Carl E. Olson's Blog, page 148
June 11, 2013
New: "Popieluszko: Freedom is Within Us"
Popieluszko: Freedom is Within Us
• DVD | 149 minutes
The stirring, powerful true story of Blessed Jerzy Popiełuszko, the courageous young priest martyr who became the chaplain and spiritual leader of the large trade
union in Poland, Solidarity, in the 1980s. At 37 yrs. old, Fr. Popiełuszko was brutally murdered by Communist agents for his outspoken defense of his people,
and proclaiming the teachings of the Church on human rights and the dignity of the human person.
An ordinary young priest in many ways, Fr. Jerzy had a dynamic personality, a deep prayer life, and a strong empathy for the persecution and sufferings of the workers
and trade unionists, especially when Martial Law was declared in 1981. He was a beacon of hope in those dark days and his message of truth was devoured by the
Polish people after 40 years of oppression. Thousands came from all over Poland to hear him speak and every month the crowds grew, bringing the Secret Police closer
to his door.
He was harassed, threatened, and imprisoned, but he would not be silenced. His friends suggested that he leave Poland for his own safety but he replied "my place is
with the people" and "I am ready for anything." On October 19, 1984, three Communist agents kidnapped Father Jerzy and he was viciously beaten, bound, and thrown
into the Vistula River. A priest greatly revered by the Polish nation, over 700,000 attended his funeral, and a national shrine at his grave in front of his parish church in Warsaw is
visited by a million people yearly. He was beatified in 2010.
Bonus Extras:
• 16 page Companion Collector's Booklet
• "Behind the Scenes" film on making of movie (30 minutes)
• "Victors Never Die"- Special documentary on Fr. Popieluszko (50 minutes)
June 10, 2013
Boy Scouts, “Bigotry” and the Catholic Culture Wars
Boy Scouts, “Bigotry” and the Catholic Culture Wars | Anne Hendershott | Catholic World Report
The progressive group, Catholic United, tries to smear a priest who cuts ties
with the BSA
The decision by the Boy Scouts to include self-identified
gay scout members has opened a new front in the Catholic culture wars as
progressive Catholic organizations are denouncing the decision by a Bremerton,
Washington, Catholic priest to cut parish ties with the Scouts following the
release of their new policy. Calling the priest’s decision “bigoted” and
“bullying,” James Salt, the leader of the progressive organization, Catholics
United has organized an online petition asking Seattle Archbishop Peter Sartain
to “help bring healing to innocent kids and hurting souls who deserve better
than bullying.”
On May 26th, Fr. Derek
Lappe, pastor of Our Lady Star of the Sea Catholic Church, posted
a letter addressed to his parishioners on the parish website which
criticized the Boy Scout’s decision. In his letter, Fr. Lappe advised
parishioners of his intention to “part ways” with the Boy Scouts: “I do not
feel it is possible for us to live out and to teach the authentic truth about
human sexuality within the confines of the Boy Scout’s new policy.”
In his letter, Fr. Lappe questioned the new Boy Scout policy, which he believes
is based on the idea that same sex attraction is genetic and unchangeable. He
stated:
For many years we have seen
headlines that proclaim a genetic origin for homosexuality. Various groups in
concert with a willing media have tried to convince people that being “gay” is
a genetically defined trait, as if being sexually attracted to a person of the
same sex is no different an expression of DNA than one’s height or the color of
one’s skin. The reality however, is that there is nothing scientific or logical
in such a position.
But, Fr. Lappe wrotes “The genesis of same-sex attraction is
much more complicated.” He referred to Catholic Medical Association’s 2000
document, Homosexuality
and Hope, and its many references to
scholarly research studies supporting the opposing view that there may be
sociological and psychological factors to same sex attraction. Concluding
that the genesis of same sex attraction is “much more complicated” than those
promoting a genetic origin for homosexuality, Fr. Lappe said that his parish
would no longer participate in “offering a program of ratifying a label
of gay which the young man has placed on himself and which so many elements of
society also are happy to place on him.”
Fr. Lappe was accurately portraying Catholic teachings on homosexuality. But,
in an angry statement posted on the Catholics United website on May 31st by
James Salt, their Executive Director, the Catholic Church was attacked as a
“harbor for bigotry and shaming.”
June 9, 2013
Pope Francis reflects on the Sacred Heart of Jesus, mercy, and love
The Holy Father's Angelus address (text from Vatican Radio):
Dear brothers and sisters!
The month of June is traditionally
dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the highest human expression of
divine love. Just this past Friday, in fact, we celebrated the Solemnity
of the Sacred Heart of Jesus: the feast that sets the tone for the
whole month. Popular piety highly prizes symbols, and the Heart of Jesus
is the ultimate symbol of God's mercy – but it is not an imaginary
symbol, it is a real symbol, which represents the center, the source
from which salvation for all humanity gushed forth.
In the Gospels we
find several references to the Heart of Jesus, for example, in the
passage where Christ says, “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are
heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn
from me, for I am meek and humble of heart. (Mt 11:28-29)” Then there is
the key story of the death of Christ according to John. This evangelist
in fact testifies to what he saw on Calvary: that a soldier, when Jesus
was already dead, pierced his side with a spear, and from the wound
flowed blood and water (cf. Jn 19.33-34). John recognized in that –
apparently random – sign, the fulfillment of prophecies: from the heart
of Jesus, the Lamb slain on the cross, flow forgiveness and life for all
men.
But the mercy of Jesus is not just sentiment: indeed it is a
force that gives life, that raises man up! [This Sunday]’s Gospel tells
us this as well, in the episode of the widow of Nain (Luke 7:11-17).
Jesus, with his disciples, is just arrived in Nain, a village in
Galilee, at the very moment in which a funeral is taking place. a boy is
buried, the only son of a widow. Jesus’ gaze immediately fixes itself
on the weeping mother. The evangelist Luke says: “Seeing her, the Lord
was moved with great compassion for her (v. 13).” This “compassion” is
the love of God for man, it is mercy, i.e. the attitude of God in
contact with human misery, with our poverty, our suffering, our anguish.
The biblical term “compassion” recalls the maternal viscera: a mother,
in fact, experiences a reaction all her own, to the pain of her
children. In this way does God love us, the Scripture says.
And what
is the fruit of this love? It is life! Jesus said to the widow of Nain,
“Do not weep,” and then called the dead boy and awoke him as from a
sleep (cf. vv. 13-15). The mercy of God gives life to man, it raises him
from the dead. The Lord is always watching us with mercy, [always]
awaits us with mercy. Let us be not afraid to approach him! He has a
merciful heart! If we show our inner wounds, our sins, He always
forgives us. He is pure mercy! Let us never forget this: He is pure
mercy! Let us go to Jesus!
Let us turn to the Virgin Mary: her
immaculate heart – a mother’s heart – has shared the “compassion” of God
to the full, especially at the hour of the passion and death of Jesus.
May Mary help us to be meek, humble and compassionate with our brethren.
After the Angelus, Pope Francis spoke these words to Pilgrims:
Dear brothers and sisters!
Today in Krakow are proclaimed Blessed two Polish women religious: Zofia Czeska Maciejowska, who, in the first half of the 17th
century, founded the Congregation of the Virgins of the Presentation of
the Blessed Virgin Mary; Margaret Lucia Szewczyk, who in the 19th century founded the Congregation of the Daughters of Our Lady of Sorrows. With the Church in Krakow we give thanks to the Lord!
I affectionately greet all the pilgrims present today: church groups, families, schools, associations, movements.
I greet the faithful from Mumbai, India.
I
greet the Family Love Movement of Rome, the confraternities and
volunteers of the Sanctuary of Mongiovino, near Perugia, Umbria, the
Young Franciscans of Umbria, the "House of Charity" in Lecce, the
faithful of the province of Modena, whom I encourage [in their work of]
reconstruction [the region was hard-hit by an earthquake in 2012], and
those of Ceprano. I greet the pilgrims of Ortona, where we venerate the
relics of the Apostle Thomas, who made a journey “from Thomas to
Peter”!
Thank you!
I wish you all a good Sunday, and a good lunch!
June 7, 2013
Review: Dr. Hitchock's "HIstory of the Catholic Church" is "a unique joy."
Over on Fr. Dwight Longenecker's "Standing on My Head" blog, Christian LeBlanc had penned a guest book review of Dr. James Hitchcock's book, History of the Catholic Church: From the Apostolic Age to the Third Millennium (which is also available in Electronic Book Format):
Last week I started reading James Hitchcock’s History of the Catholic Church. It’s subtitled From the Apostolic Age to the Third Millennium. It thinks big. But it’s only…wait for it…500 pages long, 4 years per page! Just kidding: it’s 500 pages, and it takes the small-essay concept of Europe’s capsules;
and expands it into an entire history. In other words, what one
normally expects in a history book, pages of narrative, is replaced by a
timeline stream of digestible individual articles. I was joking about 4
years per page, but the articles are about 4 to the page. For example in the “Reform and Counter-Reform” chapter, p. 297 lists these: Protestant Divisions, The Tridentine Spirit, The Baroque, and Patrons. They
may be read as freestanding articles; but they’re arranged to lead from
one to the next, and cohere over the span of the chapter into a
comprehensive understanding of the whole period.
History is a unique joy. Pick an era, browse the subtitles
in the margins. Stop on one that strikes you. Read that article for a
couple of minutes. Proceed to the next one, or jump to another page. History is
less of a braid, running from top to bottom; and more of a long
tapestry, going back and forth as well as up and down. And like Barron’s
Catholicism, each few minutes of information has been carefully edited into a self-contained little essay, a thought capsule, to use Europe’s term.
For example, I just read Hitchcock’s capsule on Fr. Damien of Molokai.
230 words don’t just tell us why he matters, but draw an empathetic
portrait of the saint that unexpectedly pricks my heart, as Chaucer
would say. Like Catholicism, in History every second, every word counts, sometimes movingly so.
The structure of the book aside, History’s content reflects
the mind of the Church. That is, it covers what matters to the Church,
and how the Church matters to the World; and does so from a Catholic
perspective. That’s not to say the book isn’t critical of the Church, it
is; but its critiques are orthodox.
Read the entire review. For more about Dr. Hitchcock's book, visit its page at www.Ignatius.com. Also read the book's Introduction on the Catholic World Report site.
Discernment and Communion
Discernment and Communion | Fr. Bryce Sibley | Homiletic & Pastoral Review
If young people want to properly discern a vocation, they need an expert to help guide them.
Several years ago I had a discussion with a young man about his discerning a possible vocation to the priesthood. During our conversation, this young man confidently told me that, having already completed his discernment, he was certain that he was called neither to priesthood nor to celibacy. I asked him how exactly he had arrived at this conclusion. He explained that he had prayed about it for a while, made a weekend retreat, and after that he knew with certainty that God wanted him to get married. I then asked whether he had sought counsel during discernment process—with a priest, religious, or trusted spiritual advisor? His answer was that there was no one. He had discerned he was not called to priesthood or religious life all by himself.
I know that this young man is not unique in his solitary vocational discernment. It’s something of which I have seen a fair amount over the years—young people who decide that they ought to discern a call to priesthood or the consecrated life, and then come to the conclusion about their vocation without having discussed it with anyone. While I admire the apparent willingness to discern a vocation to the priesthood or consecrated life, young people should know that honest and authentic vocational discernment can never be done alone. There is one main reason for this: no vocation in the Church is “private.” Thus, proper vocational discernment always has a communal and ecclesial dimension. If young people come to me and say that they have discerned that they were not called to celibacy without any assistance or guidance, I usually tell them to go back to square one with the discernment process. Quite possibly they have arrived at the right conclusion, but the way in which they got there was faulty.
There are several reasons why discernment in isolation should be avoided.
The Christian Filmmaker and Bringing Faith to the Big Screen
The Christian Filmmaker and Bringing Faith to the Big Screen | Jim Graves | CWR
Dean Wright, director of For Greater Glory, discusses being a Christian in Hollywood and his new project, Kingdom Come.
Dean Wright, director of the 2012 film For Greater Glory, made his first movie as a boy attending grammar school in Scottsdale, Arizona. He did it for a school project, and received an “A” for his efforts. He was immediately drawn to the process of telling stories on film, and knew that moviemaking would be his life’s work.
He attended film school at the University of Arizona and began his career making movies in the Tucson desert, typically Westerns. He re-located to southern California, and has since worked in visual effects on big budget Hollywood films such as Titanic, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and the Lord of the Rings film trilogy. He was also an executive in charge of special effects for Disney. While working on the third Lord of the Rings film,The Return of the King, he had the opportunity to do second unit directing (without principal actors). For Greater Glory, which told the story of Mexico’s Cristero War in the 1920s, was Wright’s debut as director.
In a recent interview with CWR, Wright reflected on the success of For Greater Glory, working as a Christian in Hollywood, and plans for Kingdom Come, a special effects film telling the story of the public ministry of Jesus Christ.
CWR: What is life like in the film industry? Is it stressful? Demanding?
Wright: Yes, it’s both on multiple levels. You have to find work and feed your family; sometimes you have jobs that take you away from home for a long time. And, there are many pressures when you’re working on projects. [Laughing] I think you have to be crazy to do it.
Most people can make a decent salary as a member of a film crew, but no one gets rich doing it. You also risk being out of work for two or three months at a time. People working in television, for example, have periods of down time and there is no guarantee that they’ll get work again. You get used to saving as much money as you can when you’re working to cover your expenses when you’re not. You may read stories about this or that Hollywood celebrity making lavish amounts of money and buying expensive homes and cars, but that’s not most of us. We’re hard-working people raising families.
CWR: How did you get the opportunity to direct For Greater Glory?
June 6, 2013
Arguing Well by Avoiding the Genetic Fallacy
Arguing Well by Avoiding the Genetic Fallacy | Mark P. Shea | CWR
Fixating on who uttered an idea or argument can distract us from whether or not it is true or false.
It is often said that faith (and, if comes to that, culture) is “caught, not taught.” A massive amount of what we believe most deeply comes to us, not from engagement in abstract arguments about ethics, philosophy, or theology, but from somebody we love. Indeed, the inadequacy of the mere intellect against the volcanic forces of the heart is a well-known principle we all understand in practice. As C.S. Lewis said:
No justification of virtue will enable a man to be virtuous. Without the aid of trained emotions the intellect is powerless against the animal organism. I had sooner play cards against a man who was quite skeptical about ethics, but bred to believe that “a gentleman does not cheat,” than against an irreproachable moral philosopher who had been brought up among sharpers.
We are social animals and our habit of imprinting on somebody we trust, of forming tribal bonds, of having faith in those we love and distrust of those we dislike is an enormously powerful feature built-in at the baby factory. Before you ever learn about abstract ethics at school, you know in your bones that you’d trust your Uncle George with your life, that the Hatfields are dirty lying cheats that decent people don’t trust as far they can throw them, that Mama has never lied to you and that Father Malone may be a gruff old coot but he’s a saint and the salt of the earth. We learn what we love and hate in very large measure from the fact that people we love find certain things lovable and other things loathsome.
Those people, by the way, need not be real. Fictional characters from Mr. Micawber to Innocent Smith to Frodo Baggins to Captain Kirk can be deep taproots of moral formation for us. Ronald Moore, a writer who created the Battlestar Galactica reboot, remarks that in growing up watching Star Trek, he deeply internalized the conviction that Kirk, Bones, and Spock were simply what decent people look like as they go about meeting and overcoming challenges. Similarly, I sometimes tell people that about 95 percent of my Catholic moral formation came, not from the Catechism or from homilies or teachings on doctrine, but from two hugely important sources that I think every parent should steep their children in: Twilight Zone re-runs and The Lord of the Rings. Both deeply ingrained in my bones the conviction that however tempting it may be, nothing good can come of doing evil in order to try to achieve some good and that faithfulness in the face of such temptation is rewarded.
June 5, 2013
"It's awesome": Creative Minority Report praises new Joseph Pearce book
From Matthew Archbold on his Creative Minority Report site, in praise of Joseph Pearce's new book, 
Shakespeare on Love: Seeing the Catholic Presence in Romeo and Juliet (Ignatius Press, 2013):
I've never written a book but I imagine it's pretty hard work and then
to see some dopey blogger critiquing it by saying he liked it but
(insert any old dumb complaint here,) just seems nasty. So I'm telling
you all this to tell you that I don't write reviews with "buts." Either
I'm all in or I'm silent. So here's my but-less review of Joseph
Pearce's "Shakespeare on Love:"
It's awesome. I feel smart for having read it and that takes a lot for a
guy like me. I've read Romeo and Juliet a few times and always felt
that there was something missing from the interpretations I've read. I
mean, I always knew that Shakespeare wasn't holding them up as models of
great love. But Joseph Pearce brilliantly points out what I've been
missing. Heck, not only me but pretty much most modern interpretations
of the play.
The book doesn't go into a lot of rigmarole trying to prove
Shakespeare's Catholicism because Pearce already did that in previous
books. So if you're willing to assume Shakespeare was at least a fairly
serious Catholic (which you should) then Pearce's most recent work takes
that into his analysis of the play.
And I hate even saying "analysis" of the play because that sounds all
high falutin and stuff. This book is brilliant but it's not stuffy. It
doesn't sound like Pearce was covered in tweed and smoking a pipe as he
wrote it. He may have been for all I know. It just doesn't sound like
it.
Read the entire review. You can also read the Prologue to the book on Insight Scoop.
Pope Francis focuses on environment, creation, relationships, "culture of waste"
A
combination of pictures shows Pope Francis catching a rosary thrown by
someone in the crowd as he arrives for his weekly general audience in
St. Peter's Square at the Vatican June 5, 2013. (CNS photo/Max Rossi,
Reuters) (June 5, 2013)
Here is a Vatican Radio translation of the Holy Father’s catechesis:
Catechesis
Dear brothers and sisters, good morning!
Today I want to focus on the issue of the environment, which I have already spoken of on several occasions. Today we also mark World Environment Day, sponsored by the United Nations, which sends a strong reminder of the need to eliminate the waste and disposal of food.
When we talk about the environment, about creation, my thoughts turn to the first pages of the Bible, the Book of Genesis, which states that God placed man and woman on earth to cultivate and care for it (cf. 2:15). And the question comes to my mind: What does cultivating and caring for the earth mean? Are we truly cultivating and caring for creation? Or are we exploiting and neglecting it? The verb "to cultivate" reminds me of the care that the farmer has for his land so that it bear fruit, and it is shared: how much attention, passion and dedication! Cultivating and caring for creation is God’s indication given to each one of us not only at the beginning of history; it is part of His project; it means nurturing the world with responsibility and transforming it into a garden, a habitable place for everyone. Benedict XVI recalled several times that this task entrusted to us by God the Creator requires us to grasp the rhythm and logic of creation. But we are often driven by pride of domination, of possessions, manipulation, of exploitation; we do not “care” for it, we do not respect it, we do not consider it as a free gift that we must care for. We are losing the attitude of wonder, contemplation, listening to creation; thus we are no longer able to read what Benedict XVI calls "the rhythm of the love story of God and man." Why does this happen? Why do we think and live in a horizontal manner, we have moved away from God, we no longer read His signs.
But to "cultivate and care" encompasses not only the relationship between us and the environment, between man and creation, it also regards human relationships. The Popes have spoken of human ecology, closely linked to environmental ecology. We are living in a time of crisis: we see this in the environment, but above all we see this in mankind. The human person is in danger: this is certain, the human person is in danger today, here is the urgency of human ecology! And it is a serious danger because the cause of the problem is not superficial but profound: it is not just a matter of economics, but of ethics and anthropology. The Church has stressed this several times, and many say, yes, that's right, it's true ... but the system continues as before, because it is dominated by the dynamics of an economy and finance that lack ethics. Man is not in charge today, money is in charge, money rules. God our Father did not give the task of caring for the earth to money, but to us, to men and women: we have this task! Instead, men and women are sacrificed to the idols of profit and consumption: it is the "culture of waste." If you break a computer it is a tragedy, but poverty, the needs, the dramas of so many people end up becoming the norm. If on a winter’s night, here nearby in Via Ottaviano, for example, a person dies, that is not news. If in so many parts of the world there are children who have nothing to eat, that's not news, it seems normal. It cannot be this way! Yet these things become the norm: that some homeless people die of cold on the streets is not news. In contrast, a ten point drop on the stock markets of some cities, is a tragedy. A person dying is not news, but if the stock markets drop ten points it is a tragedy! Thus people are disposed of, as if they were trash.
This "culture of waste" tends to become the common mentality that infects everyone. Human life, the person is no longer perceived as a primary value to be respected and protected, especially if poor or disabled, if not yet useful - such as the unborn child - or no longer needed - such as the elderly. This culture of waste has made us insensitive even to the waste and disposal of food, which is even more despicable when all over the world, unfortunately, many individuals and families are suffering from hunger and malnutrition. Once our grandparents were very careful not to throw away any leftover food. Consumerism has led us to become used to an excess and daily waste of food, to which, at times, we are no longer able to give a just value, which goes well beyond mere economic parameters. We should all remember, however, that throwing food away is like stealing from the tables of the the poor, the hungry! I encourage everyone to reflect on the problem of thrown away and wasted food to identify ways and means that, by seriously addressing this issue, are a vehicle of solidarity and sharing with the needy.
A few days ago, on the Feast of Corpus Christi, we read the story of the miracle of the loaves: Jesus feeds the crowd with five loaves and two fishes. And the conclusion of the piece is important: " They all ate and were satisfied. And when the leftover fragments were picked up, they filled twelve wicker baskets" (Lk 9:17). Jesus asks his disciples not to throw anything away: no waste! There is this fact of twelve baskets: Why twelve? What does this mean? Twelve is the number of the tribes of Israel, which symbolically represent all people. And this tells us that when food is shared in a fair way, with solidarity, when no one is deprived, every community can meet the needs of the poorest. Human ecology and environmental ecology walk together.
So I would like us all to make a serious commitment to respect and protect creation, to be attentive to every person, to counter the culture of waste and disposable, to promote a culture of solidarity and of encounter. Thank you.
Summary in English
Dear Brothers and Sisters: Our Audience today coincides with World Environment Day, and so it is fitting to reflect on our responsibility to cultivate and care for the earth in accordance with God’s command (cf. Gen 2:15). We are called not only to respect the natural environment, but also to show respect for, and solidarity with, all the members of our human family. These two dimensions are closely related; today we are suffering from a crisis which is not only about the just management of economic resources, but also about concern for human resources, for the needs of our brothers and sisters living in extreme poverty, and especially for the many children in our world lacking adequate education, health care and nutrition. Consumerism and a “culture of waste” have led some of us to tolerate the waste of precious resources, including food, while others are literally wasting away from hunger. I ask all of you to reflect on this grave ethical problem in a spirit of solidarity grounded in our common responsibility for the earth and for all our brothers and sisters in the human family.
Greeting:
I offer an affectionate greeting to all the English-speaking pilgrims and visitors present at today’s Audience, including those from England, Scotland, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Singapore and the United States. God bless you all!
June 4, 2013
A Sure Guide to St. Augustine’s Thought and Theology
A Sure Guide to St. Augustine’s Thought and Theology | Jared Ortiz | Catholic World Report
A review of Matthew Levering’s new book, The Theology of Augustine: An Introductory Guide to His Most Important Works
It is often said that Augustine
is the most “modern” of all the Church Fathers.
Whatever one means by “modern,” it is certainly true that Augustine
still speaks to us today, even though he is separated from us by 16
centuries. When, for example, Augustine
speaks about our restless hearts or when he relates how he prayed to receive
chastity and continence, “but not yet,” we know that this is a man of deep
feeling who has “been there,” and we know we can trust him. Augustine the
sinner, the searcher, the convert who doesn’t settle for easy answers—this is a
man who speaks to our experience.
Lover of beauty
Perhaps Augustine resonates so
much with us today because he was a profound lover: he loved women, he loved
his friends, he loved wisdom, and, finally, he channeled this love toward
God. The mature Augustine prays,
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