Randy Pausch, still alive and kicking -- and sweeping his wife off her feet

An alert reader sent me word that the great Randy Pauschwas featured this weekend at the graduation ceremony at Carnegie Mellon.

The local press takes note:

The crowd rained a second standing ovation warmly on Randy Pausch, the Carnegie Mellon computer science professor whose inspirational book, "The Last Lecture," has attracted worldwide attention. Dr. Pausch, who is dying of pancreatic cancer, said a friend recently told him he was "beating the [Grim] Reaper" because it's now been nine months since his doctor told him he would die in six.

"But we don't beat the Reaper by living longer. We beat the Reaper by living well," said Dr. Pausch, who urged the graduates to find and pursue their passion. He put an exclamation point at the end of his remarks by kissing his wife, Jai, and carrying her off stage.

Bless him. This man is a miracle, for many reasons. I hope he sticks around a long, long time.

"I want to be a deacon..."

I wish I had a dime for every e-mail I've received that has started with those six words. That's usually followed by a request for more information. How long do you study? Can I keep my job? Do you get paid? (Ha. That one always cracks me up.)

There are precious few resources on the web for men who are discerning the call to this particular vocation. Which is a minor scandal. This ministry is growing by leaps and bounds -- the Permanent Diaconate is, arguably, one of the few vocational success stories to bear fruit after Vatican II -- and it is attracting men at such a rate that in many dioceses deacons have begun to outnumber priests. (We will leave a debate about what that means, and what the Holy Spirit is trying to tell us, for another time...)

Meantime, there are two truly exceptional online resources for men seeking information on the diaconate -- and for deacons who just want an online community to call their own.

They are CatholicDeacon.org and CatholicDeacon.net. The latter is a self-sustaining bulletin board with a wide range of topics that encourage free-flowing discussion and questions and answers. Men can also post homilies.

Both websites are invaluable for the ordained, those pursuing ordination, or those who are merely curious.

Check 'em out. You'll be glad you did.

I laughed until I cried

My father-in-law sent this to me and it slays me every time. I don't know what's funnier: watching Tim Conway, or watching Harvey Korman's reactions.

Enjoy. And keep Kleenex handy. You'll be in tears by the end.

"God, you left the prophetess alive to tell the story"

Astonishing stories don't get more astonishing than this one, from Rod Dreher's column in the Dallas Morning News:

On the afternoon of May 4, Jessica Johnson Palmer took her three children to a park to meet her former boyfriend. According to the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff's Office, the boyfriend and his current girlfriend lured the family into the woods, beat Mrs. Palmer to death with a baseball bat, slit the throats of 4-year-old Lindsay and 3-year-old Juan. They left Robbyn, a 7-month-old, to die alone.

But the baby didn't die. And she didn't die because Lindsay didn't die.

In their haste, the killers' blade missed Lindsay's jugular. After the murderers left, the wounded girl huddled with her baby sister under a bush through the Louisiana night.

The next morning, park groundskeepers saw Lindsay stumbling out of the woods holding the baby. She collapsed. The children were bitten so badly by insects that sheriff's deputies thought they had been burned. In the hospital that night, a sheriff's spokeswoman told me, Lindsay refused to sleep until nurses brought her baby sister to cradle in her arms.

The information Lindsay gave police led to the arrest of two people, one of them allegedly her biological father. "God, you left the prophetess alive to tell the story," the family's pastor said at the funeral.

The Baton Rouge Advocate reported that Lindsay came to the funeral with a white scarf hiding her neck wound. Erin Manning, a Fort Worth writer, observed on my blog that the scarf conceals a profound mystery: "We can't bear to look at the sacrificial cost of love – a wound so bravely borne because at some level, this child's love for her tiny sister outweighed her terror and her pain."

This is why the lives of the saints are so much more important than moral exhortation. We need to see and to feel what goodness, especially heroic goodness, is like. Evil, even great evil, usually can be explained, but true goodness? That's more of a mystery. Mysteries, by definition, can never be fully explained, only revealed.

This is a revelation.

It is, and then some. Read on for more of Rod's thoughts on this remarkable incident.

Happy Anniversary!

Where were you on May 19, 2007?

This is where I was: face down, on the floor of a basilica in Brooklyn. It was one year ago that I was ordained to the order of deacon.


Congratulations and blessings to all my brother deacons. Ad Multos Annos!

I still can't believe the wonders and graces and miracles of this past year. And the journey is just beginning...


And a special shout-out to Deacon Jim Hynes -- whose journey has taken him from us. We miss you, Jim.

Homily for May 17, 2008: Trinity Sunday

I can’t quite believe it, but it was one year ago this weekend that I was ordained a deacon.

Incredibly, I’m still here.

Periodically, people ask me, “What is your favorite part of being a deacon?” Well, first, I think, is preaching. I’m fortunate to have a lot of opportunities to do that here.

But my second favorite thing…is baptisms.

There is a small green book that priests and deacons use for the rite of baptism. It has everything spelled out in there, all the readings and prayers. On the last page of my own copy, I have written “Margaret Flanagan, July 1, 2007.” That was the first baby I ever baptized. A little Irish girl. I don’t know why, but Irish women keep coloring my life. I married one, and then, miraculously, for my first baptism, I baptized one. Little Margaret, I should add, was very well behaved.

She didn’t cry. I was bawling. But she was very calm and quiet.

Baptisms are typically joyous occasions. It’s a day of tremendous possibility and hope – even more so, I think, than weddings. At a wedding, more often than not, it’s all about the dress and the cake. But at a baptism, it’s all about the baby. A new life being welcomed into God’s church.

And there is something very particular, very specific, about the baptism ritual. It is in the words that are spoken. We call it the Trinitarian Formula. Which is: I baptize you in the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit. It’s not considered a valid baptism unless those words are used. When people come to us for RCIA and want to convert, one of the first things we need to check is if that person was baptized, and how. If those words were not a part of the ritual, the Catholic Church does not recognize those baptisms.

On this Trinity Sunday, if you want a reminder of how important the Trinity is, THAT is it. From the very beginning of our lives as Christians, we are sealed in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Without it, it doesn’t count. It signifies the extraordinary importance the Church places on this singular belief, this one great dogma: one God, in three persons.

It all comes down to Trinity.

That is one of the reasons we celebrate this glorious feast, one week after Pentecost – the Trinity has been revealed to a waiting world, Father, Son and Spirit, and we mark this great gift.

You may have noticed that the words in the second reading are very familiar. From that letter we get the words the priest uses at the beginning of mass. He invokes the Trinity in a beautiful and meaningful way – God’s grace, Christ’s love, the Holy Spirit’s fellowship. He offers it to us, and we proclaim it back to him.

But that’s not the first time we have mentioned the Trinity at this mass. This morning, it began with something that most of us probably take for granted, and hardly think about. We do it so often.

It’s the sign of the cross.

In the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

It’s not just a gesture that we use to punctuate prayer. It’s not just a sign of our Catholicity.

It is a re-statement of our baptism.

The words I said over little Margaret Flanagan…the words a priest said over each of us as water was poured over our heads…the first words that made us members of the Body of Christ. Those words we speak again, and in effect, re-Christen ourselves. We brand ourselves with God in His three persons. And whatever we do or say after is in the name of the father…and the son…and the Holy Spirit.

We become icons of the Blessed Trinity.

What an incredible gift.

What an incredible responsibility.

Just think of what that simple gesture means.

We touch our heads for the Father – the one whose mere idea, whose smallest thought, created us. This is where we began, in the mind of God.

We touch our hearts for the Son – the one whose unceasing love took him to the cross, and the one who taught us, as well, how to love through his own Sacred Heart.

We touch our shoulders for the Holy Spirit – the one who gives us strength, and who carries us on His shoulders -- on His wings if you will – and who enables us to be God’s arms, working on earth.

When we make the sign of the cross, and pray the sign of the cross with those words, we make of ourselves an offering, and a prayer. We embody what the Trinity represents. And we seek to bring that with our lives and with our actions to all those we meet. We do it in the name of God – all that He is, all that He does.

We do it in the name of the Trinity.

Near the end of the baptism ritual, there is a beautiful moment when the parents receive a lit candle. The priest or deacon says to them “Receive the light of Christ.” Thinking about that moment, I’m reminded this Sunday of something the great Anglican preacher John Wesley once said about the Trinity. He explained it this way: as three candles, giving off one light.

Let us pray to live in that light – to always be drawn to it, and to always strive to give it to others. In the name of the one God in three persons …in the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

"Shenanigans"

An astute writer over at the Washington Post's On Faith blog has taken a hard look at the Catholic League, and the recent dust-up over John Hagee.

The writer is, in a word, skeptical:

The Catholic League is not the “All Catholic" League. It is not official Catholicism: still less does it speak for each and every one of the nation’s 60 million Catholics. As someone who once endeavored to work with the League, I was disappointed to learn that it is run out of a single office by a single ego. So, while I find newsworthy the recent exchanges between the League’s president, Bill Donahue and Evangelical pastor, John Hagee, they don’t amount to dogma.

Moreover, there are unanswered questions about the protest-apology sequence recently featured in the press. For one thing, Rev. Hagee has been repeating for two decades the stale rant that the Catholic Church is the “whore of Bablyon.” Similarly, Hagee has embraced the uncritical characterization of Pius XII as “Hitler’s pope.” [Hagee’s bigotry will receive a separate comment from Catholic America.]

Why then did the Catholic League wait until February of 2008 to become angered by Hagee’s career of bigotry over two decades? February was when the millionaire Reverend was invited to support Republican candidate, John McCain: but if the Arizona Senator’s action caused the ruckus, why didn’t the Catholic League just denounce McCain or continue to demand the candidate reject a bigot’s support? Why surrender and give absolution so meekly -- especially when Hagee’s two-page apology used the mealy-mouthed expression of regret for "any comments that Catholics have found hurtful,” rather than the complete recantation called for?

Because Catholics who are committed to their religion would not sell out as easily as did the League, I think the whole episode smells of what my grammar-school Irish nuns called, “shenanigans” – and for political effects, not for defense of Catholicism.

Now, forgiveness is a virtue and I would not begrudge Mr. Donahue’s low threshold for bigotry. What irks me, however, is his venomous and unyielding denunciation of Catholics who support Senator Obama for president. The Catholic League demanded the dissolving of Obama’s Catholic support committee, accusing all of the members of disloyalty to the faith and labeling the actions of the Democratic Senator as “Hitlerian.” In light of Donahue’s meek passivity before the hateful career statements of a right-wing bigot, this is all too choleric bluster against fellow Catholics.

This contradictory behavior is explained by a glance at the League’s criteria for Catholic politics: abortion, embryonic stem cell research and tax dollars to Catholic schools. Left out are major Catholic teachings like forgiveness of Third World debt and opposition by two popes to the Iraq invasion. (Please note that an unjust war is just as intrinsically evil as an abortion.) The League also ignores the American Catholic Bishops’ support of universal health insurance, immigration reform that unifies families or repeal of the death penalty. Apparently, these major social justice teachings of the Church are not Catholic enough for the Catholic League.

There's more, and some interesting comments, at the link. Take a look.

UPDATE: As you might expect, William Donahue disagrees with the above sentiments. And he's posted a response, which reads in part:

Stevens-Arroyo questions why the Catholic League “waited until February of 2008 to become angered by Hagee’s career of bigotry over two decades?” He says it is because February was when Hagee endorsed McCain.

Now if he had bothered to read our website, he would have learned that I first wrote to Hagee in 1997. Therefore, the answer he supplies to his own question implodes. But this is small potatoes compared to this gem: “The Catholic League demanded the dissolving of Obama’s Catholic support committee, accusing all of the members of disloyalty to the faith and labeling the actions of the Democratic Senator as ‘Hitlerian.’”

In actual fact, I never made such an accusation. What I did was to report on the NARAL voting record of those members of Obama’s advisory group who were, or currently are, public office holders (by the way, the overwhelming majority agree with NARAL 100 percent of the time and one advisor was told by her archbishop this week not to go to Communion). And I never labeled “the actions” of Obama “Hitlerian.” What I said is that Obama made a “Hitlerian decision” when he voted to allow a baby who survives an abortion to die without attending medicinal care. I stand by that accusation.

Stevens-Arroyo makes a desperate, and failed, attempt to equate abortion with “major Catholic teachings like forgiveness of Third World debt” and other such issues. Quite frankly, I never heard of a Catholic teaching on forgiving Third World debt. That’s because there isn’t one. There are bishops, and no doubt cardinals, who have pronounced on this subject, but unlike abortion there is no such listing in the Catholic Catechism.

Finally, he says that “ALL varieties of Catholic politics deserve tolerance.” Really? Does that mean that those who are pro and con on any given issue—genocide, slavery, infanticide, the intentional killing of innocents—deserves dialogue? He must be talking about some other religion. My religion holds to certain truths, moral absolutes that deserve more than tolerance—they demand acceptance.

The conversion of Corapi

Not long ago on EWTN, during Lent, they re-ran this spellbinding talk by one of their most popular preachers. I was wondering if there was a copy online, and sure enough, there's a shortened version, about 10 minutes long, which I've posted below. If you haven't heard Fr. John Corapi's "conversion story," check this out.

The Catholic Church as a franchise

Well, here's a different way of looking at the Church, from the Wall Street Journal:

Is the U.S. Catholic Church in a state of crisis? The bond market says no. In fact, investors increasingly view the collection plate as a reliable source of cash flow. Church debt, which is increasingly packaged and sold as bonds, has even offered sanctuary from otherwise turbulent credit markets.

Pope Benedict's recent visit to the U.S. inspired more than a few media outlets to wonder about the future of the country's largest denomination. And the church still has much work to do to ensure that the abomination that victimized more than 13,000 children is never repeated. But despite a scandal that has cost more than $2 billion and continuing concern over shuttered parishes and the availability of priests, the smart money says that American Catholicism is alive and well.

Perhaps more than any other faith in America, Catholicism has "franchise value," says Patrick O'Meara, whose firm O'Meara Ferguson Kearns advises Catholic dioceses on securitizing their debt. Like Hasidic Jews and Mormons, Catholics generally don't show up each week because of the special qualities of a particular pastor. Deep traditions mean that parishioners are less likely to stop giving because of the sins of individuals. That translates into very low default rates on diocesan debt. The same has held true for Orthodox Jewish congregations that have suffered a wayward rabbi. What's more, John Nelson of credit-ratings firm Moody's Investors Service notes that churches tend to rely on a broad base of small donations rather than a few large benefactors. This yields more stability when the credit markets and the economy hit a rough patch.

What Catholics in particular offer to the market is scale. With 70 million members, the American Catholic Church has significant annual construction needs. Add in the hierarchical structure of the church, which means that bankers can deal with a cardinal or bishop on a large debt offering covering numerous churches, and you can understand the appeal for Wall Street.

But Mr. O'Meara says that it took a while for banks to get into this business. Church debt used to be seen as essentially like real-estate loans, but less appealing than mortgage lending because of the consequences of default. "Who wants to be the one to foreclose on St. Agnes? And after you foreclose," asks Mr. O'Meara, "what do you do with the property?" The result is that interest rates were often high, or bonds were simply sold from the pulpit to the congregation, limiting the pool of capital.

And many independent churches today still pay high interest rates on bank loans. If an unaffiliated church is led by a charismatic founder, the calculation is blunt: Can the organization continue to pay its bills in the event of impropriety? To be clear, this is not to say that younger, independent churches cannot be wonderful for the soul; only that they are less attractive to the capital markets.

For more established denominations, the breakthrough for church financing came in the mid-1990s when Moody's Investors Service gave an investment-grade rating to the Catholic Archdiocese of Indianapolis. The trend accelerated after 2000. As long as they are financing projects such as schools, churches can issue tax-exempt bonds.

In 2005, the Archdiocese of Austin, Texas, went to the market with a compelling story: Church revenues had been rising consistently for two decades. Armed with an investment-grade rating from Moody's and Goldman Sachs as the lead underwriter, the archdiocese raised $80 million to build new classrooms, parish halls and other facilities. Last fall the Diocese of Oakland, Calif., raised $110 million with a bond offering. Mr. O'Meara says that dioceses can typically borrow for 30 years at fixed rates of about 4.5%. Most of the largest commercial and investment banks are now active in the market. "Big institutions are getting into this market because it's huge," he says.

Check out the link for more.

First Jewish woman, first Muslim woman receive degrees from Catholic Theological Union

If this isn't an interesting sign of the times, I don't know what is.

From the Chicago Tribune:

As a teen, Sarah Bier traveled from Chicago to Israel to learn more about Judaism. But her journey to the Holy Land, marred by religious violence from beginning to end, ultimately led her to explore other faiths as well.

Syafa Almirzanah chose to pursue similar studies after growing tensions among Muslims in her native Indonesia began to threaten formerly healthy relationships with the Christian and Jewish minority there.

On Thursday, Bier and Almirzanah will become the first Jewish woman and the first Muslim woman to receive advanced degrees from Catholic Theological Union—a sign of how the graduate seminary has expanded its mission to foster a peaceful co-existence of religious traditions around the world.

Seminary leaders say both women offer hope in a troubling era when religious alliances have become strained and religious tensions have erupted in violence.

"I think of them as real pioneers, both of them, in their own communities," said Rev. Donald Senior, president of Catholic Theological Union, which was founded four decades ago to train priests.

"We need bridge builders like this or else we're going to be killing each other. Religion often becomes the battle line. We desperately need people who can say 'We can live together and show mutual respect in a pluralistic world.' "

The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, motivated Bier to begin asking questions. Then a recent high school graduate, she had arrived in Israel only a week before they occurred.

The following year was one of the most tumultuous periods of the Palestinian Intifada. Near the end of her trip, terrorists bombed two hotels on Israel's northern coast during Passover.

"I don't think I realized it at the time that it was very difficult for me to process all these experiences," said Bier, now 25. To reach a resolution, she designed an undergraduate major focused on Middle Eastern conflict.

Eventually, her curiosity gravitated toward different sacred scriptures, in which stories often overlap or duplicate. On Thursday, she will receive a master's degree in theology with a comparative focus on Jewish, Christian, and Muslim scripture.

"I gained a lot of respect for Christians and Muslims during the journey," she said, adding that she prefers to say "respect" instead of "tolerance," which she views as a negative word. "There are all kinds of Muslims just like there are all kinds of Jews—some who view their faith in radically different ways."

As a teacher at Chicagoland Jewish High School in Deerfield, Bier occasionally shares with her students how Muslims and Christians interpret stories found in the Hebrew Bible, revealing the kinship at their cores.

Bier also oversees the school's Interfaith Club, which includes students from Loyola Academy, a Catholic high school in Wilmette, and Universal School, a Muslim academy in Bridgeview.

Almirzanah, 45, a professor of comparative religion at Islamic University Sunan Kalijaga in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, came to Chicago with her son. Now 16, the boy attended public schools for six years while she studied at the Hyde Park seminary.

In addition to receiving a doctor of ministry degree with a focus on Christian-Muslim relations from Catholic Theological Union, Almirzanah will receive another doctorate Sunday from the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago.

She was invited to Chicago by Harold Vogelaar, a retired professor who founded the Center of Christian-Muslim Engagement for Peace and Justice at the Lutheran seminary.

In her dissertation, she explored the similarities of mystic traditions as a way of transcending barriers to interfaith conversations. She describes true interfaith exchanges as journeys "from the Motherland to the Wonderland." Each journey has the potential to deepen one's own faith, she said.

Almirzanah says her passion to bridge divides is more than a scholarly pursuit. It is a personal conviction.

"For me as Muslim, I have to do that," she said. "Serving humanity means serving God. Speaking about God is OK, but never speaking for God. This is my responsibility. That is what I have to do. Honor other people. Respect other people because diversity is designed by God."

Well, all I can say is God bless 'em. And let us pray that their work bears much fruit.

Photo: Sarah Bier by Richard A. Chapman/Chicago Sun-Times