Friday, June 27, 2008

Nancy Pelosi and Pro-Choice Catholics

I'm a Catholic Democrat. I'm for most liberal ideals of compassion and second-chances. I'm for the little guy (that includes the unborn). I do believe in the primacy of conscience. The Catholic Church whose faith I profess believes that we all must follow our conscience—though conscience is not just a personal preference or feeling as many leftist Catholic Democrats will say. I was recently pleased to see an Archbishop in Kansas reprehending the Catholic Democratic Governor for her pro-choice position and vetoing legislation that would restrict access to abortion.

But greater than she, as a problem, is Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House of Representatives, the highest ranking Catholic in public office—second in line to the presidency. She remains a challenge for proponents of Catholic orthodoxy in America, particularly for politicians in their unique call to unify their faith, moral convictions, and political responsibilities. Pelosi has manifestly rejected this call. The dichotomy between her stance as a radically pro-choice liberal Democrat and her professed Catholic faith is quite clear. She said that during the Democrats' first 100 hours in office, she planned to tackle expansion of embryonic stem cell research. She’s Catholic?

Despite her public dissent, Pelosi has continuously been honored amongst Catholics even to the point of being given the privilege to speak at Catholic commencement ceremonies and receive praise despite her abortion rights advocacy. She has received praise from Archbishops, been welcomed on Catholic campuses, and even participated in a Mass celebrating her election with people well aware of her pro-choice position, given the Eucharist by a priest—a Jesuit, in the instance of her "celebration" Mass—known for championing dissent based on conscience, an ill-conceived conception of conscience, as acceptable.

This is a serious issue for the Church. And what is even more despicable is that there are Cardinals, Bishops, and priests who know the severity of this crisis and refuse to reprehend Catholic politicians committing scandals by denying them communion. Denying people communion has just become an empty threat. John Kerry, the 2004 presidential candidate for the Democrats was seen receiving Holy Communion, post-election, even when his publicly professed positions contrary to Church teaching are known. Perhaps, a person can change their mind and reconcile with the Church. Kerry has not made any public retractions and continues to vote in favor of legalized abortion, in favor of embryonic stem cell research, and against marriage.

The same treatment is given to Nancy Pelosi, unfortunately. Pelosi, God bless her, is not struggling with the Church’s teaching, she isn’t trying to restrict abortion or work to protect life within the constraints of the current U.S. laws. She flat out rejects the Church’s teaching. She is unapologetically in support of abortion rights. She has a 100% NARAL pro-choice voting record.

She is an issue and so are all other Catholic dissidents in the public square. I’ll admit I am more biased against Pelosi because I believe (right or wrong) that she’s not even a good Democrat. Her bias toward Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton in the past primary season despite her being a “neutral” uncommitted superdelegate has been, in my opinion, ridiculous. Using her high ranking office, for months, she basically endorsed Obama behind a very thin veil and it won him many superdelegates. If a Catholic had to choose between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, Clinton would by far win the Catholic vote—she did in all the primaries. Why would a Catholic back a politician (Obama) who supports not only legalized abortion, but not giving medical care to babies that survive abortions and leaving them to die in utility rooms?

It goes without saying, if this woman, a public figure, who undermines Church teaching though she professes to be a Catholic, if she isn’t publicly challenged head on, by the Bishops, by the rest of us, by lay Catholics, then every day decisions on how to be faithful Christians in the midst of the complexities of our professions are compromised—surely the evil we do isn’t as grave as advocating abortion. Pope Benedict XVI addressed the matter in the document, Worthiness to Receive Communion: “Regarding the grave sin of abortion or euthanasia, when a person’s formal cooperation becomes manifest (understood, in the case of a Catholic politician, as his consistently campaigning and voting for permissive abortion and euthanasia laws), his Pastor should meet with him, instructing him about the Church’s teaching, informing him that he is not to present himself for Holy Communion until he brings to an end the objective situation of sin, and warning him that he will otherwise be denied the Eucharist.”

Fundamentally, the problem with Pelosi and pro-choice Catholic politicians is only a manifestation of a greater problem. Catholics in public life who facilitate abortion, embryonic stem-cell research, and gay marriage are not in “full communion” with the Church. Hence, they should not receive communion. This idea of “conscience” as a means to any sort of behavior based on personal preference is senseless. We have somehow reached a point, I think, where a Bishop would certainly reprehend a priest for denying communion to parishioners who are not willing to abide by Church teaching on, say, contraception or observe the Church’s laws on marriage. Yet, I imagine it would be these same Bishops who have ignored the problem with priests abusing children—denying it and failing to address the issue head on.

What is that we fear? Perhaps, they believe a schism in the Church would potentially leave her in ruin. Where would that leave us? God forbid Bishops actually upholding the truth of the Gospel. God forbid Catholics living a virtuous, chaste life in imitation of Christ Jesus in marriage, priestly and religious celibacy, or unmarried chastity. If my opinion matters (I’m sure it doesn’t), we need to cut back on laxity, improve catechesis, and preach the truth and not compromise the Gospel for the sake of our comfort in our sins.

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Farewell Fr. Callam, God Bless You

Fr. Daniel Callam was my RCIA instructor, theology professor, and somewhere near four or five occassions, my confessor. He baptized me on the Easter Vigil of 2007, anointed me with the holy chrism, and was the first to give me the consecrated Lord in the Eucharist. He is an amazing homilist and he will be dearly missed by everyone at the University of St. Thomas. May God continually bless his faithful servant. He has always been in my eyes, in persona Christi.

"The Parting of Friends"
My Last Sermon at UST: 22 June 2008
Daniel Callam, C.S.B.

"No longer do I call you servants, . . .
but I have called you friends."[1]

The nineteenth century was an age of high rhetoric. In America Abraham Lincoln and Ralph Waldo Emerson, to name only two, are virtually synonymous with eloquence in speech and in print. In England Prime Minister William Gladstone, e.g., could hold the attention of Parliament for hours with a power that few could equal but which many could approach. Among these great rhetoricians none was more gifted than the Reverend John Henry Newman, and among his sermons none is more touching than “The Parting of Friends,” which he delivered in Littlemore on 25 September 1843. The chapel had been built by Newman seven years before to accommodate the people of the village that, lying about three miles from Oxford, was part of Newman’s charge as vicar of the University Church of Saint Mary the Virgin. On that autumn evening it was packed to the doors and beyond with parishioners who had assembled to listen to what was to be the last sermon preached by Newman as an Anglican minister. He was shortly to resign from his position and then, after a period of intense study and prayer, be received into the Catholic Church two years later, on 9 October 1845.

Newman resorted to Scripture to examine the various situations where friends separate, beginning and ending his remarks with Jesus’s tender farewell to his disciples at the Last Supper, but including also Jacob fleeing the wrath of his brother, Esau, David separating from Jonathan, Ishmael from the house of Abraham, Naomi from her other daughter-in-law, not Ruth but Orpah, Paul from his disciples, and later from Timothy. Newman’s message is thus a profound exploration of a certain theme of the sacred text: “Scripture,” he said, “is a refuge in any trouble.” He concluded with a melancholy description of himself leaving the congregation at Littlemore, which was by then universally in tears. He kept his distance from the emotion of the moment by describing himself in the third person. The sentence is long and highly rhetorical, but if the simple people of Littlemore could understand it 160 years ago, surely you can today. Here it is: And, O my brethren, O kind and affectionate hearts, O loving friends, should you know any one whose lot it has been, by writing or by word of mouth, in some degree to help you . . . ; if he has ever told you what you knew about yourselves, or what you did not know; has read to you your wants or feelings, and comforted you by the very reading; has made you feel that there was a higher life than this daily one, and a brighter world than that you see; or encouraged you, or sobered you, or opened a way to the inquiring, or soothed the perplexed; if what he has said or done has ever made you take interest in him, and feel well inclined towards him; remember such a one in time to come, though you hear him not, and pray for him, that in all things he may know God's will, and at all times he may be ready to fulfil it.[2]

What is striking about this passage is Newman’s extensive use of the imagery of death, although the final sentence indicates the Newman is not dead but removed from them—as good as dead, in any case. I would ask you to recognize an implication of this feature of the sermon, viz., that every parting is a sort of dying. I cast my mind back over my own life and the various “partings of friends” that I have experienced. I left home to go to the seminary in 1954. How many people “died” to me then, in that I never saw them again or they me! I call to mind fellow students from my days at the University of Toronto or some of my high-school students that I have not seen since 1973, when I left Canada for graduate school in England. They may be dead, they may think that I am dead, they are as good as dead to me, so absolute has been our separation. Alas, is it not the case that many of you here, who have become dear to me, will never see me again?

What are we as Christians to make of this sobering fact? It is this: we must regard these separations—which have something of the nature of dying—as a sort of foretaste of that radical rupture that will take place at the end of our lives. Our attitude towards them should therefore partake of our attitude towards death itself. And what should that be? Listen to Saint Paul: O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.[3]

Each of us will die, but for us Christians death is viewed as the portal to eternal life, and therefore not as making an end to friendship or to any of those good things that have given us joy and pleasure. Something similar must be true of these miniature deaths that occur in the course of every life. I think Shakespeare’s Juliet knew that when she call parting a “sweet sorrow.” Romeo’s departure is a sorrow, but it is only a sorrow because his company has been sweet, and she knows that it will be sweet again. In the drama, that promise of renewed sweetness is ultimately lost in death. But in Christ Jesus, nothing good will be permanently lost. Juliet’s “sweet sorrow” may be complemented by Saint Thomas More’s words to his executioner on the scaffold: Pray for me, as I will for thee, that we may meet merrily in heaven.

In the light of these remarks, Our Lord’s words taken on additional meaning: whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.[4] Do you see what I’m getting at? Life requires us to move on; nothing is static. Only by embracing the changes, including the separations demanded by circumstances, can we maintain the relationships that sustain us. Let me give you an ordinary example, one that everyone here knows at first hand: a child grows up and leaves home, as he must. No sensible parent resents the maturing of his child; to keep him in the home is really to lose him. Let us therefore give ourselves totally to the experiences that continually confront us, with the assurance that in Christ nothing worthwhile will ever be lost. And, like Newman, let us turn for comfort to the sublime words Jesus addressed to his disciples at the Last Supper as recorded in chapters 14-17 of Saint John’s Gospel.

The first thing that we learn is that he cares for us: When Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.[5] The disciples, like us, grieved at the threat of separation: the hour had come to depart. But Jesus speaks to us today as he spoke to them: Let not your hearts be troubled; believe in God, believe also in me.[6] Then he informed of them of the coming Comforter, the Holy Spirit: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the [Comforter] will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.[7] The role of the Comforter is to unveil the mystery of God’s action in Jesus Christ, and as a consequence the mystery of our own lives, which insofar as they are Christian mirror the life of Jesus. Specifically, we note that the life of Jesus remained mysterious until it was complete, until he had died and risen from the dead. It may be compared to the beauty of a melody that cannot be fully grasped until every note has been played. Similarly, the statement we are making by our lives will not be complete until we die. In the immortal words of Yogi Berra, “it’s not over till it’s over.” What I wish to suggest here is the same holds true for episodes in our life. We cannot understand our adolescence until we are adults, or even the full significance of a friendship until the parting has taken place. And here I recall Our Lord’s promise about the work of the Holy Spirit: When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth.[8] “All truth” includes the truth about ourselves as well as the truth about Jesus, in detail as well as overall. Thus, in the light of these solemn statements of our Redeemer we can begin to appreciate the consoling words that come in the closing pages of the Bible, in the Apocalypse, “And he who sat upon the throne said, ‘Behold, I make all things new.’”[9] Let me paraphrase this sentence to convey something of the range of its meaning: Behold, I shall restore to their full and vivid reality all the goodness and joy of every experience that the redeemed bring with them into eternal life.

Newman concluded his sermon by referring to himself in the third person. In doing so he echoed Saint Paul who used the same device in describing his mystical experiences: I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven.[10] I too know a man, who came to Houston eleven years ago from a distant land. In the course of his stay he discovered new meaning in Jesus’s words, “I was a stranger and you welcomed me.”[11] It was for him as if the Bible had come to life. He virtually lived the parable of the Good Samaritan, but as if told from the point of view of the victim. At the end of the parable, Our Lord asked his interlocutor, “Who proved to be a neighbour to the man who fell among thieves?”[12] The answer to the question in this case is not merely one good Samaritan, but many who in a steady stream came to the inn where the stranger had been placed. And they gave him, not physical sustenance but spiritual nourishment in the witness of a vital faith, of genuine charity, of intelligent discourse, and of an inextinguishable hope for the eternal vision of God. To him, one God in three persons, Father, Son, and Spirit, be all might and majesty, all worship and adoration, now and for evermore. Amen.

[1] Jn 15.15
[2] J.H. Newman, “The Parting of Friends,” Sermons on Subjects of the Day. Preached at Littlemore on 25 September 1843.
[3] 1 Cor 15.55-57.
[4] Matt 16.25.
[5] Jn 13.1.
[6] Jn 14.1.
[7] Jn 16.7.
[8] Jn 16.13.
[9] Rev. 21.5
[10] 2 Cor 12.2.
[11] Matt 25.35.
[12] Lk 10.36-37.

Friday, June 20, 2008

A New York Democrat To Be Proud Of

June 13, 2008

Judy Doesschate, J.D.
Director of Board Operations
Wadsworth Center
New York State Department of Health
Empire State Plaza, Box 509
Albany, NY 12208-0509

Dear Ms. Doesschate:

This letter is to express my response to the Empire State Stem Cell Board’s strategic framework that will guide New York State’s $600 Million, 11-year investment in stem cell research.
The report expresses the intention that New York’s investment in stem cell research will hold the promise of revitalizing and strengthening New York’s biomedical research industry, saving lives, and improving health. This is a false hope. The Empire State Stem Cell Board’s draft report discusses a great potential that may come from embryonic stem cells. To date, there have been no known cures - nor the promise of any cure - from embryonic stem cells.

Research in the area of embryonic stem cells is the twenty-first century’s version of alchemy. Medical researchers in this area are pursuing the “gold rush” to create an organ replacement industry to stave off illness and disease. While the practice of alchemy only involved the use of base metals, embryonic stem cell research requires the sacrifice of precious living human fetuses as fodder for their experiments.

Embryonic stem cell research is nothing New York State tax dollars should fund and nothing New Yorkers will support if they realize what it entails. When the world learned about Joseph Mengele’s experiments on Jewish children, the reaction was shock and revulsion. Using abortion clinics as a source of material for embryonic stem cell experimentation fills most New Yorkers with the same kind of revulsion.

I strongly recommend that Empire State Stem Cell Board funded research use its resources for adult stem cell research, umbilical cells, and the newly discovered induced pluripotent stem cells - iPS cells - because we know these to be effective. Non-embryonic stem cell research, which includes adult stem cells, cord blood cells, and iPS cells, is clearly an area of medicine and research that proves capable of aiding the treatment of a growing number of illnesses and diseases which should be funded by our tax dollars.

I cannot and will not support or encourage any Empire State Stem Cell Board research that uses, exploits or destroys embryonic stem cells from aborted children. It is morally indefensible and fiscally irresponsible to use taxpayer funds for the purposes of cloning or for human stem cell research. It disgusts me to think that our tax dollars could ever be used to support cloning children for experimentation purposes.

I urge Empire State Stem Cell Board to prohibit research or funding to clone, create or manufacture another human life in a laboratory with the sole purpose of killing him or her to be able to use their cells for experiments. I urge the Empire State Stem Cell Board to prohibit the use of aborted baby’s body parts for experimentation and research.

I urge Empire State Stem Cell Board to build upon the great success of adult stem cell research, and to promote ethical and successful methods. These research projects must clearly exclude any plans to experiment on embryos, unborn children, or cloned humans.

Sincerely,

Senator Rev. Ruben Diaz

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Black and Catholic in America: Hope Despite The Difficulties


Deacon Harold Burke-Sivers, MTS is a deacon in the Archdiocese of Portland, Oregon, and the founder of Aurem Cordis, an apostolate dedicated "to promote the truth and beauty of the gospel by encouraging others to submit themselves freely to the life-giving love of the Trinity and to become living witnesses to that love in the world." Deacon Burke-Sivers gives talks around the country on spirituality, family life, lay vocations, and other topics, and has appeared on "Catholic Answers Live", Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN), and many local television and radio programs. He is the host of the 13-part EWTN series, Behold The Man!, about Catholic spirituality for men. Deacon Burke-Sivers has a BA in economics from Notre Dame and an MTS from the University of Dallas. He, his wife Colleen, and their four children live in Portland, Oregon.

He is also the author of the new foreword to From Slave to Priest, Sister Caroline Hemesath's 1973 biography of Father Augustine Tolton (1854-1897), the first black priest in America. Carl E. Olson, editor of IgnatiusInsight.com, recently interviewed his former classmate and spoke with him about Father Tolton, the history of black Catholics in America, and the unique challenges faced by black Catholics today.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Catholics for Obama?

Catholics for Obama? A tough case to make.
By Kathryn Jean Lopez

Can a Catholic be for Barack Obama? The question has been recently raised by a law professor at Pepperdine who went from being a Mitt Romney adviser to an Obama supporter. The question is further raised by the appearance of the angry Fr. Michael Pfleger, a longtime friend of the Democratic nominee who recently preached at Obama’s (now former) Trinity church in the national news.

The answer to the question is not up to me. The answer comes to the individual Catholic through prayer and reflection on the demands of his conscience, informed by the teaching of the Church. Neither of those steps can be glossed over. And there can be no mistaking what responsibilities the Catholic voter faces. When the topic was recently a matter of cable talking-heads’ concern, I was asked, repeatedly, in all seriousness, if Catholics can even vote. After all, war is bad. The death penalty is bad. Abortion is bad. John McCain supports the war on terror. He supports capital punishment. He is against abortion. Obama: antiwar, pro-abortion, functionally anti-death penalty. So neither wins. Or Obama wins? “Can Catholics vote for anyone?” readers asked.

Further, e-mailers asked, (I quote one of many): “You are, of course, aware that the Catholic Church also sees contraception as a sin, as well. Since means never justify the ends, voting for a candidate who promotes contraception as an alternative to abortion is also wrong. Without researching, I assume all major candidates have no problem with contraception, therefore, no candidate should get Catholic votes by your line of reasoning. I’m sorry for this rant, but I do not like people playing politics with my religion.”

No, no presidential candidate is going to call for a ban on contraception. That’s not a serious consideration. But politics can never be wholly divorced from religion. Our religious morality necessarily informs our political judgments. The thing about abortion is, it’s not just any other issue — as serious as so many others are. Abortion is not open to debate.

Pope Benedict, in a speech to European politicians in 2006, offered some instruction for the Catholic conscience: “As far as the Catholic Church is concerned, the principal focus of her interventions in the public arena is the protection and promotion of the dignity of the person, and she is thereby consciously drawing particular attention to principles which are not negotiable. Among these the following emerge clearly today: the protection of life in all its stages, from the first moment of conception until natural death; recognition and promotion of the natural structure of the family — as a union between one man and one woman based on marriage . . . ; and the protection of the rights of parents to educate their children.”

That “not negotiable” is not to be missed.

So can a Catholic vote for a politician who supports legal abortion? Providing guidance, the Archbishop of Denver writes that a Catholic voter would “need a compelling proportionate reason to justify it. . . . It’s the kind of reason we will be able to explain, with a clean heart, to the victims of abortion when we meet them face to face in the next life — which we most certainly will. If we’re confident that these victims will accept our motives as something more than an alibi, then we can proceed.”

Barack Obama says he would never want his daughters to be “punished” by the birth of an unplanned baby. The Catholic Catechism instructs that a child “must be treated from conception as a person.” Obama, as an Illinois state senator, opposed legislation that would protect babies born alive in botched abortion attempts. He explained, “whenever we define a pre-viable fetus as a person that is protected by the Equal Protection Clause or the other elements in the Constitution, what we’re really saying is, in fact, that they are persons that are entitled to the kinds of protections that would be provided to a — a child, a 9-month old — child that was delivered to term. That determination then, essentially, if it was accepted by a court, would forbid abortions to take place. I mean, it — it would essentially bar abortions, because the Equal Protection Clause does not allow somebody to kill a child, and if this is a child, then this would be an anti-abortion statute.”

That would be a child, albeit not a nine-month-old child (forgive me for not being moved by his distinction), whose life he dismissed.

This is the Democrats’ candidate for president. Catholics need to know what their Church teaches. Know your candidate. Know abortion isn’t just any issue. It’s a grave offense and betrayal to fail to protect the most innocent human life. If you’re a Catholic who honestly can see how Barack Obama’s election as president won’t contribute to or compound that offence, go in peace. I don’t see it. I don’t see how anyone can see it. And so for those who don’t get a vote, for those who have been mutilated and murdered in the name of “choice,” this Catholic will cast hers against him in November.

— Kathryn Lopez is the editor of National Review Online.

This Catholic Loves Benedict XVI

This Catholic Loves Benedict XVI

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Knights of Columbus: Champions for the Family

The Pro-Life Movement in the Democratic Party

The Pro-Life Movement in the Democratic Party