and give peace, meekness to the Christian community,” the pope said.

Joining Pope Francis for the Mass at the Domus Sanctae Marthae were staff members of the Vatican health service and from the general services department of the office governing Vatican City State.

The pope’s brief homily focused on the first reading, from the Acts of the Apostles, which describes the members of the earliest Christian community as being “of one heart and mind.”

Catholics today must strive to model their relationships on those of the earliest Christians, who truly lived the experience of having received a new life through baptism, Pope Francis said.

The new life offered through the grace of baptism is something that Christians must work on developing; even though it “principally depends on the Spirit,” he said, it also takes effort on the part of each individual to cooperate with that grace.

The new life of the early Christians was expressed in “that unity, unanimity, that harmony of feelings in mutual love,” he said, according to Vatican Radio.

He said the virtue of meekness, which is a key to harmony, has been “a bit forgotten.” …..

Meekness, he said, has “many enemies” and the first is gossip. “When one prefers gossiping, gossiping about another, it’s like clobbering another. This is normal, it happens to everyone, including me — it is a temptation of the Evil One.”

The struggle against such harmful chatter, he said, is something that continually sows tensions in parishes, families, neighborhoods and among friends.

“But this is not the new life” promised by baptism, because when the Holy Spirit descends, “it gives birth to a new life within us, it makes us meek, charitable,” the pope said.

Christians, he said, “must not judge anyone” because the Lord is the only judge. They should “keep quiet,” but if they must say something they must speak only to the person who could remedy the situation — “not the whole neighborhood.”

“If, with the grace of the Spirit, we were able to stop gossiping, it would be a huge step forward,” Pope Francis said, and “it would do everyone good.”

END

04/09/2013 9:33 AM ET

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Constant Complaining Keeps One From Noticing Jesus’ Presence, Pope Francis Says

April 3, 2013 Cindy Wooden Virtues

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Complaining frequently and stewing over disappointments can easily become an obsession that blocks one’s view of Jesus’ presence in difficult situations, Pope Francis said.

Celebrating morning Mass April 3 with staff members from the Domus Romana Sacerdotalis, a nearby residence and guesthouse for clergy, Pope Francis preached about the Gospel story from St. Luke about the two disappointed disciples on the road to Emmaus after the death of Jesus.

“They were afraid. All of the disciples were afraid,” he said. As they walked toward Emmaus and discussed everything that had happened, they were sad and complaining.

“And the more they complained, the more they were closed in on themselves: They did not have a horizon before them, only a wall,” the pope said, according to Vatican Radio.

The disciples had had such high hopes that Jesus would be the one who would redeem Israel, but they thought their hopes were destroyed, he said.

“And they stewed, so to speak, their lives in the juice of their complaints and kept going on and on and on with the complaining,” the pope said. “I think that many times when difficult things happen, including when we are visited by the cross, we run the risk of closing ourselves off in complaints.” …..

When all people can think of is how wrong things are going, Pope Francis said, the Lord is close, “but we don’t recognize him. He walks with us, but we don’t recognize him.”

Like the disciples joined by the risen Lord on the road to Emmaus, people can hear beautiful things, but deep down, they continue to be afraid, the pope said.

“Complaining seems safer. It’s something certain. This is my truth: failure,” he said.

But the Gospel story shows how very patient Jesus is with the disciples, first listening to them and then explaining things step by step, until they see him.

“Jesus does this with us, too,” the pope said. “Even in the darkest moments, he is always with us, walking with us.”

Complaining and griping — about others and about things in one’s own life — is harmful “because it dashes hope. Don’t get into this game of a life of complaints,” he said.

END

04/03/2013 9:18 AM ET

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Gossiping About Someone is a “Dark Joy” That Christians Must Resist

March 27, 2013 Cindy Wooden Virtues

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Gossiping about someone is a “dark joy” that Christians must resist because it is a betrayal like Judas’ betrayal of Jesus, Pope Francis said.

Celebrating Mass at 7 a.m. in the Domus Sanctae Marthae, the pope offered a brief homily on the Gospel, which included Jesus’ prediction that Judas would betray him.

The pope said that for Judas, who negotiated a price for handing Jesus over to the authorities, “Jesus is like merchandise: He’s sold.”

“In the market of history, in the market of our own lives, when we choose 30 pieces of silver and cast Jesus aside, the Lord has been sold,” Pope Francis said.

But people also do the same to each other, including “when we gossip about each other,” he said.

“I don’t know why, but there is a dark joy in gossiping,” he said. Sometimes we begin by saying nice things about another, but then we slip into gossip, making the object of our chatter merchandise to be bartered…..

“Let us ask forgiveness because when we do this to a friend, we do it to Jesus, because Jesus is in this friend,” he said.

If one notices a defect in another, Pope Francis said, the Christian response is pray that God will help him or her.

While the pope celebrated the Mass in his residence, as has been his custom, several thousand Vatican employees were at Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica. The employees’ Mass on Wednesday of Holy Week is a Vatican tradition.

The Domus Sanctae Marthae is directly across a small parking lot from the sacristy entrance to the basilica. At the end of the Mass, celebrated by Cardinal Angelo Comastri, archpriest of the basilica, Pope Francis walked over to greet the employees.

The pope thanked them for their service, and said: “I ask you to pray for me. I need it because I am a sinner, too, like everyone and I want to be faithful to the Lord. Pray for me.”

He wished the employees a happy Easter and prayed, “May the Lord bless you and may Our Lady watch over you like a good mother.”

END

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Lessons From the Benedict Generation In Conforming Our Will to God’s

March 13, 2013 Catholic News Service Virtues

(Here is an unsigned editorial titled “Lessons from the Benedict generation in conforming our will to God’s” published March 7 in the St. Louis Review, newspaper of the Archdiocese of St. Louis.)

No doubt, the newly expanded and renovated Kenrick-Glennon Seminary is inspiringly beautiful. Even better than the new fixtures and timeless, yet modern look of the new addition is the intentional thought put into the space where seminarians study, play, pray and reflect with one another.

It is the place where a generation of seminarians has been undergoing their priestly formation during the pontificate of Benedict XVI. They’re calling themselves the “Benedict XVI generation,” with a keen understanding of the retired pope’s legacy, which has largely been marked by his desire for the faithful to develop a personal relationship with Christ.

This generation of seminarians especially has looked toward our retired pope for a better understanding of what it means to sacrifice personal will for the good of the church. They, like so many seminarians who have come before them, know what it takes to conform themselves to God’s will through their own personal sacrifices, including celibacy and an obedience to a higher authority…..

What’s disheartening is that many self-identified Catholics feel this kind of behavior is out of touch with the world. In a poll conducted in February by The New York Times and CBS News, 53 percent of Catholics surveyed said that the church is out of touch with the needs of the world today.

A majority of respondents also said the next pope should allow priests to marry (69 percent), allow women to become priests (69 percent) and support the use of artificial methods of birth control (71 percent).

What these Catholics seem to forget is that it is not up to one single person to decide whether these matters should be reconsidered. These are teachings that have been handed down through centuries of teachings and traditions and inspired through Scripture, the Holy Spirit and Christ himself. This comprises the faith of the church.

Perhaps it would do good for these Catholics to shift their thoughts about a church seemingly out of touch with the world, to a recognition that just maybe it’s the world that is truly out of touch with the Gospel. The church’s teachings and traditions didn’t just come by happenstance. They are there to guide us and help us turn toward a loving God who created us and wants nothing more than for us to share in that love through a personal relationship with him.

Well-catechized and practicing Catholics know this. And that’s why they are being called to lead the charge in working with unchurched and misinformed Catholics and others to help them see and understand the beauty of what our church teaches. It’s a primary reason why our retired pope called for a Year of Faith, which continues throughout this year.

St. Francis de Sales once said that if he wished “for nothing but pure water, what does it matter to me whether the water is contained in a golden chalice or in a simple glass? What does it signify whether the holy will of God is manifested to me in affliction or in consolation, provided that in every case I only wish for and desire what God wants from and for me?” (“Treatise on the Love of God”)

That’s exactly the kind of guidance we need as members of the body of Christ. When we are united to God and his will, we will then be able to see that the church is not out of touch with us — but rather, the church simply desires for us to be intimately connected to the Creator of life, who wants us to share in his kingdom.

- – -

The views or positions presented in this or any guest editorial are those of the individual publication and do not necessarily represent the views of Catholic News Service or of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

END

03/13/2013 4:05 PM ET

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Poll Shows Regular Mass Attendees Oppose Gay Marriage

March 9, 2013 Carl Bunderson Virtues

Hamden, Conn., Mar 9, 2013 / 04:03 pm (CNA).- A majority of Catholics who attend services weekly oppose same-sex “marriage,” according to a poll by Quinnipiac University, even though it’s release suggested that Catholics largely support the practice.

Among Catholics who are registered to vote and who attend services weekly, 36 percent support “gay marriage,” while 55 percent oppose it, according to figures provided to CNA by April Radocchio, Quinnipiac University Polling Institute’s associate poll director.

The release announcing the poll, by contrast, said that among all registered voters who identify as Catholic – 11 percent of whom never attend religious services – 54 percent support same-sex “marriage,” while only 47 percent of all registered voters are supportive of it.

Based on this finding, Peter Brown, Quinnipiac’s assistant director, said that “Catholic voters are leading American voters toward support for same-sex marriage.”

Brown’s assertion drew criticism from some Catholic circles, with many suggesting that the poll was flawed in some way…..

Pia de Solenni, an ethicist who holds a doctorate in sacred theology from the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, emphasized that the poll, with a sample of less than 500 Catholics, was “hardly representative” of Catholics in America.

“When you ask someone if they’re Catholic, you have to further specify, do they attend church regularly or not,” she noted. Survey results are often vastly different between Catholics who do and do not regularly attend Mass.

The poll surveyed 497 Catholics from Feb. 27 to March 4, and had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percent for questions asked of Catholics.

In the release announcing the poll’s results, Quinnipiac provided figures for several questions pertinent to Catholics in America. Most of these were issues particular to Catholics, and the answers were broken down so that readers could compare the differences between those Catholics who attend religious services weekly and less than weekly.

However the question asking about support or opposition to same-sex marriage did not have this distinction, merely showing Catholics as a whole.

Radocchio explained the discrepancy, telling CNA that the question about same-sex marriage was asked in the “general issues section” of the poll, and the question was posed to all registered voters.

“We reported them with the breakdowns we generally used with registered voter releases,” she explained.

She said that the remaining questions were all “Catholic issues” which were asked only of Catholic respondents, regardless of their voter registration.

Among Catholics who are registered to vote and who attend services weekly, a mere 36 percent support “gay marriage,” while 55 percent oppose it, the poll found. Among those who attend services less than weekly, 63 percent support “gay marriage” and 29 percent oppose it.

The margin of error for those figures is plus or minus 4.7 percent. Fewer than 497 Catholics were asked the question, because not all of the Catholic respondents were registered voters, though Radocchio said the number of Catholic respondents about “gay marriage” was “not much less” than 497.

Brown told CNA that the breakdown of the same-sex “marriage” results was not in the initial poll release because “we only have so much space, and can only do so many things up front.”

It was “certainly not malicious,” he said, and was a “completely benign decision.”

The poll also found that while 52 percent of respondents think the Church is “moving in the right direction,” 55 percent think the next Pope “should move the Church in new directions.” Sixty-four percent said the next Pope should “relax the church ban on contraception,” and 62 percent responded that he should support allowing women to become priests.

The responses to these questions consistently showed a stark contrast in the opinions of those who attend Mass weekly, and those who attend less than weekly. For example, of those who do not attend services weekly, 73 percent support the priestly ordination of women. Of those who do attend weekly, that figure is only 38 percent.

De Solenni said the poll “shows the importance of more effective teaching” in the Church.

She noted that “when you ask a question of those who attend Mass regularly, the ratios are almost inverse.”

“So if they really want to do a survey that has some integrity, let us know what the standard is for identifying someone as Catholic.”

De Solenni added that these issues are not of interest solely to Americans, but to Catholics worldwide. “It’s really important that we take a global perspective on this, and look at what people are saying around the world.”

She said that polls such as the one conducted by Quinnipiac can be useful in terms of “knowing the audience you’re speaking to” and “how much teaching needs to be done.”

Such polls, however, are not helpful guides “in terms of telling us which policies we should pursue.”

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Justice Department Argues Denial of Same-sex Benefits Unconstitutional

March 2, 2013 Catholic News Service Virtues

WASHINGTON (CNS) — The Justice Department, in a brief filed Feb. 22 at the U.S. Supreme Court, said a federal law that defines marriage as between one man and a woman, denying financial benefits to legally wed same-sex couples, is unconstitutional.

“Moral opposition to homosexuality, though it may reflect deeply held personal views, is not a legitimate policy objective that can justify unequal treatment of gay and lesbian people” found in the 1986 Defense of Marriage Act, said the “amicus,” or friend-of-the-court brief, written by Solicitor General Donald Verrilli.

It was filed in the case of United States v. Windsor, for which the court will hear oral arguments March 27, a day after it hears oral arguments in another case weighing the constitutionality of same-sex marriage, Hollingsworth v. Perry. The second case is a challenge to California’s Proposition 8, a ballot initiative approved by voters in 2008 to ban same-sex marriage.

In the first case, Edith Windsor is suing over the Defense of Marriage Act because her same-sex marriage was recognized by the state of New York, but not by the federal government. Consequently, when her spouse died and she inherited her estate, Windsor had to pay $363,000 in federal estate taxes. Had her spouse been male, she would have been exempted from that tax.

The Defense of Marriage Act recognizes marriage as only between one man and one woman for the federal government’s purposes, such as for Social Security benefits, family medical leave and other federal programs, and federal estate and income taxes.

Last May, President Barack Obama said he now supported same-sex marriage, and later ordered the Justice Department not to defend the Defense of Marriage Act in court.

On Feb. 28, the Justice Department also filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the Proposition 8 case, urging the high court to strike down that law and laws in other states that have legalized same-sex civil unions, but not same-sex marriage.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops filed separate briefs in the two challenges facing the high court Jan. 29…..

In the California case, the USCCB argues that although the Supreme Court “has held that laws forbidding private, consensual, homosexual conduct between adults lack a rational basis, it does not follow that the government has a constitutional duty to encourage or endorse such conduct. Thus, governments may legitimately decide to further the interests of opposite-sex unions only.”

The USCCB brief in the DOMA case says there is “no fundamental right to marry a person of the same sex. … Specifically, civil recognition of same-sex relationships is not deeply rooted in the nation’s history and tradition — quite the opposite is true.”

In a Feb. 20 interview with a San Francisco television station, Obama said, “I have to make sure that I’m not interjecting myself too much in this process, particularly when we’re not a party to the case.”

Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone of San Francisco, chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Subcommittee for the Promotion and Defense of Marriage, has called for renewed efforts to strengthen and protect traditional marriage.

“The meaning of marriage … cannot be redefined because it lies within our very nature,” he said. A concurrent issue in the Windsor case is whether House Republicans properly have standing to defend the Defense of Marriage Act.

On Feb. 22, attorneys for the lawmakers, calling themselves the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group of the U.S. House of Representatives, said that it deserves standing, an assertion dismissed by the White House.

Meanwhile, The New York Times reported Feb. 26 that more than six dozen Republicans had signed their names to a brief to be filed with the high court outlining their support for same-sex marriage.

No comments Homosexuality, Proposition 8, Same-Sex Benefits, Same-Sex Marriage

Authentic Lent, Cardinal Newman Style

February 15, 2013 Russel Shaw Virtues

Why is it that Ash Wednesday and Lent remain relatively popular even in highly secularized times like these? It’s a serious question that touches on matters deeper than might at first be supposed.

The popularity I speak of can be seen year after year on Ash Wednesday, when people – some of them perhaps not all that often in church – stream up the aisle to get their ashes. Not a few then return for Mass or Stations of the Cross on weekdays during Lent. How come?

The answer can found in Blessed John Henry Newman’s insistence on the supremacy of the “real” over the “unreal” in religious matters. In one of his early, Oxford sermons, Newman remarks that it’s only insofar as people grasp the meaning of disobedience and their own sinfulness that they also grasp “the blessing of the removal of sin, redemption, pardon, sanctification.” Otherwise, he says, these are “mere words.”

You might say Ash Wednesday and Lent help to make this objective reality subjectively real for us…..

That’s not the case with a lot of feasts and festivals that have religious roots but, over time, have been drained of religious meaning. Think of Halloween. How many Americans today link this celebration of ghosts and goblins and Trick-or-Treat with the Christian dogma of the communion of saints? Even Christmas is in danger of suffering this fate – the great feast of the Incarnation all but submerged in commercialization and holiday schlock.

But it’s a different story with Lent. Yes, the Easter bunnies and chicks are out in force, but Ash Wednesday and Lent resist sentimentalization by the greeting card people and commercialization by sellers of consumer goods.

After all, it’s hard to find a bright, chirpy greeting or a slogan for hawking merchandise well suited to a season of sorrow for sin. “You’ll look great in ashes”? “Be the first in your neighborhood to do penance”? It doesn’t sound quite right.

But the words spoken at the imposition of ashes do: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Or the only slightly less apposite: “Repent, and believe in the Gospel.” Stark, uncompromising,admirably real.

In a way, we have here a kind of paraliturgy of prudence. Prudence? Indeed yes. Prudence in the classical sense that you find in an aphorism from the Christian Middle Ages which the Thomistic philosopher Josef Pieper quotes: “A man is wise when all things taste to him as they really are.”

Prudence is the virtue that confers that highly desirable accuracy of “taste”– realistic perception – in the moral sphere. It’s the virtue by which the truth, the reality, of God and the world become, as Pieper says, “the measure and standard for one’s own desire and action.”

And this or something like it is something whose presence people intuit in Ash Wednesday and Lent and what brings them back year after year so as to “taste” – to experience – life-giving contact with the deep reality of mortality, sin, redemption, and the human condition. Not so coincidentally, such people also are seeking an antidote to the grim escapism of secular America’s entertainment culture and its obsessive fixation on everything and anything except what is real.

“We are all sinners,” people think to themselves as they receive the ashes or make the stations, “we are all going to die. Help us, Lord, help!” This year, like so many other years before, the season of penance promises to point us in the right direction for obtaining that help. Have a realistic Lent.

—

Russell Shaw is the author of more than twenty books, including three novels and volumes on ethics and moral theology, the Catholic laity, clericalism, the abuse of secrecy in the Church, and other topics. He has also published thousands of articles in periodicals, among them The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Times, L’Osservatore Romano, America, Crisis, Catholic World Report, The National Catholic Reporter, and many others. From 1967-1987 he served as communications director for the U.S. Catholic bishops and from 1987-1997 was information director for the Knights of Columbus. He lives in Washington, D.C.

This article is reprinted with permission from Catholic News Agency CNA/EWTN News)

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Why Marriage is the Cure to Selfishness

January 21, 2013 Anthony Buono Virtues

I read a recent article that started out by saying that “all marriages start off very selfishly.” He went on to say that people realize into the marriage that they can’t be so selfish and act accordingly. It’s not quite that simple.

Catholic teaching tells us that everyone born is selfish due to original sin that configured humanity to a condition of a self-serving nature. In Christ, through Baptism, original sin is removed, but its effects remain. Thus, we still have that strong tendency to serve ourselves as the priority in our lives. Thanks be to God, Baptism also configures us to Jesus Christ and we share His divine nature, making grace available to us.

Now let’s look at selfishness from a practical level as it applies to dating, love and marriage…..

Yes, it’s true that marriages start of very selfishly. However, Christian marriage is a call to a selfless exchange of two people who become one in every way, and subsequently share that love with others.

This is a tall order. More than half of all marriages fall short of this ideal. I would argue there are many that maintain their marriages but suffer tremendous strain due to unwillingness to address the weaknesses where love fails or is diminished, causing an environment that is contrary to the marriage ideal.

It’s easy to accuse one or both persons of being too selfish. Is it selfish for a unhappy wife to want the affection of her husband when there is none? Is it selfish of an unhappy husband to expect the emotional support of his wife but not receive it?

There is a place for selfishness. Some selfishness is better identified as our “needs.” Our needs are important and have an effect on how we love another. If no needs are met as were expected, then love can die. Should it die? Probably not, if we only focus on loving as Jesus loved, which is a giving and self-donation without getting it in return. But only God can live this kind of love.

Human beings fall short of this kind of love. And it will always be this way. Marital love is a tall order because it’s unnatural for human beings to accomplish. It’s impossible because we all have needs, and we all have expectations as to how those needs should be met. It’s not for us to discount these needs. But it’s also not for us to excuse our behavior based on these needs.

The key is to accept that we are selfish people throughout our whole lives, and that success in marriage between two human beings is in embracing each other’s humanness as the probability, while mutually striving to become more like that unnatural divine love that is God. We need to accept that 1) we are selfish and need to work on becoming less selfish, 2) only God can love us perfectly, and 3) any human being is going to fail at times in true love. This kind of acceptance goes a long way in how we approach our own needs as well as the needs of the person we love.

There is still the matter of our valid needs that do have to be met, at least often enough to keep us afloat. No person can sustain providing love to another by meeting all their needs, while having no need of their own met. That’s not marital love. Marital love requires both persons participating in the game. When one is down and lacks the ability at the time to give, the other needs to be the stronger one, and vice versa.

In a word, successful marriage between two very non-perfect people is a sharing of love that embraces the other’s selfishness in their moments of selfish acts. When a selfish act is presented by one, it’s imperative that the other act selflessly in response in order to help rectify the situation and restore peace. If both act selfishly through actions and reactions, the course toward failed marriage is set.

But I have already said that we are all selfish, and it’s unnatural to be selfless. Exactly! Christian marriage is impossible without God. More to the point, two human beings cannot sustain love for a lifetime without divine influence.

In order find a genuine love that can make a marriage work, you have to be committed to working on your selfishness. It’s a ferocious passion not easily tamed. If unchecked, we shouldn’t be surprised when not only can we not meet another person’s needs, we can’t recognize a person capable of meeting our needs.

We work on our selfishness primarily by selfless acts. We have to practice it in order to improve. It’s called “character development.” A person of good character is not someone who is no longer selfish. Rather, it’s a person who recognizes that selfishness is behind the problems, and capable of seeing the good and positive qualities of another above any bad decisions, mistakes, or unattractive qualities.

Marriage is the cure to selfishness because it forces a person to get out of themselves and tend to their spouse and children. However, marriage only works to cure selfishness as both people are permitted to have setbacks because of selfish moments, and grow in selflessness together by being interested in and attentive to each other’s needs as they struggle and grow.

That is love that cannot fail.

This article was reprinted with permission from Catholic News Agency (CNA)

Anthony Buono is the founder of Avemariasingles.com. For thousands of Catholic singles, Anthony offers guidance, humor, understanding, and practical relationship advice. Visit his blog at 6stonejars.com.

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Contraception, Lies and Truth

December 30, 2012 Sara Fox Peterson Virtues

I recently asked my husband why using NFP to avoid pregnancy sometimes feels so much less certain than using a contraceptive.

At first he said that it was because when a couple uses NFP they aren’t actually doing anything to avoid pregnancy.

Then, a moment later, he said, “No, that’s not right. It’s because with NFP we have to do everything.”

“Huh?” I said. But then I understood.

We are constantly told by the media, by most of the medical profession, by the echo of our high school “health” teachers that in order for sex to be “safe” we have to use something. We can take a pill, erect a barrier, put ourselves under the surgeon’s knife, but somehow we must “protect” ourselves.

Statistically, NFP is as effective as hormonal contraceptives like the pill and couples with truly serious reasons to avoid pregnancy almost never become pregnant while using NFP. There is, however, a tremendous difference in the level of responsibility NFP users must assume.

There is a great temptation for couples using contraception to tell themselves that conception cannot happen, that because they are being “responsible” and making use of a drug, device or surgical procedure, they absolutely cannot become pregnant.

This is, of course, a lie…..

It is simply not possible for a man and woman who both have all of their reproductive organs to have sex without there being some chance, even if it is very small, that a child will be conceived.

One sometimes sees this temptation played out when a couple who has used NFP in the past comes to a point in their marriage where they unexpectedly have very serious reasons to avoid another pregnancy. Rather than trust their knowledge of and experience with NFP, in their fear (and often at the urging of friends and medical professionals) these couples will sometimes abandon NFP and begin using a method of contraception with which it is actually far more likely that they will conceive unintentionally.

A couple who use NFP cannot cling to the (mistaken) belief that a drug or device will “protect” them from pregnancy. The responsibility for avoiding conception is squarely on their shoulders . . . and in God’s hands.

When a couple who uses NFP does experience an unplanned pregnancy, then, it is due to one of two things; either the couple themselves did not follow the rules for avoiding pregnancy or God “our Lord and creator” intervened.

Those who have obviously very grave reasons to avoid conception are extremely conscientious about learning and practicing NFP properly and true surprise pregnancies (those that occur despite a couple correctly understanding and faithfully following the rules for avoiding pregnancy) are so exceptionally rare that when they do occur they can honestly be considered little miracles. With NFP, however, there is no third party – no device manufacturer, no pharmaceutical company, no surgeon – to take the blame. There are only ourselves and our God and that is exactly as it should be.

The challenge for all of us, and particularly for those who are struggling to trust NFP, is to recognize the truth that God who is Lord of heaven and earth is also the Lord of our families and of our fertility and that His admonition to “fear not” applies here too.

Source: (CNA) Sara Fox Peterson www.catholicmom.org Sara Fox Peterson is a stay-at-home mom and certified teacher of the Billings Ovulation Method of Natural Family Planning. She holds a BS in biology and an MS in human physiology, both from Georgetown University

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Pope Urges Us to Reassess Priorities At Christmas:

December 24, 2012 Catholic News Agency Virtues

Rome, Italy, Dec 20, 2012 (CNA/EWTN News).- The Dec. 20 edition of the Financial Times featured a rare article by Pope Benedict XVI in which he advises Christians to use Christmas as a time to “reassess priorities” and reflect on how to live out their faith with eternity in mind.

“While Christmas is undoubtedly a time of great joy, it is also an occasion for deep reflection, even an examination of conscience,” he says in the article.

“At the end of a year that has meant economic hardship for many, what can we learn from the humility, the poverty, the simplicity of the crib scene?” he asks readers.

Seeing an article in a newspaper by the Pope is a very unusual occurrence.

This particular story made it to print after the paper’s editorial office saw Pope Benedict’s recently published book “Jesus of Nazareth: the Infancy Narratives,” which inspired them to request him to write about Christmas.

The Vatican press office said Dec. 20 that Pope Benedict has granted interviews in the past to the BBC, a few months after his trip to the United Kingdom, and to the Italian national television station RAI in the program “A sua imagine” during Easter.

On both occasions, like today’s Financial Times article, he spoke about Jesus Christ.

But this time he reflects on how Christians should examine how they can live out their faith in the world with a view to the eternal…..

“Render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God, was the response of Jesus when asked about paying taxes,” he says in the piece that ran opposite the editorial page.

He notes that this response emerged from a question meant to trap Jesus into taking sides about Roman rule in the land of Israel.

“Jesus’ answer deftly moves the argument to a higher plane, gently cautioning against both the politicization of religion and the deification of temporal power, along with the relentless pursuit of wealth,” he says.

The 85-year-old pontiff notes that “the birth of Christ challenges us to reassess our priorities, our values, our way of life.”

Christians should use Christmas as an opportunity to read the Gospel more, he counsels.

“It is in the Gospel that Christians find inspiration for their daily lives and their involvement in worldly affairs – be it in the Houses of Parliament or in the stock exchange,” he states.

“Christians should not shun the world, they should engage with it,” he adds, “but their involvement in politics and economics should transcend every form of ideology.”

The Pope also praises Christians’ work for a more equitable sharing of the earth’s resources, done out of a belief that they have the duty to care for the weakest and most vulnerable.

“Christians oppose greed and exploitation out of a conviction that generosity and selfless love, as taught and lived by Jesus of Nazareth, are the way that leads to fullness of life,” he explains.

And he says that because the goals of peace and justice are shared by so many, “much fruitful co-operation is possible between Christians and others.”

“Yet Christians render to Caesar only what belongs to Caesar, not what belongs to God,” he insists, pointing out that Christians cannot always comply with governments’ demands.

Pope Benedict then responds to the frequent assertion that Christians “refuse to bow down before the false gods proposed today” because of “an antiquated worldview.”

Christians will not comply, he says, because “they are free from the constraints of ideology and inspired by such a noble vision of human destiny that they cannot collude with anything that undermines it.”

He ends his Christmas reflection by speaking about Italian nativity scenes that include ancient Roman buildings in the background.

These displays show Jesus’ birth as an end of the pagan world “in which Caesar’s claims went virtually unchallenged.”

“From the manger,” the Pope writes, “Christ calls us to live as citizens of his heavenly kingdom, a kingdom that all people of goodwill can help to build here on earth.”

No comments Pope Benedict, The Meaning of Christmas, Vatican

Spiritual Dryness Remedied by the Dew of the Holy Spirit

December 16, 2012 Fr Rocky Virtues

Question: I have often read that St. Thérèse of Lisieux suffered from spiritual dryness.” Can you please explain exactly what is “spiritual dryness.”

Spiritual dryness is just that: when it comes to conversation with God, you feel like you’ve got nothing to say and that God isn’t saying much either. If you turned it into a movie, it would be a bust at the box office. But from God’s perspective, spiritual dryness is a valuable test. Those who persevere in their practices of piety and devotion – even when they feel they get nothing out of it – win God’s grace and grow in holiness by proving their fidelity and loyalty to the good Master…..

Not only did St. Therese experience this, trial, but many saints have as well. There’s a marvelous section of the Catechism on prayer which is well worth reading. Regarding spiritual dryness, it has this to say:

Another difficulty, especially for those who sincerely want to pray, is dryness. Dryness belongs to contemplative prayer when the heart is separated from God, with no taste for thoughts, memories, and feelings, even spiritual ones. This is the moment of sheer faith clinging faithfully to Jesus in his agony and in his tomb. “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if dies, it bears much fruit.” If dryness is due to the lack of roots, because the word has fallen on rocky soil, the battle requires conversion.(no. 2731)

Rev. Francis J. Hoffman, JCD (Fr. Rocky) is Executive Director of Relevant Radio. Ordained as a priest for Opus Dei in 1992 by Blessed John Paul II, he holds a doctorate in Canon Law from the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, an MBA from the University of Notre Dame, and a BA in History from Northwestern University. His Question and Answer column appears in several Catholic newspapers and magazines across the country.

This article was first published by Catholic News Agency

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December 14, The Liturgical Memorial of St John of the Cross, A Life of Solitude, Service, Contemplative Prayer

December 9, 2012 Catholic News Agency Virtues

December 14 is the liturgical memorial of Saint John of the Cross, a 16th century Carmelite priest best known for reforming his order together with Saint Teresa of Avila, and for writing the classic spiritual treatise “The Dark Night of the Soul.”

Honored as a Doctor of the Church since 1926, he is sometimes called the “Mystical Doctor,” as a tribute to the depth of his teaching on the soul’s union with God.

The youngest child of parents in the silk-weaving trade, John de Yepes was born during 1542 in Fontiveros near the Spanish city of Avila. His father Gonzalo died at a relatively young age, and his mother Catalina struggled to provide for the family. John found academic success from his early years, but failed in his effort to learn a trade as an apprentice. Instead he spent several years working in a hospital for the poor, and continuing his studies at a Jesuit college in the town of Medina del Campo.

After discerning a calling to monastic life, John entered the Carmlite Order in 1563. He had been practicing severe physical asceticism even before joining the Carmelites, and got permission to live according to their original rule of life – which stressed solitude, silence, poverty, work, and contemplative prayer. John received ordination as a priest in 1567 after studying in Salamanca, but considered transferring to the more austere Carthusian order rather than remaining with the Carmelites…..

Before he could take such a step, however, he met the Carmelite nun later canonized as Saint Teresa of Avila. Born in 1515, Teresa had joined the order in 1535, regarding consecrated religious life as the most secure road to salvation. Since that time she had made remarkable spiritual progress, and during the 1560s she began a movement to return the Carmelites to the strict observance of their original way of life. She convinced John not to leave the order, but to work for its reform.

Changing his religious name from “John of St. Matthias” to “John of the Cross,” the priest began this work in November of 1568, accompanied by two other men of the order with whom he shared a small and austere house. For a time, John was in charge of the new recruits to the “Discalced Carmelites” – the name adopted by the reformed group, since they wore sandals rather than ordinary shoes as sign of poverty. He also spent five years as the confessor at a monastery in Avila led by St. Teresa.

Their reforming movement grew quickly, but also met with severe opposition that jeopardized its future during the 1570s. Early in December of 1577, during a dispute over John’s assignment within the order, opponents of the strict observance seized and imprisoned him in a tiny cell. His ordeal lasted nine months and included regular public floggings along with other harsh punishments. Yet it was during this very period that he composed the poetry that would serve as the basis for his spiritual writings.

John managed to escape from prison in August of 1578, after which he resumed the work of founding and directing Discalced Carmelite communities. Over the course of a decade he set out his spiritual teachings in works such as “The Ascent of Mount Carmel,” “The Spiritual Canticle” and “The Living Flame of Love” as well as “The Dark Night of the Soul.” But intrigue within the order eventually cost him his leadership position, and his last years were marked by illness along with further mistreatment.

St. John of the Cross died in the early hours of Dec. 14, 1591, nine years after St. Teresa of Avila’s death in October 1582. Suspicion, mistreatment, and humiliation had characterized much of his time in religious life, but these trials are understood as having brought him closer to God by breaking his dependence on the things of this world. Accordingly, his writings stress the need to love God above all things – being held back by nothing, and likewise holding nothing back.

Only near the end of his life had St. John’s monastic superior recognized his wisdom and holiness. Though his reputation had suffered unjustly for years, this situation reversed soon after his death. He was beatified in 1675, canonized in 1726, and named a Doctor of the Church in the 20th century by Pope Pius XI. In a letter marking the 400th anniversary of St. John’s death, Pope John Paul II – who had written a doctoral thesis on the saint’s writings – recommended the study of the Spanish mystic, whom he called a “master in the faith and witness to the living God.”

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Pope Says Advent Is a Time to Listen to God

December 2, 2012 Catholic News Agency Virtues

Vatican City, Dec 2, 2012 / 10:57 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Benedict XVI has said Advent is a time to extend God’s “kingdom of love” and to reflect on the coming of Jesus into the world.

“Amid the turmoil of the world, or the deserts of indifference and materialism, Christians accept salvation from God and witness with a different way of life, like a city set on a hill,” said Pope Benedict during his Dec. 2 Angelus comments at St. Peter’s Square

The pontiff said that the community of believers is “a sign of the love of God, his justice that is present in the history but that is not yet fully realized, and that we must therefore must always be waiting and seeking it with courage and patience.” …..

He said Advent begins a new liturgical year that this year is “further enriched” by the Year of Faith which marks the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council.

The word “advent” means “coming” or “presence.” In ancient times, it originally meant the visit of a king or emperor, but for Christians it now refers to the coming of God, the Pope explained.

Advent refers to two moments related to the first and second coming of Jesus, according to the Pope. The first is the Incarnation and the second is his coming at the end of time.

He said these two moments are “deeply touching” because Jesus’ death and resurrection has “already made the transformation of man and the cosmos, which is the end for which we were created.”

Pope Benedict said the Virgin Mary perfectly embodies the spirit of Advent, which involves both listening to God and having deep desire to do his will in joyful service to others.

“Let us be guided by her, because some are closed to or distracted from God,” he said. “May each of us extend a little of his kingdom of love, justice and peace.”

He said the “saving plan of God” is always taking place and constantly requires the free collaboration of man and the Church.

The Pope referred to the Sunday reading from Gospel of Luke, which says “watch yourselves, or your hearts will be coarsened by drunkenness and the cares of life … stay awake, praying at all times for the strength to survive all that is going to happen.”

He also spoke of St. Paul’s exhortation to “increase and abound in love.”

Turning to more specific concerns, the Pope appealed to governments to promote disabled people’s full participation in society.

“Each person, despite his physical and psychological limits, even serious ones, is always invaluable, and must be considered as such,” he said.

The Pope encouraged church communities to be attentive and welcoming towards them and said he urged governments to “protect people with disabilities and promote their full participation in society.”

Dec. 3 marks the International Day for People with Disabilities.

Pope Benedict also mentioned the beatification of Devasahayam Pillai, an Indian lay Catholic from the 18th century who died as a martyr.

“We join the joy of the Church in India and pray that the new blessed sustain the faith of the Christians of that great and noble country,” he said.

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Papal nuncio: Catholic division undermines religious freedom

November 13, 2012 Catholic News Agency Virtues

South Bend, Ind., Nov 12, 2012 / 07:08 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano has told the University of Notre Dame that there is a concrete “menace” to religious liberty in the U.S. that is advancing in part because some influential Catholic public figures and university professors are allied with those opposed to Church teaching.

“Evidence is emerging which demonstrates that the threat to religious freedom is not solely a concern for non-democratic and totalitarian regimes,” he said. “Unfortunately it is surfacing with greater regularity in what many consider the great democracies of the world.”

The apostolic nuncio, who serves as the Pope’s diplomatic representative to the U.S., said this is a “tragedy” for both the believer and for democratic society…..

Archbishop Vigano’s Nov. 4 speech keynoted the University of Notre Dame’s Institute for Church Life conference. He discussed martyrdom, persecution, and religious freedom, with a particular focus on the United States.

He cited Catholics’ duties to be disciples of Christ, not elements of a political or secular ideology. He lamented the fact that many Catholics are publicly supporting “a major political party” that has “intrinsic evils among its basic principles.”

“There is a divisive strategy at work here, an intentional dividing of the Church; through this strategy, the body of the Church is weakened, and thus the Church can be more easily persecuted,” the nuncio said.

Archbishop Vigano observed that some influential Catholic public officials and university professors are allied with forces opposed to the Church’s fundamental moral teachings on “critical issues” like abortion, population control, the redefinition of marriage, embryonic stem cell research and “problematic adoptions.”

He said it is a “grave and major problem” when self-professed Catholic faculty at Catholic institutions are the sources of teachings that conflict with Church teaching on important policy issues rather than defend it.

While Archbishop Vigano noted that most Americans believe they are “essentially a religious people” and still give some importance to religion, he also saw reasons this could change.

He said that the problem of persecution begins with “reluctance to accept the public role of religion,” especially where protecting religious freedom “involves beliefs that the powerful of the political society do not share.”

The nuncio said it is “essential” to pray for a just resolution to religious freedom controversies, including the controversy over the new federal mandate requiring many Catholic employers to provide morally objectionable insurance coverage for sterilization and contraception, including some abortion-causing drugs.

The issues that the Catholic bishops have identified in this mandate are “very real” and “pose grave threats to the vitality of Catholicism in the United States,” Archbishop Vigano said.

The nuncio also discussed other religious liberty threats.

He cited a Massachusetts public school curriculum that required young students to take courses that presented same-sex relations as “natural and wholesome.” Civil authorities rejected parents’ requests for a procedure to exempt their children from the “morally unacceptable” classes.

“If these children were to remain in public schools, they had to participate in the indoctrination of what the public schools thought was proper for young children,” the archbishop said. “Put simply, religious freedom was forcefully pushed aside once again.”

Catholic Charities agencies have also been kicked out of social service programs because they would not institute policies or practices that violate “fundamental moral principles of the Catholic faith.”

Archbishop Vigano cited several countries that have witnessed severe persecution like China, Pakistan, India and the Middle East. He praised the martyrs past and present who would not compromise on “the principles of faith.”

While some forms of persecution are violent and cruel, others aim to incapacitate the faith by encouraging people to renounce their beliefs or the public aspects of their faith, in the face of “great hardships.”

Fidelity to God and the Church has “hastened martyrdom and persecution for many believers of the past, and of today,” he said.

“In all of these instances, we see that the faithful persist in their fidelity to Jesus Christ and his Holy Church! For throughout her history, the Church has gained strength when persecuted,” the archbishop said.

Religious liberty is a human, civil and natural right that is not conferred by the state, he said, adding “religious freedom is the exercise of fidelity to God and his Holy Church without compromise.”

“What God has given, the servant state does not have the competence to remove,” Archbishop Vigano affirmed.

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Solemnity of All Saints Day, Victory of Love Over Selfishness

November 1, 2012 Catholic News Agency Virtues

CNA/EWTN News)Benedict said that the solemnity of All Saints should help people reflect on the link between the Church on earth and the heavenly Church “that celebrates the never-ending feast.”

“In the saints we see the victory of love over selfishness and death: we see that following Christ leads to life, eternal life, and gives meaning to the present every moment that passes, because it is filled with love and hope,” the Pope said Nov. 1 from the window of his study overlooking St. Peter’s Square…..

Only faith in eternal life makes us truly love the history and the present, but without attachment, with the freedom of the pilgrim, who loves the earth because his heart is in Heaven,” he said.

Pope Benedict recalled that the feast of All Saints reminds us of the communion of saints, “a reality that begins here on earth and that reaches its fulfillment in heaven.”

The earthly dimension of the communion of saints is founded on Christ and the Church, he explained, adding that Christians should be open to that holy community and strive to sprout “upwards towards heaven.”

Pope Benedict then reflected on how all the saints, those canonized but especially also those known only to God, have “lived intensely” this dynamic connection between heaven and earth.

“In each of them, in a very personal way, Christ was present, thanks to his Spirit which acts through the Word and the Sacraments. In fact, being united to Christ, in the Church, does not negate one’s personality, but opens it, transforms it with the power of love, and confers on it, already here on earth, an eternal dimension,” he said.

“This insertion in Christ also opens us, as we have said, to communion with all the other members of his Mystical Body which is the Church, a communion that is perfect in ‘Heaven,’ where here is no isolation, no competition or separation.”

The feast of All Saints is also related to the end of time, the Pope emphasized.

“In today’s feast, we look forward to the beauty of this life fully open to the gaze of love of God and neighbor, in which we are sure to reach God and one another in God.”

Following his address the pontiff greeted the English-speaking pilgrims and told them that today’s feast “reminds us of our eternal destiny, where we will dwell, as Saint Thomas Aquinas says, in true and perfect light, total fulfillment, everlasting joy and gladness without end.”

Pope Benedict concluded his address by asking Mary to pray that we receive the grace “to strongly believe in eternal life and feel ourselves in true communion with our deceased loved ones.”

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Prochoice Catholics, Political, Social and Personal Ethics vs. Moral Theology

October 15, 2012 Dorinda Sears Virtues

Wouldn’t it be the rub to spend your entire stay on earth living the virtuous life, only to wake up in hell, because you weren’t smart enough to get out of the way when you stampeded everybody else there?

I don’t see that there’s much of a difference between the hand that holds the surgeon’s knife and the one that holds the public microphone egging on the killer…..

If you don’t think one word encourages another just listen to Corrinne Sabo. I found her on the Catholics for Choice website. She says, “I live in San Antonio, Texas, a majority-Catholic city. Being a visibly prochoice Catholic is very important here; most Catholics feel as I do that it is the woman’s decision but feel constrained by the propaganda coming from the church. Seeing another Catholic stand up publicly, declare herself prochoice and speak to the media gives them ‘permission’ to speak up in their own homes, to their families, friends and neighbors about following their conscience and not somebody else’s. Being part of a prochoice student group at the university where I work helps empower the young women I meet; it really does make it easier to step up when someone else has taken the first step publicly.”

I don’t know who sounded the first clarion call for abortion. I’m sure someone proudly shoulders that pathetic epaulet, but certainly it is people like Sabo who keep the stampede moving in the direction of the abortion movement and away from God.

We have to be sad for her and all those prochoice advocates like her. They think they are waking up smart every day, but their souls could very well be caught up in that stampede toward hell.

They call themselves Catholics. Well, authentic Catholics will acknowledge the truth of Divine Revelation and ecclesiastical law and they proceed from that standpoint. The authentic Catholic knows that we are put on earth to exist only for the sake of our last end, which means that what we do on earth will attain that end one way or the other. Therefore, we might suppose that a morally good person will get to heaven and a morally bad one won’t. I think it’s useful to keep that in mind.

When you think about it, you have to be dumber than dirt to call yourself committed to the Catholic faith while advocating a philosophy of ethics to trump the Church’s moral theology. Whew!

Given the error of their ways, I don’t think most prochoice Catholics act as if they understand what ethics is or how it differs from moral theology. So, let’s be clear.

Ethics is simply the study of the rightness or wrongness of human conduct. Its distinctive point of view is the ‘ought’ from the standpoint of natural human reasoning. It can be a social, economic or political philosophy; but it does not proceed from Divine Revelation, and so it is not moral theology and it is not a religion.

Now, lets see how this plays out in the debate between prochoice Catholics and what the Church teaches God says:

Absent Divine Revelation the merely ethical man reasons and says, “If it can be determined that the unborn baby is developed enough to feel pain when we rip his body apart, we ought to anesthetize it.”

Even in light of the abortionist’s barbaric procedures, prochoice Catholic Nancy K. Olivas shows no qualms about leaving the unborn defenseless. She says, “We are devoted to our faith and believe our stance on choice is a direct representation of our religious upbringing in that our compassion lies with women who have to make such a grave decision.” Grave decision, indeed!

Father Juan R. Velez, in his book on John Henry Newman, Passion For Truth, talks about those eccentric personalities living back in the 19th century who are known to have substituted faith for a wide range of academic pursuits, personal interests and social causes. By what we see in the writings of Father Velez, Newman counseled against this saying, “Truth is to be preferred to comfort.”

The truth is God says, “Thou shall not kill.”

Now if you think you can bilocate into both those very distinct ways of thinking, one so anathema to the other, you are either blinded by ambition, greatly misinformed or a very sophisticated idiot, in which case, for fear of running into something that just may be smarter than yourself, gardening should never be your hobby.

One comment abortion, Ethics of Care, Moral Ethics, Prochoice Catholics, The Roman Catholic Church, Virtue, What Are Ethics

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