Classroom talking points

1. Faith is not blind.
2. God is not random.
3. Scripture has to be read with intelligence.
4. The world's religions seek truth and hold to it as they see it; Catholics understand that the heart of wisdom is within Jesus' teachings, preserved and protected by their Tradition.

OK, so, is Oddness a theme?

Or is there some other name for the quality of a person, place, thing or piece of art (including literature) that has that very special stamp of the divine recognizable universally to believers.  I say "person" because there are people who have this imprint--the saints, for example.  Many of the saints were encountered as "different" during their earthly lives--sometimes bearing a stamp of "be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect," and at other times bearing a mark or seal of genuine strangeness or eccentricity.  One would need to pursue testimonies along this line.

Yet more clarity on the life issues

In the latest issue of the Texas Catholic Herald, Cardinal DiNardo summarizes the mood, both optimistic and very, very guarded, of the Catholic community, as it manifested itself in the recent (post-election) meetings of the U.S. bishops:

After much discussion, the Bishops also asked the President of the Episcopal Conference, Francis Cardinal George, to issue a statement concerning the recent national elections. I believe Cardinal George’s remarks are clear and helpful in dealing with some important matters that may come before us in the months ahead. He first recognizes the historical importance of the election of the first African-American President of the United States, and he writes that the bishops look forward to working together with President-elect Obama and the new members of Congress. The Church always looks to cooperate in bringing about the common good and the various goods that underlie it.

The Cardinal then writes:

“The fundamental good is life itself, a gift from God and our parents. A good state protects the lives of all. Legal protection for those members of the human family waiting to be born in this country was removed when the Supreme Court decided Roe vs. Wade in 1973. This was bad law. The danger the bishops see at this moment is that a bad court decision will be enshrined in bad legislation that is more radical than the 1973 Supreme Court decision itself.”

I share in Cardinal George’s recognition of a present danger. As the statement says, in the last Congress, a Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) was introduced that, if repeated in the next Congress, would outlaw any law that limited providing abortion at will. Any moderate restraints by the States would be annulled. FOCA would coerce all Americans into subsidizing and promoting abortions with their tax dollars. Parental notification and informed consent precautions would be outlawed, as would be laws banning procedures such as partial birth abortion and protecting infants born alive after a failed abortion. FOCA would be disastrous for prenatal human life. FOCA would also have a disastrous effect on the freedom of conscience of doctors and nurses and health care workers whose convictions do not permit them to cooperate in the private killing of unborn children. Further, the passage of FOCA would threaten our Catholic health care institutions and Catholic Charities.

The bishops are of a single mind on opposing evil, the evil of abortion and those laws and statutes that promote abortion. I am in complete agreement with the Bishops on this and will, no doubt, be asking the commitment and active voice of our Catholic faithful in witnessing publicly to this basic commitment of our faith in the public square. We must all

watch carefully in the next few months to see how this pro-life issue is addressed and be ready to respond clearly and instantaneously.

Cardinal Francis George spoke for all the bishops in his formal statement, delivered upon the close of the conference. His words are even more stark than Cardinal DiNardo's:

FOCA would have an equally destructive effect on the freedom of conscience of doctors, nurses and health care workers whose personal convictions do not permit them to cooperate in the private killing of unborn children. It would threaten Catholic health care institutions and Catholic Charities. It would be an evil law that would further divide our country, and the Church should be intent on opposing evil.

On this issue, the legal protection of the unborn, the bishops are of one mind with Catholics and others of good will. They are also pastors who have listened to women whose lives have been diminished because they believed they had no choice but to abort a baby. Abortion is a medical procedure that kills, and the psychological and spiritual consequences are written in the sorrow and depression of many women and men. The bishops are single-minded because they are, first of all, single-hearted.

The recent election was principally decided out of concern for the economy, for the loss of jobs and homes and financial security for families, here and around the world. If the election is misinterpreted ideologically as a referendum on abortion, the unity desired by President-elect Obama and all Americans at this moment of crisis will be impossible to achieve. Abortion kills not only unborn children; it destroys constitutional order and the common good, which is assured only when the life of every human being is legally protected. Aggressively pro-abortion policies, legislation and executive orders will permanently alienate tens of millions of Americans, and would be seen by many as an attack on the free exercise of their religion.

This statement is written at the request and direction of all the Bishops, who also want to thank all those in politics who work with good will to protect the lives of the most vulnerable among us. Those in public life do so, sometimes, at the cost of great sacrifice to themselves and their families; and we are grateful. We express again our great desire to work with all those who cherish the common good of our nation. The common good is not the sum total of individual desires and interests; it is achieved in the working out of a common life based upon good reason and good will for all.

If these words aren't a clear message to the new administration and its supporters about who-owes-what, I don't know what is. There needs now to be a national drive to educate the Catholic public and Catholic politicians about the signal role of the life issues in the Seamless Garment doctrine. Certainly there are many types of advocacy collected under this general heading. However, we are ending the era when Catholic spokespersons, politicians, clergy and educators can draw a type of "moral equivalence" that levels out the issues and allows those who would cover their abortion-favoring agendas with this blanket.

Sermon on the Mount video

Church inaugurated in 2006:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wZzPXuNl1g

The proportionality argument

In an e-mail conversation the other day, I allowed that I thought the U.S. Church was correct in its teaching that the life issues were to be taken as primary among the public considerations used by one's informed conscience as one votes. My friend and correspondent wrote something like this: "Well, you know that this terrible war in the Middle East is cutting short some lives and futures, too."

He has a certain point--a war may be a bad thing. I was tempted to buy into this informal equivalence argument. Fortunately, I gave it a moment's thought. There is a significant difference between the personal action of abortion and the decision of a government and its responsible parties to order hostile actions to be conducted in the name of their people.

Further, unless one is using nuclear weapons, the loss of life is grossly disproportionate, and that disproportion falls incriminatingly against abortion. The commonly accepted statistic for 2005 (slightly outdated, but one I recall clearly) is that 1.2 million elective abortions were performed in the U.S. By contrast, 4,191 American soldiers have lost their lives in the Iraq conflict--none last month, by the way. Using a ratio of abortions per day in 2005, that number of 4,191 abortions was performed in about 32 hours, 1 1/3 days, in that year. Granted that there would certainly be other arguments about war and about abortion, the sense that "they both take life" doesn't seem anything but a dodge to me.

Work to do.

According to yesterday's Houston Chronicle, "Abortion [is] not main Issue for Catholics." The point of the article is that, according to a recently-commissioned poll, only 44 percent of Catholics consider abortion the main issue when they vote. The piece also notes that

• The Catholic hierarchy is beginning to respond to what has been a pretty laissez-faire sense that there is fundamental moral freedom for Catholics to vote as they please, based on practical political concerns and preferences. A growing number of the bishops, including Houston's Daniel Cardinal DiNardo, have begun to use some definitive language to describe the abortion issue as a genuine and foremost concern, because human life is a foundational right. [The bishops are taking their jobs as shepherds more seriously, responding to the sense of the global Church and a growing segment of the domestic faithful. Other clergy I have seen strong statements from recently are Cardinal Egan of New York City and Archbishop Chaput of Denver.]
• Church-going Catholics are expected to favor Republican candidates, while non-practitioners poll in favor of Democrats. Part of the secret to change, then, appears to be to get the faithful back into the pews on Sunday.
• In the interest of the "choice" position, there are now groups who, with pretense of broad acceptance as well as "legitimacy" within the community of Catholics, promulgate the position that it's OK to place the whole panoply of election issues in an equivalence with abortion. They say that as long as the party or candidate speaks for regulation of abortion access in some fashion (while apparently maintaining a "pro-choice" credibility), it is permissible to vote for that candidate over one who is clearly pro-life. This position purports that the abortion issue is lost anyway, so we should save whatever we can. [Take your pick: is this position venal? disingenuous? manipulated?]
  

The Holy Father's visit, so far

As I watch the Liturgy from St. Patrick's, one conclusion for sure: this Pope IS what he says, and seems to be a gentleman of transparency and humility. Highlights:

• This visit is a working visit. All those gaps in the public, televised schedule mean, of course, that a great deal of Church and Church-State business is being transacted. Not that that doesn't go on as a matter of course with such visits, but it seems more so this time. And, there are surprises that confound the secular press: the visit with the abuse victims.
• With liturgies at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception and St. Patrick's Cathedral, we're also reminded that the visit is to the historic Catholic Church in the United States as well as today's faith family. We have some pretty worship spaces here, new and older.
  
• In the UN address: It is not fitting that a believer should set aside religious conviction in order to participate in the full exercise of citizenship. A truthful, pointed and courageous note in a fascinating exposition of natural right and natural law. He didn't hide his learning here, but gave us a peek into the brilliance of his scholarly insight.
  
• The homily at St. Patrick's: The concluding point was that the clergy and faithful should be models of humility, leaders in resolving and setting aside all ancient sources of conflict. There was something beautiful here. Perhaps those dioceses in the decaying Northeast will find hope and renewal. The Church as a society must rebuild from the ground up in many of these areas.
  
• The Liturgy at Nationals' Stadium: There was an intimacy about it, highlighted by the closeness allowed the faithful as the Holy Father walked the last leg of the processional and recessional parades. He also appears to have a great serenity at these moments, something which requires trust, fearlessness and a love of the faithful.
• A little bit of Latin and "romanism," but graceful and not over-bearing. I think the point is to give a model for the future, and an invitation. There are those who expected something more heavy-handed in this regard. Befitting the environment, there was some incredible classical hymnody and sacred music at St. Pat's.
• Pope Benedict seems to be more at ease as the journey continues. He is a young 81 years old.
  
• The multi-dimensional, multi-faceted complexity of the Catholic Church in this country is on display, reflecting and even providing a paradigm for the carrying forward of the American experiment. The Holy Father did say something about this in the St. Pat's homily. A harmony that is forged out of the creative tension of diverse elements and interests will be better and stronger in the long run.
• Speaking of unity and disunity, his point about the post-Vatican II Church was interesting. I don't recall this tone from anyone else, even John Paul. Both Wojtyla and Ratzinger were very involved in the Council. (There is available on the internet a photo of Joseph Ratzinger and Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner taken at the time of the Council. They're both in secular business suits.) They seem to have different takes on it. Benedict is certainly correct at least in this: it remains a strong and urgent need to find the deeper unity at the heart of the Council's inspired documents, and build from there. As with the facing of the abuse crisis, his honest acknowledgment of the present situation clears the way for an integral, rather than formal, collegiality in the Church. There are seeds for the future here.
• On the point of renewal: the older nuns present are the Vatican II sisters, in their secular "American" dress and intense address to the world; the younger nuns are the ones in traditional habits, serene, joyful and multicultural, yet very purposeful in the exercise of their communities' charisms.
  
• "My answer to all you have given me in this visit is my blessing at the end of the Holy Mass."
• Father Neuhaus: "a real pastoral intervention."
  

"We must move forward together in hope."