Carl E. Olson's Blog, page 83

The LCWR Doubles Down on Dissent

Sister Carol Zinn, a Sister of St. Joseph, who is president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, receives a blessing before her Aug. 12 address at the annual LCWR assembly held in Nashville, Tenn., Aug. 12. (CNS photo/Andy Telli, Tennessee Register)

The LCWR Doubles Down on Dissent | Ann Carey | CWR

Sister Nancy Schreck’s keynote address to the LCWR 2014 annual assembly was equally confused and defiant.

“We have been so changed that we are no longer at home in the culture and church in which we find ourselves.”

This quotation from the keynote address (PDF) of Franciscan Sister Nancy Schreck to the August 12-15 annual assembly of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) is startling, considering that it comes from a vowed member of a religious order who is speaking for other sisters. While Catholics should not feel at home in this modern culture, not feeling at home in the Catholic Church is indeed another matter.

Yet that quotation and many of the other statements in Sister Schreck’s keynote do help explain why the LCWR has resisted the reform that was ordered two-and-a-half years ago by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) and reaffirmed in April 2013 by Pope Francis.

The 2014 LCWR assembly was particularly significant, because the group chose to bestow its annual Outstanding Leadership Award on Sister of St. Joseph Elizabeth Johnson, whose book, Quest for the Living God was cited for doctrinal errors by the US bishops in 2011. And when LCWR leaders made their annual visit to the Vatican this past April, CDF Prefect Cardinal Gerhard Müller told them the decision to honor Sister Johnson was “a rather open provocation against the Holy See and the ‘Doctrinal Assessment’” that “further alienates the LCWR from the [United States] bishops as well.”

Cardinal Müller reminded the LCWR leaders that the 2012 mandate included a requirement for the LCWR to clear speakers and honorees with the apostolic delegate charged with implementing the reform, Archbishop J. Peter Sartain of Seattle. The CDF prefect made clear that requirement must be followed subsequent to the August assembly. So LCWR members had some big decisions to make behind the closed doors of their executive sessions last week, and clues about what was discussed were found only in the public talks given at the assembly.             

Rather than indicating any conciliation with the Holy See and the US bishops, the assembly keynote address by Sister Schreck, who was LCWR president in 1995, tried to explain why the LCWR was justified in taking the road it followed, implying that the Holy See had misjudged and misunderstood the LCWR.

Unfortunately, her reasoning was convoluted, confused, and unfounded in many respects...

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

Villa-Lobos: The Clown Turned Devout

Left: Heitor Villa-Lobos at the end of a concert in Tel Aviv, 1952; right: Villa-Lobos, circa 1922 (photos: Wikipedia.org)

Villa-Lobos: The Clown Turned Devout | R. J. Stove | CWR

One of 20th-century music’s most industrious enfants-terribles understood, in his sacred works, Dr. Johnson’s advice: “time to be in earnest.”

On the morning of August 25, 1954, New York Times readers found much of Page One devoted to the news that Brazil’s president Getúlio Vargas – who had dominated his nation’s politics for a quarter of a century even when in short-term eclipse – had killed himself. The man so cryptic that historian Richard Bourne called him “the Sphinx of the Pampas” had sprung one last surprise on his foes.

Nobody accused Vargas of undue charm-offensives. In fact, through his diminutive physique (a mere five feet two inches tall), through his bespectacled face, and through his temperament, he made Gerald Ford look like Justin Bieber. Having achieved absolute office in a 1930 coup, Vargas first used his unbridled strength to smash Brazil’s hitherto influential Communist Party; then, when national fascist elements thought they had a faithful patron in him, he shunted them to the sidelines. Having bestowed upon the Third Reich’s representatives enough honeyed words to suggest that he would join the Axis, he proceeded to hurl the considerable weight of Brazil’s army on the side of the Allies. Brazilian troops saw particularly severe fighting against Mussolini’s Salò Republic. Forced to resign six months after Nazi rule collapsed, Vargas vegetated within the federal senate before returning to the presidential palace in a 1951 election that even his enemies admitted to be fair. But that same army which he had sent to oppose the Führer and the Duce increasingly gave up on him, as inflation approached Weimar Republic levels. Rather than aggravating what had already become a low-level civil war in the streets of Rio (the capital would not move to Brasilia for another six years), Vargas entered one of the palace bedrooms and there committed suicide. The pyjamas which he wore while doing the deed, and the revolver with which he did it, have been on museum display ever since.

Vargas would not require more than a footnote to cultural history if he had not done the arts a turn so good as to compel our gratitude long after his economic and administrative policies – the policies in which he took the greatest pride – had ceased to interest anyone save specialists. That good turn consisted of supporting Heitor Villa-Lobos, by every possible and many an impossible measure the most musically talented man that South America has ever produced.

***

In 1930 Villa-Lobos, having turned 43, could not forever continue brandishing the flag of enfant-terribilisme. He had eagerly waved that flag for as long as he could, and perhaps longer than was prudent. For example, he rewrote his own résumé with a frantic imaginativeness that might have made Lawrence of Arabia blanch. Like Lawrence, he showed such flair at having blended spin-doctoring with equivocations, half-truths, and periodic outright lies that the resultant heady postmodernist brew frustrated genuine scholarship for decades ahead.

Contiue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

The Canaanite woman, silver spoons, and Pharisees

Detail from "The Canaanite Woman" (c. 1390-1415) by the Limbourg brothers (WikiArt.org)

A Scriptural Reflection on the Readings for Sunday, August 17, 2014 | Carl E. Olson

Readings:
• Is 56:1, 6-7
• Psa 67:2-3, 5, 6, 8
• Rom 11:13-15, 29-32
• Mt 15:21-28

Those raised in privilege and wealth are said to have been “born with a silver spoon in their mouth.” Money and status can certainly be an advantage when it comes to one’s career, education, and relationships. But there are no spiritual silver spoons. Our social connections, incomes, and talents cannot put us in right relationship with God.

This fact should be obvious to us. But human nature, fallen and proud, is tempted to rely on temporal advantages when it comes to eternal realities.

One of the great challenges Jesus faced was the deeply rooted belief, held by many of his fellow Jews, that because they were Jewish, they had it made—that is, they were right with God, while Gentiles were not. Contact with Gentiles, or pagans—who did not worship the one true God—was kept to a minimum; too much contact could result in physical and spiritual impurity. “The Jews are extremely loyal toward one another,” observed the first-century Roman historian Tacitus (ca. 56-ca. 117), “and always ready to show compassion, but toward every other people they feel only hate and enmity” (The Histories, 5.5). The enmity was so strong that Gentiles were sometimes called “dogs.”

Jesus did not, of course, downplay the false beliefs and immoral actions of pagans. Rather, he pointed out that they also were invited to enter into a saving covenant with Yahweh, the God of all men. As today’s reading from the prophet Isaiah demonstrates, this was not a new idea: “for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.” But it was not a popular idea due, in part, to the brutal mistreatment Jews sometimes endured at the hands of certain Gentiles. Yet it was also due to spiritual blindness and an unwillingness to accept the words of the prophets.

Matthew’s Gospel, written for a Jewish audience, described how and why Jesus, after meeting stiff resistance from his fellow Jews, began preaching to Gentiles. Today’s Gospel is a dramatic example of how Jesus bridged the great chasm between the two groups.

Having had yet another clash with the Pharisees, who he described as “blind guides” (Matt 15:14), Jesus left Galilee and went into pagan territory on the Phoenician coast, which is modern-day Lebanon. At the same time, a Canaanite woman came to meet him. We don’t know how she knew of Jesus, which makes her greeting all the more audacious and remarkable: “Have pity on me, Lord, Son of David!”

In speaking so boldly to a Jewish man, she trampled upon the social norms of the day. But her boldness seemed, at first, to be counter-productive. Jesus ignored her. Or did he? Is it not true that God sometimes seems to be silent and to ignore us? Jesus’ lack of response was, it appears, meant to do two things: elicit her remarkable public statement of faith and show his disciples what is most important in the Kingdom of God.

“This woman,” wrote Epiphanus the Latin, a late fifth-century Christian commentator, “is the mother of the Gentiles, and she knew Christ through faith.” Confronted with divine silence, she did not waver, but pleaded a second time, “Lord, help me.” Then, having been rebuffed by the standard Jewish perspective of the time, she demonstrated profound humility and faith, readily accepting the label of a dog. “Faith accepts what work does not merit,” remarked Epiphanus, “and through faith the Gentiles were made children out of dogs.”

Jesus’ response was equally surprising, for his acclamation—“O woman, great is your faith!”—was filled with respect and affection. By saying, “Let it be done for you as you wish,” he acknowledged the purity of her faith and intentions, something he could not do for the Pharisees, despite their education, position, and power. As he stated later, “Whoever exalts himself will be humbled; but whoever humbles himself will be exalted” (Matt 23:13). The Canaanite woman, humble is spirit, had no need for silver spoons, being blessed beyond measure with divine love and communion with God.

(This "Opening the Word" column originally appeared in the August 17, 2008, edition of Our Sunday Visitor newspaper.)

The present, future, and quality of Catholic online education

The present, future, and quality of Catholic online education | CWR Staff | Catholic World Report

An interview with Patrick Carmack, President of the Ignatius-Angelicum Liberal Studies Program, about Catholic online education, technology, and Great Books

Patrick S. J. Carmack, J.D. is the President of the Ignatius-Angelicum Liberal Studies Program, and the founder of the Angelicum Academy Homeschool Program and of the Great Books Academy Homeschool Program (2000 AD). In addition to earning his Juris Doctorate, Patrick has completed additional courses in psychology and philosophy, as well as studies at the Institute of Spirituality at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome (the “Angelicum”). He is a former Judge at the Oklahoma State Corporation Commission, member of the U.S. Supreme Court Bar, former CEO of an independent petroleum exploration and production company, founder and former Chairman of the International Caspian Horse Society, and President of a non-profit educational foundation.

Patrick was a participant in Dr. Mortimer J. Adler’s last several Socratic discussion groups in Maryland and California in 1999 and 2000, and he moderated the first live-audio Socratic groups online and numerous online groups since. He has spoken on educational topics at various conferences in the U.S. and in Europe. He is the recipient of the International Etienne Society’s Pope John Paul the Great Thomist Humanist Award for his work in education.

He recently spoke with Catholic World Report about the Catholic online education, the pros and cons of online technology for learning, and the Ignatius-Angelicum Liberal Studies Program.

CWR: Online education has had exponential growth in the last decade; has Catholic online education kept pace?

Patrick S. J. Carmack: No, but it is catching up. There is a conservative tendency in Catholic education with respect to the use of modern technology, which results in a reluctance to embrace it. This is probably partly due to a kind of nostalgia for the golden age of Catholic education in the scholasticism of the High Middle Ages and the later, very successful Jesuit pedagogy developed during the Counter-Reformation period. But there is another reason as well, one articulated by Marshall and Eric McLuhan, which recognizes that technology and media themselves change us, and hence society, regardless of the content. There are both advantages and disadvantages to this, but overall the changes are troubling, especially if one connects them to the increasing secularization of the West, where technological change is most rapid. In a word, there is a dehumanizing element to technology that disembodies us to some degree—a discarnation of a sort. That, of course, runs counter to the Catholic love of all reality, including the body and the incarnational aspect of the faith.

CWR: It is surprising to hear you criticize educational technology since you work so much with it. Are you opposed to the use of technology in education, to online classes for instance?

Carmack: Yes, and no.

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

"The Assumption" by Mgr. Ronald Knox

The Assumption | Mgr. Ronald Knox | From Pastoral and Occasional Sermons | August 15th | Ignatius Insight

A cave Jeremias found there, in which he set down tabernacle and ark and incense-altar, and stopped up the entrance behind him. There were some that followed; no time they lost in coming up to mark the spot, but find it they could not.—2 Machabees 2:5-6.

After this, God's heavenly temple was thrown open, and the ark of the covenant was plain to view, standing in his temple.—Apocalypse 11:19.

The Son of God came to earth to turn our hearts away from earth, Godwards. The material world in which we live was, by his way of it, something immaterial; it didn't matter. We were not to be always worrying about our clothes being shabby, or wondering where our next meal was to come from; the God who fed the sparrows and clothed the lilies would see to all that. We were not to resent the injuries done to us by our neighbours; the aggressor was welcome to have a slap at the other cheek, and when he took away our greatcoat he was to find that we had left our coat inside it. Life itself, the life we know, was a thing of little value; it was a cheap bargain, if we lost life here to attaIn the life hereafter. There was a supernatural world, interpenetrating, at a higher level, the world of our experience; it has its own laws, the only rule we were to live by, its own prizes, which alone were worth the winning. All that he tried to teach us; and we, intent on our own petty squabbles, our sordid struggle for existence, cold-shouldered him at first, and then silenced his protest with a cross.

His answer was to rise from the dead; and then, for forty days in the world's history, that supernatural life which he had preached to us flourished and functioned under the conditions of earth. A privileged few saw, with mortal eyes, the comings and goings of immortality, touched with their hands the impalpable. For forty days; then, as if earth were too frail a vessel to contain the mystery, the tension was suddenly relaxed. He vanished behind a cloud; the door of the supernatural shut behind him, and we were left to the contemplation of this material world, drab and barren as ever.

What was the first thing the apostles saw when they returned from the mount of the Ascension to the upper room? "Together with Mary"—is it only an accident that the Mother of God is mentioned just here, by name, and nowhere else outside the gospels? The Incarnate Word had left us, as silently as he came to us, leaving no trace behind him of his passage through time. No trace? At least, in the person of his blessed Mother, he had bequeathed to us a keepsake, a memory. She was bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh, the new Eve of the new Adam. That body of hers, still part of the material order of things, had housed and suckled God. As long as she lived, there would still be a link, a golden link, between this lower earth and Paradise. As long as she lived; and even if it was God's will that she, Eve's daughter, should undergo the death that was Eve's penalty, the penalty she had never incurred, her mortal remains would still be left with us, an echo from the past, an influence on our lives. We men, since we are body and soul, do honour even to the lifeless bodies which have housed the dead; Napoleon rests in the Invalides, Lenin at Moscow. The day would come when there would be pilgrimages from all over the world to the shrines of Peter and Paul at Rome, of James at Compostela. Was it not reasonable to hope that somewhere, at Jerusalem, perhaps, or at Ephesus, we should be privileged to venerate the mortal remains of her through whom salvation came to us? Or perhaps at Bethlehem, Bethlehem-Ephrata, this new Ark of God would rest, as the ark rested of old; "And now, at Ephrata, we have heard tidings of what we looked for" [1] —the old tag from the Psalms should still ring true.

God disposed otherwise. Jewish tradition recorded that when Jerusalem was destroyed by the armies of Babylon, the prophet Jeremias took the ark of God away from the city, and buried it in some secret cleft of the rock; it was never seen again. Never again, except by St John, in his vision on the isle of Patmos; he saw the ark of God, but in heaven. And so it was with this new Ark of God, the virgin body that had been his resting-place. When and where she passed away from this earth, or in what manner, nobody can tell us for certain. But we know where she is. When Elias was carried up into heaven, the sons of the prophets at Jericho asked Eliseus if they might go out in search of him; "it may be", they said, "the spirit of the Lord has carried him off and left him on some hill-top or in some cleft of the valleys." He consented grudgingly, and when they returned from their fruitless errand, greeted them with the words; "Did I not tell you not to send?" [2] So it is with the body of the blessed Virgin: nowhere in Christendom will you hear the rumour of it. So many churches, all over the world, eagerly claiming to possess the relics of this or that saint; who shall tell us whether John the Baptist sleeps at Amiens, or at Rome? But never of our Lady; and if any of us still hoped to find that inestimable treasure, the Holy Father has called off the search, only the other day. We know where her body is; it is in heaven.

Of course, we knew it all along. For myself, I have never doubted the doctrine of the Assumption since I heard it preached forty-four years ago, in an Anglican church over at Plymouth. You see, we get it all wrong about body and soul, simply because our minds are dominated by matter. We think it the most natural thing in the world that soul and body should be separated after death; that the body should remain on earth and the soul go to heaven, once it is purged and assoiled. But it isn't a natural thing at all; soul and body were made for one another, and the temporary divorce between them is something out of the way, something extraordinary, occasioned by the Fall. In our blessed Lady, not born under the star of that defeat, human nature was perfectly integrated; body and soul belonged to one another, as one day, please God, yours and mine will.

Long ago, in those fields of Bethlehem, Ruth had gleaned in the footsteps of her beloved; and he, secretly, had given charge to the reapers to drop handfuls of corn on purpose, so that she might fill her bosom the sooner. So he, whose reapers are the angels, would leave for his blessed Mother a special portion of those graces that were to enrich mankind. The child-bearing which brought, to us others, redemption from the fault of our first parents should bring, to her, exemption; the empty tomb, which assures us that our bodies will rise at the judgment, was for her the earnest of an immediate resurrection; Christ the first-fruits, and who should glean them, but she? For that, heaven is the richer, earth the poorer. We can go to Lourdes, and offer adoration in the place where her feet stood; we cannot press with our lips some precious reliquary containing the hand that swaddled Christ. In a world so dominated by matter, in which matter itself seems to carry the seeds of its own destruction, there is no material object left that can link our destinies with hers.

And yet, is the loss all loss? When the dogma of the Assumption was defined a friend of mine, a very intelligent Mohammedan, congratulated me on the gesture which the Holy Father had made; a gesture (said he) against materialism. And I think he was right. When our Lord took his blessed Mother, soul and body, into heaven, he did honour to the poor clay of which our human bodies are fashioned. It was the first step towards reconciling all things in heaven and earth to his eternal Father, towards making all things new. "The whole of nature", St Paul tells us, "groans in a common travail all the while. And not only do we see that, but we ourselves do the same; we ourselves although we have already begun to reap our spiritual harvest, groan in our hearts, waiting for that adoption which is the ransoming of our bodies from their slavery." [3] That transformation of our material bodies to which we look forward one day has been accomplished—we know it now for certain-in her.

When the Son of God came to earth, he came to turn our hearts away from earth, Godwards. And as the traveller, shading his eyes while he contemplates some long vista of scenery, searches about for a human figure that will give him the scale of those distant surroundings, so we, with dazzled eyes looking Godwards, identify and welcome one purely human figure close to his throne. One ship has rounded the headland, one destiny is achieved, one human perfection exists. And as we watch it, we see God clearer, see God greater, through this masterpiece of his dealings with mankind.

(A sermon broadcast from Buckfast Abbey, Devon, on the Feast of Our Lady Assumption, 15 August 1954.)

ENDNOTES:

[1] Psalm 131:6.
[2] 4 Kings 2:16, 18.
[3] Romans 8:22-3.

Related IgnatiusInsight.com Links:

• IgnatiusInsight.com Author Page for Monsignor Ronald Knox
• The Modern Distaste for Religion | Ronald Knox
• The Mind of Knox | David Rooney
• The School of Ronald Knox | An Interview with David Rooney
• The Monsignor and the Don | An Interview with Fr. Milton Walsh
• Monsignor Ronald Knox: Convert, Priest, Apologist | An Interview with Fr. Milton Walsh
• Experience, Reason, and Authority in the Apologetics of Ronald Knox | Milton Walsh | From Ronald Knox As Apologist
• The Four Marks of the Church | Ronald A. Knox
• Review of The Belief of Catholics | Carl E. Olson
• Ronald Knox, Apologist | Carl E. Olson
• A Lesson Learned From Monsignor Ronald A. Knox | Carl E. Olson
• Converts and Saints | An Interview with Joseph Pearce

Monsignor Ronald Knox (1888-1957) was the son of the Anglican Bishop of Manchester and it appeared that he, being both spiritually perceptive and intellectually gifted, would also have a successful life as an Anglican prelate. But while in school in the early 1900s Knox began a long struggle between his love for the Church of England and his growing attraction to the Catholic Church. He converted to Catholicism at the age of twenty-nine, became a priest, and wrote numerous books on spiritual and literary topics, including The Belief of Catholics, Captive Flames: On Selected Saints and Christian Heroes, The Hidden Stream: The Mysteries of the Christian Faith, Pastoral and Occasional Sermons, and many more. Visit Knox's IgnatiusInsight.com author page for more information about his life and work.

Fairest Daughter of the Father: On the Solemnity of the Assumption

Fairest Daughter of the Father: On the Solemnity of the Assumption | Rev. Charles M. Mangan

The Solemnity of the Assumption, celebrated annually on August 15, presents a golden opportunity to reconsider the person of the Ever-Virgin Mary and her singular mission in the Church. We often contemplate the relationship between Mary and her Son; this reflection will focus on the relationship which Our Lady enjoys with the First Person of the Most Blessed Trinity.

Mary has been hailed as the "first-born" daughter of the Father. This reality is evident if one remembers that God--and in a specific way the Father--has created Mary, just as He has created us. She is "one of us" because she is fully human. We are children of the Almighty in a similar vein in which she is His daughter. As we rely on God for our very existence, so, too, does our Immaculate Mother.

What do the Father and His sinless daughter share? Venerable Pius IX (1846-1878), in his Apostolic Constitution Ineffabilis Deus (December 8, 1854) in which he once-and-for-all defined the truth of Our Lady's Immaculate Conception, wrote: "To her did the Father will to give His only-begotten Son--the Son Whom, equal to the Father and begotten by Him, the Father loves from His Heart--and to give this Son in such a way that He would be the one and the same common Son of God the Father and of the Blessed Virgin Mary."

The Father gave many overwhelming spiritual riches to Mary to strengthen her in her inspiring vocation as the Mother of His Son. Yet, He gave no greater gift than that of the Lord Jesus. Mary, in turn, imitated the Father in raising Jesus from before infancy to manhood. Jesus knew well the best of all gifts which His Mother faithfully imparted: the boundless love of His Beloved Father. Now, as the Son of Mary, Christ came to experience the love of His Mother which was patterned after that of His Father.

One may rightly assert that Jesus Christ is the link between the Father and Mary. We often claim that children receive much of their identity from their parents. Eye color, physical build and even disposition are often traced from the child back to its parents. Truly, the offspring rely on their father and mother for multiple and varied things. (And, of course, the Messiah willed to come forth from Mary and be dependent on her and Saint Joseph.) However, the Holy Family of Nazareth is a different case. Mary and her loving husband discovered their purpose in the Divine Child. In Jesus, they found their identity--unto everlasting life!

From her Immaculate Conception to her glorious Assumption body and soul into Paradise (and even now), Mary never lost her sense of utter dependence on the Father. Yes, she was chosen to be the Virgin Mother of Emmanuel. But, she always recalled that she needed God each moment of her life. When exclaiming the Lord's unparalleled goodness in the Magnificat (Saint Luke 1:46-55), this humble maiden declared: "The Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is His Name" (Verse 49). She did not contend: "Holy is my name." Mary was entirely convinced that God alone is the source of all we are and all that we have.









Father Jean Galot, a French theologian and member of the Society of Jesus and professor emeritus of Christology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, recently explored in an article the intimate bond between the heavenly Father and Mary. We are able to locate this connection "in the attitude of the Baby Jesus." Father Galot argues: "In His Infancy, He (Jesus) developed a double fundamental love. He said 'Abba' to the celestial Father and 'Mamma' to the earthly Mother. Other babies unite in the affection for father and mother, who are both human; Jesus associated a divine Father and a human Mother in the same filial love."

These two cries, "Abba" and "Mamma," came from the very same Person--Jesus Christ. It is apparent that the Child recognized in His Mother the care, concern--yes, charity!--which springs from the very Heart of the Father.

If we grant that God never does anything without a sufficient and the most excellent of reasons, then we must conclude that His choice of Mary as the Mother of the Master has certain spiritual ramifications for those who are the brothers and sisters of Jesus.

1) Mary teaches us how to love the Omnipotent One as we ought. Again, Mary is fully human. She is of the same "stuff" as we. Hence, we implore her powerful intercession in learning how to love the Holy Trinity as she does, our weaknesses notwithstanding.

2) The Father has a plan for our lives that we are to yield to immediately if we wish to be content. Imagine what Mary would have missed had she refused the Lord's tender mercy? He summoned her to become Jesus' Mother; she readily accepted. What we forego when we say "no" to our Creator! What we gain when we submit to His unfathomable will!

3) Only in Jesus Christ will we discover our identity and be filled with authentic happiness. The Redeemer teaches us the truth about Himself, His Father, the Paraclete, His Mother, and ourselves. He waits to form us in His Sacred Word. He will never compel us to consent to his desires, but how He wants us to! Mary saw in Christ the splendor of truth. Although she suffered intensely, especially on Calvary, her pure soul was steeped in joy because she courageously adhered to the designs of the Lord, no matter how challenging. The Holy Spirit granted her an abiding tranquillity which is indescribable.

The same Father Who sent His Son to Mary through the power of the Consoler invites us, as He did Mary, to find in Jesus the answer to all our questions and the balm to all the illnesses of our souls. We can seek to imitate in some way, with the Holy Spirit's assistance, Mary's sublime love of the Father. Our wholehearted acceptance of His love and compassion means that we will flourish spiritually in our day as the Mother of Christ did--and continues, now assumed into Heaven--in hers.

This article originally appeared in a slightly different form in the July/August 1999 issue of Catholic Faith magazine.

Related IgnatiusInsight.com Articles and Excerpts:

• The Blessed Virgin in the History of Christianity | John A. Hardon, S.J.
• "Hail, Full of Grace": Mary, the Mother of Believers | Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
• Mary in Feminist Theology: Mother of God or Domesticated Goddess? | Fr. Manfred Hauke
• Excerpts from The Rosary: Chain of Hope | Fr. Benedict Groeschel, C.F.R.
• The Past Her Prelude: Marian Imagery in the Old Testament | Sandra Miesel
• Immaculate Mary, Matchless in Grace | John Saward
• The Medieval Mary | The Introduction to Mary in the Middle Ages | by Luigi Gambero
• Misgivings About Mary | Dr. James Hitchcock
• Born of the Virgin Mary | Paul Claudel
• Assumed Into Mother's Arms | Carl E. Olson
• The Disciple Contemplates the Mother | Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis

Monsignor Charles M. Mangan is a priest of the Diocese of Sioux Falls (South Dakota). He was ordained to the Priesthood in 1989. He currently works in the Vatican Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life. Access more of his articles online here.

Now available: "Finding St. Anthony A Story of Loss and Light" (DVD)

Available from Ignatius Press:

Finding St. Anthony A Story of Loss and Light

DVD | 50 minutes

Over the centuries, Saint Anthony of Padua has been acclaimed as a great example of holiness through countless works of art, sculpture and books. Many Catholics, and even non-Catholics, think of Saint Anthony as the first one to turn to when something is lost. Yet amid this widespread veneration and devotion, we may miss the story of a man who began his life like all of us.

This film reveals the journey of Fernando Martins de Bulhões, a 13th century Christian whom we know today as Saint Anthony. Here, we discover a young man who was often "lost" and searching for direction in his life. He wanted to make a difference in the world of his time. As we encounter his humanity, we find someone we can relate to, someone who struggled in life, someone we could have easily called a friend.

Shot on historic locations in Portugal and Italy, Finding St. Anthony: A Story of Loss & Light is a documentary film that focuses on the experiences of Fernando (Anthony) in his search for the life God is calling him to lead. And as we look closely at the journey of St. Anthony, what we find may surprise us: a reflection of ourselves. His story gives us insight and inspiration for our own spiritual journey.

"With his outstanding gifts of intelligence, balance, apostolic zeal and, primarily, mystic fervor, Anthony contributed significantly to the development of Franciscan spirituality."
- Pope Benedict XVI

Video trailer:

Sticks, Stones, and Broken Bones: The History of Anti-Catholic Violence in the U.S.

 From left to right—Bishop John Hughes, New York, 1844; cartoon from Anti-Catholic book published by the Ku Klux Klan, 1926; Burning of St. Augustine Church, Philadelphia, 1844; Fr. James Coyle, Birmingham Alabama, murdered, 1921.

Sticks, Stones, and Broken Bones: The History of Anti-Catholic Violence in the U.S. | Fr. David J. Endres | HPR

We do not recall these instances of anti-Catholicism to foster more animosity or violence, but recall them as part of our history, a history that, like so many others, included the targeting of ethnic and religious groups for persecution.

You have, no doubt, heard the children’s rhyme: “Sticks and stones may break my bones / But names will never hurt me.” That is not exactly true. For in the history of the Church in America, Catholics have been wounded by both physical violence and hate speech. This article will examine episodes of violence against American Catholics, considering the sticks and stones, the broken bones, and the words that encouraged such violence. 1

An Unmentioned History

If the presence of anti-Catholic violence in American history is unknown to many, it is for good reason. We as Catholics do not usually like to talk about being a minority; we do not like to talk about persecution. For generations, our immigrant ancestors and their descendants fought to be considered “100% American,” not “hyphenated” Americans: Irish-American, German-American, Polish-American, or Italian-American. We Catholics have spent decades trying to assimilate into “White, Anglo Saxon, Protestant” (“WASP”) America and have, consequently, downplayed our distinctiveness. We wanted to fit in, and to achieve the American dream—to get good jobs, get a college education, and move to the suburbs.

Aspects of Anti-Catholicism

In considering some episodes of anti-Catholicism, it should be noted that not all violence against Catholics was motivated exclusively by religion. In many cases, religious misunderstanding blended with nativism, and xenophobia, to bring about a toxic reaction to the United States’ Catholic newcomers. Consequently, anti-Catholic groups—that included the Know-Nothing party, the American Protective Association, and the Ku Klux Klan—espoused a form of bigotry, both religious and racially/ethnically motivated.

It should also be acknowledged that most manifestations of anti-Catholicism have not been violent.

Continue reading at HPRweb.com.

The Proletarian Snobbery of CNN

A photo, taken in March 2013, of the bedroom in the residence where Pope Francis has stayed since his election at the Vatican. (CNS photo/L'Osservatore Romano via Reuters)

The Proletarian Snobbery of CNN | Dr. Adam DeVille | Catholic World Report

Scripture rightly refuses either to demonize the rich or to romanticize the poor

It’s a tricky thing, in the era of Pope Francis, to get the optics of ostentatious poverty just right. CNN recently published a piece, “The lavish homes of American archbishops” that featured a hit parade of houses belonging to Roman Catholic archbishops in the United States and helpfully provided estimates of how many millions many of them are worth. Lest we miss the puritanical point, the piece begins with a shot of the Pope’s bedroom: see how simply he lives—a mere guest-house away from the palace! And now see how these bad bishops haven’t gotten the memo yet.

The CNN piece reflects barely half the story of how Scripture and Tradition consider riches and poverty. The articles does offer a salutary reminder that Pope Francis is, entirely rightly, reflecting the dim view of riches that one finds throughout Christian history. Scripture and Tradition warn again and again about how wealth and its pursuit can destroy you and harm many others as well.

But that is only part of the story, and nowhere in Scripture’s many warnings will you find Jesus telling us all to live in a box under a bridge foraging for bugs and berries and begging drinks off the bird fountain in the park. The Jesus of the New Testament is far more complex than that.

Consider but one story: his rebuking Judas for the latter’s crocodile tears at the ointment used to anoint Jesus’ feet before his death. Jesus says to Judas, “The poor you will always have with you,” not as an excuse to do nothing (the Catholic Church today serves more poor in more ways in more countries around the world than any other organization) but as a reminder that enjoying a foot rub or a good meal or a nice home does not in itself mean that someone else necessarily wanders about hobbled, hungry, and homeless—nor that giving up the foot-rub is going to make much difference to large-scale poverty.

Jesus refuses to play the optics game, and we can be sure that were CNN around in his day, the “gotcha” headline would have read: “Unmarried Rabbi’s Expensive Foot-Rub with Woman Raises Troubling Questions.”

To be sure, the rich are going to have a harder time of it (cf., inter alia, Mark 10:17-27 and James 5:1-6), for wealth is often a stumbling block to attaining heaven (cf. Matthew 6:19-21). But it is not impossible to get to heaven, and we must remember that. (How easily we forget about such Old Testament figures as the wealthy Job who found favor with God.) In sum, Scripture rightly refuses either to demonize the rich or to romanticize the poor.

But the fawning coverage of Pope Francis’ frugality—and, before him, the sneering attacks on Pope Benedict XVI, and now on the American bishops—is not really about poverty.

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

Woody Allen's Bleak Vision

Woody Allen's Bleak Vision | Fr. Robert Barron | CWR blog

The filmmaker's despairing philosophy of life is contradicted by hints of beauty, truth, and goodness in his movies

I was chagrined, but not entirely surprised, when I read Woody Allen’s recent ruminations on ultimate things. 

To state it bluntly, Woody could not be any bleaker in regard to the issue of meaning in the universe.  We live, he said, in a godless and purposeless world.  The earth came into existence through mere chance and one day it, along with every work of art and cultural accomplishment, will be incinerated.  The universe as a whole will expand and cool until there is nothing left but the void. 

Every hundred years or so, he continued, a coterie of human beings will be “flushed away” and another will replace it until it is similarly eliminated.  So why does he bother making films—roughly one every year?  Well, he explained, in order to distract us from the awful truth about the meaninglessness of everything, we need diversions, and this is the service that artists provide.  In some ways, low level entertainers are probably more socially useful than high-brow artistes, since the former manage to distract more people than the latter.  After delivering himself of this sunny appraisal, he quipped, “I hope everyone has a nice afternoon!”

Woody Allen’s perspective represents a limit-case of what philosopher Charles Taylor calls “the buffered self,” which is to say, an identity totally cut off from any connection to the transcendent.  On this reading, this world is all we’ve got, and any window to another more permanent mode of existence remains tightly shut.  Prior to the modern period, Taylor observes, the contrary idea of the “porous self” was in the ascendency.  This means a self that is, in various ways and under various circumstances, open to a dimension of existence that goes beyond ordinary experience. 

If you consult the philosophers of antiquity and the Middle Ages, you would find a very frank acknowledgement that what Woody Allen observed about the physical world is largely true.

Continue reading on the CWR blog.