Barry Hudock's Blog, page 17

Follow-up: More on Mass at the border

Nice collection of photos from the Archdiocese of Boston. More from Al Jazeera

Interesting: The USCCB worked in advance with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency to ensure that Holy Communion could be distributed through the border fence during Mass.

Fox News helpfully offers Arizona state Senator (Republican) Al Melvin’s take on the event: “Frankly, and I am a Catholic, I think this is irresponsible of these bishops to be down there,” Melvin said. “They are not bringing stability to the border.  They are adding to the chaos of the border. And it’s not helping to save lives. If anything, I believe it will contribute to more lives being lost. We need to secure the border to protect lives.”

Philip Lawler’s Catholic World News (at CatholicCulture.org), in an article five paragraphs long, spends one paragraph repeating Melvin’s observations.

Arizona Republic columnist wisely observes of the bishops’ visit to the border: “If you’re them, that’s where you should be.”

A must-read for background: Ananda Rose Robinson’s 2009 Commonweal article “Borderline: Stranded in Nogales.”

Mass on the Border

A dramatic event today at Nogales, Arizona, on the U.S./Mexico border — what has been called “America’s Lampedusa.” Here’s how the USCCB described it in advance:

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) Committee on Migration, joined by bishops on the border, will travel to Nogales, Arizona, March 30-April 1, 2014, to tour the U.S.-Mexico border and celebrate Mass on behalf of the close to 6,000 migrants who have died in the U.S. desert since 1998.

The Mass will be celebrated at 9 a.m. on April 1, followed by a press conference at 10:30 a.m.

The following U.S. bishops plan to travel to Nogales for the April 1 Mass:

His Eminence Sean Cardinal O’Malley, Archbishop of Boston

Most Reverend Eusebio Elizondo, Auxiliary Bishop of Seattle and Chairman, USCCB Committee on Migration

Most Reverend Gerald F. Kicanas, Bishop of Tucson

Most Reverend John C. Wester, Bishop of Salt Lake City

Most Reverend Mark Seitz, Bishop of El Paso

Most Reverend Oscar Cantu, Bishop of Las Cruces, NM

Most Reverend Ricardo Ramirez, Bishop Emeritus of Las Cruces, NM

Most Reverend Luis Zarama, Auxiliary Bishop of Atlanta

Whispers in the Loggia has the video and the full text of Cardinal Sean O’Malley’s homily. A snippet from that homily:

The hard work and sacrifices of so many immigrant peoples is the secret of the success of this country. Despite the xenophobic ranting of a segment of the population, our immigrant population contributes mightily to the economy and well being of the United States.



Here in the desert of Arizona, we come to mourn the countless immigrants who risk their lives at the hands of the coyotes and the forces of nature to come to the United States. Every year 400 bodies are found here at the border, bodies of men, women and children seeking to enter the United States. Those are only the bodies that are found. As the border crossings become more difficult, people take greater risks and more are perishing.



Last year about 25,000 children, mostly from Central America, arrived in the US, unaccompanied by an adult. Tens of thousands of families are separated in the midst of migration patterns. More than 10 million undocumented immigrants are exposed to exploitation and lack access to basic human services, and are living in constant fear. They contribute to our economy by their hard work, often by contributing billions of dollars each year to the social security fund and to Medicare programs that will never benefit them.

The U.S. bishops should be applauded and thanked for this courageous and dramatic effort to call attention to the dignity and the needs of some of the poorest among us and to continue and intensify their advocacy of immigration reform.

Chariklo

I love it when we are reminded –as we have been again – of how much there is in God’s big universe about which we are utterly, stupendously, fantastically clueless. We don’t even have the slightest idea about how remarkably clueless we really are. And of course that’s the case, because the Lord God, who is infinitely beyond us, made it all, and it all proclaims God’s glory. How embarrassingly disappointing it would be if we could grasp it.

 

A Feast of Solidarity

Someday I’m going to write a book that brings together liturgy and Catholic social teaching. I know it would not be the first one, but it might be the first one to offer this as its overarching theme: solidarity. Both the liturgy and Catholic social teaching are about solidarity — God’s solidarity with us and our solidarity with one another. This dual solidarity happens sacramentally in the liturgy and it is lived out concretely in the ethical call described in Catholic social teaching. From first to last and bottom to top, Christian living is about solidarity (and that dual nature — God with us and us with one another — can never be forgotten).

I mention this because for several years now I’ve found myself thinking of the Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord — today — as a feast of solidarity. We celebrate this solidarity today. The emphasis here is God’s solidarity with us, but the Incarnation — as Pope John Paul II tirelessly pointed out — bears many important implications for the way we understand our relationships with one another.

We could list principle after principle of Catholic social teaching — human dignity, human rights, the preferential option for the poor, and the central place of love in that teaching that first Benedict XVI and now Francis have insisted upon  — that can easily be understood as rooted in the mystery of the Incarnation that we celebration on this Annunciation day.

Lots more to be said about this, but I have several freelance assignments that are calling for my time during early mornings this week … and  then there’s that John Courtney Murray project that needs wrapped up … and I should save it all for that other book someday anyway. In the meantime, one great place that comes to mind as fitting for further reflection on this topic today would be John Paul II’s first encyclical, Redemptor Hominis.

So happy and blessed Solemnity today! No fasting going on this blessed day. Back to Lent tomorrow.

Marking the Romero anniversary 2014

If you’re planning on observing the 34th anniversary of Oscar Romero’s assassination this Monday, you’re already behind folks in El Salvador. An article posted at Vatican Insider reports:

The country began its commemoration of Romero’s assassination [last] Monday and will continue to do so for the entire week. Carlos Ayala Ramírez, who runs the Central American University radio station Radio Ysuka, led a meditation titled “The pastor must be where there is suffering”, in the crammed crypt of the city cathedral. Processions and vigils followed and will continue until Monday 24th. The week’s events are being attended by numerous visitors from countries across Europe, the US and Latin America.

Numerous Salvadorian social organisations will mark the exact moment on Monday 24th when the bishop was shot in the hospital crape of the Divine Providence, by marching from various locations around the city to the point where a solemn mass in going to be celebrated.

The article also includes information — well, speculation might be the better  term — on Archbishop Romero’s sainthood cause. Seems that some in high places are expecting to see his beatification in 2017, the hundredth anniversary of his birth. The full article is here.

And there’s a fine song and video called “Romero” from a band called The Project here. (Includes actual audio recording of the gunshots that killed the Archbishop!) Well worth watching and listening to (not to mention reflecting and praying over) this week.

In good company

Faith Meets World is one of three books featured in a new article by Catholic News Service’s Regina Lordan. Under the headline “Books offer insight into church’s role in international development,” Lordan notes that each of the three books ”explain that the church long has been a formal presence in international development and that individuals rooted in Catholic tradition, prayer and Catholic social teaching can change the world.”

She turns first to Faith Meets World, writing:

But fair warning: Readers might feel inspired and uncomfortably challenged while reading these books, for answering the call of Catholic social teaching, the books point out, is not an easy task.

Hudock explains this last point best in “Faith Meets World.” Catholic social teaching, based on the two principles of human dignity and solidarity, encourages Catholics to be with and live among the poor and destitute. One must see the image of God in everyone: the oppressor and oppressed, those born and unborn.

These are not new concepts to the church, and have been realized and expanded since Pope Leo XIII’s 1891 encyclical “Rerum Novarum” (on capital and labor), a response to the Industrial Revolution and document in support of just conditions for workers. Blessed John XXIII not only addressed human rights in 1963 with “Peace on Earth” (“Pacem in Terris”), Hudock writes, the pope also directly intervened in successfully ending the Cuban missile crisis. The list of official contributions to Catholic social teaching goes on and on.

Without being wordy or dense, Hudock clearly marries the historical background of Catholic social teaching to its practical application into society. To illustrate his points, he addresses modern-day affronts to human rights in Vietnam and Syria, and highlights Cesar Chavez and Dorothy Day as true champions of solidarity and human dignity.

My thanks for Ms. Lordan for pointing out my book in her article, and also to The Lay Catholic for linking to the article.

“Not a second chance at New Year’s resolutions”

Someone handed me a copy of Naked, and You Clothed Me: Homilies and Reflections for Cycle A last week at the Mid-Atlantic Congress. I paged through it and ended up reading the final homily of the book, which happened to be a reflection by Fr. Greg Boyle for the Feast of Christ the King. (Boyle is the founder of Homeboy Industries, an intervention and rehab ministry for gang members.) I knew immediately that I would be reading more of this book.

I read the homily for Ash Wednesday, written by Christine Valters Painter, this morning. Another gem.

“Lent is not second chance at New Year’s Resolutions,” Painter writes, “so I encourage you to consider continuing to eat chocolate.” A compelling way of looking at it, to a guy who has often turned to giving up chocolate for Lent.

Rather than the giving up the sweets, Painter suggests we engage in some prayer of lament this Lent — to refuse to just be “fine” while trying to push past what hurts us in order to focus on “getting over it.” She suggests we lament for the sorrows of our own lives, of those we love, and of those with whom we share this big world. That, Painter notes, is an act of resistance and an act of solidarity with those who are suffering. A very Lenten attitude, I would say.

I recommend getting a copy of Naked, and You Clothed Me, edited by Deacon Jim Knipper and published by Clear Faith Publishing. Proceeds from the sale of the book are donated by the publisher to clothing the homeless and those in need.

God bless your Ash Wednesday and your Lent.

My sidekick

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A photo taken by the good folks at Liguori over the weekend at Mid-Atlantic Congress.

A day at Vatican II: on the road to church teaching on religious freedom

In the interest of sharing some of the fascinating work I’ve been doing with my John Courtney Murray project, here’s a morsel. It’s a look at just one day during the Second Vatican Council, as the bishops of the world debated the draft of what would ultimately become Dignitatis Humanae, the Declaration on Religious Freedom. Though we take for granted today both the document and its teaching, I have found that there were quite a few points — during the Council itself, but also during the decade (and the centuries) leading up to it — when the path of church history could easily have taken a different direction.

Monday, September 20, 1965, was the fourth day of the most recent round of debate on the document. The previous three days had seen several interventions in favor of the schema (often from American bishops prepared for the task by John Courtney Murray), but some of the most powerful prelates of the church harshly denounced it. Cardinals Ottaviani, Ruffini, and Siri, for example, had all spoken against it, suggesting that it would promote religious indifferentism and even that it flatly contradicted previous church teaching.

The first to speak that Monday morning was Cardinal Joseph-Charles Lefebvre (not to be confused with Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who will also show up below). This Lefebvre used his intervention to respond carefully and effectively to six objections repeatedly raised by opponents of the religious freedom schema. Then came Baltimore’s Cardinal Lawrence Sheehan, who spent his time at the podium addressing criticism that the document was unfaithful to Catholic doctrine. He provided a careful and systematic review of teaching of past popes (that was clearly the handiwork of John Courtney Murray) in “the ardent hope,” he said, “that the fathers will approve the schema almost unanimously.”

A rather remarkable series of interventions on behalf of the document followed. Cardinal Josef Beran took his place before the fathers. During the 1940s, Beran had been imprisoned by the Nazis in the Theresienstadt and Dachau concentration camps. After four years of freedom, during which he had been named Archbishop of Prague, Beran was imprisoned in 1949 by the Communist regime and remained so until 1963. Since his release, he had been forbidden by his government from exercising his ministry. As he stood on the floor of the Council that fall of 1965, he had just moved to Rome a few months earlier, in exchange for concessions from his government for more freedom for the Church in Czechoslovakia, and had been named a cardinal by Pope Paul VI.

Standing for the first time before his brother bishops, who knew well the suffering he had endured for his fidelity to the Church, Beran reminded them of the burning of the Czech priest Jan Hus in the fifteenth century and the forced conversions of Czech Protestants in the seventeenth century. These events, he said, “left a certain wound hiding in the hearts of the people” and damaged the Church’s credibility. He called for repentance on the part of the Church and said that ”the principle of religious freedom and freedom of conscience must be set forth clearly and without any restriction flowing from opportunistic considerations.” (Beran died in Rome in 1969 and is buried in the grottoes of Saint Peter’s Basilica. His cause for canonization is under investigation.)

Following Beran, Cardinal Joseph Cardijn took his place before the bishops. Cardijn was the founder of the Young Christian Workers, an impressive movement that at that moment was made up of nearly two million members in almost seventy countries around the globe. Pope Paul had recently named Cardijn a cardinal, too, though he had not even been a bishop, in recognition of his remarkable work. Cardijn, too, spoke in favor of the religious freedom schema. (The cause for Cardijn’s canonization has been officially launched in his home diocese in Belgium.)

As if that were not enough, the next speaker was Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski, Archbishop of Warsaw and Primate of Poland, who also had suffered imprisonment – in his case for three years – under the Communists. He too spoke in favor of the schema.

Despite these dramatic statements, there still was a great deal of disarray on the issue among the bishops and theologians at the Council. Several interventions were highly negative. Archbishop Lefebvre — who was then the superior general of the Holy Ghost Fathers, but later excommunicated from the Catholic Church — bitterly condemned it the schema, saying that the principle of religious freedom “is not one conceived … by the church.” The sharp conflict even generated some apathy on the part of some Council fathers. Many of the official Protestant observers began to sense that the schema might not succeed. Historian Gilles Routhier has written of this point, ”The debate seemed to have bogged down, and no one could find a way ending it.” The next morning’s headline in the New York Herald Tribune would read “Vatican Council near Crisis over Religious Liberty Issue.”

On Tuesday morning, Pope Paul (who was just a month away from a historic visit to the United Nations headquarters in New York City) summoned the Council leadership to his apartment to say he thought it was time for a preliminary vote on the schema.

[My sources on what I offer above are Gilles Routhier, "Finishing the Work Begun: The Trying Experience of the Fourth Period," in the remarkable multi-volume Alberigo History of Vatican II; Richard Regan, SJ, Conflict & Consensus: Religious Freedom and the Second Vatican Council; and John Coleman, SJ, "The Achievement of Religious Freedom," U.S. Catholic Historian, 24:1 (Winter 2006), 21-32.]

Progress report: John Courtney Murray

It’s been ten days since I posted anything here – the longest pause in quite a while at this blog – because I’ve been spending as much of my free time as possible plugging away on the John Courtney Murray book project. Almost every moment I’ve spent on this project, from the time I began it a couple of years ago right up to today, has been fascinating!

Now, as the end of the project moves into sight, I’m very excited to see what its final form shall be – the entire, remarkable story, told as a coherent narrative. Only in the past week or so have I really felt like I could see that in my mind; now I’m getting it banged out onto the screen (we’d have said “onto paper” not too many years ago). I took a vacation day from work yesterday because I felt like I really needed to spend one big chunk of time focused on the thing (beyond the standard couple of early morning hours before the workday begins, which is my typical research and writing routine).

As I’ve moved through the project, my admiration for Fr. Murray has increased at the same time my skepticism about some aspects of his work also has. Regarding my admiration, there’s no question the guy was brilliant. And faithful. And courageous. These qualities just pour out of the various chapters of his life.

As for my skepticism, I find him to be a little too anxious to canonize an American approach to what it means to live as Christians in society, even if it means twisting some teaching of past popes into a form that those popes would likely have found almost unrecognizable. Far better (it has at times seemed to me) to acknowledge that not every word that comes from a pope’s pen or mouth is valid for the ages, than to try to fit those words onto a theological procrustean bed in the name of doctrinal continuity.

The result of his life’s work was an important, admirable, and necessary development of Catholic doctrine, but it also came at the expense of failing to address American culture and society in a prophetic mode (the route chosen, for example, by his contemporary, Dorothy Day).

In addition to all this, I have also been rather captivated by the “supporting actors” in his story – Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani, Msgr. Joseph Fenton, Fr. Yves Congar, and others. How interesting to watch “from afar” his interactions with them, their reactions to him and his to them, how the interplay between these personalities became catalysts of church history and even of doctrine. I’m sure professional historians frequently experience in their own work what I have with all of these folks, including Murray – pangs of regret at the barriers that time and space place between me and them, knowing that no matter how many of their letters or journals or books I read, or how many pictures of them I peer at, I’ll never fully know them and understand them as the real people they were. All I can do is sift through the detritus they left behind them and try to shape it into something that hopefully resembles who they were.

Anyway, it’s getting there.

By the way, I’ve noticed that we’re coming up on the fiftieth or sixtieth anniversaries of some big moments in Murray’s life: the day in March 1954 when he sealed his fate with the Holy Office as it considered formally silencing him; the dramatic day of Vatican II deliberations in November 1964 that he called a “day of wrath”; the day in December 1965 when decades of his own work and struggle culminated in a formal doctrinal declaration by the pope and bishops of the globe that he had been right, and that those who criticized and — is it too strong a word? — persecuted him in the name of truth and fidelity were wrong.

I’m sure I’ll post on these moments when the anniversary days come. But in the meantime, if anyone is interested in scheduling a good presentation at a parish or institution to discuss these and other events in Murray’s life, let me know. It would be fun to talk about them with a group.