With a heart full of gratitude to the many people who have enriched my life over the past seven and a half years while I have maintained this blog, I am going on indefinite hiatus from blogging, effective now.
I have taken blog vacations before, but intend this one to be much longer -- for good, I hope.
When I started The Dawn Patrol in February 2002, it was with the goals of furthering my writing career and becoming a more social creature. With much thanks to readers, I have accomplished both goals beyond my wildest dreams, but now find myself at the point of diminishing returns.
Where writing is concerned, although I continue to freelance and would love to pen a second book if given the opportunity, right now I need to focus on my master's thesis. (I am preparing to enter my second year of M.A. studies and intend to earn a PhD, with the goal of becoming a moral-theology professor at a small Catholic college.) As far as being more social, although my blog continues to bring me into contact with wonderful people, the time I spend online now eats up my life to the point where I cannot well maintain the friendships I have -- let alone build new ones.
To be honest, I have suffered from an Internet addiction for the past several years. Just as there is no such thing for an alcoholic as "one drink," there is no such thing for me as a quick e-mail check and a perusal of the day's online headlines. If I sit down at the computer, I remain glued to it for hours on end. I might excuse myself by telling myself I am reading about important world events or doing research for school. But the truth is that I allow myself to be distracted by whatever comes to mind while I am at the computer, to the point where it becomes a self-medication for loneliness and boredom. And why do I become lonely and bored? Because I waste so much time on the Internet, of course.
St. Thomas Aquinas had a word for this vice that causes one to fail to moderate one's quest for knowledge: curiositas. With all the years of my life that I have spent in online curiositas, I have precious little wisdom to show for it.
There is no guarantee that forgoing blogging will make me become a better student, writer, or friend, but it will make it harder for me to excuse my spending so much time in the virtual world.
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Although the topic has yet to be refined, the current plan for my master's thesis is to compare and contrast modern-day popular catechesis on marriage and sex with preconciliar popular catechesis on those topics. Although I expect to find ways in which modern-day catechists do a better job of explaining what the Church has always believed, my goal is to highlight pre-Vatican II approaches that are worth recovering.
For the preconciliar part of my research, I am using as a model the writings of Father Daniel A. Lord S.J. (1888-1955), particularly those from the collection of his works that is kept in the Special Collections section of the Georgetown University Library.
The Father Lord collection consists of 41 linear feet of material in 30 file boxes. Although it includes photographs and other memorabilia, more than 90 percent of it is Lord's manuscripts, published works, and letters. Even that is but a small fraction of his writings, especially given his prodigious correspondence. The Rev. Godfrey Poage C.P., who worked for Lord's Summer School of Catholic Action, later wrote of him:
In the five summers I spent with him I could not begin to calculate the number of letters he wrote. I recall how once he worked all day on letters as we travelled together across the country in a Pullman. At the station I mailed about forty letters for him and thought he was through for the day. Later that evening he came to my hotel room and inquired: "Do you know where there is a mailbox?" In his hand were seventeen more letters.
Lord's output included some 300 pamphlets, scores of books, and dozens of stage shows, including large-scale musicals whose casts numbered in the hundreds. As Father Poage observed, he often wrote them on the road, taking his typewriter on trains as he traveled the United States and beyond, giving talks and retreats. Sometimes he included his railroad mise-en-scene in his writings, as with the pamphlet "Man says -- 'If I Were God ...", composed June 1940:
As I write these lines, the Pennsylvania train is carrying me through the splendid valleys that lie between Pittsburgh and Harrisburg. They are so glorious I find it hard to keep my mind on the work in the typewriter before me. A variegated flow of glorious countryside rushes by my Pullman window: green, warmly clear, friendly hills that rise above foamy streams; farms that alternate ploughed fields with vineyards and the bright beauty of springtime orchards, mountains so rich in minerals that men are endlessly digging up the coal and steel ore that make possible the train I ride, clay pits from which are fashioned bricks and china for the bride’s wedding table, man-made canyons rendering unlimited-supplies of building material; little green and blue lakes that furnish prosperous cities with cool, clear, refreshing water.
Just a moment ago we swung around the famous Horseshoe Curve outside Altoona and, though I have seen it a score of times, I had to stop typing long enough to drink in the beauties that the gracious Creator has laid as surface drape over the rich resources stored away in the earth for the needs and luxuries of His children.
I shudder to think how many fewer boxes would be in Georgetown's Daniel A. Lord collection, had the author lived at a time when he could take a laptop on a train equipped with wi-fi.
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There is one reason for forgoing blogging that I have not mentioned. I believe that, as a student of theology, and as one who hopes to become a better witness for the Faith, it will help me to become less involved in the day-to-day dialogue about "inside Catholic" issues whose importance becomes magnified out of proportion within the blogosphere's insular walls.
Last week, at the Envoy Institute Catholic apologetics conference, I was approached by a young man who told me he had been raised Catholic but was now attending a nondenominational Protestant church. He said he got a feeling out of the Protestant services that was greater than anything he had felt at a Catholic Mass.
I expected an argument. Perhaps the man would say, "He's present at my church just as much as He is in the Mass."
But he didn't. He looked at me innocently and said, "No. I didn't know that."
I told him what I could, and urged him to ask one of the priests present at the conference what was really happening during the Mass. He did end up speaking to a priest there -- for about nine hours, I am told, praise God.
The experience left me thinking that perhaps it was time to reorient myself towards learning how to explain the Church's deepest and most basic truths -- and spend less effort writing about things that, while perhaps important, are essentially tangential.
This is, again, something I am learning from Father Lord. Many of his writings, as well as the wonderful audio recording of a sermon he gave shortly before his death, stress the importance of giving people a principle of return. However necessary it is to communicate the Church's teachings regarding the way one should live, I see more and more that the most important thing to share is how to get back to God if one has fled from His arms.
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There are many other things I would like to write, but I need to finish typing in time to get some sleep, and I want to put this behind me so that I may no longer feel a responsibility to blog.
Many, many thanks to everyone who has read this blog, and especially those who have prayed for me. You have done more for me than I could ever express. Everyone who reads this blog has been, and will continue to be, in my prayers. I am forever grateful for your prayers, and for the feedback and encouragement you have given me over the years.
I continue to give talks from time to time, and from now on will update dawneden.com and thrillofthechaste.com with upcoming dates. (The dawneden.com page is updated more frequently, as I update it myself, while thrillofthechaste.com is maintained by a friend.)
With my newfound time, I would like to make more flesh-and-blood friends, as opposed to virtual "Facebook friends." If you are in the Washington, D.C., area and would like to meet, contact me via my feedback form.
I also remain in hope of marriage. My feelings about this have not changed since I wrote an essay on the subject a few years ago. Since writing that piece, I have been encouraged by Father Peter Ryan S.J.'s article on discerning the elements of one's personal vocation. Father Ryan stresses that, while we are all called to holiness, God does not require us to succeed in our calling. What He does ask is that we put our best efforts into whatever He calls us to do. For me, this is a great comfort, because it answers the question of how one can believe one is called to marriage, and yet perhaps never achieve marriage. It is not a issue of "missing one's vocation," as some would have it. It is, in fact, living out one's vocation to strive, and giving God the sacrifice of accepting His mercy.
One last note: Last year, I offered a free copy of The Thrill of the Chaste to any Catholic priest, deacon, seminarian, or vowed religious who requested one. However, I failed to fulfill all the requests. If you requested a copy then and did not receive it, please let me know and I will remedy the error.
Growing up in a Polish-Catholic home, I was more of a cultural Catholic than a church going sort. But, my alcoholic father would make us go with him sometimes. I think it gave him a sense of normalcy; a feeling that he could be with other people without throwing down shots of Jack Daniels at a local watering hole. Only later did I develop any real sense of my own spiritual search. I’m still on that journey. I often don’t know “where” I am going, but I am still walking.
All religions have a lot to say on the topic of suffering, but not so much on the topic of depression. I guess you could say that depression is a “form” of suffering. Personally, I think that doesn’t cut it. When someone says to me, “Well, everyone suffers,” I walk away misunderstood and feeling the worse for the encounter. Maybe there’s not much dialogue about depression in our churches because of the raw fear that faith can’t fix everything.
When I first became sick, I didn’t know I had “depression.” I just thought I was having one of life’s many existential emergencies. I would kneel and pray that God would take away my pain. But, it simply didn’t happen that way. Sometimes, I would God an ultimatum: “You either take away this damn pain, or I’m turning my back on you fella.”
I demanded “a” solution, an answer. One wasn’t forthcoming.
As time went on, something happened. I stopped trying to dictate so many of the terms of my recovery from depression. Instead, I just began to surrender myself. I began to see that God was bigger than my depression. It didn’t mean that I wouldn’t suffer now or in the future from it. But a light appeared in the cracks in depression’s armor. There’s a sense of joyous relief that comes when we stop the war against depression. We lay our burden down.
In the new album by the Dave Matthews Band, Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King, there’s a beautiful song [listen now] called "Lying in the Hands of God." In one part, Dave sings: “If you feel the angels in your head. Teardrop of Joy runs down your face. You will rise.”
At my best, when I feel “the angels in my head,” I weep with joy knowing that depression doesn’t have the final say in my life. Yes, there will be times when I suffer from it. But it doesn’t last.
In her article written for my Web site Lawyerswithdepression.com, Sister Kathryn James Hermes (who suffers from depression), author of A Contemplative Approach to Depression, wrote that prayer leads us to “. . . vulnerability – the learned powerlessness of the truly powerful who can simply be: simply wait, simply be present, simply wonder, simply trust, that much larger hands are holding us and knows for whom we work in view of a much larger plan that we cannot as yet understand.”
Depression is often a jumble of disjointed thoughts. We don’t know what we want or desire and even if we did, we don’t have the will or energy to take that first step towards these goals. But just as our thoughts are jumbled, so is our will –the precious spark of spirit that God blew into us the day we were conceived. It is still there beneath the rumble of our melancholy. We need to turn away from the voice of depression and towards the desire within us that seeks God mercy and direction. Thomas Merton, that great voice of contemplative monasticism, captures better than I can this aspiration in his prayer:
“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.
"But I believe that my desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope that I have that desire in all I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from this desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I know nothing about it.
"Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.”
Tune out the drumbeat of depression today. We don’t have to understand or control it all. Try lying in the hands of God awhile and rise.
I am continuing to liveblog the Sotomayor hearings for my employer. She made a bombshell admission today, saying she was aware of the abortion advocacy of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, on whose board she sat for twelve years. See my coverage on the AUL Blog.
I previously wrote about the so-called Schwerzenbach Clinic run by the euthanasia group Dignitas and their horrific practices. Today it has been reported that prestigious conductor Sir Edward Downes, who worked with the Royal Opera House Covent Garden and the Sydney Opera House among other classical music institutions, was killed by Dignitas at this clinic, along with his wife Joan. News reports indicate that Sir Edward, who was 85 years old, was nearly blind and losing his hearing while his wife was 74 years old and suffering from cancer. Their family, in a statement released to the press, appear to accept the decision of the couple to have themselves killed. London's Metropolitan Police are investigating the deaths, but British law does not, apparently, allow them to do much about the situation.
This is yet another sad example of the neo-pagan culture of death in which we have found ourselves. Two intelligent, accomplished people, who are suffering to some degree, decide to take a road to destruction with the help of those who are all too willing to oblige, for a fee. Today, the actions of groups like Dignitas are increasingly treated, not as the crime which they are, but rather a statement about personal choice and preference to the point of absurdity, as if one were selecting between different types of melon at the supermarket.
The creep of nihilism and selfishness into our culture continues unabated, and to what logical end no one can authoritatively say. As the Church teaches, those who decide to commit suicide, assisted or not, are very often so emotionally distressed that we must rely on God's mercy with respect to the fate of their immortal souls. However, this does not mean that we should sit back and allow a group such as Dignitas, which makes a mockery of the very concept of dignity, to run unchecked. I hope that parliamentarians in Britain finally take a serious look at redrafting the applicable laws of their country so that something can be done to go after this heinous organization.
Keep up with the Senate Judiciary Committee's confirmation hearings for Obama's Supreme Court nominee via my liveblogging at the Americans United for Life Blog.
The charity he displays towards the members of the order that was his home for 23 years, and towards its lay arm, Regnum Christi, is deeply affecting, making his insights of the Legion's institutional errors and flaws all the more compelling.
Q: What are the issues you think should change in the internal culture of the Legion, especially related to the recently suppressed "vow of charity", meaning the vow not to criticize one's superiors?
A: At the core of serious problems in the internal culture of the congregation is a mistaken understanding and living of the theological principle - in itself valid - that God's will is made manifest to the religious through his superior. The Legionary seminarian is erroneously led to foster a hyper-focusing on internal "dependence" on the superior for virtually every one of his intentional acts (either explicitly or in virtue of some norm or permission received, or presumed or habitual permissions). This is not in harmony with the tradition of religious life in the Church, nor is it theologically or psychologically sound. It entails rather an unhealthy suppression of personal freedom (which is a far cry from the reasoned, discerned and freely exercised oblation of mind and will that the Holy Spirit genuinely inspires in the institution of religious obedience) and occasions unholy and unhealthy restrictions on personal conscience.
Furthermore, Legionary norms regarding "reporting to," "informing," "communication with," and "dependence on" superiors constitute a system of control and conformity which now must be considered highly suspect given what we know about Fr. Maciel. They furthermore engender a simplistic, and humanly and theologically impoverished notion of God's will (its discernment and manifestation) that breeds personal immaturity.
More seriously, the lived manner in which Legionaries practice obedience is laced with the kind of unquestioning submission which allowed the cult of personality to emerge around the figure of Maciel in the first place and covered for his misdeeds. Legionary seminarians are essentially trained to suspend reason in their obedience and to seek a total internal conformity with all the norms, and to withstand any internal impulse to examine or critique the norms or the indications of superiors.
Granted, the primary motivation behind such living of obedience is the ideal of total "immolation" of oneself for the love of Christ as embodied in the relentless living of all norms and indications of the superiors. This "immolation" of intellect and will is at the heart of the "holocaust" that the Legionary is invited to live for love of Christ and the Church. While the motivation is valid, and generations of Legionaries have pursued this in good faith, in the long run it not only proves profoundly problematic, but also explains the negative personality change which many, if not most, Legionaries undergo over time: the shallowness of their emotional expression, the lack of empathy and inability to relate normally to others in so many contexts, the general sense of their being "out of touch," etc. Only exceptionally do Legionary priests move beyond this, but only thanks to the multiple talents and human gifts they brought with them to the Legion.
We the papal U.S. repackaging of Church teachings on sex muddles the message
A guest post by FR. ANGELO MARY GEIGER F.I.
In the light of John Paul II’s landmark teaching on human love in the divine plan, called Theology of the Body, there has been a recent effort in the United States to repackage the Church’s teaching on marriage and sexuality in “more positive” terms.
It is said that the Holy Father was reacting against “prudish Victorian morality,” especially prevalent in the United States, much in the same way that the sexual revolution was a reaction against “sexual repression.” The difference, we are told, is that John Paul II’s teaching consists of a beautiful vision for marriage, not the world’s pernicious justification of lust.
Now while this modern sex-saturated age benefits from the beauty of the truth of God’s original plan for conjugal love, we run the risk of going off the rails if we make prudery the bogeyman for our pornographic age. Modern man is not preoccupied with fear of the body and of sexuality. Modern man is largely afraid of suffering and of dying. This is also true within the Church.
Pope Benedict XVI critiqued modernity’s obsession with erotic love in his first encyclical, Deus Caritas Est, without denying a real problem with prudery:
“Nowadays Christianity of the past is often criticized as having been opposed to the body; and it is quite true that tendencies of this sort have always existed. Yet the contemporary way of exalting the body is deceptive. Eros, reduced to pure “sex”, has become a commodity, a mere “thing” to be bought and sold, or rather, man himself becomes a commodity. This is hardly man's great “yes” to the body. On the contrary, he now considers his body and his sexuality as the purely material part of himself, to be used and exploited at will."
The answer to this problem is not a new “holy” focus on all things erotic, but a subordination of eros to agape. In the Benedict XVI’s language eros is “possessive love,” not bad in itself, but in need of being put in the service of agape or “oblative” (sacrificial) love. God wants us all to be happy, but the way to happiness is through sacrifice.
The place we learn this more than anywhere else is at the foot of the Cross, where the Hearts of Jesus and Mary are united in the wedding banquet of the Lamb and through which we are united to God by our participation in these mysteries in the reception of Holy Communion. But first of all, the Cross is the mystery of oblative love. The Hearts of Jesus and Mary are opened for all mankind through the suffering and sorrow of their sacrifice. Theirs is a battle against our ancient enemy. While mankind has generally been the loser in this struggle, this new Man and Woman conquer by means of their fortitude, that is, by means of their willingness to face death. This is more agape than eros.
But the fruit of agape is eros, because victory leads to joy and life. Christ the King with His blessed Mother the Queen reign forever in the bliss of heaven because in this place of exile they overcame the enemy. This must be the standard of our own effort to subordinate eros to agape.
Most Catholics are not afraid of their bodies. They are afraid of death. By definition, the virtue of fortitude is endurance in the face of suffering and death. In reference to the cross and our participation in its mystery St. Bonaventure says: “Whoever loves this death can see God because it is true beyond doubt that man will not see me and live” (Itinerarium Mentis in Deum 7.6, quoting Ex. 33:20). Modern man needs to continue in the struggle against lust while striving also to see the beauty of God’s plan for love. The focus of our lives needs to be on the Cross where we find the Hearts of Jesus and Mary.
It seems to me that John Paul II’s Theology of the Body and Benedict’s XVI’s analysis of eros and agape fit hand in glove. We should avoid using the profound insights of either pope to conduct a local crusade. In the real battle we cannot afford to lose our focus.
Father Angelo Mary Geiger, a Franciscan Friar of the Immaculate, blogs at MaryVictrix.com.
Visit the Americans United for Life Blog starting this morning at 10 a.m., where I'll be liveblogging the Senate Judiciary Committee's confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor.
Check out my new article for Busted Halo, co-written with William Doino Jr., a plea for civility: "Catholics and the Culture of Hate." Many thanks to editor Bill McGarvey for giving me and Doino the opportunity to bring this issue to the public eye.
"Dr. Edward L. Keyes advocates the teaching of sex-hygiene to children, because he thinks it is the kind of information that children are eagerly seeking. 'What is this topic,' he asks, that all these little ones are questioning over, mulling over, fidgeting over, imagining over, worrying over? Ask your own memories.'
"I do ask my memory in vain for the answer Dr. Keyes anticipates. A child's life is so full, and everything that enters it seems of supreme importance. I fidgeted over my hair, which would not curl. I worried over my examples, which never came out right. I mulled (though unacquainted with the word) over every piece of sewing put into my incapable fingers, which could not be trained to hold a needle. I imagined I was stolen by brigands, and became by virtue of beauty and intelligence spouse of a patriotic outlaw in a frontierless land. I asked artless questions which brought me into discredit with my teachers, as, for example, who 'massacred' St. Bartholomew. But vital facts, the great laws of propagation, were matters of but casual concern, crowded out of my life, and out of my companions lives (in a convent boarding-school) by the more stirring happenings of every day. How could we fidget over obstetrics when we were learning to skate, and our very dreams were a medley of ice and bumps? How could we worry over 'natural laws' in the face of a tyrannical interdict which lessened our chances of breaking our necks by forbidding us to coast down a hill covered with trees? The children to be pitied, the children whose minds become infected with unwholesome curiosity, are those who lack cheerful recreation, religious teaching, and the fine corrective of work. A playground or a swimming-pool will do more to keep them mentally and morally sound than scores of lectures upon sex-hygiene."
Listen to me on Michigan Catholic Radio Sunday night—available online
I had the great pleasure recently of taping an program for Michigan Catholic Radio host Kelly Luttinen's new radio series on the theology of the body. Kelly, who studied moral theology under Dr. Janet Smith at Detroit's Sacred Heart Seminary, is an exceptional interviewer with a sincere and well-informed passion for Church teachings as encapsulated by Pope John Paul II. She gave me the opportunity to speak in depth about my book The Thrill of the Chaste and the meaning of love, intimacy, and chastity. The show will run this Sunday evening, July 12 at 6:30 p.m. EST and repeat on Thursday, July 16, at 11:30 p.m. EST. Listen online at catholicradio.org.
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NOTE: It has come to my attention that Regnum Christi, the Legion of Christ's lay movement, is using my name and image to promote my Michigan Catholic Radio interview on its Web site.
This is the first I have heard of the show's being used to promote Regnum Christi; the possibility of such promotion was not raised when I agreed to the interview. It is understandable that the movement would want to support the efforts of the show's host, who is a member. Nonetheless, I regret that my name is being used in Regnum Christi's self-publicity, particularly in light of the upcoming Apostolic Visitation of the Legion of Christ and the revelations that precipitated it. My appearance on the show should in no way be construed as an endorsement of Regnum Christi.
In recent months, out of respect for those individual members of the LC/RC whom I know and admire, I have been making an effort to refrain from public comment on the Legion or Regnum Christi pending the visitation's outcome. I am breaking my self-imposed silence only to make it clear that I object to any implied institutional endorsement.
Busy preparing for my talks at Patrick Madrid's Envoy Institute at Belmont Abbey College in North Carolina, which promises to be a delightful working weekend if ever there was one. If you're looking for something to read this a.m., check out the links I am posting at ConservativeGrapevine.com, where I am one of several bloggers filling in for the vacationing editor.
I was a pro-life atheist A guest post by STEVE KELLMEYER
Pro-life atheism? Most people would call that a contradiction in terms. But it isn’t. I was one, and there are more.
Although I was raised Catholic, Catholic grade school and high school filled me with an enormous disdain for the Faith. As a teenager, I realized that none of my teachers were able to answer any serious questions about the Faith.
“It’s a mystery!” they would say, which I soon realized simply meant "Shut up, please."
“You just have to believe!” they would say. “No, actually, I don’t,” I would think.
I noticed that only old women taught school, only old women and children went to church. The schools were no better. Apart from a couple of sterling examples, most of the men teaching in the Catholic high school were just on the make for female students. Apart from those same few sterling examples, most of the teachers were rejects from public schools. As for the Catholic theology I was taught, I have never liked glitter, glue sticks or collages. I wasn't impressed.
“I could just put away the things of children and become a man.”
So I did.
I wanted to be a scientist, be someone important, discover something new, be an adult. But, as number four in a family of eight children, my mother had taught me something very important very early on: babies were wonderful. Throughout my studies into genetics, biology, chemistry, I never knew if there was a God in heaven, but I knew there was a baby in the womb.
Atheists are not renowned for their logical consistency, and as a pro-life atheist, I certainly missed some points early on. At first, I was fine with fornication and contraception, but opposed to abortion, except in cases of rape, incest and fetal abnormality. I argued the points with others constantly.
An atheist history professor whom I greatly admired, and who had been trained by Jesuits as a teen, pointed out the inconsistency in my position. If a child exists from conception, then what difference should rape, incest or abnormality make?
He thought he had me.
He did.
Three days later, after long thought, I told him that I agreed with him. I couldn’t hold both positions at the same time. “So,” I concluded, “abortion for rape, incest or fetal abnormality is also unacceptable, and I now oppose that as well.” He wasn’t pleased.
As I argued the abortion position, I became aware of many other logical inconsistencies as well.
For instance, I began to realize that the assertion, “I can have sex without wanting a child” was logically absurd. It’s like saying, “I can eat ice cream all day without wanting to get fat.” Sure, you can. But what does your "want" have to do with it? The biological reality was going to hit you either way.
I thought it was a good analogy, but I quickly discovered a flaw. Having sex was different from eating cupcakes all day. Every time I ate a cupcake, I added calories to my body. Every time. But it is not the case that every act of sex creates a child. The analogy wasn’t perfect.
I gnawed on that for awhile.
And I began to see… something
Something I didn’t expect.
Ultimately, it was this point - the point that sex does not always create children – that converted me back to the Faith.
This is what I saw.
Precisely because sex does not always create children, yet it always holds the promise of creating children, that sex stands for something greater than itself. Because sex is designed to produce children, yet does not always produce them, the act is transformed from a simple biological action into… there was no other word for it… poetry.
Because sex contains not a hard reality, but only a future promise, it becomes a promise, the promise of the man to the woman "I will be with you always, even if this does produce that for which it is designed."
And by this act, the man gives himself not just to the woman, he gives himself primarily to the not-yet-conceived child.
It was the poetic biology of the thing that snared me.
Because I had some medical training, I knew the biology of sexual intercourse pretty well. The man doesn't become a father in the instant of orgasm. Indeed, it may not be for several days, he may not be in the country, he may not even be on the same side of the world when it happens. He becomes a father, but he does so long after the act is completed.
Precisely because the act of sex itself does not create anything, the act itself becomes its own symbol.
It is a commitment towards a future that the two participants don't even know will ever come into existence. If every act of sex always produced a child, it would have a much different meaning. But precisely because it does not, sex is transformed into a commitment to hope that such a future does come into existence, or at least not to hope that it does not.
This was the beautiful thing, the marvelous image of the human person, I saw hidden behind the veil of the sexual act. This both intrigued me and frightened me. It intrigued me because it was beautiful and it was true, and I had never heard tell of this explanation before this moment, when I explained it to myself. It frightened me because I knew there was only one organization in the world that taught about a promise to generations yet unborn.
When I answered my history professor, he didn’t like it, and I knew he wouldn’t, but I had to go where the logic took me. I had no choice.
Now, I had found an answer that sent me somewhere I didn’t like, but I had the answer, and I had to go where the logic took me. I had no choice.
I went to confession.
I received Jesus in the Eucharist.
I returned to the Faith.
Steve Kellmeyer is the author of numerous works of Catholic apologetics and is webmaster of CultureWarNotes.com. The above essay is edited from a talk he gave that is available on CD from Bridegroom Press.
'They took offense at him' A guest homily by the REV. JOHN JAY HUGHESHomily for 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B. Ezek. 2:2-5; 2 Cor. 12:7-10; Mark 6:1-6. AIM: To challenge the hearers to respond to Jesus Christ as we encounter him in his Church.
On Independence Day we celebrate more than two centuries of national history. We Americans have a reputation in the world for optimism. Our nation’s history has made us optimists. The earliest settlers all came from Europe. They needed huge amounts of optimism to build a new nation in the wilderness, and to push its frontier westward until it spanned the continent. Despite all the blood, sweat, tears and treasure which this nation-building involved, until the Vietnam war it seemed that just about every major problem confronting us was soluble. From small beginnings, and protected by two oceans, we became the richest and most powerful nation on earth. If you’re rich and powerful, you cannot expect to be universally loved. Confronted today with hatred and terrorism, our troops the daily target of sniper and guerilla attacks in Afghanistan and Iraq, and a worldwide economic crisis, we wonder anxiously how long the American success story can continue.
Today’s readings are not about success and power, however, but about rejection and weakness. In the first reading God warns Ezekiel that he is sending him to a rebellious people, who will reject the prophet’s message. The second reading records Paul’s prayer for deliverance from what he called “a thorn in the flesh.”
Some biblical scholars think this was a psychic or physical ailment. Others think it may have been the same opposition from within his own community which faced Ezekiel. Whatever it was, Paul says that God answered his prayer not by taking away the thorn, but by giving him strength to bear it. Through this experience of personal weakness, Paul writes, he learned to rely not on himself, but only on God. “For when I am weak,” he writes, “then I am strong.”
The gospel tells us of Jesus’ rejection by his own community. “They took offense at him,” the gospel says. Jesus offended people in three ways. For some he was too ordinary: “Is he not the carpenter?” they ask. What makes him so special? Others were offended because Jesus was not ordinary. “Where did this man get all this? What kind of wisdom has been given him? What mighty deeds are wrought by his hands!” Others still were offended because Jesus seemed so weak. This was the judgment of the bystanders at Calvary, who jeered: “So you were going to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days! Save yourself now by coming down from that cross.” (Mk 15:29f). Such taunts were the final judgment of Jesus’ contemporaries on this man who seemed to make himself equal with God, yet who, when the chips were down, was unable to save himself from a criminal’s death.
By any normal worldly standards Jesus’ life was anything but a success story. Most of those who knew him remained quite unimpressed. Many took offense at him. That was true then. It is no different today. True, Jesus no longer comes to people in his human body. Today he comes through his mystical body, the Church. People encounter and judge Jesus Christ today through those who have become members of his body in baptism — in other words, through us. We have been made eyes, ears, hands, feet, and voice for Jesus Christ. He has no other.
Many people today say that they accept Jesus Christ, but want nothing to do with the Church. For some the Church is too ordinary. The Church is full of hypocrites, they say, people who are no better than anyone else. Others are offended because the Church is not ordinary. They find us remote, hopelessly out of date. The Church, they complain, preaches irrelevant dogmas to people who need practical help coping with life’s daily problems. They are offended because the Church — and that means us — lacks compassion for people who cannot live up to the Church’s unrealistically high moral standards. Still others are offended because the Church seems so weak. Why doesn’t the Church do something, they ask, about the terrible problems of society: urban poverty and blight in the richest country on earth, crime and terrorism, injustice, greed, and the rape of the environment?
People today, in short, are offended by the Church for reasons very similar to those that caused Jesus’ contemporaries to be offended at him. Many seek a “pure” Church: one that is not ordinary, not remote, not weak. Some — including many Catholics who are no longer with us — think they have found this pure Church in a community of “born again Christians” who exclude the lax and the lukewarm. Others find the pure Church they are seeking on television. The worshipers you’ll see there on Sunday morning are all squeaky clean. The preacher always has a polished and uplifting message. The singing is always fervent and on key. How many Catholic parishes can compete with that?
The Catholic Church doesn’t even try to compete. Like its Lord, the Catholic Church is, most of the time, very ordinary and quite unimpressive. It is the Church of saints, yes. Yet it is also the Church of sinners — and never more obviously so than right now, when the media still bombard us with lurid stories of priestly failings and sins. The Catholic Church is and will always remain the Church of sinners for one simple reason. It stubbornly insists on making room for people who slip and fall and compromise; who are weak in faith — whose faith, in not a few cases, is difficult to distinguish from superstition. Who are these people? We are! If the Church were as pure as we would all like it to be, would there be room in it for ordinary weak sinners like ourselves?
The Catholic Church, in short, is human, as Jesus was human. It is ordinary, as he was ordinary. It can be remote, as Jesus was sometimes remote. And it is often weak, as Jesus was weak. Hidden behind this ordinariness and remoteness and weakness, however, is all the power of God; all the compassion of his Son Jesus; and all the strength of his Holy Spirit, who came in flaming tongues on the first Pentecost to kindle a fire that is still burning; and to sweep people off their feet with a rushing might wind that is still blowing.
Most of Jesus’ contemporaries took offense at him. As another translation of our gospel has it, “They found him too much for them.” What about you?
Prayer request from a Catholic missionary in Honduras
Received this morning via e-mail:
Dear Friends,
I realize that the current political instability in Honduras may not seem like a big deal, and maybe to the rest of the world, it isn't a big deal - but what happens over this weekend will determine the fate of this small country, and more specifically, the fate of the Church in this country, and the fate of our mission here in Comayagua.
Over the past ten months, I've put down roots here, which is why when I was faced this week with the choice of whether to stay or to go (back to the States), I chose to stay. I'm writing to ask all of you to please, please pray for the mission here in Comayagua, especially over the next couple of days.
I cannot emphasize enough the great need for prayer in this difficult situation. If Hugo Chavez makes good on his threats to the Honduran government, his actions in the coming days (and the subsequent reactions of the Honduran people) could be disastrous. If you can commit to being a prayer warrior for us until this conflict is resolved, please leave a comment on my latest blog post with your prayers, sacrifices and words of encouragement. Whether it's a single prayer, a Mass or a Rosary - we would be so grateful. (As a community, we will be praying anovena to Our Lady Help of Christians - posted on our Community Blog - starting tomorrow.) If I am able, I will share your comments with the rest of the missionaries. It helps to know that we’re not in this alone!
If you still don't have any idea what's been happening down here, I've tried to summarize the events of the past week on my blog. Please stay close in prayer - I will post updates when I can!
"If it were I, I would appeal to God; I would lay my cause before him... He saves the needy from the sword... He saves them from the clutches of the powerful. So the poor have hope, and injustice shuts her mouth." - Job 5: 8,15-16 3:29 PM
Friday, July 3, 2009
Secret plots, Catholic heroes: The truth about Pope Pius XII
A guest post by WILLIAM DOINO JR.
Ten years ago this fall, British author John Cornwell published Hitler's Pope, a strident attack against Pius XII, depicting him as an unwitting tool of the Nazis. Cornwell argued that Eugenio Pacelli (Pope Pius XII) was among the most dangerous men of the twentieth century, whose political machinations assisted Hitler's rise to power, helping seal the fate of European Jewry.
The book caused a sensation. Vanity Fair ran long excerpts; it was serialized in the Times of London, and Cornwell appeared on "60 Minutes" to expand upon his thesis. The moniker "Hitler's Pope" became synonomous with Pius XII, and was invoked at every turn, by the Church's enemies, to deride the moral authority of the papacy.
As is so often the case, however, God uses an attack on the Church to highlight important truths. In this case, Cornwell provided an opportunity for Pius's supporters to highlight his accomplishments. Shortly after Hitler's Pope appeared, the L'Osservatore Romano exposed the falsehood of Cornwell's claims about the Vatican archives, which in fact offer ample proof of Pius XII's good deed, and Fr. Peter Gumpel, S.J., who oversees the wartime pontiff's cause, published a point-by-point rebuttal. Prof. Ronald Rychlak, employing far better sources than Cornwell, followed with Hitler, the War and the Pope, an acclaimed defense of Pius; The Pius War: Responses to the Citics of Pius XII, a major anthology, appeared; and Rabbi David Dalin completed the counter-attack with The Myth of Hitler's Pope. Cornwell has been in retreat ever since.
Unfortunately, once a myth gets started, its very difficult to contain. Even though reputable historians, and an increasing amount of laymen, now know the truth about Pius, the Hitler's Pope mythology persists. As Cambridge historian Owen Chadwick lamented: "It is still believed by many people that Pope Pius XII was a friend of the Nazis, or that he said nothing at all against racial murder during the war, or that he was so frightened for his own skin or his own palace that he was too timid to say anything whatever, or that he arranged Vatican money to help monsters like Eichmann to escape to South America." These claims are "fables," said Chadwick.
Contrary to Cornwell, Pacelli's time as papal nuncio to Germany (1917-1929) and Cardinal Secretary of State to Pius XI (1930-1939), was marked by a fierce and principled opposition to Nazism, a policy he continued into his pontificate (1939-1958). In the years leading up to World War II, Pacelli foresaw impending doom, at a time when many others remained blind.
"In March 1935," writes Rabbi Dalin, "in an open letter to the bishop of Cologne, Pacelli called the Nazis 'false prophets with the pride of Lucifer.' That same year, speaking to an enormous crowd of pilgrims at Lourdes, he assailed ideologies 'possessed by the superstition of race and blood.' At the Cathedral of Notre Dame two years later he named Germany 'that noble and powerful nation whom bad shepherds woud lead astray into an ideology of race.' The Nazis were 'diabolical,' he told friends. Hitler is 'completely obsessed,' he said to his longtime secretary, Sister Pascalina. 'All that is not of use to him, he destroys...this man is capable of trampling on corpses.' Meeting with the heroic anti-Nazi Dietrich von Hildebrand, he declared: 'There can be no possible reconciliation' between Christianity and Nazi racism; they were like 'fire and water.'"
In 1937, Cardinal Pacelli drafted Pius XI's famous anti-Nazi encyclical, Mit brennender Sorge ("With Burning Anxiety"). That same year, he told the American diplomat A.W. Klieforth that Hitler was not only untrustworthy, but "a fundamentally wicked person." Pacelli, recorded Klieforth, "did not believe that Hitler was capable of moderation" and so "opposed unalterably every compromise with National Socialism."
Little wonder then, that when Pacelli succeeded Pius XI as pope, on March 2, 1939, the Nazi press denounced his election; Germany was the only major power that did not send a representative to the coronation.
Pius XII's pontificate was, as John Paul II and Benedict have said, a "great" one, highlighted by his courageous leadership during World War II. His first encyclical letter, Summi Pontificatus, issued just months after his election, was a scorching condemnation of racism and warmongering, and recognized as an attack upon the Third Reich. His public condemnations of the Holocaust, open embrace of Jews, and active support for Catholic rescue, earned the enmity of the Nazis -- who branded Pius "a mouthpiece of the Jewish war criminals--" but won him praise throughout the civilized world.
When I asked Sir Martin Gilbert, the renowned historian, if he agreed with the Vatican's assessment, in its 1998 document on the Holocaust, that the Church under Pius saved "hundreds of thousands" of Jews, he replied: "Yes, that is certainly correct. Hundreds of thousands of Jews saved by the entire Catholic Church, under the leadership and with the support of Pope Pius XII, would, to my mind, be absolutely correct." These are facts which no amount of propaganda, or anti-papal polemics, can erase.
Perhaps the most dramatic act of Pius XII's papacy is one that remains the least known: his assistance in a plot to overthrow Hitler. The most famous attempt to oust Hitler was led by Claus, Count von Stauffenberg (a Catholic Colonel) in 1944--a story recently told in the remarkable film "Valkyrie," starring Tom Cruise. But there were earlier, equally daring, plots, including one initiated in 1939, the same year Pius XII became pope. At the end of that year, shortly after World War II began, elements of the anti-Nazi resistance contacted the Vatican in hopes of garnering Pius XII's support to remove Hitler, with sought-for cooperation from Britain. The magnitude of that initiative is described by Chadwick: "The Pope was being invited to engage in a conspiracy to overthrow a tyrant, and incidentally to put himself and his aides into those dire risks which attend conspirators....Never in all history had a Pope engaged so delicately in a conspiracy to overthrow a tyrant by force."
Despite these extraordinary dangers, Pius XII agreed to act as a middleman, declaring, "The German opposition must be heard in Britain." Alas, because of events outside the pope's control, the plot wasn't carried out that year, but Pius won the confidence of the German Resistance, with whom he maintained relations-- right up until Stauffenberg's heroic (but unsuccessful) effort, on July 20, 1944, after which Hitler arrested and executed the leading resisters. In fact there is evidence linking Pius to that plot, too: a German report to Hitler, prepared by SS General Ernst Kaltenbrunner, dated November 29, 1944, outlines the backround of the July plot, and specifically names Pope Pius XII as a co-conspirator.
These weren't the only high-stake plots involving the pope. There was another conspiracy, a kind of malevolent reverse of the noble ones against Hitler: a plot to kidnap or kill Pope Pius XII.
Many authors have long maintained that Adolf Hitler targetted Pius, as he was a major obstacle to the Fuehrer's plans for world domination. But some historians have questioned such a plot ever existed, because much of the evidence about it comes from General Karl Wolff (the SS Commander in Italy), and Rudolf Rahn (German ambassador to Italy) -- two highly controversial wartime figures. Recently, however, new testimony has emerged revealing that, at least on this issue, Wolff and Rahn were correct.
On June 16, Avvenire, the newspaper of the Italian bishops, recounted the testimony of Niki Freytag Loringhoven, whose father, Wessel, was an anti-Nazi German Colonel, who learned of Hitler's intentions soon after they materialized. According to Niki, days after Hitler's ally, Benito Mussolini, had been arrested, Hitler, in retaliation, ordered his main security office to punish the Italian people by kidnapping or murdering the leader they respected most: Pope Pius XII. Learning of the plot, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, head of the German counterintelligence service, met with his Italian Counterpart, General Cesare Ame, secretly in Venice, on July 29-30, 1943. Also present at the meeting were the aforementioned Wessel Freytag von Loringhoven, and Erwin von Lahousen--all members of the anti-Nazi resistance. Upon returning to Rome, Ame spread word about the pending plans against the pope, and the anti-papal plot was narrowly averted. According to Avvenire, all this coincides with the deposition given by von Lahousen, at the Nuremberg war crimes trials, on Feb. 1, 1946.
These revelations, coupled with other new discoveries and testimonies, are gradually reversing the Hitler's Pope mythology, even as sporadic attacks against Pius and the Church continue. (Caretakers of the myth -- ranging from Communists to Catholic dissenters -- have ideological reasons for keeping these falsehoods alive). The so-called "Pius War" is not only advancing, but advancing in the right direction. It's only a matter of time before all fair-minded people, not just the Church, will recognize Pius XII as the man he really was: not "Hitler's Pope," but one of Hitler's greatest enemies -- who may yet be proclaimed a saint. Pius XII is a pontiff of whom all Catholics can be proud.
Pope Benedict prays at Pius XII's tomb.
William Doino Jr. writes for Inside the Vatican and other publications. His 80,000-word annotated bibliography on Pius XII appears in The Pius War (Lexington Books, 2004), He has appeared on EWTN and many radio programs to speak about the Church's record during the Holocaust; and was part of a three-day Pius XII symposium, last September, in Rome, hosted by the Pave the Way Foundation. The conference ended with a private meeting with Pope Benedict at Castelgandolfo, where the Holy Father delivered a major address praising Pius XII.
Tour of the chaste Come hear me speak at Patrick Madrid's Envoy Institute
A reminder: I will be one of the featured speakers at the 2009 Summer Conference of Patrick Madrid's Envoy Institute: "Answering Atheism and the Culture of Doubt," July 10-12 at Belmont Abbey College, just outside Charlotte, N.C.
'His oeuvre's in the Louvre' Classic power-pop tribute to Cezanne re-emerges on YouTube
What a joy it is to see this again after so many years—the Special Guests' 1985 classic "Paul Cezanne."
Singer and songwriter Tom Meltzer (the one wearing glasses) kept his day job at the Princeton Review—that's the collegiate-testing empire—and now puts his love for the Beatles and Beach Boys into songs about SAT words.
The yoke's on you Download Archbishop Sheen's advice for surviving marital tensions
I have discovered that many readers of Christian blogs are people who are in particular need of fellowship because they are married to someone who does not share their faith.
If you are one of those readers, or if you are simply in need of some inspiration to keep going in the face of marital tension, I highly recommend listening to a talk by then-Bishop (later Archbishop) Fulton J. Sheen called "Marriage Problems." You can download it for free from the "Life Is Worth Living" page of the American Catholic Truth Society's site. The page is, incidentally, a real goldmine for Sheen fans, containing dozens of recorded instructions in the Faith, in high-quality audio.
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