Carl E. Olson's Blog, page 239
February 14, 2012
This Quote of the Day has not been approved by...
... the FDA as it is raw and unpasteurized:
"I can't believe in 2012 the federal government is raiding Amish farmers at gunpoint all over a basic human right to eat natural food," said one of them, who asked not to be named but received weekly shipments of eggs, milk, honey and butter from Rainbow Acres, a farm near Lancaster, Pa. "In Maryland, they force taxpayers to pay for abortions, but God forbid we want the same milk our grandparents drank."
The solution seems obvious: claim that fresh farm products are contraceptives and are necessary for the fulfillment of "reproductive justice". Then the government will not only make sure everybody has access to them, they will be covered by your insurance, promoted by Planned Parenthood, and handed out for free at high schools across the land.
The Tyranny of Misunderstood Freedom
The Tyranny of Misunderstood Freedom | James Kalb | Catholic World Report
"And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." — John 8:32.
"At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life." — Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey.
Everyone says freedom is a good thing. Christ promised it. America is based on it. Libertarians and libertines want it. Even the Chinese call their armed forces the People's Liberation Army. But what is freedom?
Answers differ, because people's concerns differ. A libertarian wants freedom from government regulation, a libertine freedom from moral restrictions, and an old-line Chinese communist freedom from poverty, foreign domination, and other social evils. The quotations above from St. John's Gospel and the Supreme Court suggest two different approaches to the question, both backed by eminent authorities. Catholics and many others accept the first, based on the sovereignty of truth, but influential and respectable people today increasingly insist on the second, based on the sovereignty of human choice.
Catholicism views human life as a whole, and accepts that man is naturally oriented toward goods beyond himself. For that reason, it views freedom comprehensively: prison, poverty, and physical handicap are restrictions on freedom, but so are habitual drunkenness, obsessive greed, and—as John's Gospel suggests—ignorance of the Faith. The last point is important. The freedom that matters most, in the Catholic view, is not freedom to get what we want but freedom to pursue what is best. A Catholic society would see overcoming sin and moral ignorance as part of human freedom, because those things get in the way of our goal as human beings. When St. Peter was put in chains or St. Francis married Lady Poverty they were freer, in a Catholic sense, than the careerist who is mainly interested in professional success and high-end consumer goods.
We live not in a Catholic society but one in which the view of freedom expressed by the Planned Parenthood court is generally accepted by social authorities. In that view, freedom is freedom to choose what to treat as real and meaningful.
February 13, 2012
Liberated love: Courage offers compassion, fellowship, and hope for those with same-sex attraction
Liberated Love | Jim Graves | Catholic World Report
Courage offers compassion fellowship, and hope for those with same-sex attraction
In January, the Archdiocese of Hartford, Connecticut announced it was becoming the latest diocese to launch a chapter of Courage, the Catholic apostolate that helps men and women struggling with same-sex attraction live in accordance with the teachings of the Church. Deacon Robert Pallotti, director of the office of the diaconate for the archdiocese, helped develop the program for Hartford. He explained that Courage helps people "who need our care and love. In some cases, they have been rejected by society. They need to be accepted, affirmed, and supported as Roman Catholics trying to remain faithful to Church teaching."
Courage was founded by Cardinal Terence Cooke, former archbishop of New York, and led for many years by Father John F. Harvey, OSFS. In 2010, Father Harvey died at age 92; the apostolate is currently led by Father Paul Check. There are more than 100 Courage chapters and contacts nationwide; there is also an outreach for spouses, relatives, and friends of persons with same-sex attraction called EnCourage.
Courage makes a distinction between homosexual attractions or feelings and the behavior of acting on those feelings. The feelings themselves are not sinful, the organization notes, but homosexual acts are. Deacon Pallotti continued, "Courage will not reduce a person's identity to their sexual desire; [those with same-sex attraction] are people with full human dignity not defined solely by their sexual desire."
Some of the deacons of the archdiocese initially objected to the program because they mistakenly believed Courage condoned homosexual behavior, but were reassured it did not. Pallotti noted, "Through support and spiritual intervention, we can help people with same-sex attraction lead moral and fulfilling lives. These people are hurting and so are their families. Doing nothing would be a lack of compassion."
Courage's entry into Hartford was not celebrated by all. Phil Attey, executive director of the gay rights group Catholics for Equality, complained in the Connecticut Post that "…at [Courage's] core it's still rooted in dangerous, harmful, and barbaric thinking. The idea that you can suppress someone's sexuality and still have that person develop into a happy, well-adjusted person, well, there's very little evidence that that's possible."
But many Courage members in established chapters object to characterizations made by critics, and counter that Courage has been an effective tool in helping them become happy, well-adjusted people. Three such members recently spoke with CWR.
Liberated love: Courage offers compassion fellowship, and hope for those with same-sex attraction
Liberated Love | Jim Graves | Catholic World Report
Courage offers compassion fellowship, and hope for those with same-sex attraction
In January, the Archdiocese of Hartford, Connecticut announced it was becoming the latest diocese to launch a chapter of Courage, the Catholic apostolate that helps men and women struggling with same-sex attraction live in accordance with the teachings of the Church. Deacon Robert Pallotti, director of the office of the diaconate for the archdiocese, helped develop the program for Hartford. He explained that Courage helps people "who need our care and love. In some cases, they have been rejected by society. They need to be accepted, affirmed, and supported as Roman Catholics trying to remain faithful to Church teaching."
Courage was founded by Cardinal Terence Cooke, former archbishop of New York, and led for many years by Father John F. Harvey, OSFS. In 2010, Father Harvey died at age 92; the apostolate is currently led by Father Paul Check. There are more than 100 Courage chapters and contacts nationwide; there is also an outreach for spouses, relatives, and friends of persons with same-sex attraction called EnCourage.
Courage makes a distinction between homosexual attractions or feelings and the behavior of acting on those feelings. The feelings themselves are not sinful, the organization notes, but homosexual acts are. Deacon Pallotti continued, "Courage will not reduce a person's identity to their sexual desire; [those with same-sex attraction] are people with full human dignity not defined solely by their sexual desire."
Some of the deacons of the archdiocese initially objected to the program because they mistakenly believed Courage condoned homosexual behavior, but were reassured it did not. Pallotti noted, "Through support and spiritual intervention, we can help people with same-sex attraction lead moral and fulfilling lives. These people are hurting and so are their families. Doing nothing would be a lack of compassion."
Courage's entry into Hartford was not celebrated by all. Phil Attey, executive director of the gay rights group Catholics for Equality, complained in the Connecticut Post that "…at [Courage's] core it's still rooted in dangerous, harmful, and barbaric thinking. The idea that you can suppress someone's sexuality and still have that person develop into a happy, well-adjusted person, well, there's very little evidence that that's possible."
But many Courage members in established chapters object to characterizations made by critics, and counter that Courage has been an effective tool in helping them become happy, well-adjusted people. Three such members recently spoke with CWR.
Surprise, surprise: secularist elites don't mind "Catholics", but...
... they cannot stand, abide, or otherwise say anything good about Catholics who have the audacity to folllow Church teaching and who place their hope in Someone higher than calculating technocrats. Who would have ever imagined such was the case? Oh, yes, anyone paying attention to the growing cultural, social, and religious rifts of the past several decades. The opening Exhibit is the first paragraph of the February 10, 2012, New York Times editorial:
In response to a phony crisis over "religious liberty" engendered by the right, President Obama seems to have stood his ground on an essential principle — free access to birth control for any woman. That access, along with the ability to receive family planning and preventive health services, was at the foundation of health care reform.
Note the assumptions and perspectives, all of them faulty or disingenuous:
1. This conflict over the HHS mandate is the fault of "the right" because, don't you know, the intelligent and compassionate among us would never, ever stand in the way of what they blithely term "reproductive justice" and "access to women's health care". They and all their friends know it's good, and anyone who deigns to think or say otherwise is clearly a woman-hating cretan (more on that in a moment).
2. So how did "the right" start this kerfuffle? By wrongly insisting, in the words of one prominent pundit, that Obama's "administration mishandled this decision not once but twice". By getting angry over nothing. For example, another columnist, writing with obvious anger the day after the January 20th announcement, stated the "president's decision yesterday essentially told us, as Catholics, that there is no room in this great country of ours for the institutions our Church has built over the years to be Catholic in ways that are important to us." Well, what else do you expect from "the right". But, of course, those remarks were made, respectively, by E. J. Dionne, Jr., of the Washington Post, and Michael Sean Winters of the National "Catholic" Reporter, two men who are only on the right when driving a car within North America.
3. "Religious liberty" is either not an issue at all, is only a tool of "the right" used to scare the mindless masses of dogmatic fundamentalists who cling desperately to their Bibles, guns, and (in the case of Catholics) their rosaries and spirits. The real liberty is the freedom of a women to do anything at all she wishes with her body (save, perhaps, pray with sincere faith or enter into holy matrimony as a virgin) and, in addition, to be free of any and all impediments to the various services, devices, and medicines that will aid her along the path to fulfillment, freedom, and feminutopia.
4. Birth control is an "essential principle" of both the President's political and social agenda, as well as the "foundation of health care reform." This makes perfect sense if you smoke cracked reality for breakfast or read the New York Times during the same breakfast, because it's not clear at all how birth control will help with the leading causes of death in the United States:
• Heart disease: 599,413
• Cancer: 567,628
• Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 137,353
• Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 128,842
• Accidents (unintentional injuries): 118,021
• Alzheimer's disease: 79,003
• Diabetes: 68,705
• Influenza and Pneumonia: 53,692
• Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 48,935
• Intentional self-harm (suicide): 36,909
[Granted, having and raising kids can occasionally strain one's heart and even increase the chances of accidents, but is that really a reason to make "family planning" (aka, contraceptives, sterilization, and abortifacients) and "preventative health services" (contraceptives, sterilization, and abortifacients) the essential principles of a massive, unprecedencted healthcare overhaul? More seriously, why is it constantly said that the Catholic Church is fixated on sex? One reason is that the only area of life in a post-modern technocracy that escapes the increasingly exacting and controlling hand of the all-knowing, every-growing state is that of sexual activity. Yet even that is not entirely accurate, because the received wisdom is that any and all sex between consenting adults is well and good—as long pregnancy is avoided like a combination of the ten causes of death listed above.]
5. Finally, this entire matter is all about right-wing politics, Yep, the "right" is playing politics with the freedoms, rights, and liberties of women because those radicals are puritanical control freaks who cannot stand anyone having a bit of fun.
That last point is very important because it's difficult to find anything in the New York Times or other mainstream outlets that recognizes, when all is said and done, any ultimate reality other than politics.
Thus, the editors opine, "The president's solution, however, demonstrates that those still angry about the mandate aren't really concerned about religious freedom; they simply don't like birth control and want to reduce access to it." Of course, the same editors would never say those practicing their right to use vulgar speech, display crucifixes in urine, or verbally abuse a conservative politician "aren't really concerned about freedom of speech and expression; they simply don't like Christianity, crucifixes or lower taxes." Besides, a growing number of non-Catholic Christians and Jewish leaders, among others, who aren't necessarily opposed to contraception are publicly denouncing the HHS mandate because they recognize that "instead of encouraging the different faith communities to continue their vital work for the good of all, the Obama administration is forcing them to make a choice: serving God and their neighbors according to the dictates of their respective faiths—or bending the knee to the dictates of the state."
Moving on to Exhibit #2, a February 12, 2012, NJ.com column that compares the unfettered happiness experienced by liberated 21st-century women with the mysogynist, dark dogmas of—yes, you saw it coming!—"organized religion", which refers mostly to Catholics, the Catholic Church, and Catholicism:
Something about women having sex for the sheer joy of it seems to unhinge the ultrareligious mind, even here in the West where things are better for women but not exactly benign.
Which brings us to the dust-up over requiring religious organizations to pay for contraception despite their doctrinal objection.
Opposition to contraception in this scientific age seems medieval. Maybe so, but it's a matter of religious freedom and belief, the Catholic bishops insist. It's also a political issue for the church.
The Catholic church must oppose contraception if it's to keep faith with its true believers, especially women who have lived by that rule for generations despite the hardship it often imposed. This is the church's most devoted constituency — its base, so to speak.
What a wonderfully non-creative display of anti-religious cliché tossing! It has it all: Catholics hate sex, Catholics treat women like dirt, Catholics have weird and stupid beliefs, Catholics are just politically-motivated power hogs, Catholics are hypocritical, etc. Why not just say that being Catholic is like joining a secret club that requires you to kill your first born, call it "reproductive justice", and throw a screaming fit if anyone dares a wince, let alone a rebuke? Oh, wait, that's what Planned Parenthood does. So sorry. Carry on.
How, then—sticking just to the practical affairs of the world—to explain the fact that the Catholic Church is the oldest provider of health care to women, children, and men in the world? That prior to Catholicism the poor and the needy and the marginalized were mostly ignored and trambled upon? That hospitals for those in need didn't exist prior to Catholicism? That Catholic pregnancy centers and orphanages and other agencies are so concerned with helping women and children, most of them poor and in need of every sort of support?
Because the Catholic Church did not and does not start from the popular premise that politics dictates who we and how we should think and act, but that faith and reason, especially as expressed and presented by the Church, are the foundational guides. The Church, in the words of the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, is an "expert in humanity ... able to understand man in his vocation and aspirations, in his limits and misgivings, in his rights and duties, and to speak a word of life that reverberates in the historical and social circumstances of human existence" (par. 61). That same volume points out we must look at the origins of human life and the fact of God as Creator in order to understand the real nature and purpose of mankind:
The Book of Genesis provides us with certain foundations of Christian anthropology: the inalienable dignity of the human person, the roots and guarantee of which are found in God's design of creation; the constitutive social nature of human beings, the prototype of which is found in the original relationship between man and woman, the union of whom "constitutes the first form of communion between persons"[38]; the meaning of human activity in the world, which is linked to the discovery and respect of the laws of nature that God has inscribed in the created universe, so that humanity may live in it and care for it in accordance with God's will. This vision of the human person, of society and of history is rooted in God and is ever more clearly seen when his plan of salvation becomes a reality. (par. 37)
I quote from the Compendium at length as a preface to another piece in the New York Times, this a February 11, 2012, column by Nicholas D. Kristof, who has apparently been inspired (I employ the word with great sloppiness) by his colleague, Maureen Dowd, to use a term both silly and sophomoric: "pelvic politics". Kristof wants the Catholic bishops to get "beyond pelvic politics", which is quite a hoot considering it is Kristof and friends who are so enamored with pelvises and politics, whereas the bishops are focused on principles, truth, and justice. Kristof smirks:
I may not be as theologically sophisticated as American bishops, but I had thought that Jesus talked more about helping the poor than about banning contraceptives.
This is part of a little shtick that Kristof has employed before, as when he lambasted (with a most cavalier cluelessness) the actions of Bishop Olmsted of Phoenix a year ago, writing, "Then along comes Bishop Olmsted to excommunicate the Christ-like figure in our story. If Jesus were around today, he might sue the bishop for defamation." It's unfortunate that Kristof's relationship with facts and logic isn't as cozy as his relationship with his faux Jesus. Kristof's dislike for bishops and Church authority in general makes him immune to the really significant issues at stake (his claim to theological ignorance is spot on; unfortunately, his ignorance seems to embolden him). And so he goes on and on about "sexually active American women of modest means" and "the cost of birth control" and "the centrality of birth control" and such, so that you can only conclude that apple pie is as American as birth control, only not nearly as fabulous, healthy, and perfect—if only those nasty bishops would get the heck out of the way: "If we have to choose between bishops' sensibilities and women's health, our national priority must be the female half of our population."
(Sarcasm on:) Don't you see that this entire mess is all about the bishops holding a perverse and irrational grudge against sexually liberated woman and the little pills that bring them childless joy, commitment-free love, and six-figure salaries? (And, really, what more is there to life than pleasure and power? Well?) This is not about what it means to be human, the nature of life, the order of creation, the necessity of marriage, the importance of family, the religious foundations of society, and the eternal meaning of all that is. Nope, this is about sex, money, and politics. (Sarcasm off.)
To put this is fairly blunt terms: do you define freedom as the ability to rut without responsibility, or the liberty to pursue truth and goodness? Each year that passes, Pope Paul VI's great encyclical, Humanae Vitae, proves ever more prescient. But it was not just prophetic, it also proposes and exhorts:
And now We wish to speak to rulers of nations. To you most of all is committed the responsibility of safeguarding the common good. You can contribute so much to the preservation of morals. We beg of you, never allow the morals of your peoples to be undermined. The family is the primary unit in the state; do not tolerate any legislation which would introduce into the family those practices which are opposed to the natural law of God. (par 23) ...
For man cannot attain that true happiness for which he yearns with all the strength of his spirit, unless he keeps the laws which the Most High God has engraved in his very nature. These laws must be wisely and lovingly observed. (par 31)
So, yes, it really is about religious liberty, which is ultimately the freedom to seek truth, worship God, and obey Christ without fear of fines, persecution, or worse.
Jacques Maritain on the "the liquidation of the modern world"
The following is from Maritain's Christianity and Democracy: The Rights of Man and The Natural Law (Ignatius Press, 1986, 2011):
Men contaminated by Fascism and Nazism do much more than lie: they have perverted the function of language. In France the Pétain regime has sought to spread through the nation a pharisaical ideology wherein all these venerable words like penitence, compunction, purification of the heart and of customs, have lost their sense and their honor and become synonyms of sickly self-accusation which is demanded of enslaved people in order to furnish the really guilty ones with an alibi. The work of purification today 
demanded of men is not an escape into the commonplaces of a morality that has been turned into a shelter for political resentments and class hatreds and into a glorification of the whip. It is not an epidemic of senile resignation. It is a work of courage and hope, of confidence and faith, which must begin with an effort of the mind determined to see clearly at all cost, and to rescue from the errors which disfigured them, the great things in which we have believed and in which we believe and which are the hope of the world.
We are looking on at the liquidation of the modern world—of that world which was led by Machiavelli's pessimism to regard unjust force as the essence of politics; which Luther's scission unbalanced by withdrawing Germany from the European community; wherein the absolutism of the Ancient Regime changed the Christian order by degrees into an order of compulsion ever more separated from the Christian roots of life; which the rationalism of Descartes and the Encyclopedists swept into an illusory optimism; which the pseudo-Christian naturalism of Jean-Jacques Rousseau led to confound the sacred aspirations of the heart of man with the expectation of a kingdom of God on earth procured by the State or by the Revolution; which Hegel's pantheism taught to deify its own historical movement; and whose decline was precipitated by the advent of the bourgeois class, the capitalist profit system, the imperialistic conflicts and unbridled absolutism of the national States.
This world was born of Christendom and owed its deepest living strength to the Christian tradition. It was all the more severely judged for this. Its ultimate error lay in believing that man is saved by his own strength alone and that human history is made without God. But this world has been great and has done great works; man has taken on a more profound awareness of himself and of his dignity and of the law which calls him to advance in time; civil society on the one hand, rational knowledge on the other, have here achieved their autonomy. Science and the scientific conquest of nature, industry and technology have known wondrous successes—while taking, to our misfortune, the place of wisdom; the machine has brought unheard-of possibilities of emancipation against the day when human reason will have learned how to regulate its use for truly human ends.
Ever since the French Revolution and the effusion of secularized Christian idealism which it provoked in history, the sense of freedom and· the sense of social justice have convulsed and vitalized our civilization; and one would need to have the soul of a slave to wish for the destruction of this very sense of freedom and justice on account of the suffering and disorder it may have occasioned. In short, at the same time that there fructified in the modern world the evils whose seed this world bore within itself, the natural growth of civilization and the inner work due to the evangelical ferment continued within it. Nineteenth century civilization did not know how to manage but it nonetheless preserved in its foundations the heritage of divine and human values which emanates from our fathers' struggle for freedom, from the Judaeo-Christian tradition and from classical antiquity. And it remained, for all that, Christian in the actual principles to which it owed its existence, even though it misjudged them abundantly—in the sacred roots to which still clung its idea of man and human progress, of law and the value of the spirit—in the religious liberty which it willy-nilly preserved, however opposed it may have been at certain moments and in certain countries—and even in the very trust in reason and in man's greatness which its free-thinkers fashioned into a weapon against Christianity—and in the secularized Christian feeling which despite erroneous ideologies inspired its political and social achievements and expectations.
If the ever-growing schism between the true behavior of our world and the moral and spiritual principles on which its firmness depended were to bring about a fatal rupture in balance; if our world has little by little been emptied of its spirit and has seemed at length a universe of words, an unleavened mass; if the catastrophe has become inevitable: the tremendous historical fund of energy and truth accumulated for centuries is still available to human freedom, the forces of renewal are on the alert and it is still up to us to make sure that this catastrophe of the modern world is not a regression to a perverted aping of the Ancient Regime or of the Middle Ages and that it does not wind up in the totalitarian putrefaction of the German New Order. It is up to us rather to see that it emerges in a new and truly creative age, where man, in suffering and hope, will resume his journey toward the conquest of freedom.
The book is also available as as electronic book download.
February 11, 2012
New: "Indivisible: Restoring Faith, Family and Freedom Before It's Too Late"
Now available from Ignatius Press:
Indivisible: Restoring Faith, Family and Freedom Before It's Too Late
by Jay Richards and James Robison
Catholic Edition - Only available from Ignatius Press
Foreword by Fr. Joseph Fessio, SJ
Includes Exclusive bonus CD - "Voting Guidelines for Catholics"
For more information on Indivisible, visit the website here.
Are we in a crisis?
A million abortions a year. Skyrocketing divorce. Broken families. Social approval of same-sex lifestyles and the push for same-sex marriage. Economic collapse, unemployment, swelling government debt and deficit spending. Global terrorism.
If you agree that we are in a crisis, then you'll understand why this book is so important.
It is important because in a democratic republic, only an informed and principled citizenry can respond adequately to a crisis.
It is important because committed Christians, with their reason informed and enlightened by faith, with their common motivation ("Love your neighbor as yourself.") and their firm foundation (I am the Truth....And the truth shall set you free.) need to stand together-and act together-in this time of crisis.
It is important because this book enumerates and explains the fundamental principles which we must understand and accept if we are going to make decisions and undertake actions that will lead to the restoration of cultural and economic sanity in this country.
It is important because it is a concrete example-that needs to be set on a lampstand-of how Catholics and Evangelicals can and must work together at this critical moment in our country's history.
Many books have been written on conservative politics. Many more have been written calling Christians to holiness and spiritual renewal. Very few, however, have managed to combine a clear explanation of the conservative political perspective with its corresponding personal and spiritual virtue.
In Indivisible, Jay Richards and James Robison tackle tough moral and political issues facing Christians today, including abortion, stem cell research, marriage, education, economics, health care, the environment, judicial activism, terrorism, free trade and more. Written to appeal to a broad spectrum of believers, Indivisible provides simple, clear arguments that Christians can use to support their beliefs in public settings.
We can restore our culture and revive our economy, but everyone must play a part. Indivisible lays bare what we must know, what we must do, and how we can do it. Before it's too late.
Exclusive Bonus CD
Voting Guidelines for Catholics
A presentation of the voting guidelines of the USCCB by Dave Durand. Included with this book when you order from Ignatius Press.
Jay W. Richards is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute and a contributing editor at The American magazine and the Enterprise Blog at the American Enterprise Institute. He has been featured in The New York Times and The Washington Post, and has appeared on Larry King Live. He has lectured on economic myths to members of the U.S. Congress, and is the author of Money, Greed & God.
James Robison is the founder and president of LIFE Outreach International, a worldwide Christian relief organization. He is also the host of LIFE Today, a syndicated television program, as well as an author and prolific speaker. Robison has personally influenced religious, political and social leaders for the last four decades and continues to dialogue with a wide range of highly visible people today.
"I read this book from cover to cover, in one sitting, in awe of what God was up to in these pages. Indivisible builds a sure bridge of faith and reason over which our country can walk, from our present state of confusion and peril into a new era of peace and prosperity. My friends James Robison and Jay Richards have given the Christian community-indeed, all of us-an invaluable tool for hope."
- Fr. Jonathan Morris, Fox News Analyst and Author of The Promise
"This book explains the fundamental principles which we must understand and accept if we are
going to make decisions and undertake actions that will lead to the restoration of cultural and
economic sanity in this country."
- Fr. Joseph Fessio, S.J., Founder and Editor, Ignatius Press
"It is relatively easy to observe that our society is fast reaching a climactic moment. How to discern a wise, credible, effective and prudent course of action to avoid disaster is not so easy to come across. Jay Richards and James Robison make an important contribution in pointing the way to avoid the worst effects of a coming cultural and economic tsunami." - Fr. Robert A. Sirico, President, Acton Institute
"In an era when Washington's reach continues to exceed its grasp, Indivisible defines the right role of government, explains why social and fiscal conservatives should embrace both the morality of markets and the efficiency of the markets-and why doing so requires no simple act of faith."
- Arthur Brooks, President, American Enterprise Institute
"Rather than accept the common view that faith and politics are ever to be divided, James Robison and Jay Richards appeal convincingly to indivisible principles to show not only that our moral beliefs are compatible with a free market, but also that-now more than ever-religious believers and the advocates of economic freedom must work together to help get our country back on course."
- Matthew Spalding, Author, We Still Hold These Truths, Vice President of American Studies at The Heritage Foundation
Seven posts for Saturday reading
Here are some of the most recent posts on the Catholic World Report blog:
• Bishops unappeased by Obama's "accommodation" by Catherine Harmon
• A Catholic, a Protestant, and a Rabbi get together and ... by Carl E. Olson
• Redefining Health Care Downward by Michael J. Miller
• Cardinal George: "We cannot — we will not — comply with this unjust law." by Carl E. Olson
• File under: "Curious and Revealing" by Carl E. Olson
• Something missing? by Fr. James V. Schall, S.J.
• White House to announce "accommodation" on contraception mandate UPDATED by Catherine Harmon
"If you wish, you can make me clean."
A Scriptural Reflection on the Readings for Sunday, February 12, 2012, the Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time | Carl E. Olson
Readings:
• Lv 13:1-2, 44-46
• Ps 32:1-2, 5, 11
• 1 Cor 10:31-11:1
• Mk 1:40-45
Imagine having an illness so disfiguring, contagious, and deadly that you cannot have any contact with other humans—except for those suffering from the same disease. Cut off from family and friends, shunned by everyone, you must cry out, "Unclean, unclean!" anytime you might be close to someone healthy, warning of your disturbing presence.
It might be difficult to fathom such a stark situation, especially since modern medical treatment provides cures for so many diseases that once ravaged humanity, as well as the means to be close to those who may, in fact, suffer from a contagious illness. Those living in the ancient world, not possessing those options, were often forced to use extreme but necessary measures. Today's reading from Leviticus 13 is a sober reminder of the anguished separation experienced by those stricken by a variety of skin diseases, often classified under the general name of "leprosy."
In some cases the unclean person would recover; taken to one of the priests, he would be examined, and, if truly healed, allowed to return to the community. The suffering of those who never recovered was intensified by the loss of familial relations and friendships. In addition, those with leprosy could not partake in the Jewish worship and liturgy. They would have to "dwell apart " outside the camp, cut off from the social, cultural, and religious life they had once enjoyed. They, in essence, became a sort of walking dead.
These grim facts render the encounter described in today's Gospel all of the more surprising and poignant. The first surprise is the raw faith of the leper, who did not ask if Jesus was able to heal, but simply declared: "If you wish, you can make me clean." The second surprise is Jesus' immediate reaction, which surely shocked those who witnessed it: he touched the leper. Not only was it seemingly irrational, it was a direct violation of the Law, for Jews were to have no contact with anything unclean.
The third surprise is that the unclean man did not infect the clean man; rather, the Lord purifies the leper. Some of the Church fathers connected it to this sentence in Paul's letter to Titus: "To the clean all things are clean, but to those who are defiled and unbelieving nothing is clean; in fact, both their minds and their consciences are tainted" (Tit. 1:15). They recognized that the physical healing imparted by Jesus, while undoubtedly significant, was also meant to signify: it pointed to the spiritual healing offered and communicated by the Savior.
"Let us consider here, beloved, if there be anyone here that has the taint of leprosy in his soul, or the contamination of guilt in his heart?" wrote Origen, "If he has, instantly adoring God, let him say: 'Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.'" John Chrysostom wrote that Jesus demonstrated, in this miracle, "that he is not under the hand of the law, but the law is in his hands. … He touched the leper to signify that he heals not as servant but as Lord." The One who had in the beginning made everything good, came into time and space to make good what had been corrupted by sin and crippled by the Fall.
"Jesus has the power not only to heal," states the Catechism, "but also to forgive sins" (par 1503). All of us are born lepers, disfigured and wounded by sin. Healed by the waters of baptism, we can, sadly, choose to return to a leprous, sinful state. Thankfully, in the sacrament of Confession we have recourse to the healing hands of the High Priest. Recognizing that we have cut ourselves off from the life of the Church, which is the household of God, we are able to kneel before Christ and say, "If you wish, you can make me clean."
Moved with pity, Jesus stretches out his hand. He touches us. "I will do it. Be made clean."
(This "Opening the Word" column originally appeared in the February 15, 2009, edition of Our Sunday Visitor newspaper.)
February 10, 2012
"A sign of a new attitude"
"A sign of a new attitude" | Michael Kelly | Catholic World Report
Roman symposium on clergy sex abuse highlights failings of the past, hope for the future
The Catholic Church can lead the world in responding properly to the scourge of child sexual abuse, according to participants in a Vatican-backed conference on the subject.
"Towards Healing and Renewal" was held at the Jesuit-run Gregorian University February 6-9, and included presentations from senior Vatican officials as well as experts on the issue of child safeguarding from around the world. Attendees also heard praise for Pope Benedict's role in tackling abuse, with Cardinal William Levada of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) insisting that instead of "attacks by the media," the Holy Father deserves "the gratitude of us all, in the Church and outside it."
The conference aimed at sharing the experiences of countries like the United States, Ireland, and Britain with bishops and religious superiors in the developing world to ensure that the same mistakes and failures to respond appropriately to abuse allegations were not repeated. An online educational initiative called the Center for Child Protection was launched during the conference, offering training programs in multiple languages and giving Church leaders the opportunity to easily share experience and advice on how to deal with cases of abuse.
While the Church has failed dramatically to respond properly to abuse by priests and religious in the past, "there are clear signs of progress and hope" according to the Catholic University of America's Msgr. Stephen Rossetti, who has spent many years treating abusers and working to ensure that policies for dealing with abuse are robust.
Msgr. Rossetti told representatives of more than 100 episcopal conferences that "an increasing number of bishops from several countries have intervened decisively and effectively when allegations of child sexual abuse have surfaced."
He said the Church now stands at a crossroads where countries that have experienced the abuse crisis can help other countries ensure that children are protected. "Does each country around the world have to go through this same agonizing process?" Msgr. Rossetti asked. "The Church now knows the essential elements of an effective child-safe program. We ought to implement them today around the world."
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