Carl E. Olson's Blog, page 325

On cusp of entering the Church, Abbey Johnson embraced by nuns

Franciscan University of Steubenville has posted the following video, with this caption: "A few days before author, speaker, and former Planned Parenthood clinic director Abby Johnson was embraced by the Church at the 2011 Easter Vigil, she spoke at Franciscan University of Steubenville and was embraced by several brides of Christ":

For information about Abby's book, Unplanned: The Dramatic True Story of the Planned Parenthood Leader Who Crossed the Life Line to Fight for Women in Crisis, visit the Unplanned website. You can also read Chapter One of the book, "The Ultrasound", on Ignatius Insight

And here is a short commercial created recently by Ignatius Press for Unplanned:

Benedict XVI to begin catechesis on nature and purpose of prayer

From the Vatican Information Service:

VATICAN CITY, 4 MAY 2011 (VIS) - Today, Benedict XVI began a series of catecheses that will focus on the theme of Christian payer.

  Addressing the pilgrims gathered in St. Peter's Square, the Pope explained that, beginning this Wednesday, "drawing near to Sacred Scripture, the great tradition of the Church Fathers, the masters of spirituality, and the liturgy, we will seek to learn how to live even more intensely our relationship with the Lord, as if it were a type of "School of Prayer".

  "We know", he said, "that prayer should not be overlooked. It is necessary to learn how to pray, almost learning this art ever anew. Even those who are very advanced in their spiritual lives always feel the need to attend the school of Jesus in order to learn how to truly pray".

  In this first catechesis, Benedict XVI offered a few examples of prayer that were present in ancient cultures, "to highlight how, almost always and everywhere, we have turned to God. In ancient Egypt, for example, a blind man asking the divinity to return his sight, testifies to something universally human, which is the pure and simple prayer of someone who is suffering".

  "In those sublime, all-time masterpieces of literature that are the Greek tragedies, even today, after 25 centuries, prayers expressing the desire to know God and adore His majesty are read, reflected on, and performed".

  The Pope emphasized that "every prayer always expresses the truth of human creatures, who on the one hand experience a certain weakness and indigence and who, therefore, ask assistance from heaven and, on the other, who are endowed with an extraordinary dignity because able to prepare themselves to receive divine Revelation, discovering themselves capable of entering into communion with God".

  "Persons of every age pray because they cannot stop asking themselves the meaning of their existence, which remains obscure and discouraging if they are unable to enter into relationship with the mystery of God and His plan for the world. Human life is a mixture of good and evil, of unwarranted suffering and of joy and beauty that, spontaneously and irresistibly, move us to ask God for the inner light and strength to sustain us on earth, revealing a hope that goes beyond the limits of death".

  Benedict XVI concluded, asking that the Lord, "at the beginning of this journey in the School of Prayer, enlighten our minds and our hearts so that our relationship with Him in prayer be always more intense, affectionate, and constant. One more time let us ask Him: 'Lord, hear our prayer'".

Related Ignatius Insight Articles and Book Excerpts:

• Lord, Teach Us To Pray | Fr. Jerome Bertram | From Jesus, Teach Us To Pray
• Contemplation and the Liturgy | Hans Urs von Balthasar
• Thirsting and Quenching | Fr. Thomas Dubay, S.M.
• St. John of the Cross | Fr. Thomas Dubay, S.M.
• Seeking Deep Conversion | Fr. Thomas Dubay, S.M.
• The Confession of the Saints | Adrienne von Speyr
• Catholic Spirituality | Thomas Howard
• The Scriptural Roots of St. Augustine's Spirituality | Stephen N. Filippo
• The Eucharist: Source and Summit of Christian Spirituality | Mark Brumley

On the Beatification of John Paul II

On the Beatification of John Paul II | Fr. Matthew J. Albright | Homiletic & Pastoral Review | May 2011

The pontificate of John Paul II was a gift from God to the faithful entering the third millennium.

The unique significance of a recent Vatican announcement has settled on the minds and hearts of Christ's faithful. The joyful news of the beatification of Pope John Paul II on the first of May contains layers of meaning for the Church and the world. This beatification of a pope so well-known and loved by the world drawn the attention of millions and provided the Church with an opportunity to focus the global gaze not on John Paul II, but on his greatest love, Jesus Christ. The beatification Mass is a celebration for the world, and a reminder to all that it was Jesus who inspired the Holy Father's life of universal ministry. People of every continent and creed appreciated John Paul II as a man of God who loved humanity. In his ever-present smile they saw, whether they knew it or not, the face of Jesus.

This is also an opportunity to remember the importance of the saints and the process of canonization in the life of the Church. The saints as well as those declared "blessed" are our heroes in the faith, our intercessors before the throne of God, and the exemplars of what it means to live in Christ. We honor them by seeking their intercession and putting into practice, in our own day, the virtues that made them honorable and brought them to eternal glory. We remember them in the Mass on their feast days, for in the Eucharist we are most fully united with one another and, beyond the boundaries of time and space in the mystery of the Eucharist, with the Church triumphant in heaven. We sing with the saints and angels the Sanctus—Holy, Holy, Holy—which is eternally resounding through the heavenly halls. We ask them to pray with us and for us to God in our needs. We display their images as tangible reminders of what God can do through the prayer and work of holy men and women.

Saints become recognized by the Church as worthy of devotion only after a long and careful process. When a person's cause for canonization is brought to the attention of the Church, his or her life is investigated for evidence of heroic virtue—virtue and sacrificial love beyond ordinary goodness—and the person is declared "Venerable" and a "Servant of God." Subsequently, two miracles must be proven to have taken place because of the person's intercession subsequent to his or her death. A painstaking investigation into the alleged miracle, involving doctors and experts in the appropriate fields as well as theologians, is undertaken to ensure that there is no natural explanation and, to the extent it is humanly possible under God's guidance, to determine that a miracle has taken place. After the first miracle, the person is declared "blessed," and, after the second, "saint."

John Paul's beatification is a call to remember his teaching and pastoral initiatives, which have impacted every aspect of the Church's life. John Paul II ascended to the papal throne in the midst of a confused and divided Church and led her over the course of 27 years in a journey of re-discovery of the eternal truths that define her. In 1978, the "spirit of Vatican II" was being manipulated to justify everything from clown Masses to the ordination of women. A hastily implemented reform of the liturgy seemed to create a false separation between the "new Mass" and the previous tradition, and left some Catholics ecstatic over the creative possibilities and others in despair over the loss of the sacred liturgy of their ancestors. The prematurely leaked majority report of a Vatican commission, which recommended to Pope Paul VI a change in the traditional teaching against contraception—a recommendation he did not accept when he published Humanae Vitae in 1968—opened the door of unprecedented dissent. The rugged individualism and anti-establishment climate of the 1960s and 70s infected the Church, and her people began to lose sight of who they were. As early as 1969, Paul VI realized the decline in understanding and devotion to the Eucharist, and thus he wrote the encyclical Mysterium Fidei in an attempt to re-affirm the traditional beliefs. Mass attendance and fidelity to Church precepts began to slip as well. Catholics were left wondering what would come next, and what the Church was really all about.

Into this confounding scenario stepped Karol Wojtyla, a brilliant philosopher and scholar who attended the Council; a man who had seen firsthand during the Nazi occupation and the Second World War both the horrific evil of which humanity is capable as well as the goodness inherent in men and women such as his fellow students, actors and professors. One cannot imagine a candidate better suited for such a daunting task as he would embrace—the task of bringing the Church back to her foundations. John Paul needed to do what so many in the decades before him failed to do: to embrace Vatican II's true aggiornamento (updating) by placing it within the context of the Council's other call for ressourcement (return to the sources). It was to the sources of our faith, and to the Source of truth, love and holiness themselves, that he would take us—to Jesus, whose identity and ministry are our reality.

Read the entire essay on HPRweb.com...

"God Created Saint Paul and Then Broke the Mold": An Interview with Joseph M. Callewaert

"God Created Saint Paul and Then Broke the Mold": An Interview with Joseph M. Callewaert, author of The World of Saint Paul | Ignatius Insight

Ignatius Insight: What inspired you to write a book about St. Paul?

Callewaert: First, Paul has always intrigued me. I read about him, of course, in the Acts of the Apostles—fascinating reading—which prompted me to go on to his Epistles. I tried to read them in French, English, Latin and Greek. And here I hit a wall.

I had a hard time following his argumentation,in my own French cartesian mind, with his peremptory affirmations and abrupt"diatribes". The succession of his arguments is not always clear in its logic and pertinence. For example why does his first Letter to the Corinthians presents us, besides great thoughts about the Cross and the Resurrection, exhortations on celibacy, marriage, pagan courts and food? Furthermore, to add to the confusion, he supports his affirmations with obscure quotations from the Old Testament taken from the Greek Septuagint and probably badly translated in English.

And so, for years, I struggled with my St. Paul, reading books about him and his "world", mostly in French but also in English, in German,consulting commentaries, improving my knowledge of Greek, until I could decipher this pharisian, a rock as hard as a precious stone, which the grace (kharis) of Christ has sculpted, respecting his nature, to create an amazing man of God, a religious genius, whose influence has not waned over all these centuries.

Second. It is really the world upside down.

Here we have this sect of followers of Jesus who insist he is the Messiah resuscitated and gone to heaven. Their leaders are Peter, the rock, who is starting to effectively occupy the central role and there is also John and James. John, the favorite disciple, could have occupied the second position but he is left discreetly in the shadow.

And what happens? It is Paul of Tarsus, who had not known Christ before the Ascension, that the same Jesus moves forward, presenting him as the "Apostle to the Nations".

He is immediately involved in controversy. You can see the hatred Paul arouses among his enemies, and tensions and misunderstandings he brings about among his co-workers and friends. The Apostle James (the son of Alpheus) or at least his entourage are concerned, for doctrinal reasons, about Paul's missionary activities. A serious disagreement with Barnabas breaks open on the subject of John-Mark and they separate forever, just before the second missionary journey. And there is the confrontation with Peter about the future of the mission to the Gentiles.

Read the entire interview on Ignatius Insight...

Shouts of gladness? Or silence?

For the past couple of months I've been leading a Bible study of Proverbs, a book that I read often (and memorized much of) when I was in my teens, but had never studied carefully (or methodically) as a whole until now. Tonight's study included this verse, from chapter 11:

When it goes well with the righteous, the city rejoices; and when the wicked perish there are shouts of gladness. (Prov 11:10)

Which, of course, brings to mind the question: how should one respond to the news of the death of Osama bin Laden? Mark Brumley, on his Earthly City blog, writes:

It seems clear enough that a Christian ought not to rejoice in a man's death as such. But may a Christian rejoice in a wicked man's death, insofar as he did wicked things and one is pleased that such wicked things will cease? Praying for our enemies does not seem to preclude such a thing.

Read his entire post and answer. And then perhaps ponder the fact that Proverbs, in chapter 24, states:

Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and let not your heart be glad when he stumbles; lest the LORD see it, and be displeased, and turn away his anger from him. (Prov. 24:17-18)

How to explain the seeming contradiction? First, the Wisdom literature is fascinating in many ways, not least because of how it wrestles with apparently competing and contradicting positions, often without arriving at a clear solution or even attempted synthesis. There are obvious tensions that aren't always resolved. Bruce Waltke, in his impressive commentary (Eerdmans, 2004), writes, "The proverb [11:10] must be held in tension with 24:17. Over a personal fallen foe one must not gloat but show love, for he is a fellow human being (cf. 25:21-22). The next proverb pair (vv. 12-13) cautions against despising anyone." But Proverbs, as a whole, makes it clear that one can surely rejoice in justice, the victory of good over evil, and the downfall of those who would kill, harm, or do violence to the innocent.

Also, it seems to me that Proverbs 11:10 is more descriptive than instructive, and the events of the past couple of days bear that out. But Proverbs 24:17 is indeed instructive; it is a call to humility and a recognition of the thin line between giving thanks for deliverance from evil and giving into the sort of pride that is itself the root of sin. Yes, we should rejoice in justice, but be soberly circumspect when it comes to the killing of those who are evil. God desires that all men be saved (1 Tim. 2:4), but he also judges justly and "will render to every man according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are factious and do not obey the truth, but obey wickedness, there will be wrath and fury" (Rom. 2:6-8).

• The Judgment of God | Fr. James V. Schall, S.J.
• Hell and the Bible | Piers Paul Read
• The Brighter Side of Hell | Fr. James V. Schall, S.J.
• Are God's Ways Fair? | Ralph Martin

Listen to clips from four new audio books (all novels) from Ignatius Press

Here are clips from four new audio books now available from Ignatius Press:

• From Toward the Gleam: A Novel, by T. M. Doran; read by Kevin O'Brien:

• From Eclipse of the Sun: A Novel, by Michael O'Brien; read by Kevin O'Brien:

• From Mansfield Park (Ignatius Critical Edition), by Jane Austen; read by Karen Savage:

• From The Last Crusader, by Louis de Wohl; read by Christopher Check:

St. Athanasius: a pillar of the Church, model of orthodoxy in both East and West

Some remarks on St. Athanasius, Doctor of the Church—who memorial is celebrated today—from Pope Benedict XVI's June 20, 2007, general audience:

Only a few years after his death, this authentic protagonist of the Christian tradition was already hailed as "the pillar of the Church" by Gregory of Nazianzus, the great theologian and Bishop of Constantinople (Orationes, 21, 26), and he has always been considered a model of orthodoxy in both East and West.

As a result, it was not by chance that Gian Lorenzo Bernini placed his statue among those of the four holy Doctors of the Eastern and Western Churches - together with the images of Ambrose, John Chrysostom and Augustine - which surround the Chair of St Peter in the marvellous apse of the Vatican Basilica.

Athanasius was undoubtedly one of the most important and revered early Church Fathers. But this great Saint was above all the impassioned theologian of the Incarnation of the Logos, the Word of God who - as the Prologue of the fourth Gospel says - "became flesh and dwelt among us" (Jn 1: 14).

For this very reason Athanasius was also the most important and tenacious adversary of the Arian heresy, which at that time threatened faith in Christ, reduced to a creature "halfway" between God and man, according to a recurring tendency in history which we also see manifested today in various forms.

In all likelihood Athanasius was born in Alexandria, Egypt, in about the year 300 A.D. He received a good education before becoming a deacon and secretary to the Bishop of Alexandria, the great Egyptian metropolis. As a close collaborator of his Bishop, the young cleric took part with him in the Council of Nicaea, the first Ecumenical Council, convoked by the Emperor Constantine in May 325 A.D. to ensure Church unity. The Nicene Fathers were thus able to address various issues and primarily the serious problem that had arisen a few years earlier from the preaching of the Alexandrian priest, Arius.

With his theory, Arius threatened authentic faith in Christ, declaring that the Logos was not a true God but a created God, a creature "halfway" between God and man who hence remained for ever inaccessible to us. The Bishops gathered in Nicaea responded by developing and establishing the "Symbol of faith" ["Creed"] which, completed later at the First Council of Constantinople, has endured in the traditions of various Christian denominations and in the liturgy as the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed.

And the opening of the chapter on St. Athanasius in Adrian Fortescue's The Greek Fathers: Their Lives and Writings:

SAINT ATHANASIUS (293-373)

Athanasius, some time Patriarch of Alexandria, is the first and, without question, the greatest of the Greek Fathers.

The apostolic Fathers and apologists had written in Greek, but they form classes of their own. When we speak of the Greek Fathers, we mean the great saints who in the eastern part of the empire wrote defences of the faith in various forms after the age of persecution was over, during the time of the great heresies, that is, in the fourth and fifth centuries.

Of these Greek Fathers, Saint Athanasius is the first in order of time. Against each of the heresies, the Church had some one great champion, one leader who stood for the Catholic side against the heretics as the chief defender of the faith, who was the acknowledged guide of the others. The first heresy after the persecution was Arianism; it was also the most disastrous and far-reaching in its effects. And Saint Athanasius was the defender of the faith against the Arians.

There were others too, Saint Hilary in the west, Saint Basil and the Gregories. Every Father of this time has something to say against the Arians, but they all acknowledged Athanasius as their leader. From the beginning, he had been the chief opponent of Arius, so much so that "Athanasian" was often used as the name of the Catholic party, as opposed to "Arian". To tell the story of his life is practically to tell that of the Arian troubles. He lived through the whole movement. As a young deacon he saw it begin, and for nearly fifty years he fought it from his throne by the Nile. His name was always the watchword for either side.

Every Arian synod declared its policy to be "away with Athanasius"; every Catholic synod took up his defence. Under five emperors and five popes, he was the one tower of strength and rallying point to all Catholics in that hopeless confusion of synods and anti-synods, banishments and usurpations. Five times he himself was driven into exile for the faith, and when at last he died in his own home, the most famous bishop of his time, he had won his fight; Arianism was practically dead too. And he left a name whose glory no length of time can ever make us forget.

Read the Foreword to The Greek Fathers:

If Fr. Michael Pfleger is a "star", he'd best avoid being a "wandering star"

In the aftermath of the suspension of Fr. Michael Pfleger by Cardinal Francis George, let's take a quick look at a couple of examples of the sapient pronouncements of Fr. Pfleger's fans and supporters. First, from the Chicago Now website:

Father Michael Pfleger has been a star in the Catholic Church in Chicago and they don't realize it or appreciate it. ... I hope Father starts a new church where he can be free to full express himself as a man of God. 

Yes, indeed. In the words of the Psalmist: "Praise him, sun and moon, praise him, all you shining stars". Sure, I took that out of context a little bit, but having listened to a couple of Fr. Pfleger's sermons online, I don't think he'll mind at all.

However, on a more sober note, one might also consider the following from the Epistle of Jude: "...wild waves of the sea, casting up the foam of their own shame; wandering stars for whom the nether gloom of darkness has been reserved for ever." (And don't forget what the prophet Isaiah said about fallen stars.) One doesn't have to be a star to recognize that eternity spent wandering in the nether gloom of darkness cannot be as enjoyable as working for a while at Leo Catholic High School.

Here's another one, from a letter to the editor sent to the Chicago Tribune:

The Catholic Church's dismissal of Father Pfleger's from the ministry is no surprise. The only surprise is that it took the Catholic hierarchy so long to do it.

Here is a priest who actually practiced the word of Christ through his actions. He saw suffering and tried to end it. Neither our country nor the Catholic Church will ever be ready for that.

Exactly! Which is why Americans would never bother to give, say, over 300 billion dollars to charity in a year. And why the Catholic Church would never bother to establish hospitals, orphanages, soup kitchens, charities, homeless shelters, or crisis pregnancy centers. Who's ever heard of such a thing? Finally, this from an April 30th news article in the Chicago Tribune:
In his 14 years as archbishop, the 74-year-old George has remained committed to a conservative interpretation of church teachings, views that have clashed with many priests and parishioners.

His confrontation with Pfleger, a South Side priest beloved by his African-American congregation at St. Sabina, has come down to what the cardinal views as his sacred duty: to enforce Roman Catholic policies, including priests' adherence to their promise of obedience.
That's some solid legwork in action, ain't it? Who would have thought, even upon reflection and time spent Googling, that an Archbishop and Cardinal of the Catholic Church would be focused on upholding the teachings, practices, and disciplines of the Catholic Church? It makes my star-struck head spin like a star-embossed top. Even more strange is this quote:
 The letter clearly outlines the duties of a priest, said the Rev. James Halstead, chair of religious studies at DePaul University.

"Isn't that wonderful?" Halstead said. "So you see this is about promises, and canon law and what that means in the church."
Uh, yeah, it is kinda wonderful—if you're into truth and integrity and all that other silly stuff. Fr. Halstead, you might recall, is the same priest who proudly said, in a recent interview: "At DePaul, if you want a Catholicism that's rigid and rule-bound, we got it. We got the Catholicism for the Catholics who just want spiritual practice but wouldn't know a rule if it hit them in the face. We got the kind of Catholicism for the types of intellectual Catholics who know about the rules of the church, but they don't care about them."

Hey, I wonder if he was inspired by Fr. Pfleger when he spoke about "Catholic who know about the rules of the church, but they don't care about them"? If so, would it be out of line to say somethin about "stars aligning"?

• Cardinal Francis George chastises, suspends Fr. Michael Pfleger ... (April 27, 2011)
• "Pfire Pfleger" (April 14, 2010)

Fr. Barron: "The church doesn't 'make' saints; God makes them."

Some thoughts from Fr. Robert Barron, who was in Rome over the weekend providing commentary for NBC on the beatification of Pope John Paul II:

The church doesn't "make" saints; God makes them. The church merely declares or recognizes what God has accomplished through his grace. To be sure, a blessed or a saint is someone who has cooperated with the divine love to a heroic degree, but grace comes first. In a world that is so marked by cruelty, hatred, division, violence, and intolerance, the message that God's love is alive, transformative and on vivid display in holy people is a welcome one indeed.

A misunderstanding that is evident, unfortunately, in some of the commentary around the beatification is that this declaration is a ratification that John Paul II was morally flawless and that all his prudential judgments were good ones. How, some have wondered, could the church consider blessed someone who was blind to the corruption of Rev. Maciel, the founder of the Legionaries of Christ? I'll leave to the side for now the complex details of that case, but I do think that John Paul was, like many others, deceived by Maciel and that he, accordingly, made some bad decisions regarding Maciel's ongoing direction of his order. But this flawed judgment does not tell against John Paul's essential holiness or his heroic exercise of the virtues. The historians can and will debate the rectitude of the Pope's particular moves throughout his Papacy; the church this Sunday is making a statement about his deep friendship with God.

Read the entire piece on the Word on Fire website.

Also, some remarks by Willam B. May, author of Marriage: The Rock on Which the Family Is Built and chairman and founder of Catholics for the Common Good:

When this apostolate was founded in 2003, we were responding to the then Holy Father's call to participate in the new evangelization with a focus on the social teachings of the Church –- the part of the doctrine that deals with the human person as a social being that is also known as the best kept secret of the Church.

We reflected on a statement in Pope John Paul II's Apostolic Exhortation Christifideles Laici: "Therefore, I have maintained that a faith that does not affect a person's culture is a faith not fully embraced, not entirely thought out, not faithfully lived."

We also reflected about what it was about this man that enabled him to tell young people the truth that they often did not want to hear, but at the same time have them listen to him, love him, and want more.

That led us into a study of his works, which, as for so many people, opened up a deeper understanding of the human person, marriage, and family.  But our mission was to not only help people develop a deeper understanding of these things from the perspective of our faith, but to also find practical ways to communicate these realities in secular terms in the public square.

The genius of John Paul is that he was able to communicate realities in ways that corresponded with the heart.  One day, sitting in my office, I read a passage that he had written.  I couldn't contain myself and spoke out loud, "Oh my gosh, this is absolutely true!  It reeks of the Truth!"   What an odd way to describe it, but that is what came to my mind as I knew at the very core of my existence that what he had written was indisputably true.  I had always believed it was true, but this was different –- I was not just accepting it from a trusted source –- the scripture.  I knew it was true based on my own experience.

And from an essay by Colleen Carroll Campbell for National Catholic Register about the "John Paul II Generation":

John Paul's greatest legacy among young Catholics may be his eloquent defense of married life and love. The trickle of theology of the body study groups has become a flood, and the vigorous recent debate over the meaning of John Paul's teachings on human sexuality only underscores their importance to young Catholics who see them as a lifeline in today's sexually chaotic culture. Many of the young Catholics who praised those teachings to me a decade ago now are forming their own marriages and families and centering them on the principles John Paul imparted to them. They are rejecting artificial contraception, putting prayer at the heart of family life and finding creative ways — including home schooling — to ensure that their children inherit their Catholic faith. They face struggles, disappointments and temptations. Many feel shaken by the new revelations of clergy sex abuse and cover-ups that have come to light in the past year. But their faith has matured into an organic part of their lives, something less emotional and personality-driven and more suited to weather tough times.

Not all is rosy with the JP2 Generation. Mass attendance among young adults who fall outside this "new faithful" cohort, and among American Catholics in general, is depressingly low. Youth support for same-sex "marriage" is at an all-time high. And many young Catholics feel little connection to the Church, despite fond memories of the Pope who led it for 26 years.

Still, the soon-to-be Blessed John Paul planted seeds of faith, hope and love that have borne lasting fruit in this generation, fruit that will continue to ripen in the decades to come. As one young woman told a reporter at his funeral, "The Pope loved us enough to tell us the truth." That truth is one that JP2 Catholics now want to proclaim to the world.

• Films about and books by/about Pope John Paul II available from Ignatius Press

Footage of Pope Benedict XVI venerating coffin of Blessed John Paul II

From "Rome Reports":