The businessman and the nun

This is one of my favorite stories from the writings of Thomas Merton.

In The Waters of Siloe, he tells the true story of a businessman checking into a hotel in Paris in the days following World War II and, inexplicably, passing a young nun in the lobby:

The nun is smiling...she is a young sister with a bright, intelligent French face, full of the candor of a child, full of good sense; and her smile is a smile of frank, undisguised friendship. The traveler instinctively brings his hand to his hat, then turns away and hastens to the desk, assuring himself that he does not know any nuns. As he is signing the register, he cannot help glancing back over his shoulder. The nun is gone.

Putting down his pen, he asks the clerk, "Who was that nun that just passed by?"

"I beg your pardon, monsieur. What was that you said?

"That nun -- who was she anyway? The one that just went by and smiled at me."

The clerk arches his eyebrows. "You are mistaken, monsieur. A nun, in a hotel, at this time of night! Nuns don't go wandering around town, smiling at men!"

"I know they don't. That's why I would like you to explain the fact that one came up and smiled at me just now, here in this lobby."

The clerk shrugs: "Monsieur, you are the only person that has come in or gone out in the last half hour."

As Merton describes it, the businessman eventually joined a Trappist monastery in France, giving up life in luxury hotels for the austerity of working the fields and repairing tractors.

But there is this beautiful twist:

The reason he is there can be traced ultimately to the fact that he walked into a Paris hotel and saw a nun smiling at him, though the clerk told him no nun was there.

A few days [after the incident in the lobby], he saw a picture of the very same nun in the house of some friends. They told him that her name was St. Therese of the Child Jesus. Of course, he had heard of St. Therese. Once more, he became interested in the religion he had neglected for so many years. And before long, his beard had grown and his head was shaved and he was lying underneath a tractor in a brown robe with axle grease all over his face...

Happy Feast Day, St. Therese.

The "long, painful journey" of Rosa DeLauro

It's rare to find serious discussion of religion and public life in the mainstream media -- particularly when the religion involved is Catholic.

So it was all the more surprising to stumble across this lengthy profile of a Catholic congresswoman from Connecticut, Rosa DeLauro, in the Hartford Courant:

Rosa DeLauro thought she was such a good Catholic.

She attended Catholic schools from grade school through college. Her father received Communion daily. Her parents helped run the bingo games at St. Michael's Church in New Haven.

"I grew up in an Italian Catholic household," she said, "where the church informed all the values we were taught, the values of family, church and work ethic."

Religion was a private but vital part of her life, and yet for years, the 3rd District congresswoman grew more frustrated and angry about what looked like the deepening crevice between her public work on a variety of issues and the positions of her church, where officials made it clear they were not pleased with abortion rights supporters.

What's more, Republicans had defined themselves as the party of the devout, and they routinely painted Democrats as godless and worse.

So DeLauro went to her friend W. Douglas Tanner Jr., a Methodist minister in Washington she knew from Democratic Party retreats.

"I don't understand," she told him one day about 10 years ago. "Why am I viewed as some sort of godless individual? Why? Why? Me, who grew up in my faith. What is this disconnect in terms of the political arena and the public service?"

Tanner told DeLauro she was not alone, that a lot of other members of Congress, particularly Catholics, were struggling with the same dilemma.

He encouraged them to talk more to one another about their faith, to learn to become more comfortable with expressing their views on religion publicly - something most politicians used to work hard to avoid - and to figure out how to translate their teachings into public policy.

And so, in 2007, after years of soul-searching, seminars and informal talks with colleagues and church officials, Rosa Luisa DeLauro, proud communicant at St. Michael's, graduate of Lauralton Hall High School in Milford and Marymount College in New York, led the effort to write a letter to Catholic bishops expressing her opposition to the Iraq war. And she joined Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, in successfully pushing the "Reducing the Need for Abortion Initiative," which will spend millions on adoption, family planning and like-minded programs.

The Catholic Rosa DeLauro is now very much the public Rosa DeLauro. It has been a long, painful journey.

To read why it's been long and painful, follow the link.

Here's one saint you probably won't find on a car dashboard

The Catholic Church doesn't lack for saints -- both those named and unnamed. We wear medals, collect holy cards, light candles, pray chaplets and adorn our mantles with statues and icons, pictures and prayers.

But it seems there's one Latino "saint" who is quickly becoming more common north of the border, and it's raising eyebrows -- and concerns.

It's Saint Death.

Here's what the Chicago Tribune has to say:

Inside a botánica in Chicago's Little Village neighborhood, she stands on the counter in all her glory: a smiling skeletal woman dressed in a long robe and veiled like a virgin.

In one hand the statue holds a globe, while the other clutches a scythe. She is known as Santa Muerte, Holy Death or Saint Death, but the people devoted to this religious icon are praying for a better life. They visit her at this storefront spiritual shop to ask for favors or seek protection, laying offerings of money, cigars and sweets at her bony feet.

Eduardo Ornelas, a spiritual adviser and owner of the Botánica San Miguel Arcangel, said he tells them the Roman Catholic Church does not recognize Santa Muerte. Even so, for many in the Mexican community she has emerged as representing a dark, less-traveled path ultimately connected to God.

"People ask her for many things. Some want to be cured from an illness or are looking for a job or want protection of their business or family. You make a contract with Santa Muerte and devote yourself to her," said Ornelas, 33. "She is not a saint, but people see her that way. They have faith in her and are apparently seeing results."

"The thing about Santa Muerte that frightens people is that she gives and she can also take away," he said. "Leaving her is more complicated."

For decades Santa Muerte has been present in the tough neighborhoods of Mexico City, where prostitutes and drug traffickers worshiped her mostly in secret. Last month, a group devoted to the icon made her over, giving the figure long, brown hair and a rose to hold in an attempt to change her image and win Mexican government recognition.

But as Mexican immigrants journey north, devotion to Santa Muerte has grown immensely in Chicago, Los Angeles, Tucson, Ariz., and other urban areas. In one of the more unusual religious phenomena to cross the border, statuettes, candles, charms and medallions of the skeletal figure are sold in supermarkets, dollar stores, malls and flea markets.

Often, Santa Muerte stands near statues of Catholic images of Jesus, the Virgin of Guadalupe, St. Peter or St. Lazarus. Moreover, followers are no longer limited to the lowest sectors of society. In the Chicago area, young people, housewives and grandmothers purchase the icon and speak openly about her power and their faith.

"I respect her," said Brenda Alfaro, 25, who works in a Chicago store where Santa Muerte items are sold. "She represents death, and that's something we are all going to face one day. She's everywhere now, and it's because of the faith people have in her. It's almost like a new religion."

In Mexico, the Catholic Church has spoken against Santa Muerte, saying she is linked to Satanism and is being used to mislead desperate people. Catholic priests leading large Mexican-American congregations in the Chicago area are confronting questions about Santa Muerte and what she represents.

Rev. Esequiel Sanchez, pastor of Mary, Queen of Heaven in Cicero, said parishioners have asked him to bless statues of Santa Muerte.

"I'm concerned about it because it's an aberration. It's a misunderstanding of faith. It's taking a Catholic concept of the holy death of Christ and personifying it with this skeletal figure," Sanchez said. "At the same time, I can understand why it's growing. Many people, especially Mexican immigrants, are feeling that institutions are abandoning them and are grasping for spiritual help wherever they can.

"When they come to me with Santa Muerte, I'm not interested in why they worship her. I'm more interested in how they got to that point."

The exact origin of Santa Muerte, also known as Santísima Muerte, remains a mystery but likely predates Christianity, several researchers said.

John Thompson of the University of Arizona's Southwest Center has found references dating to 18th Century Mexico. According to one account, indigenous people tied up a skeletal figure and threatened it with lashings if it didn't perform miracles or grant their wishes. One source traces the legend to Veracruz, where a sorcerer claimed to have seen an image of death in his dreams. The apparition ordered him to create a likeness of her, promising all devotees a painless death. Other accounts from the 20th Century find Santa Muerte linked to love potions and used with prayers to attract a romantic interest.

Santa Muerte stems partly from a long-standing religious and cultural tradition in Mexico of seeing death as part of life, said Timothy Matovina, associate professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame. During Day of the Dead celebrations, for example, hundreds flock to cemeteries to sing and pray for friends and family who have died. Children partake in the festivities by eating chocolate or candy-coated skulls.

Matovina also noted that the Aztecs were known to hold monthlong celebrations for the dead. Eventually, that indigenous tradition melded with the Catholic ritual of praying for souls in purgatory.

"It's not un-Catholic to pray for a holy death. So, in the mind of some Mexicans, Santa Muerte might be seen as very Catholic," he said.

Catholic priests in Chicago link her growth to increased immigration from the south of Mexico, lack of education in Catholic teachings and desperation born of anti-immigrant sentiment.

Rev. Matthew Foley, pastor of St. Agnes of Bohemia in Little Village, said the image has become more prominent in the last five years as more immigrants from southern Mexico came to the Chicago area.

"We have more people coming from Veracruz, Guerrero and Michoacan," Foley said. "I believe indigenous religions are stronger in those southern parts in Mexico."

There's more up the Trib link, for those who are curious, or who want to get in the Halloween frame of mind just a little bit early.

Photo: by Abel Uribe, Chicago Tribune

Homily for September 30, 2007: 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time

One afternoon a few years ago, my wife went to confession down at St. Francis of Assisi, on 32nd St., in Manhattan. It’s one of the few places in the city that has confession all day, every day – in part, because they have enough friars to handle it. They also can be very creative, and know how to teach a valuable lesson, as my wife found out.

When she completed her confession, the priest didn’t tell her to say five Hail Marys or 10 Our Fathers.

Instead, he asked her to go buy a meal for someone who was homeless.

So, my wife left the church and walked a couple blocks, to the Manhattan Mall, where she went to their food court, and put together a meal in a Styrofoam container. Then she went out to the street, to find someone to give it to.

The first lesson of today: you can never find a homeless person when you need one.

She walked all over Greeley Square, and around Herald Square, for blocks, looking for someone, anyone, to give it to.

Finally, she found one lone ragged man crouched on a street corner. She took a deep breath and went up to him. She held out the container and said, “Hi…I bought you dinner.”

He looked at the container, then looked at her, and said:

“It’s not pork, is it? I don’t eat pork.”

It seems my wife had found the one homeless man in New York City who is kosher.

She told him, no. It was lamb.

His face lit up. “Oh,” he said, “that’s great. I like lamb. Thank you!” and he took the meal, and my wife said goodbye and went on her way.

I think that single gesture was much more than an act of penance. It was a gift. And not just to the homeless man. But also to my wife.

She was required to do what the rich man in today’s gospel wouldn’t do: she had to seek out a man everyone else ignores.

And she had to look into the eyes of a stranger in need.

Mother Teresa used to say Jesus came in the “distressing disguise” of the poor. In that sense, in that moment of penance, that moment of uncertainty and humility and grace, my wife shared a moment with Christ.

Consider how often we see Christ that way in New York.

I admit it: Jesus is someone I pass by on a lot of mornings. Sometimes I step over Him on my way to work, or I look the other way when Christ rattles a cardboard cup and asks me for money.

I think a lot of us do. But as a result, we end up acting just like the rich man in Luke’s gospel.

And we so easily forget: “Whatever you do to the least of these, you do to me.”

One commentator says that the real sin of the rich man in the gospel is the sin of not noticing. While he’s content to let the poor man have his crumbs, he doesn’t pay attention to him, or lift a finger to help him.

In other words, it’s not what he DOES that sends the rich man to hell. It’s what he does NOT do.

Interestingly, the rich man is so aware of this figure who lives outside his door, he even knows his name, and he mentions it: Lazarus.

Lazarus. In all the parables, in all the gospels, this is the only character who is given a name. We don’t know the identity of the prodigal son, or the good Samaritan, or any of the other people Jesus mentions in his stories. But we do know the name of this one poor, sick man. Lazarus.

The name comes from the Hebrew Eleazar and means “God is my help.”

And so often, for those like Lazarus, their only help…is God.

Why is that? We can all come up with reasons. When the beggar man hobbles by on the subway and asks for money, we tell ourselves: “How do I know he’s really poor? Maybe he’s just going to use it for drugs. Maybe he’s a con artist.”

Maybe. And, ultimately, as the MTA keeps reminding us, we need to support programs that help the poor, rather than just give handouts.

But sometimes you just can’t know. What about all the others? The ones who just sit and beg. The ones like Lazarus. The ones for whom “God is my help.”

I wondered about that when I was going over this gospel and ended up asking myself: well, if “God is my help,” and God is THEIR help…what would God do?

It’s so simple. And so overwhelming. I can sum it up in just two words.

God gives.

God holds nothing back. He gives to each of us without asking. He offers His grace to us freely.

God doesn’t wonder, cynically, if we are dishonest or ungrateful or conning Him. He already knows. And for better or worse, He loves us anyway. And, this is challenging part: we are called to love the same way. No questions asked. Unconditionally.

Because God gives. And in an unparalleled act of generosity, He even went so far as to give us His only son. And the world has never been the same.

Earlier this month, Archbishop Charles Chaput, of Denver, gave a speech to a men’s group.

He said: “Before Christianity came on the scene, no religion had ever taught that God could be found in our neighbor. The world largely ignored the poor, the hungry, the stranger, and the imprisoned. And it still does. And yet Jesus said that we find God in our love for these least brethren of ours. Christian love is not weak or anesthetic. It’s an act of will. It takes guts. It’s a deliberate submission of our selfishness to the needs of others.”

That says it better than I could – and it reminds us why this kind of love is so hard. It’s because -- unlike God -- we’re selfish. It’s so much easier to love ourselves than to love our neighbor – which is undoubtedly why Jesus asks us to love our neighbor AS we love ourselves.

So: consider today the parable of the rich man who had a neighbor named Lazarus. Consider how he treated his neighbor – what he could have done, but didn’t.

And consider our calling as Christians. Each of us is neighbor to one another. And each of us is summoned to love. To love like God, and to give like God. Without questions, or conditions or guarantees.

It sounds impossible. But it begins, I think, with doing what my wife did that day on 32nd Street. It begins with looking. With noticing. And with seeing those we would prefer not to see.

And not only those who hunger for food, but those who hunger for other things -- like hope, or encouragement, or some spare crumb of compassion or consolation. Those who hunger for justice, or peace.

There are starving people like that everywhere, even perhaps here, right now, in this church.

The message of today’s gospel is the lesson of my wife’s penance: Seek them out. Notice the need. We have to keep open our eyes, and our hearts. It isn’t easy.

But there is a great deal of good in it – and a great deal of God in it.

Because God looks. And sees.

And God gives.

From Russia, with blog

Cardinal Sean O'Malley is continuing his little travel-blog of his pilgrimage to Rome, Turkey and Russia. He's seeing everything, and the pictures -- as you can tell below -- really capture the wonder of his journey.






Visit the good cardinal's blog for much, much more, including some of his remarks delivered when visiting one of the great shrines of Constantinople. And a tip of the mitre has to go to his gifted photographer, Gregory Tracy, of the Boston Pilot, whose keen and sensitive eye doesn't miss a thing. The pictures are a pleasure to behold.

Zubik: "I dare you to be excited about our faith"

Pittsburgh got her new bishop yesterday, and the local paper has the scoop:

In an address infused with humor, gratitude and Scripture, Pittsburgh's new Roman Catholic bishop spurred members of his flock to "get excited" about living and sharing their faith each day.

Following his installation yesterday as leader of the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh, Bishop David A. Zubik rose to stand above the altar of its mother church and to challenge its 764,000 members to "be excited about our faith, and how we live it."

"I dare you to join with me today, tomorrow, next week, next month, next year. I dare you to join me in being excited about our faith, not tomorrow but today," he told more than 1,700 worshippers who crammed pews, aisles and portable chairs to witness the three-hour, tradition-steeped ceremony at St. Paul Cathedral in Oakland.

"May we not put off to tomorrow what God really wants us to do today."

Bishop Zubik, 58, grew up in Ambridge, served in Pittsburgh as a priest and auxiliary bishop and had been bishop of Green Bay, Wis., since 2003 before returning to replace Donald Wuerl, now archbishop of Washington, D.C.

His father, Stanley Zubik, his aunts, and dozens of other relatives and friends looked on yesterday as he accepted his apostolic mandate, received the crozier, or shepherd staff, that symbolizes his new office and acknowledged "the awesome responsibility to be shepherd of such wonderful people."

With resonant voice and conversational demeanor, Bishop Zubik cited Scripture and a parable about Satan's delight over Christians who procrastinate in responding to God's love and demonstrating their faith. He also set off widespread laughter and applause when he spoke of a story published earlier this week in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which referred to rumored "sanctified scalping" of widely sought tickets for yesterday's invitation-only installation.

"I knew about scalping, but I didn't know how sanctified went with it," he said, smiling. "Then I got really excited, really enthused. If people are scalping tickets to come to church, how much they must be in love with God."

Bishop Zubik turned serious when speaking of the airplane passenger with whom he'd chatted after flying back to Green Bay from Pittsburgh on the day after his appointment was announced in July. The man watched the bishop pray the rosary, then admitted in conversation that he'd fallen away from the church because he'd never encountered anyone who truly followed Christ's teachings in day-to-day life.

"I've been thinking about his answer," Bishop Zubik said. "The question I ask myself and the question I ask of all of you is this one: How excited are you? How excited am I? How excited are we about our God?

"Can people who see us day in and day out know without question that we're proud of our faith, that we're dependent upon God and that we're excited about doing his work?"

The bishop exhorted Catholics to seek God's help during prayer, to stand up for the sanctity of human life and to help the poor and "people on the fringes of society." He also thanked Archbishop Wuerl for "teaching me what it means to be a man of the church," and Auxiliary Bishop Paul J. Bradley for his pastoral oversight of the diocese during the 15 months after Archbishop Wuerl's departure for Washington.

Relatives and friends in the sanctuary smiled and dabbed at their eyes as the bishop spoke of his father and his late mother, Susan, saying they introduced him to God, the church and prayer -- "everything important in life."

"They taught me not only to live, but to love," he said.

I'm waiting for someone to post the full text of the homily. But it's Saturday, and I guess the diocese is sleeping in after all the revelry yesterday.

Photo: Bishop David A. Zubik is presented with his crozier during yesterday's Mass at St. Paul Cathedral in Oakland. Photo by Steve Mellon/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Randy Pausch update: more interviews

The interview with Randy Pausch that I mentioned on Thursday appeared on the CBS Evenng News with Katie Couric Friday night. It features a visit to his childhood home and a chat with his mom, too.

You can watch it right here.

And you can watch outtakes of the interview at this link.

"Stop killing monks"

The words on this sign, from a protest in Bangkok in support of the people of Myanmar, say it all.

The prayer below, composed by an American with great affection and respect for Buddhist monks, was written while he was on a pilgrimage to Asia, seeking to bridge differences between eastern and western monastic traditions. It is brimming with hope -- something tragically in short supply right now in Myanmar.

I offer it as my own prayer for all those who are suffering, and struggling, and dying in pursuit of freedom.

O God, we are one with You. You have mde us one with You. You have taught us that, if we are open to one another, You dwell in us. Help us to preserve this openness and to fight for it with all our hearts. Help us to realize that there can be no understanding where there is mutual rejection.

O God, in accepting one another wholeheartedly, fully, completely, we accept You, and we thank You, and we adore You, and we love You with our being, because our being is in Your being, our spirit is rooted in Your Spirit.

Fill us then with love and let us be bound together with love as we go our diverse ways, united in this one Spirit which makes You present in the world, and which make sYou witness to the ultimate reality that is love.

Love has overcome. Love is victorious. Amen.

-- "A Prayer in Asia" by Thomas Merton, 1968.

Rudy on religion

Rudy Giuliani opened up Friday about religion, the Bible, adultery and casting the first stone.

According to one wire report:

Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani compared the scrutiny of his personal life marked by three marriages to the biblical story of how Jesus dealt with an adulterous woman.

In an interview posted online Friday, Giuliani was questioned about his family and told the Christian Broadcasting Network, "I think there are some people that are very judgmental."

Giuliani has a daughter who indicated support for Democrat Barack Obama and a son who said he didn't speak to his father for some time. Giuliani's messy divorce from their mother, Donna Hanover, was waged publicly while Giuliani was mayor of New York.

"I'm guided very, very often about, 'Don't judge others, lest you be judged,'" Giuliani told CBN interviewer David Brody. "I'm guided a lot by the story of the woman that was going to be stoned, and Jesus put the stones down and said, 'He that hasn't sinned, cast the first stone,' and everybody disappeared.

"It seems like nowadays in America, we have people that think they could've passed that test," he said. "And I don't think anybody could've passed that test but Jesus."

In the New Testament story, related in the Gospel of John, Jesus does not actually hold stones. The Pharisees bring Jesus a woman charged with adultery, reminding him the punishment for adultery is stoning. They are testing Jesus in an effort to charge him with breaking the law.

The Gospel reads: "But when they continued asking him, he straightened up and said to them, 'Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.'

"... And in response, they went away one by one, beginning with the elders."

Giuliani has insisted his family relationships are private. In 1968, he married his cousin, Regina Peruggi. They divorced 14 years later, and Giuliani obtained an annulment from the Catholic Church on the grounds that as second cousins, they should have received a dispensation to marry.

Giuliani married Hanover in 1984 and they divorced in 2002. He has been married to Judith Nathan since 2003.

Likewise, he says his faith is private, although he evokes his Catholic upbringing on the campaign trail.

He told CBN he believes in God and prays to Jesus for guidance and help.

"I have very, very strong views on religion that come about from having wanted to be a priest when I was younger, having studied theology for four years in college," he said. "It's an area I know really, really well academically.

There's more at the link, so take a look.

Headline of the week

"Blessed Trinity Extends Winning Streak"

"God's house band"

That's what someone over at Beliefnet called this rare gem of a U2 video. I won't disagree. A shout-out to David Kuo, who posted it there the other day.

Whatever you call it, it's a spectacular piece of video art. It's Friday. Sit back and enjoy.

"To let all speak, and to fear no one"

The nimble pen of Peggy Noonan today addresses one of the more incendiary stories of the last few days: free speech and, in particular, the especially repugnant speech of the President of Iran. Here, in part, is what she had to say in the Wall Street Journal:

You don't want to judge Christ by Christians, someone once said. He is perfect, they are not.

In a similar way you don't want to judge capitalism by capitalists, or the legitimacy of democracy by the Democrats, or the vitality of our republic by the Republicans. You have to take the thing pure and in itself, while allowing for the flaws and waywardness of its practitioners.

I say this because here in America we have reached a funny pass. People are doing and saying odd things as if they don't know the meaning of the thing they say they stand for. In particular I mean we used to be proud of whom we allowed to speak, and now are leaning toward defining ourselves by whom we don't speak to and will not allow to speak. This is not progress.

Conservatives on campus are shouted down. A crusader against illegal immigration is rushed off the stage at Columbia University. Great newspapers give ad breaks to groups with which they feel an ideological affinity, but turn away ads from those they do not, such as antiabortion groups. And they call this a business.

So much silencing. It seems so weak, so out of keeping with who we are. We love the tradition of free speech in America, but you don't want to judge its health by what we've done with it lately, or to it.

In 1960 the premier of the Soviet Union came and spoke in the United States. Nikita Khrushchev was our sworn enemy, and a vulgarian--sweaty faced, ill educated, dressed in a suit just off the racks from the Gulag Kresge's. I was a child, but I remember the impression he made. He took off his shoe and banged it, literally, on the soft beige wood of a desk at the U.N., as he fulminated. His nation had nuclear weapons. They were aimed at us.

The new Cuban dictator, Fidel Castro, was there too. He was young and bearded and dressed in camouflage; he too, soon, would have missiles pointed at us. He not only went to the U.N. and spoke to the world, he refused to stay at the Waldorf and sweetly chose instead a hotel in Harlem to show his solidarity with America's oppressed. The Americans there seemed to get the joke, and welcomed him with laughter. They knew he was playing them. But then they'd been played before.

Khrushchev's trip and Castro's were all about propaganda, all about sticking it to Uncle Sam. And here's what happened: Nothing. Their presence hurt our country exactly zero percent. In fact it raised us high, reminding the world we are the confident nation that lets its foes speak uncensored. As an adult nation would.

You know where I'm going. Is it necessary to say when one speaks of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that you disapprove of him, disagree with him, believe him a wicked fellow and are not amused that he means to have missiles aimed at us and our friends? If it is, I am happy to say it. Who, really, isn't?

But this has been our history: to let all speak and to fear no one. That's a good history to continue. The Council on Foreign Relations was right to invite him to speak last year--that is the council's job, to hear, listen and parse--and Columbia University was well within its rights to let him speak this year. Though, in what is now apparently Columbia tradition, the stage was once again stormed, but this time verbally, and by a university president whose aggression seemed sharpened by fear.

There were two revealing moments in Ahmadinejad's appearance. The first is that in his litany of complaint against the United States he seemed not to remember the taking and abuse of American diplomatic hostages in 1979. An odd thing to forget since he is said to have been part of that operation. The second was the moment when he seemed to assert that his nation does not have homosexuals. This won derisive laughter, and might have been a learning moment for him; dictators don't face derisive from crowds back home.

It was like the moment in 1960 when Khrushchev's motorcade stalled on Third Avenue and a commuter walked by and gave him the finger. Actually I don't know there was such a moment, but knowing Americans I'm sure there was. Talking and listening to the wicked is the way we always operated in the long freak show that was 20th-century world leadership. And I'm sure before.

If Jefferson had dined only with those who'd been a force for good in the world, Jefferson would often have dined alone. If we insist only good and moral leaders talk to us, we'll wind up surrounded by silence. In fact, if we insist we talk only to those whose good deeds have matched their high aspirations, we won't always be on speaking terms with ourselves.

"Indiscriminate love is how God loves us"

Hot on the heels of one of the most popular and enthusiastically embraced papal encyclicals in the modern era, an American bishop is continuing to spread the news that - in effect - all you need is love.

This time, the message was spread at an interfaith dinner:

Inspired by Jesus' urgent command to "love your neighbor as yourself," Christians everywhere are called to move out into the wider world to forge meaningful relationships with people of all religions and, like the Good Samaritan, care for the needs of everyone.

Bishop Arthur Serratelli delivered this timely message to a gathering of more than 300 religious and civic leaders of various creeds Sunday, Sept. 16, at the Fourth Annual Interfaith Dialog Center Dinner at the Parsippany Hilton. The bishop joined a rabbi and a Muslim university professor that night in calling for the world's religions and people to work together for the cause of tolerance, mutual respect, understanding and peace.

Guided by the dinner's theme, "Love is the essence of existence," Rabbi Jack Bemporad, director of the Center for Interreligious Understanding, traced the Lord's commandment to "love thy neighbor" back to Old Testament. Meanwhile, Ahmet Kuru, assistant political science professor at San Diego State University, urged the world's religious first to emphasize their "commonalities" in their attempts at dialog.

The Newark-based Interfaith Dialog Center (IDC), founded by the Turkish-American Muslims of northern New Jersey in 2003, hosted the dinner, which in Islamic tradition is called an iftar. Sunday's iftar featured Islamic art, prayers, culture and culinary delights. During the iftar, an evening meal that breaks the daily fast during the Islamic observance of Ramadan, Muslims often dine in community.

After the dinner, Bishop Serratelli addressed the religious and civic leaders with the declaration that the true "voice of the historical Jesus" in Scripture implores us to "love your enemies" as well as to "turn the other cheek." These commands of Jesus - in addition to Christ's parable of the Good Samaritan found in Luke, Chapter 10 - encourage Christians to reach out to get to know and help their neighbors, even those of a different religion, he said.

The bishop reminded the audience of the parable of the Good Samaritan, who saw a man, beaten up and lying on the side of the road. The Samaritan took care of the injured man, he said.

"Indiscriminate love - this is how God loves us," Bishop Serratelli said. "How can we love God whom we do not see if we do not love our neighbor whom we can see?"

Reaching out to our neighbors can benefit us - science has discovered that people who do so live longer. The bishop added, "This is how we grow. This is how we inherit the kingdom of God."

The article goes on to quote other religious leaders at the dinner, who also picked up the theme of love. It's a good read.

To Plan B or not Plan B, that is the question

And now Connecticut's bishops have an answer -- and one that will undoubtedly have jaws dropping all over the place.

They've given approval for Catholic hospitals to dispense a drug that prevents pregnancy in cases of rape.

From the AP:

Roman Catholic bishops in Connecticut have agreed to let hospital personnel give emergency contraception to all rape victims, reversing their decision days before a new state law requires it.

The church, which runs four of the state's 30 hospitals, had fought the state law requiring medical personnel to give rape victims emergency contraception, sold as Plan B, even if the women are ovulating.

Church officials had said the treatment was tantamount to abortion and had been considering legal action, but they took a step away from that position Thursday, in a joint statement by the Catholic Bishops of Connecticut and leaders of the Catholic hospitals.

The hospitals will be allowed to provide Plan B without ovulation tests "since the teaching authority of the church has not definitively resolved this matter and since there is serious doubt about how Plan B pills work," the statement reads. "To administer Plan B without an ovulation test is not an intrinsically evil act."

Plan B is a high dose of a drug found in many regular birth-control pills. Its maker, Barr Pharmaceuticals Inc., got approval last year to sell the drug over-the-counter.

The company says Plan B can lower the risk of pregnancy by up to 89 percent if taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex. The drug works by stopping ovulation and has no effect on an existing pregnancy.

The new law requires a pregnancy test, but not an ovulation test, before the drug is given. The Catholic hospitals wanted to first perform ovulation tests, and church officials said Thursday the law still should be changed to allow that.

Roman Catholics believe that life begins at conception, and the fact that Plan B is intended to work after sexual activity but prior to conception complicated their response.

Barry Feldman, a spokesman for the Connecticut Catholic Conference, said the bishops had "an evolution of thinking" about "the state of existing science and the lack of definitive teaching by the church and the fact that there are many who are affiliated with the church that believe the ovulation test isn't necessary."

The bishops consulted with Catholic ethicists and various constitutional lawyers. Some lawyers agreed the state law is unconstitutional, but warned that such a lawsuit could drag on for years, Feldman said.

"If they could find a way morally to do so, they wanted to put the issue to rest, at last, for the moment," he said, adding that the bishops might reconsider if there's more "certainty in the science" about Plan B.

Somehow, I don't think we've heard the last on this.

The world responds to the "lecture of a lifetime"

You may remember Randy Pausch's incredible "last lecture" that I posted last week. His story was subsequently picked up by Good Morning America and other news outlets. I preached about his message last Sunday in my homily, and later mentioned it to a producer at the office. The result: his story will be featured tomorrow night on the CBS Evening News.

Now, the Wall Street Journal is following up, with reaction to Randy's lecture:

After he spoke, [Randy's] only plans were to quietly spend whatever time he has left with his wife and three young children. He never imagined the whirlwind that would envelop him. As video clips of his speech spread across the Internet, thousands of people contacted him to say he had made a profound impact on their lives. Many were moved to tears by his words -- and moved to action. Parents everywhere vowed to let their kids do what they'd like on their bedroom walls.

"I am going to go right home and let my daughter paint her wall the bright pink she has been desiring instead of the "resalable" vanilla I wanted," Carol Castle of Spring Creek, Nev., wrote to me to forward to Dr. Pausch.

People wanted Dr. Pausch to know that his talk had inspired them to quit pitying themselves, or to move on from divorces, or to pay more attention to their families. One woman wrote that his words had given her the strength to leave an abusive relationship. And terminally ill people wrote that they would try to live their lives as the 46-year-old Dr. Pausch is living his. "I'm dying and I'm having fun," he said in the lecture. "And I'm going to keep having fun every day, because there's no other way to play it."

For Don Frankenfeld of Rapid City, S.D., watching the full lecture was "the best hour I have spent in years." Many echoed that sentiment.

ABC News, which featured Dr. Pausch on "Good Morning America," named him its "Person of the Week." Other media descended on him. And hundreds of bloggers world-wide wrote essays celebrating him as their new hero. Their headlines were effusive: "Best Lecture Ever," "The Most Important Thing I've Ever Seen," "Randy Pausch, Worth Every Second."

In his lecture, Dr. Pausch had said, "Brick walls are there for a reason. They let us prove how badly we want things." Scores of Web sites now feature those words. Some include photos of brick walls for emphasis. Meanwhile, rabbis and ministers shared his brick-wall metaphor in sermons this past weekend.

Some compared the lecture to Lou Gehrig's "Luckiest Man Alive" speech. Celina Levin, 15, of Marlton, N.J., told Dr. Pausch that her AP English class had been analyzing the Gehrig speech, and "I have a feeling that we'll be analyzing your speech for years to come." Already, the Naperville, Ill., Central High School speech team plans to have a student deliver the Pausch speech word for word in competition.

As Dr. Pausch's fans emailed links of his speech to friends, some were sheepish about it. "I am a deeply cynical person who reminds people frequently not to send me those sappy feel-good emails," wrote Mark Pfeifer, a technology project manager at a New York investment bank. "Randy Pausch's lecture moved me deeply, and I intend to forward it on."

In Miami, retiree Ronald Trazenfeld emailed the lecture to friends with a note to "stop complaining about bad service and shoddy merchandise." He suggested they instead hug someone they love.

Near the end of his lecture, Dr. Pausch had talked about earning his Ph.D., and how his mother would kiddingly introduce him: "This is my son. He's a doctor, but not the kind who helps people."

It was a laugh line, but it led dozens of people to reassure Dr. Pausch: "You ARE the kind of doctor who helps people," wrote Cheryl Davis of Oakland, Calif.

Dr. Pausch feels overwhelmed and moved that what started in a lecture hall with 400 people has now been experienced by millions. Still, he has retained his sense of humor. "There's a limit to how many times you can read how great you are and what an inspiration you are," he says, "but I'm not there yet."

Carnegie Mellon has a plan to honor Dr. Pausch. As a techie with the heart of a performer, he was always a link between the arts and sciences on campus. A new computer-science building is being built, and a footbridge will connect it to the nearby arts building. The bridge will be named the Randy Pausch Memorial Footbridge.

"Based on your talk, we're thinking of putting a brick wall on either end," joked the university's president, Jared Cohon, announcing the honor. He went on to say: "Randy, there will be generations of students and faculty who will not know you, but they will cross that bridge and see your name and they'll ask those of us who did know you. And we will tell them."

Dr. Pausch has asked Carnegie Mellon not to copyright his last lecture, and instead to leave it in the public domain. It will remain his legacy, and his footbridge, to the world.

In my father's house are many dwelling places...

...but one of them won't be this little place on the left.

The soon-to-be bishop of Pittsburgh is continuing an episcopal trend begun in Boston and, as announced in this press report, is forgoing the lavish lodgings of his predecessors:

Bishop-designate David Zubik has decided not to live in the Pittsburgh Catholic Diocese's $1.5 million bishop's residence on the border of Shadyside and Squirrel Hill and will reside instead at St. Paul Seminary in East Carnegie.

The decision ends a 57-year tradition of bishops living at the 21/2-story, 11-bedroom brick home on Warwick Terrace.

The 9,248 square-foot home, built in 1911, is appraised at $1,498,400 on the Allegheny County property Web site.

Bishop Zubik announced his intentions last week before 240 Catholic priests from Pittsburgh who were at the triennial gathering of diocesan priests at Oglebay Park in Wheeling, W.Va., for continuing education, fellowship and recreation.

They applauded his announcement.

"It was an ancient tradition of the bishop to live at the seminary to assist with the formation of priests and to get to know them better," said the Rev. Ronald Lengwin, spokesman for the diocese.

"It's also a sign of our need to foster and encourage vocations in the priesthood."

Father Lengwin said no decision has been made about the future of the house, which sits on a private drive on 13/4 acres.

The property was donated to the diocese in 1949 by the late David I.B. McCahill, who as a 14-year-old ran away from his family's Iowa farm to work odd jobs in Chicago. He later joined the Navy and saw action in the Spanish-American War, the Philippines and the Boxer Rebellion. A graduate of Drake University, he taught public utility law at the University of Pittsburgh for several years.

Mr. McCahill made his fortune, however, through the acquisition of a dozen transportation, power and land companies in Pittsburgh after World War I.

He died in 1971 at age 87.

The first bishop to live in the residence was the Most Rev. John Dearden, the diocese's seventh bishop, in 1950. It has been the residence of every bishop since.

Over the years it also has been used for meetings, for overnight visits of church dignitaries and by priests recuperating from illnesses. The Medallion Ball Tea is often held there. Archbishop Donald Wuerl had his annual Christmas reception there when he was bishop of the diocese.

Its most famous visitor may have been Giovanni Cardinal Montini, who stayed overnight in 1951. In 1963, he became Pope Paul VI.

According the county property Web site, the house has 24 rooms, six full baths and one half-bath.

Whispers in the Loggia quotes an interview with Zubik in which the bishop-designate notes:

In Catholic life, the temptation remains of being “attached to buildings,” which can lead some to forget that the church is “bigger than buildings.”

Photo: by John Heller, Pittsburgh Gazette

Verizon rejects pro-abortion text messages

Well, who'd have thought?

One of America's leading communications companies has turned its back on a powerful abortion rights group over what it describes as "controversial or unsavory" content.

From the New York Times:

Saying it had the right to block “controversial or unsavory” text messages, Verizon Wireless has rejected a request from Naral Pro-Choice America, the abortion rights group, to make Verizon’s mobile network available for a text-message program.

The other leading wireless carriers have accepted the program, which allows people to sign up for text messages from Naral by sending a message to a five-digit number known as a short code.

Text messaging is a growing political tool in the United States and a dominant one abroad, and such sign-up programs are used by many political candidates and advocacy groups to send updates to supporters.

But legal experts said private companies like Verizon probably have the legal right to decide which messages to carry. The laws that forbid common carriers from interfering with voice transmissions on ordinary phone lines do not apply to text messages.

The dispute over the Naral messages is a skirmish in the larger battle over the question of “net neutrality” — whether carriers or Internet service providers should have a voice in the content they provide to customers.

“This is right at the heart of the problem,” said Susan Crawford, a visiting professor at the University of Michigan law school, referring to the treatment of text messages. “The fact that wireless companies can choose to discriminate is very troubling.”

In turning down the program, Verizon, one of the nation’s two largest wireless carriers, told Naral that it does not accept programs from any group “that seeks to promote an agenda or distribute content that, in its discretion, may be seen as controversial or unsavory to any of our users.” Naral provided copies of its communications with Verizon to The New York Times.

Nancy Keenan, Naral’s president, said Verizon’s decision interfered with political speech and activism.

“No company should be allowed to censor the message we want to send to people who have asked us to send it to them,” Ms. Keenan said. “Regardless of people’s political views, Verizon customers should decide what action to take on their phones. Why does Verizon get to make that choice for them?”

A spokesman for Verizon said the decision turned on the subject matter of the messages and not on Naral’s position on abortion. “Our internal policy is in fact neutral on the position,” said the spokesman, Jeffrey Nelson. “It is the topic itself” — abortion — “that has been on our list.”

Mr. Nelson suggested that Verizon may be rethinking its position. “As text messaging and multimedia services become more and more mainstream,” he said, “we are continuing to review our content standards.” The review will be made, he said, “with an eye toward making more information available across ideological and political views.”

Naral provided an example of a recent text message that it has sent to supporters: “End Bush’s global gag rule against birth control for world’s poorest women! Call Congress. (202) 224-3121. Thnx! Naral Text4Choice.”

Messages urging political action are generally thought to be at the heart of what the First Amendment protects. But the First Amendment limits government power, not that of private companies like Verizon.

In rejecting the Naral program, Verizon appeared to be acting against its economic interests. It would have received a small fee to set up the program and additional fees for messages sent and received.

Just a thought: now might be the time to switch your wireless carrier to Verizon.

UPDATE: Well, that didn't last long. From the NY Times:

Reversing course, Verizon Wireless announced yesterday that it would allow an abortion rights group to send text messages to its supporters on Verizon’s mobile network.

“The decision to not allow text messaging on an important, though sensitive, public policy issue was incorrect,” said Jeffrey Nelson, a spokesman for Verizon, in a statement issued yesterday morning, adding that the earlier decision was an “isolated incident.”

Last week, Verizon rejected a request from the abortion rights group, Naral Pro-Choice America, for a five-digit “short code.” Such codes allow people interested in hearing from businesses, politicians and advocacy groups to sign up to receive text messages.

Verizon is one of the two largest mobile carriers. The other leading carriers had accepted Naral’s request for the code.

In turning down the request last week, Verizon told Naral that it “does not accept issue-oriented (abortion, war, etc.) programs — only basic, general politician-related programs (Mitt Romney, Hillary Clinton, etc.).”

In yesterday’s statement, Mr. Nelson called that “an incorrect interpretation of a dusty internal policy” that “was designed to ward against communications such as anonymous hate messaging and adult materials sent to children.” The policy, Mr. Nelson said, had been developed “before text messaging protections such as spam filters adequately protected customers from unwanted messages.”

But the program requested by Naral would have sent messages only to people who had asked to receive them.

Nancy Keenan, Naral’s president, expressed satisfaction yesterday. “The fight to defeat corporate censorship was won,” she said. But Ms. Keenan added that her group “would like to see Verizon make its new policy public.”

Verizon did not respond to repeated requests for copies of the policy or an explanation for why it is withholding it.

God and Hillary

Former Bush speechwriter, and now Washington Post columnist, Michael Gerson has some thoughts this week on the person who has been called "the most religious Democrat since Jimmy Carter."

That would be Hillary Clinton.

Consider this:

During a question-and-answer session at Tufts University immediately after the 2004 election, Sen. Hillary Clinton identified the alienation of religious voters as one of the Democratic Party's main problems. And the appeal she proposed was straightforward: "No one can read the New Testament of our Bible without recognizing that Jesus had a lot more to say about how we treat the poor than most of the issues that were talked about in this election."

There was a stiff dose of political calculation in her remarks -- but also a streak of sincere liberal Protestantism. As Clinton methodically consolidates her hold on the Democratic presidential nomination, Republicans are facing, in the words of her spiritual biographer Paul Kengor, "the most religious Democrat since Jimmy Carter." And this introduces an unpredictable element into a wide-open election.

Republicans are accustomed to Democrats who are either frankly secular -- Howard Dean once asserted, "My religion doesn't inform my public policy" -- or so uncomfortable with religious language that, were the sound on the television switched off, you'd think they were admitting a sexual vice instead of affirming their deepest beliefs.

Clinton is neither secular nor awkward about her faith. She cites her Methodist upbringing as a formative experience, with its emphasis on "preaching and practicing the social gospel." As a teenager in 1962, she heard and met the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in Chicago -- what would have been a profound experience for a spiritually alert youth -- and was later politically radicalized by his assassination. The likely Democratic nominee participates regularly in small-group Bible studies and is familiar with the works of Reinhold Niebuhr, Paul Tillich and Dietrich Bonhoeffer -- the theological heroes of mainline Protestantism (and of some stray Evangelicals like myself).

In a nation obsessed by the influence of religious conservatives, it is easy to forget that liberal Protestants were once the dominant cultural influence in America. Beginning in the early 20th century, the social gospel advanced swiftly through most American denominations. Progressive presidents such as Woodrow Wilson spoke in the cadences of this movement: "Christianity was just as much intended to save society as to save the individual, and there is a sense in which it is more important that it should save society."

This high-minded theological liberalism had many successes. It opposed the harsh excesses of industrialization, embraced the civil rights movement, resisted the Vietnam War and led opposition to apartheid in South Africa. It also had debilitating weaknesses -- a preference for democratic socialism, a soft spot for Marxist strongmen, a flitting fascination with trendy causes and a theological shallowness that caused millions to flee the pews.

As an heir to this religious tradition, Hillary Clinton combines two traits that seem contradictory but really aren't -- moralism and social liberalism.

As a moralist, she has been willing to work with conservatives on issues such as religious freedom in the workplace and highlighting the destructive impact of pop culture on children. She has joined congressional efforts against human trafficking and was an early supporter of public funds for faith-based social services. None of this indicates a privatized religious faith.

At the same time, as Kengor points out in his insightful book, "God and Hillary Clinton," her defense of abortion rights has been strident, even radical. She has attacked pro-life people as enemies of "evidence," "science" and "the Constitution." And she has blamed pro-life "ideologues" for the prevalence of abortions because of their "silent war on contraception" -- a remarkable accusation that Roman Catholic opposition to birth control is somehow responsible for abortion in America.

There are other provocative thoughts contained in the column, about how Hillary may play with Roman Catholic voters, and how her race might be affected if Rudy Giuliani becomes the GOP nominee.

"The demands of holiness apply to every one of us. No exceptions."

Words for the day:

We hear people all the time saying they’re upset with “the Church.” Or that “the Church” has let them down. Or that “the Church” has distorted Christ’s message and needs to be reformed.

I agree with these people. I’m not satisfied with the Church either. I want the Church to be more holy. I want the Church to purge all the corrupting influences of sin, temptation, and worldliness. I want the Church to be fearless in love, courageous in confronting evil, and eloquent in bearing witness to the Gospel in a culture of greed and despair.

But what most of those people are really complaining about is the clergy. Their definition of “the Church” includes only the visible leadership of the Church: the pope, the cardinals, the archbishops and bishops, the priests and deacons. That’s the Church they want to criticize and turn around.

I’m glad they hold bishops and priests, including me, to high standards. Members of the clergy should lead holy lives that are an example for the Church. I only wish these people would remember that the Church includes them, too. When Christ said, “Be perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect,” he wasn’t talking only about the clergy. When he said, “Go and preach the Gospel to all nations,” he wasn’t talking only about religious professionals. The demands of holiness apply to every one of us—and in a special way to husbands and fathers who have the task of leading families. No excuses. No exceptions.

-- Archbishop Charles Chaput, O.F.M. Cap., from a talk given recently at an Indianapolis men’s conference for Legatus. The entire talk can be read right here.

In case anybody missed it ...

...the good people at Commonweal have linked to the Parade profile of My Close Personal Friend Stephen Colbert.

Take and read.

The "feminine genius" running things in Rome

Some might be surprised to learn that one of the highest ranking men in the curia...is a woman.

They might be even more surprised to learn that Pope Benedict has affirmed that, and seems intent on doing more of the same. This, from Whispers in the Loggia:

Some might remember the name of Sr Enrica Rosanna...

...and those who hadn't before have good reason to get up to speed.

In 2004, John Paul II broke reams of Vatican precedent by naming Suor Enrica -- an Italian Salesian with an academic background in sociology -- as the #3 official of the Roman dicastery overseeing all matters pertaining to the world's religious communities and professed men and women.

While widely acclaimed in the global church, the first-ever appointment of a woman (and, for that matter, any non-ordained person) to hold "superior" rank in a top-level Vatican office was met with some resistance among the Curia's old guard. Shortly thereafter, amid complaints citing canon law's stipulation that a nonordained person couldn't exercise jurisdiction over clerics, a priest was named to serve alongside Rosanna as co-undersecretary of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life.

Last March, however, Benedict XVI shuttled the sister's priest-collaborator to a diocese of his own. More significantly, the Pope did not name a replacement for the cleric. In a new pontificate, the move served to definitively settle the question over Rosanna's supervisory status in her favor, and was soon followed by an announcement from the Cardinal-Secretary of State (himself a Salesian, of course) that plans are in the works to bring more women, professed and lay, into the upper echelons of the church's central administration.

While Benedict's keen record of affirming and relying on the exponents of the "feminine genius" he keeps around him is no secret (at least not to anyone here), the unlikely trailblazer doesn't give many interviews on the work she's termed "this obedience." However, Suor Enrica recently broke her low profile to record a chat with Salt + Light Television's Fr Thomas Rosica.

Conducted in Italian, the conversation's webstream is up (with subtitles). Watch.

Money quote, on the declining numbers and attendant prophecies of doom: "The apostles were only 12, but they conquered the world. And I don't believe the apostles had fewer difficulties than we have today.... Perhaps we lack in faith. The Lord told us that if we had the faith of a mustard seed we could move mountains. And we haven't moved, at least to my knowledge, we haven't moved that mountain [yet]."

Those interested may remember Sr. Enrica Rosanna from this post a couple of months back.

See you at Spago, Deacon

Here's something that's so unusual and rare, well, it's just, just...incredibly cool: a deacon who's a novelist, and who just had his book made into a major motion picture starring Brad Pitt.

Ron Hansen has been published a lot in the Catholic press -- his name pops up periodically in anthologies of spiritual writing --but I didn't know about his connection to Hollywood, or his surprising backstory.

Until now:

Deacon Ron Hansen, who serves in ministry for the Diocese of San Jose, is also a novelist and English professor, and recently received a professional compliment about his writing from actor Brad Pitt.

"He said, 'Hey, man, great book,"' Deacon Hansen told Catholic San Francisco, the official newspaper of the Archdiocese of San Francisco.

"He was a really nice guy, very generous and gracious," the novelist said, adding: "I was prone to like him."

Deacon Hansen met Pitt on the set of "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford," a movie starring Pitt as the paranoid post-Civil War outlaw and based on Deacon Hansen's 1983 novel of the same name.

What Deacon Hansen appreciates even more than Pitt's compliment is the movie's faithfulness to his story. The director, Andrew Dominik, who spotted the book at a Melbourne, Australia, bookstore and thought it would make a great movie, adapted the novel in a remarkably light-handed way for a Hollywood treatment of literature.

"What Andrew did with my novel was go through it with highlighter and take all the parts he wanted right out of the novel," Deacon Hansen said. "Even the action descriptions were taken right out of the novel. There wasn't a single thing in the script that didn't appear in the novel, which is strange and wonderful for an adaptation from an author's point of view."

Jules Daly, a member of the film's production company, wrote in an e-mail: "Andrew gives great accolade to all aspects of Ron's writing. For me, Ron delved so deep within the characters, the culture and the landscape – so deep that one wonders when reading how he conceived of this time, place and story, almost as though he had known it himself."

Pitt, who also produced the film, became involved with the project because he had wanted to work with Dominik and agreed to play James for less than his normal fee, making the movie feasible on a $30 million budget.

The novel's hero is Bob Ford, the 19-year-old kid brother of one of James' gang members. Ford killed James in 1882 by shooting him in the back of the head while James was tidying a picture with a feather duster. Ford, played by Casey Affleck, had reason to believe James intended to kill him and that the crime boss might have been planning the deed to take place in conjunction with a robbery the gang had scheduled the next day.

In real life, Ford became a celebrity who toured the country. The public, reveling in the blood and guts of James' career, initially elevated the assassin to the status of hero for eliminating a public menace but later turned on him for shooting a man in the back. A popular 19th-century tune branded Ford as a "dirty little coward."

The Ford story, like all Deacon Hansen's novels, has a Christian theme. His characters cope with the forces of good and evil and his settings dramatize the moral struggle.

"A lot of people would be surprised you could find a Christian idea in a story about Jesse James, but I think it's implicit in the text," he said. "A lot of times it's about recklessness, ambition, ego and how those can really ruin your life, and I think a lot of times there is this sense of peace and redemption operative in most of my books."

Deacon Hansen cited the influence of the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola on his storytelling. "One of the exercises is you are who you follow – Christ or the evil one?" he said.

Born into a Catholic family in Nebraska, Deacon Hansen attended Catholic grade school, a Jesuit-run high school and graduated from Jesuit-run Creighton University in Omaha, Neb. His twin brother was a Jesuit and a sister was a Dominican nun.

His mother and father were converts to Catholicism. His father's father had been Mormon, and his mother became a Catholic while living in an orphanage run by Dominican nuns.

While working on his 1991 novel, Mariette in Ecstasy, about the phenomenon of stigmata, Deacon Hansen returned to school for a mid-career refresher in the faith. In 1995 he graduated from the University of Santa Clara, also a Jesuit school, with a master's degree of arts in pastoral ministry with an emphasis on spirituality.

He later finished the first year of a three-year master's of divinity program at the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley. He left to enroll in the diaconate program of the San Jose Diocese and was ordained three years later.

He assists at Masses, serves on the diocesan formation of clergy committee and is assigned to campus ministry at the University of Santa Clara.

In 2006 he was appointed Gerard Manley Hopkins professor in the arts and humanities at the university. Deacon Hansen's forthcoming novel, Exiles, is about a poem titled "The Wreck of the Deutschland" by Father Hopkins, a 19th-century English Jesuit.

Congratulations, Ron. Have your people call my people and let's do lunch.

Episcopal Church will "exercise restraint" on gay bishops

After months of increased tension, and weeks of internal debate, the Episcopal Church has cleared its throat and made a statement regarding gay ordinations and marriages:

Episcopal leaders, who are struggling to hold together their increasingly divided church and maintain its place in the global Anglican Communion, pledged anew Tuesday to "exercise restraint" in consecrating another openly gay bishop.

In the final hours of a crucial meeting in New Orleans, Episcopal bishops promised not to authorize official rites for the blessings of same-sex couples and asserted that a majority of bishops do not allow priests to bless such unions.

The statement, which largely affirmed earlier pledges by Episcopal leaders, came at a time when the church, the American branch of Anglicanism, is under intense pressure from conservatives in the worldwide communion to reconsider the U.S. church's relatively liberal stance on homosexuality and scriptural authority.

The Episcopal Church challenged the prevailing conservative views in the communion in 2003 when it consecrated V. Gene Robinson, a gay man living with his longtime partner, as bishop of New Hampshire.

Anglican leaders had asked the Episcopal Church by Sunday to state unequivocally that it would stop consecrating openly gay bishops and bar official blessings of same-sex unions, or risk playing a diminished role in the communion, the world's third-largest Christian denomination.

Some theological conservatives immediately rejected the bishops' response.

"This simply is not what was asked for," Pittsburgh Bishop Robert Duncan said in a statement. Duncan's diocese is among several, including Fresno-based San Joaquin, that are taking steps to break with the national church.

But others pointed out that conservative, moderate and liberal bishops had passed the document all but unanimously on a voice vote, with only a single voice heard in dissent.

An official response from the communion may take months.

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the communion's spiritual leader, attended the first two days of the six-day meeting, urging the bishops to do whatever they could to help hold the 77-million-member global fellowship together.

Before leaving New Orleans, Williams, who has no power to impose a solution, told reporters that he would take time to evaluate the bishops' statement with other Anglican leaders who attended the meeting. Williams also emphasized that the communion's directive to the Episcopal Church, with its Sept. 30 deadline, was not an ultimatum to the U.S. church, but would "inevitably [be] a matter of compromise."

"I felt the call and just knew I had to do this"

Hot on the heels of Newsweek's controversial interview with Jessica Rowley, the San Jose Mercury News has another curious article, about a woman celebrating her wedding anniversary by celebrating a special mass:

Like many devout Catholics, Juanita and Don Cordero kicked off their Sept. 15 wedding anniversary by attending Mass. Four of the couple's five grown children were in attendance, helping to mark the occasion of the Corderos' marriage 36 years ago.

But the entire family wasn't sitting in the front pew during the service. Instead, the Rev. Juanita Cordero, an ordained Catholic priest, was up on the altar, celebrating the Mass.

Cordero, a Los Gatos resident, has been a priest since July. Prior to her ordination she spent 10 years as a Holy Names nun. Though extremely happy in the order, she still felt that something was missing in her life.

"God kept calling me to something else," she explains. "I didn't know what it was, or rather, what I thought it might be was something that just wasn't possible for women at the time."

After a decade in the convent, she left to try to figure out what God had in store for her. She met and fell in love with Don, a former Jesuit priest. The couple married, settled in town and started a family. Their lives were full: For three decades Don taught astronomy and was a counselor at West Valley College in Saratoga, while Juanita began her career as a teacher in the child development/education division at De Anza College in Cupertino. She also works as a nurse and Don serves on the board of trustees for the West Valley/Mission College District.

Ever committed to her faith, Cordero remained in close contact with clergy members from various religions. She even contemplated becoming an Episcopalian minister when that role became available to women. But, she says, "In my bones I'm Catholic, and the Lord kept calling me back to that faith."

Then she attended a conference of Women's Ordination Worldwide, an international organization that advocates for the ordination of women as deacons, priests and bishops. She met members of Roman Catholic Womenpriests, whose numbers included Bishop Patricia Fresen. Fresen had been ordained a priest in 2003 by three German bishops. The trio chose to hold Fresen's ordination ceremony aboard a boat on Germany's Danube River.

"Not only was this a symbol of 'baptism,' it also happened to be outside of the jurisdiction of other bishops who might try to put a stop to it," Cordero says with a laugh. But all three of the bishops were in good standing with the Vatican, which Cordero says is the key to the "validity" of Fresen's ordination. Fresen herself was then elevated to bishop two years later.

"The Vatican, of course, doesn't recognize women as priests," Cordero notes. "We now have a pope who'd like to return the Mass to Latin, so that's not likely to change anytime soon. But throughout history, if a bishop or priest had been validly ordained by another bishop, even if that new bishop or priest did something wrong he was still validly ordained. My succession line comes from those male bishops so we are validly ordained, even if the Vatican considers us 'illicit.' "

She adds that the Vatican is actively seeking the identity of the renegade German bishops to call a halt to the female ordinations, but that she and her colleagues across the globe keep the bishops' names a closely guarded secret. "A priest in Canada who came out publicly in support of women being ordained got his parish taken away from him. So anyone who's connected to us will definitely get his hands slapped by the Vatican," she says.

Cordero talked extensively with Fresen, who had lived and taught in South Africa before apartheid was outlawed. "Patricia kept telling me that change has to come from within people in the church, as opposed to the hierarchy, and that some laws need to be broken," says Cordero.

"In South Africa she had been jailed for opening her school to black children, but knew that law was unjust. I felt this was the same thing: Women need to take a stand, and we can't wait any longer."

At the close of that WOW conference, Cordero joined Fresen and 28 other women from various spots around the world in a coast-to-coast bus trip. Their destination: every historical place ever empowered by women.

"That was the turning point for me," Cordero says. "I felt the call, and I just knew I had to do this."

After several years of study and earning a degree in theology, Cordero became the first woman in California to be ordained as a Catholic priest (another of Cordero's colleagues, Victoria Rue, was ordained earlier in Pittsburgh, Pa.; Rue teaches comparative religious studies, women's studies and theater at San Jose State University). Says Cordero, "The ordinations in Pittsburgh, where I became a deacon, were the first to take place in the United States. There were only four protestors, which we thought was a good thing. One person's sign said, 'Jesus was a man.' Well, duh! We all just laughed."

If Cordero's name seems vaguely familiar, it's because she was among a crop of women "ordained" in July, and mentioned in The Deacon's Bench right here.

Well, what can I say? As a member of the mainstream media, I'm disappointed in the way my profession continues to report this phenomenon with deadpan earnestness and unquestioning certainty. I mean, I know from newsroom experience how ill-informed the press can be when it comes to matters of religion and faith. But this is something else. This ignorance is willful.

The reporters covering these ordinations rarely raise a question about the validity of them, and almost never seek a second opinion or outside voice that might cast doubt on what these women have done. Any reporter worth her salt would seek comment from a canon lawyer, a diocesan spokesperson, a bishop, or even just an ordinary Catholic or two in the pews. That would give balance and context. But no. Instead, the press has, for the most part, just accepted these ordinations at face value. (Professional tip: this is never a good idea. I remember someone who once did that with some suspicious memos, and lost his job.)

To call the coverage of these ordinations irresponsible would be an understatement.

As for the ordinations themselves: when I told my wife about them, she was incredulous. "But when you're ordained, you make a promise of obedience, right? Who are they obedient to? Aren't they being disobedient?"

That about says it.

Photo: Juanita Cordero and her family. By Mark Tantrum, San Jose Mercury News.

Bad homilies="Christianity Lite"

What's wrong with homilies today?

Elizabeth Tenety, who contributes to the Washington Post's provocative and always-interesting On Faith section, sums it up for her generation with this entry, which blames it all on "Christianity Lite."

Take a look:

Advocates of the Latin Mass often cite the banal music in our churches as reason enough to bring back the ethereal rite of old. While they insist that the mystery and grandeur are the missing elements in our liturgies, and the Latin Mass the solution, I have noticed another looming problem, one not easily fixed by Latin elements:

The Christianity preached from our Catholic pulpits is totally lame.

In my family, we have a running joke about the bland predictability of homilies. If one family member is suspected of having not attended mass on a particular Sunday, another may use reasonable measures to determine the individual's guilt or innocence.

"What was the homily about?" we may inquire of the suspect.

"Love. It was about loving God and loving your neighbor."

Can't argue with that response! Because what I have heard preached from Southern California to Boston, Massachusetts, is a charming, neat, and terribly bland "Love one another." "Be nice."

I've somewhat irreverently taken to referring to the kind of homilies that string together terms like "love your neighbor as yourself," "God among us," and "Blessed Mary Ever Virgin," but lack any real substance, as "Theological B.S." Sure the priest talked for twenty minutes. But he could have told us to "just be nice," and "trust in God." It would have saved us all a lot of time and really said the same darn thing anyway.

Critics call this lackluster brand of Christianity which tries to make people feel good 'Christianity Lite.' This religion fits in quite charmingly with that nice sweater set, our 2.2 kids, recently purchased S.U.V and the 470 pounds of food that each American household throws away each year. This religion doesn't disturb people. We wouldn't want that Jesus guy to get in the way of our comfort now, would we?

Or would we?

Shane Claiborne is a Christian who started a faith based ministry in Inner-City Philadelphia. His organization, The Simple Way, is a community of faith that serves the people of Philadelphia in many different ways –from feeding homeless, to tutoring children, to living as modern-day monastics. On Krista Tippitt's Speaking of Faith program, Claiborne spoke about the perilous threat of Christianity Lite:

I'm convinced that if the Christian church loses this generation, it will be not because we didn't entertain them, but because we didn't dare them, you know, with the truth of the world. And it won't be because we'd made the Gospel too hard, but because we made it too easy, and we just played games with kids and didn't actually challenge them to think about how they live.

Thank you, Shane. Thank you.

Thank YOU, Elizabeth.

She has more in her post about bad Catholic music, too. Give it a look.

A monastery in Oklahoma? OK!

It's not everyday that you read about a new monastery being built, from scratch, in the United States.

But that's exactly what's happening with a hardy and devout group of Benedictines in Oklahoma:

Benedictine monks will transform 75 large oak trees felled on the property of their monastery near Hulbert into large beams for their cloister and into doors for their residence and gatehouse.

Construction on the Monastery of Our Lady of the Annunciation of Clear Creek began in 2004. The first building phase cost an estimated $4.5 million and consisted of the crypt and basement of what will be the church.

Phase two of construction is expected to cost $12 million. It began in November 2006 and is scheduled for completion in December of this year. It includes a four-story residence, or cloister, for the monks and the gatehouse, which will serve as a point of contact when visitors come to pray at the monastery.

With their massive walls and their huge concrete pillars sunk deep into the Oklahoma bedrock, it is clear that both the cloister and the crypt that will support the monastery's future church are meant to last.

The Benedictine community arrived from Fontgombault, France, in 1999 at the invitation of Bishop Edward J. Slattery of Tulsa, Okla. The 26 monks at Clear Creek have been using an original log house on their property as their kitchen and refectory, while they live and pray in several large metal buildings erected since their arrival.

On Sept. 2 Abbot Antoine Forgeot from Fontgombault celebrated Mass with the monks of Clear Creek. It was attended by about 200 of the faithful, who came from across the Diocese of Tulsa and from the surrounding region to see how quickly work is progressing.

In an effort to cut costs, much of the finishing work on the monastery will be completed by the monks themselves, which is expected to delay occupancy until early 2008.

Funding for the building project comes from financing, private donations and the support of the monks' motherhouse in France.

It's a remarkable project, and a real testament of faith.

Visit the Clear Creek website to see more of what the monks are up to, and check out their plans for the monastery.

"This is a mighty, mighty awesome group of priests"

Pittsburgh's new bishop-designate is getting to know his priests -- and they are all aware that, like so many dioceses around the country, they have a lot of challenges ahead of them. Most urgently, the shortage of priests.

The local paper takes note:

When Bishop-designate David Zubik walked into a room filled with 240 Catholic priests from Pittsburgh last week, they rose to their feet and applauded.

Bishop Zubik, clad in black slacks and a sports shirt, cupped his hands like a megaphone and shouted, "All I have to say is, will you feel the same way six months from now?"

The priests burst into laughter. But it is a real question. They are delighted that another native son of Pittsburgh will take the bishop's seat in St. Paul Cathedral on Friday. But the diocese faces difficult choices and changes, as large classes of priests will soon retire with few to replace them.

Last year, the diocese projected that by the end of 2008, 65 priests would reach retirement age while just seven would be ordained. Fifty of 214 parishes now share priests with other parishes, and the first lay person has been assigned to oversee a parish that has no pastor.

Last week, Bishop Zubik made his second visit to this area since the July 18 announcement of his appointment by Pope Benedict XVI. The occasion was the triennial gathering of diocesan priests at Oglebay Park in Wheeling, W.Va., for continuing education, fellowship and recreation.

Now 58, he had long been part of that gathering as a priest and auxiliary bishop here. His last time was in 2001, two years before he became bishop of Green Bay, Wis. Last week, he blended seamlessly into the ranks of parish priests, taking an inconspicuous second-row seat for morning prayer. After lunch he stood with his arms on the shoulders of two priests, talking football.

Returning to Oglebay "has given me a grand opportunity to connect and reconnect with almost all of the priests," Bishop Zubik said.

One of his goals is to make sure they feel affirmed.

"I wonder at times if there is the kind of appreciation for the [priests] of Pittsburgh that there should be," he said. "This is a mighty, mighty, awesome group of priests. Their love for God and for the church, and all of the talent that they have to offer, bodes well for the church as we move into the future."

The future was the theme at Oglebay, as Archbishop Michael Sheehan of Santa Fe, N.M., and speakers from the Paulist National Catholic Evangelization Association spoke on "the priest as evangelist and the evangelizing parish."

The Rev. Frank DiSiano, a Paulist expert on evangelization, told the priests that parishes spend most of their time and money on ministry to committed Catholics, and very little reaching out to those who have fallen away or never believed. He urged them to build parish priorities around outreach, and said that mandate must come from the bishop.

Bishop Zubik said taking the faith beyond church walls will be the theme of his installation homily.

"We have to begin to show people that we really are excited about our faith," he said. "Imagine what would happen if we really took that seriously -- if we were able to grasp the closeness of God in our lives and let that take root in our words and deeds. We would go a long way toward helping God build a better world."

That concern for evangelization is on target, said the Rev. Frank Almade, administrator of three parishes in Sharpsburg.

"This isn't just about the declining number of priests, it's fundamentally about the declining number of people," he said. "We have hard challenges ahead with evangelization and mission."

Because Bishop Zubik spent 16 years in diocesan administration here, "there will be almost no learning curve," said the Rev. Charles Bober, pastor of St. Kilian in Mars. That's good, he said, because the issues are serious.

"Pittsburgh priests, because they have had good examples in the past and because of their own experience, know how to do good ministry," he said. "But the fact that there are fewer and fewer of us is frustrating. You can't do what you know you should do or want to do, because there is so much to be done.

"Bishop Zubik can't work miracles. To expect him to solve all of our problems is really very unrealistic. But I think he will go to the root of it. I think he will work very closely with the seminarians and in recruiting vocations. And I think he will do that almost immediately. We may not see the results in the first five or even 10 years of his work here, but the work he will do immediately will be seen eventually."

There's more at the link about vocations and the years ahead.

I have to say: I like Bishop Zubik's style. But he has his work cut out for him. Let's keep him and his flock in our prayers.

Catholic and cohabitating

How should the Catholic Church deal with couples who are living together and want to get married in the Church? Tough question. As recently as a generation ago, those cases were the exception. Now, they're the rule. And a conference next month will seek to address that question:

The increasing acceptance and practice of cohabitation poses numerous challenges for the Catholic Church, not the least being pastoral issues: how to prepare men and women for marriage in this environment, whether the couple live together or not.

Catholics are rising to address the challenge, and a leading American canon lawyer will address the topic next month at a conference in California.

The Rev. Kevin Quirk will deliver a presentation, "Cohabitation: Canonical and Pastoral Consequences," to the annual Canon Law Society of America conference. Cohabitation, Father Quirk said, "is fast becoming an accepted stage between dating and marriage or an end in itself in the United States."

He will discuss a 2002 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that studied the links among "marriage, divorce, contraception, infertility, and other factors affecting pregnancy and birthrates and women's health" and how the findings of the CDC study affect Catholics from the perspective of church law and pastoral application.

The Oct. 10 meeting in Orange, Calif., will bring together officials of the Catholic Church's internal legal system from around the world. Father Quirk, judicial vicar of the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston, W.Va., holds a doctorate in canon law from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome.

The widespread acceptance of cohabitation "presents pastoral difficulties since there is no formal commitment between the couple," said Bishop Jean-Louis Plouffe of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. "So the church cannot accept this relationship because it involves sexual intimacy outside marriage."

Nevertheless, Bishop Plouffe notices that many cohabiting couples are now seeking to marry in the church. "Family has become a trend again, which we find positive," he said.

"We don't live in a perfect world," Bishop Plouffe said. "But it seems that more people are realizing the value of building a home and family within a committed family. These are sound reasons for marrying."

Sister Josie McKechnie, a psychologist with the Sisters of St. Joseph and director of the Diocese of Sault Ste. Marie's Family Enrichment Centre, said she pays particular attention to cohabiting couples when overseeing marriage preparation for the diocese.

"The trend over the last five years is that about 60 percent of couples seeking marriage [from the diocese] are cohabitating, and about 25 percent of couples seeking marriage are either pregnant or bringing children into the marriage," she says.

The key issue is to help cohabiting couples discern what is motivating them to marry after a period of living together.

"For example, if there are problems in their relationship and they think marriage is going to solve them, then you have a red flag," said Sister McKechnie.

The Diocese of Sault Ste. Marie, like many other North American dioceses, uses a premarital inventory called Facilitating Open Couple Communication, Understanding and Study to help couples discern their motivation for marriage. The questionnaire is designed to help couples learn more about themselves and their relationship. It looks at important aspects of a relationship such as communication, problem-solving, expectations and values, parenting issues, religion and values, personal issues, their understanding of marriage as a covenant, sexuality, finances, readiness and compatibility, and extended family issues.

"It helps the couple," Sister McKechnie said. "It also helps those of us who are working with the couple to identify potential problem areas. We use it to help them improve awareness of their relationship — where there is understanding and agreement in their relationship, as well as areas where there is disagreement and areas where there might be some critical problems or special issues."

The Rev. John List is the judicial vicar for the Diocese of Lexington, Ky. Besides overseeing annulment cases in the diocesan tribunal, he is the pastor of St. Peter parish. His pastoral duties include helping couples prepare for marriage. He said his tribunal experience has reinforced his belief that good premarital preparation is vital to helping young couples succeed in marriage.

"I tell couples I'm interested in marriage preparation because I don't want to see them at my other desk," Father List said. "We put lots of resources into tribunal ministry, but we cannot put too much into marriage prep."

Couples must approach marriage with a realistic sense of the depth of the commitment, Father List said. Of vital importance is that the couple understand the nature of marriage as indissoluble.

To this end, the Diocese of Lexington uses a program developed by moral theologian Christopher West. The program helps couples understand the four things Catholics believe are common to every marriage: permanence, faithfulness, openness to the procreation and upbringing of children, and the mutual support between spouses. The program also promotes sexual abstinence during the courtship and engagement as well as the practice of natural family planning during marriage. The last skill assists couples in spacing out childbirth and family size without the use of contraception.

Strengthening marriage-preparation programs is important to helping young couples, Father List said.

"What we're finding from our anonymous surveys at the end of the weekend is that very often, [the] couple haven't had a change of heart apparent at this time, but we've at least planted the seed," he said. "However, sometimes couples will tell us that they've reconsidered the church's teaching, and they need to talk about these issues."

There's more, so check the link for the rest.

Among other things, it notes that 60% of the Catholic couples in Lexington, Kentucky are reportedly living together before marriage. From what I've seen in Brooklyn, that number is closer to 95%.

And remember to leave room for dessert

I can't believe it took an academic study to figure it out, but here it is: eating together as a family makes for healthier, happier kids.

Read on:

Social scientists at New York’s Columbia University have discovered certain phrases that help make it less likely that teenagers will smoke, drink, or use drugs.

“Pass the potatoes, please.”

“What did you learn today?”

“Not carrots again!”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full.”

Yes, according to more than 10 years of research at Columbia’s National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA), the more often children and teens eat dinner with their families the less likely they are to abuse alcohol, tobacco, or drugs.

Specifically, CASA’s 2006 report says that kids who eat dinner with their families from five to seven times a week are 70 percent less prone to substance abuse, half as likely to try cigarettes or marijuana, one-third as likely to try alcohol, and half as likely to get drunk monthly compared to kids who have family dinners fewer than three times a week.

CASA’s studies also consistently find that children and teens who have three or more dinners at home with their families each week are more likely to do better in school and to say they can confide in their parents.

The positive effects of family meals on the lives of children are why CASA sponsors an annual “Family Day: A Day to Eat Dinner With Your Children.” This year’s observance will be Sept. 24.

The Family Life Bureau of the Diocese of Wilmington, Del., is joining the national effort to remind families that the dinner table is a place where “parents and children learn about one another’s lives and bond together as a unique community,” said Tom Jewett, director of Family Life. The family meal, he said, “is an experience with profound and long-range consequences, especially for children and teens.”

While the CASA studies chart the salutary results of family meals, the addiction and drug abuse center’s Family Day information has little to say about why family dining helps so much.

Jewett said he thinks regular family meals help because of the relationships that are developed between parents and children. Eating dinner together builds trust, Jewett said, which leads to “a growing unwillingness of kids to disappoint their parents because they know them.”

Jewett recalls that his own parents realized he, his brother and two sisters wanted to sit next to their dad, so his parents arranged to rotate seats at the table each night. “We knew he was important because mom loved him,” Jewett told The Dialog. “I think we thought that since he’s important, if we sit next to him, we’d be important, too.”

Jewett added that when he and his wife, Marynell, were raising their three children, mealtime was sacred.

“Our motley crew grew, and we became a family. Stories were told around the table — stories by the kids about their neighborhood and school friends. We learned a degree of respect, a way of honoring one another as unique individuals, and developed a desire not to disappoint one another. We learned to love one another in the midst of the chaos and messiness of family meals.”

You can find out more about it at the link. And: don't forget to say grace...

Photo: Elizabeth Duchesneau helps her mom Denise prepare a pizza dinner. Picture by Don Blake.

Reclaiming fatherhood: men and abortion

With all the attention that the Church focuses on abortion and its aftermath, here is one group often overlooked: the fathers.

A California conference later this fall will seek to change that, according to this item from the Catholic News Service:

It took a long time for attorney Chris Aubert to miss his children -- the ones he lost to abortion.

But once he did -- and it took the better part of a decade -- he was ready to make his choice for life.

Aubert is scheduled to speak at a "Reclaiming Fatherhood" conference Nov. 28-29 in San Francisco, funded by the Knights of Columbus and co-sponsored by the Knights and the Archdiocese of San Francisco.

It is being organized by the Milwaukee-based Office of Post-Abortion Reconciliation and Healing, headed by Vicki Thorn, and according to the office, the event is the first to focus on the effects of abortion on men.

The conference, according to Thorn, could help men dealing with the psychological trauma of post-abortion reality the way Project Rachel -- the post-abortion healing ministry of the Catholic Church Thorn founded -- has helped women who have undergone abortions deal with their own psychological scars.

Aubert, in a telephone interview with Catholic News Service from The Woodlands, Texas, a Houston suburb, said that in 1985, when he first impregnated a woman who was " a friend, but not really a girlfriend, I was not a one-woman man, let's say, at the time, and I had no qualms about premarital sex or anything like that."

Nor did he have any qualms about her decision to have an abortion. "She got the abortion. I did not go. It was a complete and total nonevent for me," he said. "My thinking was at the time this was just a collection of nonviable tissue cells, it's perfectly legal, it's her body -- all the things today I find as laughably silly. I bought into it." He never saw the woman again.

Much the same was true in 1991, six years later, when he got his girlfriend pregnant. "I had just been civilly divorced outside the church and I was not ready to get married again. She was a Methodist, I was a 'nothing.'" Nominally Jewish, Aubert said his bar mitzvah in 1970 was the last time he had stepped into a synagogue. "She had no quarrel with the abortion. I said, 'Fine with me,'" he recalled.

There was a difference, though, between the two abortions.

"This time, however, I did go into the clinic with her. I went into the waiting room with her," Aubert said. "Looking back, it was probably something very, very deep within me that said, 'Something about this isn't right.' I wouldn't have been able to articulate it if you asked me. ... Something about the second one seems different."

Thorn told CNS in a Sept. 19 interview that research indicates men go through their own physical changes as they go through pregnancy with their mate. One is a lessening of testosterone. Men also bond more closely with their mate after childbirth and are willing to make sacrifices to solidify the family unit: "I'll make that midnight run for diapers, and, honey, since I'm out, do you want any Starbucks?" Those changes, Thorn added, are short-circuited in an abortion.

There's much more at the link -- and more information about Reclaiming Fatherhood right here.

Cardinal Egan to media: "Grow up"

The Cardinal Archbishop of New York was not in a mood to banter with reporters yesterday morning:

Edward Cardinal Egan bypassed protesters yesterday and curtly dismissed questions about a shuttered East Harlem church - telling reporters to "grow up."

"You just have to ignore all this and grow up," Egan said when asked about the Catholics gathered outside in protest of the closure of their beloved church, Our Lady Queen of Angels.

When pressed, Egan, who had just finished celebrating Mass at St. John the Baptist on W. 31st St., said, "Oh, for heaven's sake."

Egan left the church through a back door, avoiding the 30 protesters.

Before stepping into a waiting van, Egan again refused to discuss the protest.

"Madam, get serious," he said. "This is important. Go in and look at reality."

The archbishop has been dogged by criticism since the Archdiocese of New York abruptly closed the E. 113th St. church Feb. 14 - a day after six women were arrested at a sit-in.

Parishioners have continued to gather and pray on Sundays outside the church.

Last month, they held a sidewalk funeral, placing the coffin of 72-year-old Carmen Gonzalez at the foot of the steps of the shuttered church. Gonzalez, a great-grandmother who died of cancer, had hoped Egan would reopen the church for her funeral, relatives said. But he said no.

"They think we're going to get tired," said Carmen Villegas, a 34-year parishioner of the closed church, who led yesterday's protest and was among those arrested in February. "But we're going to keep up the fight."

Villegas, 53, said the demonstration was an effort to point out "that the archdiocese cannot be closing churches to satisfy a financial need."

Protesters carried bells and signs and chanted, "Why have you abandoned us?"

Our Lady Queen of Angels was one of 10 parishes targeted for closure because of dwindling congregations and population shifts in the sprawling archdiocese, which takes in three boroughs and seven counties north of the city.

The 121-year-old church is within walking distance of three others: St. Cecilia, St. Ann and Our Lady of Mount Carmel.

Still, parishioners said they are appealing to the Vatican.

Photo: by Giancarli, The NY Daily News

A pause for poetry

A friend just e-mailed me a short note about autumn, and I realized that yesterday, the 23rd, was the first day of fall.

A little Emily Dickinson seems in order:

The morns are meeker than they were,
The nuts are getting brown;
The berry's cheek is plumper,
The rose is out of town.

The maple wears a gayer scarf,
The field a scarlet gown.
Lest I should be old-fashioned,
I'll put a trinket on.

A Marian apparition debunked

A woman who says she's been having visions of the Blessed Mother has been told, in effect, "Uh, no, you're not":

The Vatican has dismissed the claims of a woman in England who says Mary has visited her outside her home for more than 20 years.

Ruling that her claims are "highly questionable," the Vatican also has refused to approve the statutes of the community she founded.

Patricia De Menezes said the apparition has been appearing to her beneath a pine tree at her home in Surbiton, a London suburb, since 1984. She claimed she has received a divine message that the Catholic Church must proclaim aborted babies to be martyrs.

She also founded the Community of Divine Innocence, which has about 3,000 members in 43 countries, many coming from the pro-life movement. Community members "strive for holiness and innocence within God's own family," according to the community's Web site.

Archbishop Angelo Amato, secretary of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, announced the decision in a letter to Archbishop Kevin McDonald of Southwark, the archdiocese in which De Menezes lives. The letter from Archbishop Amato was dated July 16; it was released by the Southwark Archdiocese Sept. 21.

Archbishop Amato said the doctrinal congregation found De Menezes' claims to be exaggerated and hysterical. He said inappropriate words and phrases were attributed to Jesus, problematic demands were made over the status of aborted children, and "unusually violent and threatening language" was used in attacks on church authorities.

"Given the supposed revelations which ground the spirituality of the Community of Divine Innocence are highly questionable, it follows that the community's spirituality is flawed at its root," said Archbishop Amato.

"Because this spirituality thoroughly animates the community's proposed constitution, it cannot be approved," he said.

The archbishop specifically took issue with the message that De Menezes claims to have received about the "martyrdom of all the innocent children deliberately killed before birth."

"A martyr is someone who bears witness to Christ," he said. "If the victims of abortion were to qualify for martyrdom, it would then seem that all victims of any moral evil should be likewise deemed martyrs."

Archbishop McDonald said in a Sept. 21 statement that the ruling meant there is "no ecclesiastical approbation for Catholics to meet as the group known as Divine Innocence."

"I am aware that many devout people, deeply committed to the pro-life movement, have become involved with the Divine Innocence," he said. "I wish to encourage them in their work and prayer, but in view of the observations of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, this must no longer be in the context of the organization or spirituality of the Divine Innocence."

De Menezes, 67, a freelance jewelry designer, declined to comment on the Vatican ruling.

A flood of vocations from one parish in Michigan

This story has been floating around for a bit -- the National Catholic Register published it back in July -- but it's getting a second life in the blogosphere, earning a mention here and here. It's truly astounding:

Occasionally, one hears of a parish that has a man in seminary — but 15 from one parish?

Priestly and religious vocations have become commonplace at Christ the King in Ann Arbor, Mich., since its inception 25 years ago. Father Ed Fride, pastor, estimated that 15-20 men from the parish have become priests — men who either grew up in the parish, became members while attending the University of Michigan, or who were affiliated with the church when they discerned their call.

Six of 23 seminarians this year studying for the Diocese of Lansing, Mich., were from Christ the King. Of the other five seminarians from the parish, two are in the neighboring diocese of Saginaw, Mich., one in Minneapolis and St. Paul, and two in religious orders.
Christ the King also is the home of the 15 sisters who make up the Servants of God’s Love, half of whom came from the parish. Six other women from Christ the King have joined religious life in the past five years, two with the Servants of God’s Love, and four with other orders. The parish also has five permanent deacons, three candidates and several more in formation.

Why such a number of vocations from a parish of 830 families? Father Fride has his theories.

“The spirituality of the parish, in which a personal relationship with Jesus is continually stressed, is key,” he said. “We began as, and still are, part of the charismatic renewal, again where a living, active relationship with Jesus is encouraged.

“In addition, since beginning perpetual adoration five years ago when we finished our church building, almost all of the present seminarians, and those to begin this fall, have heard the call to seminary,” Father Fride said. “Jesus has a plan for everyone, whether to marriage, religious life or celibacy, and I address that, but it is proximity to the Lord Jesus during adoration that helps people hear the call.

“Also, we can’t overlook the influence of John Paul the Great,” he continued. “We constantly reference him, his teachings and the example of his life. He was the only pope that these kids knew, and they want to be like him. They want to participate in the New Evangelization, and becoming a priest is a great way to do that.

Said Father Fride: “When you preach orthodoxy, the Eucharist and the centrality of Jesus, vocations result. It seems natural to me to have so many young people who love Jesus and want to serve him become priests. I’m surprised there aren’t more vocations, both here and elsewhere.”

If you read on, you'll hear from some of the families who are producing this floodtide of vocations. Bless 'em. Each and every one.

America, September 2007

A hat tip to Rod Dreher at Beliefnet for bringing the picture below to my attention:


The shot comes from this flickr album, belonging to cjdavis, whoever that may be. It was taken at the Detroit airport four days ago.

"If your family is in trouble, you step up to the plate"

A priest friend of mine likes to say "There are really two Catholic Churches. The Church of the hierarchy. And the Church of the people."

It's the former, I think, that causes the most problems for the latter.

Now, in the wake of scandal and institutional turmoil, with parishes closing and schools consolidating and priests shuttling between multiple parishes just to make sure everyone receives the sacraments, an organization called the National Leadership Roundtable of Church Management is trying to help parishes manage themselves better. In essence, I think, it's trying to bridge the gap between the "two Churches."

Over at Busted Halo, they've just posted a fascinating interview with the woman who heads the roundtable, Kerry Robinson:

Recent announcements of enormous clergy abuse settlements in Los Angeles ($660 million) and San Diego ($198 million) underscore the sense that—more than five years into it—the full ramifications of the sex abuse scandal in the United States have yet to be fully understood. Add to that the corruption trial involving former diocesan officials in Cleveland and it would seem that Catholics in the United States have every reason to walk out in despair. And yet—for reasons also not yet fully understood—despite this endless stream of bad news, Catholic churches in the United States aren’t showing signs of emptying.

While the ability of those in the pews to make distinctions between their faith and the sins of an institution is certainly a reason for hope, it can’t mask a critical loss of organizational credibility and trust that isn’t easily repaired. Kerry Robinson, the executive director of the National Leadership Roundtable on Church Management, is convinced that this crisis is actually a unique opportunity for the laity and clergy to collaborate on finding practical solutions to the Church’s temporal problems.

The young mother of two, is no stranger to these sorts of issues. Robinson is a member of the family-operated Raskob Foundation that is dedicated exclusively to Catholic causes. Her position with the Leadership Roundtable however has moved her beyond the world of philanthropy into the role of communicator and advocate. The Roundtable brings together bold-faced names like Leon Panetta, Fay Vincent and Geoff Boisi along with other well-known leaders from the worlds of business, finance, academia, philanthropy, not-for-profits and the Church. Their stated mission is to promote excellence and best practices in the management, finances and human resources development of the Catholic Church in the United States.

The Roundtable has no interest in addressing doctrinal or theological issues. The challenge for Robinson and her colleagues however is to build bridges and promote their particular expertise in temporal affairs to a diverse collection of US bishops and church leaders who are, understandably, still reeling from the effects of the recent scandals and sensitive to issues of episcopal authority. It is a formidable task that Robinson believes is essential not only for healing but for ensuring the Church’s relevance and credibility to future generations.

In many ways it is a mission of hope in dark times worthy of her great grandfather, businessman and philanthropist John Jakob Raskob. During America's Great Depression, he also defied conventional wisdom to pursue a dream that would ultimately become his crowning achievement: the construction of the Empire State Building.

BustedHalo: Can you give us some background on what the Leadership Roundtable is and when it started?

Kerry Robinson: Though we are not focused in any real respect on the sex abuse crisis, the Leadership Roundtable had its genesis in 2002 when suddenly the front pages of all of the secular papers were about the Catholic Church’s crisis. The scandal had the effect of waking the Catholic laity out its lethargy in order to take a look at their own parishes, dioceses and other Catholic institutions. Ultimately they properly viewed that crisis as a crisis of management. And as devoted members of the faith, to whom the Catholic Church mattered deeply, they asked themselves 'what can I do to repair the damage? To affect reconciliation? To restore the trust that was eroded?' If your family is in trouble, you step up to the plate and you do whatever it takes to heal the wounds there.

One man, Geoff Boisi devoted considerable energy to how he might be able to bring his own talents and expertise to the service of the Church. And as he has done with other institutions, he believes that one of the best ways to solve problems is to convene a diversity of the best minds around a particular problem and try to creatively foster solutions. And those meetings were happening for several years when, as a result of conversations with bishops, priests, religious women, lay leaders as well as Catholics from the secular world, the Leadership Roundtable on Church Management was formally established on July 11, 2005.

BH: Often in church circles the dynamic can devolve into a liberal vs. conservative sort of polarization; I don’t get the sense that the Leadership Roundtable is interested in appealing to those categories at all.

KR: We are entirely non-doctrinal. And that is extremely significant. We exist to focus exclusively on the temporal affairs of the Church such as the management, the finances and the human resources. Though we recognize that the Church isn’t a corporation, it consists of people, finances, and resources that deserve to be managed well. And here is where I think I our missions intersect. I think there will be a positive byproduct of the fruitful work of the Leadership Roundtable with respect to the polarization that exists in the Church. It’s not a stated part of our mission, but the positive consequence of bringing a diverse group of people together around the mission of the Leadership Roundtable, I believe, will be a lessening of that chasm of the left vs. right, conservative vs. liberal, whatever labels you want to use. I personally don’t think that there is any place in our Church for that kind of vitriol.

BH: In your research have you found that there is a real need to codify best practices in dioceses and churches?

KR: There is a need. Good parishes can always get better. Good dioceses can always improve. Our first approach, frankly, was to identify good examples and there are many. It was important for us to us to identify them and to examine what contributes to a welcoming, vibrant, robust parish or diocese. There are many examples out there but you rarely hear about them. We add them to our online clearing house of best practices. When something is working very well, we want to use them as a model as to what others might emulate.

Head to the link and read it all, because it's worth it. There's a lot to ponder. Attention must be paid.

A Father to twins: one pastor, two parishes, lots of driving

At one time it would have been unthinkable. But now it's a reality for more and more priests: they are serving as pastors for two parishes. In Los Angeles, it's known as "twinning," and the local paper, The Tidings, takes a look at how it works:

Though his mode of transportation is a car instead of a horse, you might think of Father Edward Dover as a modern day circuit rider as he travels the four-mile round trip between his two parishes in the Verdugo foothills five to six days a week.

Formally installed Sept. 9 as pastor of both St. James the Less in La Crescenta and Holy Redeemer in Montrose, Father Dover is one of nine priests who are pastors of twinned/clustered parishes in the archdiocese.

Last spring, the 49-year-old bearded, Birkenstock sandal-shod former pastor of St. Thomas Aquinas in Monterey Park and St. Anthony of Padua in Gardena was asked by San Fernando Region Auxiliary Bishop Gerald Wilkerson if he would consider pastoring both St. James, where he had been administrator for a year, and Holy Redeemer, whose pastor Msgr. Jack Foley was retiring.

Father Dover said he would take it under prayerful advisement which included consulting with Msgr. Tim Dyer, pastor of twinned L.A. parishes Nativity and St. Columbkille.

"His two comments to me were, 'It's been the best ten years of my life as a priest' and 'If you do this, you'll be amazed at what God's people can do'," said Father Dover. "When I heard him say that, I relaxed a bit. If a husband and wife can take care of three kids, I can take care of two parishes."

While the parent analogy works in theory, the logistics of pastoring two parishes with a combined estimated count of 2,000 families (St. James with 800 households, Holy Redeemer with 1,200) is an ongoing work in progress that Father Dover says he's still figuring out.

When the two parishes were advised that they would be embarking on the twinning model --- which had been a top choice among the parishioners in a previous archdiocesan survey listing options such as parish clustering, installation of a parish life director or closure --- Father Dover gathered representatives from both parish councils, advisory boards, finance councils and the two business managers to discuss transitional operations.

As bi-locating for Masses is a real-time impossibility, Father Dover had to pare down the Mass schedule. Each parish had to sacrifice its noon Mass. The interim Mass schedule, with St. James holding Sunday services at 9 and 11:30 a.m. and Holy Redeemer offering Mass at 8 and 10 a.m. and 5:30 p.m., is possible with the help of St. James' priest in residence, Father Camillo Bonsuuri from Ghana, and Holy Redeemer's pastor emeritus, Msgr. Foley.

For Catechetical Sunday last week, Father Dover traveled between parishes for back-to-back Sunday services at 10 and 11:30 a.m. Since there was no time to change out of his vestments before making the 7-10 minute drive, he drove up the hill from Holy Redeemer to his next service at St. James the Less wearing chasuble, stole and alb.

Most Sundays, Father Dover plans to celebrate both morning Masses at one parish, while Fathers Foley and Bonsuuri celebrate morning Masses at the other parish. Ministerial assignment schedules will be published in the parish bulletins.

Father Dover says traveling a mere two miles between parishes "doesn't really faze me." A native of Lompoc, he remembers driving 27 miles to Santa Maria or 56 miles to Santa Barbara to attend Sunday evening Mass when he missed the local morning Mass. Visiting family in eastern Oregon, he has substituted for a priest who drives 300 miles between Saturday and Sunday at three different churches.

"In a sense, L.A. is just now starting to experience what a lot of the rest of the country already lives. But our distances are so much easier," declared Father Dover, adding with a chuckle, "I'm crazy enough to be excited by this." He thanks God for his PDA, which "tells me where I'm supposed to be day by day and moment by moment."

Usually, his day starts with prayer in the St. James rectory chapel at 6 a.m. followed by the celebration of morning Mass at 7:30 or 8 a.m., depending on which parish he plans to spend the morning. He heads to the gym most afternoons for workouts to keep his energy up for parish evening meetings several times a week.

"I have a general rule," Father Dover tells staff and parishioners. "'If you want me to make a decision, ask me before 8:30 p.m. because my brain begins to shut down. I love you all, but I'm leaving at 9 p.m.'"

There's more about his insane schedule at the link, and how he struggles with a chronic problem confronting most of us in ministry: the difficulty of saying "no."

Photo: Father Dover, by Paula Doyle, The Tidings

Another Episcopal bishop decides to convert

For the third time this year, an Episcopal bishop is leaving his flock to join the Catholic Church.

The following comes from The Living Church Foundation, which serves the Episcopalian church:

The Rt. Rev. Jeffrey N. Steenson, Bishop of the Rio Grande, will resign from his position and become a Roman Catholic, The Living Church has learned.

In a letter to the clergy of his diocese, Bishop Steenson said a pastoral letter to all the people of the diocese would follow in a few days. He said he had invited Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori to attend the Rio Grande clergy conference Sept. 26.

“I … have sensed how important it is for those of us in this position to model a gracious way to leave The Episcopal Church in a manner respectful of its laws,” he wrote.

Bishop Steenson was attending the House of Bishops’ meeting in New Orleans and plans to make an announcement concerning his decision on Monday.

In an interview with The Living Church to be published in a forthcoming issue, Bishop Steenson said the meeting of the House of Bishops at Camp Allen in the spring had a major effect on his decision.

“The spring meeting of the House of Bishops, when the majority said that The Episcopal Church was fundamentally autonomous and local,” he said. “This is not the Catholic doctrine of the Church, and it will lead to many unfortunate consequences.”

The bishop has been the diocesan in the Albuquerque-based diocese since 2005. He was canon to the ordinary under Bishop Terence Kelshaw for five years before being elected to the episcopate. Prior to that, he was rector of All Saints’ Church, Wynnewood, Pa., Good Shepherd, Rosemont, Pa., and St. Andrew’s, Fort Worth. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of Nashotah House and the Board of Directors of the Living Church Found

“My conscience is deeply troubled,” he said in a statement prepared for the House of Bishops, “because I sense that the obligations of my ministry in The Episcopal Church may lead me to a place apart from scripture and tradition. I am concerned that if I do not listen to and act in accordance with conscience now, it will become harder and harder to hear God’s voice.”

Bishop Steenson said he had spoken with the Presiding Bishop “for her counsel and prayers,” and said he would ask the House of Bishops for permission to resign as the ordinary of his diocese. He said he would do this by the end of the year, and added that he hoped then to be released from his ordination vows in The Episcopal Church.

He called the bishops’ meeting last March “a profoundly disturbing experience for me. I was more than a little surprised when such a substantial majority declared the polity of the Episcopal Church to be primarily that of an autonomous and independent local church relating to the wider Anglican Communion by voluntary association. This is not the Anglicanism in which I was formed, inspired by the Oxford Movement and the Catholic Revival in the Church of England … honestly, I did not recognize the church that this House described on that occasion.”

Regarding his move to the Roman Catholic Church, Bishop Steenson said, “I believe that the Lord now calls me in this direction. It amazes me, after all of these years, what a radical journey of faith this must necessarily be. To some it seems foolish; to others disloyal; to others an abandonment.”

Bishop Steenson will be the third bishop of The Episcopal Church to become a Roman Catholic this year. Bishop Dan Herzog of Albany moved shortly after his retirement in January. Bishop Clarence C. Pope, retired Bishop of Fort Worth, returned to Roman Catholicism in August.

Homily for September 23, 2007: 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time

At Carnegie Mellon University, near Pittsburgh, they have a tradition of inviting professors to give what’s sometimes called “The Last Lecture.” Teachers are asked to think about what matters to them, and sum up their philosophy, as if it’s the last lecture they will ever give. It’s a very popular series and usually attracts hundreds of students and faculty.

Last Tuesday, the professor invited to speak was a computer science teacher, Dr. Randy Pausch.

Randy is 46-years-old, married, with three small children, ages 5, 3 and 1.

And as everyone in that lecture hall knew: he is also dying. Randy Pausch has pancreatic cancer.

Chances are, by Christmas, he will not be alive.

Which made what he had to say this week all the more remarkable and important.

I ended up reading about his lecture in the Wall Street Journal. It was also covered on Good Morning America. The full video is getting thousands of hits on YouTube, and it’s also available at the Carnegie Mellon website, where I watched it the other day.

Watching this man’s lecture, I realized: Randy Pausch is the best homily I could give this weekend.

Randy is a very charming, youthful, funny guy. He doesn’t look sick. In fact, at one point during the lecture, he dropped to the floor and did one-handed push-ups and almost got a standing ovation for it. You would never have imagined he was dying.

But for about an hour, in a hushed lecture hall, he looked back on a life that is about to end, and talked about what he wanted others to know.

First of all, he wanted people to know about joy. At the beginning, he said that if anyone was expecting the talk to be depressing, they’d be disappointed. He showed slides of himself as a little boy, and pointed out, proudly, that he couldn’t find any pictures where he wasn’t smiling.

Watching this remarkable lecture, it was hard not to smile with him. And it was even harder, at times, not to cry.

Because Randy’s joy came from being forever young. His theme was about how to achieve your childhood dreams. Growing up, Randy had three big dreams: he wanted to design rides for Disneyland, write for the World Book Encyclopedia, and fly in zero gravity. He was a very imaginative little boy -- a mathematical whiz kid who used to scrawl formulas on the walls of his room. His parents never painted over them, even though it hurt the resale value of their house home. And he told his listeners: “If your kids want to paint on the walls, do me a favor. Let them.”

He talked about other kinds of walls, too. After he graduated from college, he sent his resume to the Walt Disney Company, and got back a rejection letter. He was crushed. But he learned something: the barriers of life aren’t there to stop us, but to challenge us. “Brick walls,” he said, “are there for a reason. They let us prove how badly we want something.” He eventually did get to work for Disney – and achieved all his other childhood dreams, too.

But Randy said that in many ways helping his students fulfill THEIR dreams was more satisfying than achieving his own. And he offered this bit of wisdom – something so important, he repeated it to Diane Sawyer the other morning. Be patient, he said. Even with people who annoy you and make you angry.

“Wait long enough,” he said, “and people will surprise you and impress you.” Because everyone has good in them, he said. Just wait and you will find it. You may have to wait years. But it is there.

In Luke’s gospel today, Jesus tells us you can’t serve two masters, God and money. You have to choose what is important to you – the here and now, or what comes after.

Randy Pausch made his choice.

He chose to shake hands with death, instead of running from it. He chose to live his life, instead of waiting for it to end.

He chose to do something meaningful, designing software programs that would live on after he was gone – and giving this final talk that will be seen by people around the world.

Instead of grief, he chose grace.

The simple fact is: every moment, for each of us, is a moment of choosing.

The story of that last lecture has made me ask myself: if I were given the chance to do a “last lecture,” to sum up my life and what I’d learned, what would I say?

It’s worth asking ourselves that question.

What have we learned?

What are the walls that we’ve met in the course of our journey? And what did they teach us? What are the choices we’ve made? And why?

They are questions most of us don’t think about much. I suspect Randy Pausch didn’t think about them much, either, until he realized he didn’t have much time left.

Another lesson from his talk, I think, is very simple: don’t wait that long. Don’t wait until the end of your life to think about how you spent it. It’s been said the unexamined life is not worth living. Part of Randy’s message is: examine your life. Hold it up to the light. See the colors it reflects.

Randy didn’t speak explicitly about religion or God in his lecture. But I think God was IN that lecture. The God who takes joy in His creation. The God who marvels at what His creation is able to do.

Near the end, Randy said that there were things that were actually misleading about his talk. He used a sports term and called them “head fakes.” The first, he said, was that the lecture wasn’t really about how to achieve your dreams…but how to live your life. He said if you live your life the right way, the dreams will follow.

And the second “head fake,” he said, was that the lecture wasn’t really for all the students and academics sitting in that lecture hall. It was really, he said, for his three kids. It was his gift to them.

And what a beautiful gift it was.

What Dr. Randy Pausch offered in his talk was an enduring memory – a way for others to recall who he was and what he stood for.

But so is what we are about to do here, and now.

“Do this in remembrance of me,” Christ said. The Eucharist is His legacy to all those who came after him. It is the greatest of gifts, because it is Himself. It says: I am still with you. Remember that. Remember who I was, and what I stood for. And do this in remembrance of me.

And the scripture today asks us to do something else, too: to remember others. St. Paul, in his letter to Timothy, asks that we offer “supplications, prayers, petitions and thanksgiving for everyone.”

That includes Randy Pausch.

My friends, this weekend, I ask that you remember him in a special way. Pray for him and his family. And pray in thanksgiving for what he has given not only his children, but the rest of us.

He saw a blank wall and wrote on it. And he saw a brick wall and climbed over it.

What a beautiful way to live.

Because, when you think about it: it is also how Jesus lived.

I said earlier that I considered Randy Pausch’s life a homily. Maybe that, too, is another lesson from his lecture. Each of our lives can be a homily – preached with our actions and choices.

Think of that. And pray about that. Maybe the ultimate question isn’t “What would I say in my last lecture?”

But: “What am I saying...every day?”

When in Rome...

The Blogging Eminence, Boston's Cardinal Sean O'Malley, is on the road again, with Catholic and Orthodox pilgrims, visiting Rome and Constantinople.

His lovely little blog has the first installment of the trip, and it's something to see. Week after week, the good Cardinal posts some of the most evocative and memorable pictures -- which, as the axiom goes, really are worth a thousand words. At least. Pay a visit and see what the pilgrims have been up to. You'll feel like you're in Rome. Or you might wish that you were.

Meantime, the picture on the left shows the Cardinal with a local priest he seems to know ...

Will God have to swear on a Bible?

Now this case is getting interesting.

Earlier in the week, a man filed a suit against God.

Now God has lawyered up:

Eric Perkins, an attorney in Corpus Christi, Texas, said Friday he filed a response to the lawsuit from Nebraska State Sen. Ernie Chambers. "It's kind of a turn on 'What would Jesus do?'" Perkins said. "I thought to myself, "what would God say?"

"Defendant denies that this or any court has jurisdiction ... over Him any more than the court has jurisdiction over the wind or rain, sunlight or darkness," according to Perkins' response.

As for Chambers' contention that God made terroristic threats, inspired fear and caused "widespread death, destruction and terrorization," Perkins wrote that God "contends that any harm or injury suffered is a direct and proximate result of mankind ignoring obvious warnings."

Perkins, who said he is a Christian, faxed one of at least two responses to Chambers' lawsuit. He said while he hopes the lawsuit was just a stunt by Chambers, "maybe his timing has something to do with world affairs. I'd hate to be that person who sat back and did nothing."

The problem of serving God a summons could land the lawsuit in the earthly scrap heap of failed legal actions.

But whether the issue goes before a judge may largely depend on how hard Chambers pushes the issue. The senator isn't asking that notice be served to God, but says in his lawsuit that if he doesn't get a summary judgment in the case, he wants a hearing — "if the court deems such a hearing not to be a futile act."

Chambers, a self-proclaimed agnostic, said he's trying to makes the point that anybody can sue anybody. He said his filing was triggered by a federal lawsuit he considers frivolous.

It's still not clear where a second response from "God" came from. There was no contact information on the filing, which turned up on the counter at the Douglas County Court office, although St. Michael the Archangel is listed as a witness.

You can read more at Douglas County District Court.

"The American Church lost sight of its men"

Has the Catholic Church gone soft?

That seems to be the argument in this column from The Pilot, the Catholic paper for the Archdiocese of Boston. The piece was written by Kevin and Marilyn Ryan, editors of "Why I Am Still A Catholic."

They were dismayed at what they saw recently during vacation:

The church, one of the newer types, modeled on the theatre-in-the-round, was packed with families decked out in shorts and sandals. What was most striking about the liturgy, however, was that, with the exception of the celebrant, the event was dominated by women and girls. The reader was a young woman. There were two altar girls. All five eucharistic ministers were women. The happy-clappy, Barry Manilow music, played on one of those plinky-plink portable pianos, was led by a woman with back-up of five teen-age girls. Even that last bastion of non-clerical male prerogative, the corps assigned to pass the collection basket, was composed mainly of the fairer sex. If anyone needed an existence proof of the feminization of the Catholic Church, it was on display that Sunday.

In the years following WWII, Catholics were led by a legion of strong and often rigid priests. Authoritarian pastors ruled their parishes, throwing out a crumb of responsibility here to the parochial school’s nuns and a crumb there to the Ladies Altar and Rosary Society. At the same time, the Church loudly proclaimed the importance of the family and the centrality of the man as the head of the family. Words were backed up by real outreach to men, an outreach not lost on their sons. Strong men served proudly in the Knights of Columbus, and promised themselves to serve and support any widows of Knights who had died. Then there were monthly men’s club meetings, a staple of parish life. So, too, was the Communion Breakfast where after Sunday Mass, fathers and their sons feasted on pancakes and sausages and were enthralled by talks from the winning coach of the area’s winning football team or an inspiring address by a former Navy chaplain who in WWII had won the Silver Star.

Two events during the 1960s diminished both the role of men in our Church and the Church’s impact on them. First, Vatican II seemed to soften the Church’s clear position on many things and to focus more on process and issues such as liturgy and women in the Church. While these issues are important, they don’t have the capacity to hold the male attention like a tight, fourth-quarter, game-winning spiral pass in the end zone, or a moving tale of battle, sacrifice and saving souls on a sinking air craft carrier.

The other event was the sexual revolution. In a brief few years, the young Catholic male’s primary question, “Actually, how far can you go?” was replaced by “Be real with me Tiffany. Are you, like, ya know, protected?” Catholic fathers, too, were swept up in the new erotica. Defying Woody Allen’s recommendations that people should marry for life--like pigeons and Catholics, we began divorcing and leaving our children to the care of their mothers in the same high numbers as the rest of our countrymen.

The American Church lost sight of its men, leaving Catholic young men with one of two options: 1) to take seriously their increasingly feminized Church with its “gender sensitive language” and vague, smarmy ecumenicalism or 2) kick back, join the guys, chug a few brews and spend their weekends channel surfing for sports and hunting for compliant Tiffanies and Jasmines.

Historically, the Church’s major investment in education was built to form Catholic gentlemen who would be soldiers for Christ. Sadly, though, our Catholic schools and particularly our colleges became [and regrettably most still are] breeding grounds for “liberated men,” undisciplined over-age adolescents, respected for the number and grandeur of their sexual conquests and their ability to tap a keg.

The column goes on to note that "change is again blowin' in the wind." The Ryans see a silver lining in the new breed of priests pouring through the doors of the seminaries, many evidently inspired by the more manly model of John Paul II. Read on and see what you think.

I suspect that what the Ryans dislike isn't so much the "feminization" of the Church, but the modernization that followed Vatican II. And they have a lot of nostalgia for a bygone era when men were men and women were women.

I'm not sure life was necessarily better back then. But they make an interesting case that it was.

Photo: Lucian Perkins, Washington Post

In the fields of the Lord

It's getting to be harvest time, and some priests and deacons are rolling up their sleeves and bestowing a blessing or two on God's land:

The arches above the altar were not marble or painted wood, but rather the branches of towering burr oak and hickory trees. The backdrop was not a mural or stained glass, but an expansive bean field ready for harvest and the blue skies of a picture-perfect September morning.

"Welcome to the greatest cathedral in the world," said Father Jim Henning, OFM Conv., in greeting about 50 farmers and their families from throughout DeWitt County at an outdoor Harvest Mass on Sunday, Sept. 9.

During the Mass and a blessing of the fields that followed, prayers were offered in thanksgiving for the bounty of the approaching harvest season as well as the safety of those working the land.

The Mass setting was the front lawn of the rural residence of John and Cindy Houser, members of Sacred Heart Parish in Farmer City whose 400 acres of beans and corn are located just north of town.

A wooden altar, built by former Sacred Heart parishioner Leo Bray more than 40 years ago, was transported to the farm lawn by flatbed trailer. A butterfly settled upon the altar in the moments prior to the 9 a.m. liturgy. In front of the altar rested an antique wheelbarrow filled with ears of corn.

The assembly sat on metal folding chairs, and were greeted by the Housers’ dog, Patch, who was retired to the house as Mass began.

Father Jim - who is also pastor of St. John’s Mission in Bellflower and St. John’s Parish in Clinton - said the outdoor Mass "takes us back to the roots of this area," when priests first came by railroad to offer Mass at the homes of the area’s pioneer Catholics.

He said the pre-harvest, regional celebration is a natural companion to the annual Diocesan Harvest Mass to be offered by Bishop Daniel R. Jenky, C.S.C., at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Peoria on Saturday, Nov. 17.

"Praying for safety is important," said Father Jim.

That thought was echoed and illustrated by Deacon John Leonard in his homily. Offering a grim reminder of the risks of farm work, Deacon Leonard recalled that just four days before the Mass a 60-year-old farmer in nearby Gibson City was killed when his mowing tractor overturned as he worked near the edge of a creek.

Deacon Leonard, who lives in rural Gibson City, said that community has united in support of the family and "plans are being made to harvest our friend’s crops."

He began his homily by holding up a framed painting of a farm couple with their heads bowed in prayer in a field. That painting - "The Angelus," by Jean-Francois Millet - is "worth a million words" because it shows proper priorities for a balanced life.

"We must take time to pray and worship," said Deacon Leonard, who placed the painting in front of the altar for the remainder of the Mass.

"We are so blessed to have rich soil in our area," he added. Because "all we have in life is a gift from God," he challenged those present to "keep the Lord at the top of your priority list" and not earthly possessions and concerns.

"What would a painting of your priorities look like?" he asked.

The following is the Blessing on the Occasion of Thanksgiving for the Harvest, from the Book of Blessings:

God our Creator,
who never cease to bestow your bounteous fruits from the rains of the heavens and the riches of the soil,
we thank your loving majesty for this year's harvest.
Through these blessings of your generosity
You have fulfilled the hopes of your children.
Grand that together they may praise your mercy without end
And in their life amid the good things of this world
Strive also after the blessings of the world to come.
We ask this through Christ our Lord.
Amen.

Photo: by Tom Demody/The Catholic Post

What happens in Vegas...

A bizarre story of priestly criminality crossed the wires this afternoon from, of all places, Las Vegas:

A Roman Catholic priest who smashed a wine bottle over the head of a woman in church pleaded guilty to felony battery with a deadly weapon.

The Rev. George Chaanine admitted Thursday in Clark County District Court that he smashed the bottle over the 54-year-old woman's head at Our Lady of Las Vegas Catholic Church in January.

Prosecutors dropped other charges, including attempted murder and sexual assault.

"Our prosecutors analyzed the case, they spoke with the victim, and she thought it was best to resolve this case short of trial," District Attorney David Roger said.

Neither the woman nor her lawyer could be reached for comment.

Chaanine, 53, remained in jail on $1 million bail pending sentencing Nov. 1. The battery charge carries a maximum prison term of six to 15 years, but Chaanine could be eligible for probation, officials said.

He remains suspended by the Diocese of Las Vegas. The district attorney said that as a convicted felon, Chaanine would "probably never be a priest again."

Deputy Public Defender Scott Coffee said Chaanine took responsibility for the attack, but "vehemently denies there was any sexual assault."

The woman sang at the church and was hired by Chaanine in October as the parish events coordinator. She accused Chaanine of hitting her in the head with a wine bottle on Jan. 26, stomping on her hand, groping her and choking her until she began praying. She said he suddenly stopped and fled.

Chaanine was arrested almost a week later near Phoenix. The woman was treated for a broken hand and a gash on the head, authorities said.

Both sides characterized Chaanine's relationship with his accuser as more than priest and parishioner, but they did not say the two were romantically involved.

Bishop Joseph Pepe, the head of the Las Vegas Diocese, issued the a statement Thursday characterizing the church community as saddened and saying he prayed for "unity and strength" in the congregation.

Seminarians: "Just regular guys God called to serve"

Good news out of Nebraska: an especially big batch of seminarians is starting formation this fall -- one of the largest classes, in fact, in the United States:

The 23 newcomers attending St. Gregory the Great Seminary in Seward this fall are "full of questions, obviously prayerful and eager to learn," said Father John Folda, seminary rector.

"They're going to be a great group of seminarians, I have no doubt," he added.

Among them are 19 young men who are in priestly formation for the Diocese of Lincoln. The other four new men are studying for the priesthood for either the Diocese of Rockford, Ill., or the Diocese of Madison, Wis. One student studying for Lincoln is from the Canadian province of Manitoba.

Father Folda said it is the largest group to enter St. Gregory the Great all at once, but everything has gone smoothly in terms of course scheduling, housing, books and all the other particulars. The first-year class of seminarians is one of the largest in any diocese in the United States.

"God smiled upon us," he said with a laugh. "He knew he was going to give us a lot of men this year."

"We're very blessed by God," agreed Father Robert Matya, diocesan vocations director.

The first-year seminarians moved in Aug. 24, had a weekend of orientation and started classes Aug. 27. Since then, they have been getting to know each other and the seminary faculty, studying and learning to adapt to a schedule that can be quite a bit different from what they were used to as students or workers.

"It's very routine, very organized," said Benjamin Tuma of North American Martyrs Parish in Lincoln. "The days are long, and we wake up early for morning prayer."

Corey Harrison of St. Leo Parish in Palmyra agreed that the biggest challenge to the seminary lifestyle is "adjusting to wake up at 5:30 a.m. instead of sleeping until 8," but he said it's worth the trade-off.

"Spending time with a lot of guys who are just as excited about my faith as I am ... I wouldn't take it back for anything," he stated.

Father Folda said that the seminarians "really do grow into a brotherly relationship." The smaller size of the seminary makes that easier than in a situation where there are hundreds of men, he said.

Father Matya noted that each man was called to discern a vocation to the priesthood in a different way.

"Their stories are all different," he told the Southern Nebraska Register, Lincoln's diocesan newspaper. He said they come from "praying families first and foremost" and many have been involved in organizations such as the Fellowship of Catholic University Students, or FOCUS.

Hastings native Alex Driscoll cited his nine years as a counselor at a Catholic camp as the experience that helped him discern his calling.

"It was time out of my schedule, becoming closer to God than I had ever felt, being surrounded by priests and sisters and kids all there for the same reason -- to get closer to God," he recalled. "Every year, I got a feeling that this is what I should do."

Caleb LaRue, a graduate of Millard West High School in Omaha, said he began thinking about the priesthood as early as eighth grade, but "I always envisioned seminarians and priests as guys who spend 19 hours a day in prayer and I didn't think I was holy enough to consider it."

While working at the Newman Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, however, he discovered that priests were "just regular guys God called to serve."

Let's keep them all in our prayers. The road is long. Every prayer will help.

Photo: St. Gregory the Great Seminary, Seward, Nebraska

"Bless me, Father, for I have sinned..."

Been to confession lately?

Seems more and more people can answer "Yes" to that question.

And the sacrament of reconciliation is enjoying so much of a resurgence, even the Wall Street Journal is taking note:

Sin never goes out of style, but confession is undergoing a revival.

This February at the Vatican, Pope Benedict XVI instructed priests to make confession a top priority. U.S. bishops have begun promoting it in diocesan newspapers, mass mailings and even billboard ads. And in a dramatic turnaround, some Protestant churches are following suit. This summer, the second-largest North American branch of the Lutheran Church passed a resolution supporting the rite, which it had all but ignored for more than 100 years.

To make confession less intimidating, Protestant churches have urged believers to shred their sins in paper shredders or write them on rocks and cast them into a "desert" symbolized by a giant sand pile in the sanctuary. Three Catholic priests from the Capuchin order now hear confessions at a mall in Colorado Springs., Colo.

Worshippers are answering the call. During a "Reconciliation Weekend" at churches in the diocese of Orlando, Fla., this March, more than 5,000 people turned out to confess. When five parishes in Chicago joined forces last year for "24 Hours of Grace," where priests welcomed penitents from 9 a.m. on a Friday to 9 a.m. the next morning, about 2,500 people showed up.

Several factors are feeding the resurgence. Aggressive marketing by churches has helped reinvent confession as a form of self-improvement rather than a punitive rite. Technology is also creating new avenues for redemption. Some Protestants now air their sins on videos that are shared on YouTube and iTunes or are played to entire congregations. And the appetite for introspection has been buoyed by the broad acceptance of psychotherapy and the emphasis on self-analysis typified by daytime talk television.

"Every day on Jerry Springer we see people confessing their sins in public, and certainly the confessional is a lot healthier than Jerry Springer," says Orlando Bishop Thomas Wenski, who last March sent out 190,000 pamphlets calling on Catholics to confess.

Scholars also say the return to confession is part of a larger theological shift in which some Catholics, mainline Protestants and evangelicals are returning to a traditional view of churches as moral enforcers. Catholic leaders have sought to make the tradition less onerous to keep it from dying, while Protestants are embracing it as a way to offer discipline to their flocks. Several Protestant pastors said they felt their churches had become too soft on sinners, citing the rise of suburban megachurches that seek converts with feel-good sermons, Starbucks coffee and rock-concert-like services, but rarely issue calls to repent.

"I never want to be accused of the namby-pamby, milquetoast, 'Jesus is my boyfriend' kind of worship," says John Voelz, a pastor at Westwinds Community Church in Jackson, Mich. "People want to come face to face with what's going on inside them."

Check out the WSJ link for more. This could be the start of something good. Truly.

Photo: Fr. Matthew Gross hears confession at a shopping mall. Photo by Matthew Staver, the Wall Street Journal

Wanna be a deacon? Pull up a chair.

More dioceses are helping men to discern a vocation to the diaconate, often with "nights of information" or Q&A sessions where those who feel called can hear speakers, listen and learn. It's also a great opportunity for wives and families to hear, first-hand, what this ministry involves; my wife and I have attended a couple sessions over the years, answering questions and sharing our own experiences with inquirers, and it's always fulfilling for all concerned.

So I was pleased to see a Texas newspaper writing about this part of the discernment process:

Representing 30 parishes from throughout the Diocese of Corpus Christi, with some traveling from as far away as Three Rivers and Falfurrias, 63 men gathered at the Kolbe Center on the campus of Our Lady of Corpus Christi on Sunday, Aug. 19 to learn more about the Permanent Diaconate program and begin the discernment process to discover if they have a calling to such a vocation.

During this time -- the first year in a five-year program -- these men, their wives or fiancees will have the opportunity to share their feelings about how they might be called to this ministry, learn more about the role of a deacon and what they do, and discern if this is right for them.

Getting closer to the Lord Jesus is essential, said Bishop Edmond Carmody when asked about his hopes for this new group of men. "They must have a deep prayer life, listen to the Lord, get to know and follow Him more."

The role of the deacon is to be a servant and as a true servant they are called to wait on others. It comes from the Greek word diakonia, meaning service. Its beginning can be found in Acts 6:1-4 when the disciples commissioned seven men, among which was St. Stephen, the first Deacon, whose sole task it was to help minister to widows who were being overlooked and to help spread the Good News.

At this point in the process, in the inquiry phase, there is no official commitment, and no one is considered officially in formation.

That will come next year during the Aspirant phase, which begins in August 2008 once the bishop grants ones acceptance in the program. This is when the theological coursework begins. As the third year begins, the men become candidates, once again approved by the bishop to continue on in the program. Their studies are enhanced with practicums, they work with mentors and begin an internship.

Academics for the program are rigorous and include taking master's degree level courses. The classes are taught "virtually," via long-distance learning and offered through St. Thomas University's School of Theology at St. Mary Seminary in Houston.

The first class of men to enter this five-year process began in 2003 and are scheduled to be ordained in the fall of 2008. Men entering the program now and following through to completion, will be ordained in 2012.

A deacon is considered to be a member of the clergy and receives the sacrament of Holy Orders, a gift of the Holy Spirit that is administered by the laying on of hands by the bishop. This empowers the deacon with faculties to be a productive member of the clergy who can make a difference in the lives of those he touches.

"The formation process does not happen overnight," said Deacon Michael Mantz, director for Permanent Deacons. "It is something that takes a long time. It's an icon of the servanthood of Jesus Christ, and includes all aspects of the whole individual including heart, mind and body."

Photo: from South Texas Catholic

Welcome to a bouncing new blog by a deacon

I received an e-mail earlier today from my brother deacon Eric Stoltz, in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, alerting me to a new project he's launched, with photographer Francesco Cura, called "Cathedrals of California."

As he described it:

We're setting out to document all the cathedrals of California (Catholic, Orthodox and Anglican) with text narrative and gorgeous photography, first in a blog and ultimately in a book. California has more cathedrals than any other state -- so far as we can tell, a total of 34, not counting proto-cathedrals, pro-cathedrals and former cathedrals.

We've only just begun, but already there are some great photos on the site.

As the photograph to the left indicates: he's not exaggerating. The photographs are great. Stop by the Cathedrals of California link for more, and discover some truly magnificent places of faith. More than just pretty pictures, the blog includes some beautiful reflections on faith, the sacraments, and the powerful places of worship being photographed.

Eric's own self-named website, by the way, offers some examples of his web designs, for those who are interested. His parish website in LA, meantime, offers some of his terrific homilies.

Photo: Baptism at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angeles, Los Angeles, by Francesco Cura

Taking it to the streets

There's an old Shakespearean axiom that revenge begets revenge. That's as true today as it was 500 years ago. And the parishioners at one Chicago parish have decided to do something about it:

Violence can happen anywhere. But when Israel Morales, a neighborhood organizer and parishioner at St. Nicholas of Tolentine Parish on Chicago's Southwest Side, was gunned down this summer near the church, community members decided they had to do something.

The first thing they did was have a Mass outside, near where Morales was killed. Since then, the parish has had three more street Masses, with another set for Sept. 27, all on blocks where violence has occurred.

The first Masses drew 120 to 150 people; one in late August had more than 200 in the congregation.

"There's something in the ancient ritual of reconsecrating ground that has been violated in some way," Father Stan Rataj, the pastor, told The Catholic New World, Chicago's archdiocesan newspaper. "I think it makes a statement to the people."

Father Rataj and the associate pastor, Father Roger Diaz, take turns as the main celebrant of the bilingual Masses, although both are at all of them.

"We saw how the people came out and participated," said Maggie Perales, a parishioner and organizer with the Southwest Organizing Project. "Because of the work that I do, I talk to a lot of people. It's hard to get people to surface. They live in fear. I feel like families are isolated and don't know where to go."

They might not want to speak out because the ones causing trouble are their neighbors' children, or because they don't want troublemakers to take revenge, she said. But they will come to Mass.

"The Mass itself is sacred," she said. "They feel comfortable coming out for that."

The link has more on this remarkable effort to bring Christ, literally, to the streets.

Photo: by Karen Callaway, Catholic New World

The lecture of a lifetime

An e-mailer passed along this beautiful and inspiring story with just one word: Wow.

I can't put it any better than that. Read on:

Randy Pausch, a Carnegie Mellon University computer-science professor, was about to give a lecture Tuesday afternoon, but before he said a word, he received a standing ovation from 400 students and colleagues.

He motioned to them to sit down. "Make me earn it," he said.

What wisdom would we impart to the world if we knew it was our last chance? For Carnegie Mellon professor Randy Pausch, the question isn't rhetorical -- he's dying of cancer.

They had come to see him give what was billed as his "last lecture." This is a common title for talks on college campuses today. Schools such as Stanford and the University of Alabama have mounted "Last Lecture Series," in which top professors are asked to think deeply about what matters to them and to give hypothetical final talks. For the audience, the question to be mulled is this: What wisdom would we impart to the world if we knew it was our last chance?

It can be an intriguing hour, watching healthy professors consider their demise and ruminate over subjects dear to them. At the University of Northern Iowa, instructor Penny O'Connor recently titled her lecture "Get Over Yourself." At Cornell, Ellis Hanson, who teaches a course titled "Desire," spoke about sex and technology.

At Carnegie Mellon, however, Dr. Pausch's speech was more than just an academic exercise. The 46-year-old father of three has pancreatic cancer and expects to live for just a few months. His lecture, using images on a giant screen, turned out to be a rollicking and riveting journey through the lessons of his life.

He began by showing his CT scans, revealing 10 tumors on his liver. But after that, he talked about living. If anyone expected him to be morose, he said, "I'm sorry to disappoint you." He then dropped to the floor and did one-handed pushups.

Clicking through photos of himself as a boy, he talked about his childhood dreams: to win giant stuffed animals at carnivals, to walk in zero gravity, to design Disney rides, to write a World Book entry. By adulthood, he had achieved each goal. As proof, he had students carry out all the huge stuffed animals he'd won in his life, which he gave to audience members. After all, he doesn't need them anymore.

He paid tribute to his techie background. "I've experienced a deathbed conversion," he said, smiling. "I just bought a Macintosh." Flashing his rejection letters on the screen, he talked about setbacks in his career, repeating: "Brick walls are there for a reason. They let us prove how badly we want things." He encouraged us to be patient with others. "Wait long enough, and people will surprise and impress you." After showing photos of his childhood bedroom, decorated with mathematical notations he'd drawn on the walls, he said: "If your kids want to paint their bedrooms, as a favor to me, let 'em do it."

While displaying photos of his bosses and students over the years, he said that helping others fulfill their dreams is even more fun than achieving your own. He talked of requiring his students to create videogames without sex and violence. "You'd be surprised how many 19-year-old boys run out of ideas when you take those possibilities away," he said, but they all rose to the challenge.

He also saluted his parents, who let him make his childhood bedroom his domain, even if his wall etchings hurt the home's resale value. He knew his mom was proud of him when he got his Ph.D, he said, despite how she'd introduce him: "This is my son. He's a doctor, but not the kind who helps people."

He then spoke about his legacy. Considered one of the nation's foremost teachers of videogame and virtual-reality technology, he helped develop "Alice," a Carnegie Mellon software project that allows people to easily create 3-D animations. It had one million downloads in the past year, and usage is expected to soar.

"Like Moses, I get to see the Promised Land, but I don't get to step foot in it," Dr. Pausch said. "That's OK. I will live on in Alice."

There's much more, plus video, at the link, so please visit and read it all. It's truly something.

For further evidence, visit this link to view his entire lecture. Be sure and have Kleenex handy.

UPDATE: ABC's Good Morning America interviewed the good professor this morning. You can watch the report, and some of his lecture right here.

Making a joyful noise? Or something else?

For as long as I can remember, the Church has told us that the one who sings "prays twice." But is it any good?

That's what the National Association of Pastoral Musicians would like to know:

The National Association of Pastoral Musicians is polling Catholics online, asking them to rate the quality of singing of their fellow Catholics in the pews.

The two big questions in the survey are "How would you rate the congregational singing in your own parish or worshipping community?" and "Based on your own experience of participating in the liturgy of other parishes and communities, how would you rate congregational singing generally in the United States?"

Survey participants are also asked to describe the setting of their parish, what kinds of music books are available for use in their parish, and whether they participate in their parish's music ministry.

The survey is available at www.npm.org, the Web site of the pastoral musicians' group, based in the Washington suburb of Silver Spring. The survey also was published in the association's membership magazine, Pastoral Music. Voting continues through Nov. 30. The results will be published in early 2008.

The association has conducted similar surveys in each of the past two years. In 2005, it asked what song most affected the faith life of the respondent. Last year, the association surveyed Catholics on what factors encourage – and discourage – singing in church.

You can raise your voice, and vote, at this link.

Tarnished silver

I can remember when my parents celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary -- I was a pimply and obnoxious 15-year-old at the time -- and I'm a little awed to realize I'll be celebrating my own silver anniversary in just another four years.

But the census is telling us such events are increasingly rare:

More than half the Americans who might have celebrated their 25th wedding anniversaries since 2000 were either divorced, separated or widowed, according to a census survey released today.

For the first time at least since World War II, married people had a less than even chance of still being married 25 years later.

The latest survey by the Census Bureau confirmed that most Americans eventually marry, but they are marrying later and are less likely to be wed only once. Those trends continued, although the proportion who have ever been divorced, about one in five, remained constant.

“Basically, it looks like we’re pretty much holding steady,” said Rose Kreieder, a Census Bureau demographer. “There are not radical differences.”

Among people in their late 20s, a majority of men — 54 percent — had never married, as had 41 percent of women. In 1996, the comparable proportions were 49 percent among men and 35 percent among women.

At that time, about 69 percent of men and 76 percent of women age 15 and older had married only once. In the latest analysis, 54 percent of men and 58 percent of women had married only once.

The oldest baby boomers recorded the highest divorce rates. Among people in their fifties, 38 percent of men and 41 percent of women had been divorced. In 1996, the comparable figures were 36 percent and 35 percent.

One statistical constant has been the so-called seven-year itch, as popularized in the play and film about errant husbands. Couples who separate do so, on average, after seven years and divorce after eight. The duration of first marriages that end in divorce appears to have increased slightly among men.

Stephen Colbert: "If you're laughing, I defy you to be afraid"

The hard-working team of blogging professionals over at The Word, Catholic Colbert, have directed my attention to this terrific piece on My Close Personal Friend Stephen Colbert, from Parade.

Among the highlights:

Colbert was the youngest of 11 children growing up in Charleston, S.C. It was a big, bustling, Irish-Catholic family—”a humorocracy,” Colbert recalls. “Singing around the house highly encouraged.” On Sept. 11, 1974 everything changed. His father and two brothers were killed in a plane crash. With his other brothers and sisters either working or heading back to college that fall, the household was suddenly diminished to just two: 10-year-old Stephen and his mom. “The shades were down, and she wore a lot of black, and it was very quiet,” he remembers.

In sixth grade, Stephen switched to a new school. The nerdy newcomer who had just lost his father and two brothers had a rough time. “I was beaten up on a regular basis,” he recalls. Eventually, he started making jokes. “The beginning of my junior year, nobody knew me at school. A year later, I was voted Wittiest, and people were happy when I showed up at parties.”

Always a devout Catholic, Colbert lost his faith after graduating from college. “I was very depressed about it,” he says. “I wanted the idea that I would see my father and brothers again, and it was heartbreaking to think that that wouldn’t happen.” Then, one winter day, as Colbert walked down a street in Chicago, a Gideon handed him a Bible. “It was so cold I had to crack the pages,” he recalls. “I flipped it open, and it had a list of things to read about if you were feeling different ways. Under ‘Anxiety,’ it said ‘Matthew V,’ the Sermon on the Mount.” He paraphrases: “‘Who among you by worrying can change a hair on his head?’ It spoke to me.”

[snip]

Now living in New Jersey with his wife and three kids, Colbert says he just wants to be normal. “To have a wife and kids, and live in a suburban house, and wear khaki pants, and pick them up from the dry cleaner—I don’t see anything wrong with that. I think a lot of people who perform have a fear of being ordinary. They confuse ordinary with common.”

This uncommon man even manages, when he can find the time, to teach Sunday school. Colbert remembers the lesson of the Sermon on the Mount: “That’s being fearless,” he says. “Not living in fear is a great gift, because certainly these days we do it so much. And do you know what I like about comedy? You can’t laugh and be afraid at the same time. If you’re laughing, I defy you to be afraid.”

Perhaps that's why Pope John Paul was pictured so often smiling.

The rest of the story can be read when Parade arrives in your Sunday paper this weekend.

UPDATE: Parade's website has some out-takes from the interview that are both revealing and moving:

ON THE STRANGE CONNECTION BETWEEN IMPROVISATIONAL COMEDY AND RELIGIOUS HUMILITY:
Stephen Colbert: One of the things that I like about improvisation is that, literally, there are no mistakes. There are only opportunities.

James Kaplan: You embrace the bomb.

SC: You embrace the bomb. And that idea is so appealing to me, because it's also about valuing suffering, and gratitude for bad things — because really, what's the option? Mother Theresa said, “Smile and accept.” I love that.

IN THE TRAGEDY OF HIS FATHER AND BROTHERS' DEATH:
In a way that's not easy to explain, I am grateful. I am grateful to be given the gift to have seen [my mother] survive it and to have had the suffering myself, because there is no escaping suffering. So you have to be grateful for it.

ON HIS YOUTHFUL LOSS OF FAITH:
The minute I went to college, I didn't believe in God. The minute I had an opportunity to sort of be out from under the constant exposure to my faith, I accepted the opportunity to not believe. And I was very convinced of my atheism for a long time, and I was very depressed about it. I wanted very much to believe... I wanted the idea that I would see my father and my brothers again, and it was heartbreaking to think that that wouldn't happen. The fool says in his heart that there is no God, and I was sad to be that fool. I would rather have been a fool for God, but I was so convinced that believing in God was foolish. There were five years maybe when I couldn't think of why to get up. That wasn't good. But the desire to believe always was there. The fact that thread was never cut was helpful. Then one day, a Gideon gave me a Bible walking down a street in Chicago....

Photo: by Andrew Eccles for Parade

Can a pro-choice president end abortion?

The provocative answer to that question, from Elizabeth Scalia at InsideCatholic (the online offshoot of Crisis) is: yes.

Her take:

President George W. Bush is perhaps the most pro-life president we have ever seen, and even when his party held both houses of Congress, his pro-life sensibilities did not translate into an abortion-ending legacy. Still, there is this persistent chugging-along by passionate pro-lifers who earnestly believe that only a pro-life president can meet the case, and they will not vote for a candidate without well-established pro-life bona fides.

As a pro-life Catholic, I am in sympathy with those voters, but only to a point. I'm always grateful to learn that a candidate I like (there have been so few!) is pro-life, but that gratitude has never defined my vote, because I believe -- and recent history bears it out -- that a president's sentiments can only take an action so far.

If a pro-life president cannot successfully overturn Roe v. Wade, can a "pro-choice" president ever manage it? Yes, possibly. It depends on what motivates the "choice" part of a candidate's position.

We're accustomed to Catholic politicians standing before us -- in varying states of grace, of which we can never truly judge -- and droning a standard equivocation: "I am personally opposed to abortion but . . . rights of others . . . the law . . . blah blah mush mush, next subject, please." But which one of them really means what he is saying about the law, and which is simply going through the motions? The one who means it may be the one to reverse Roe, and looking at voting records and public histories can help us identify that candidate.

Does his voting record read like the Christmas wish list of a Woodstock refugee, all deconstruction? Does hers reveal an inveterate flip-flopper who prefers the political expediency of voting with the rest of her party, however the vote may shift? Or does his history show a willingness to sometimes take stands that make the rest of the party cringe as often as it cheers, simply because his commitment to established law and the Constitution is so strong that it trumps the party line?

That is an important question, and a fair one, because a pro-choice candidate who is enthralled with upholding the Constitution, and interpreting it with due deference to the intentions of its authors, is the candidate who will appoint Supreme Court justices with a similar passion.

Roe v. Wade is a law that never passed in a legislative body. You might call it a breech delivery in that it came about backwards, delivered by seven jurist midwives, not Congress. It will take another five passionate constitutionalists to turn it right. The 2008 elections will give the new president the chance to name several new justices, and it is vital that pro-lifers look for a candidate who is both electable (truly electable, and not a favored pipe dream) and devoted to rigorously defending the Constitution. Identify that candidate, and -- whether he or she is pro-life or pro-choice -- you will get your best chance to reverse Roe v. Wade. And the pro-abortion side knows it.

She makes a compelling and challenging case. The website also offers this persuasive counterpoint, from Mark Stricherz. Check them out, both of 'em.

To paraphrase another media outlet: we blog, you decide...

"When the moon hits your eye..."

Like a big pizza pie, that's amore...

And if Dean Martin singing, while you munch a cannoli on the streets of Little Italy, is your idea of the San Gennaro Festival, Deacon Tony is setting the record straight about where this festival originated:

Today we celebrate the feast of St. Januarius, more commonly known as St. Gennaro. His name is most associated with a traditional street feast held annually here in New York. Tourists as well as home town natives, especially Italians are quite fascinated with the 11 day festival that is held in "Little Italy"(Mulberry St.) near the church of the Most Precious Blood (aka Church of San Gennaro).

But there is more to San Gennaro than festivals, cannolis and zeppoles. When immigrant Italians (Neapolitans) settled there in the early part of the 20th century, their custom of honoring San Gennaro was quickly adapted in their new home land and has been celebrated continously for 80 years.

San Gennaro never made headlines during his lifetime. Very little is known about him except that he was bishop of Benevento, Italy, and died a martyr in 305 A.D., during the persecution spearheaded by Emperor Diocletian.

Actually, the zealous prelate seems to have signed his death warrant when he risked the wrath of local pagan officials by visiting the deacons Sosso and Proculo and the laymen Eutichete and Acuzio in jail. The warden observing this stranger trying to comfort the Christian prisoners naturally concluded that he must be a Christian. Therefore he too must be shut up behind bars.

Shortly afterwards, the proconsul Timothy had Gennaro arrested and clapped into jail. Subsequently he underwent various forms of torture, without wavering in resolution to remain loyal to Christ.

The proconsul's agents then had the generous confessor of the faith thrown headlong into a furnace, fully convinced that the flames would reduce him to ashes. By the grace of God he came through unscathed. Furious, the agents gave themselves no rest until their victim had been sentenced to be beheaded."

Twice a year in Naples (September and May), vials holding the solidified blood of the saint are publicly shown. As the faithful gather, process and pray, they eagerly wait for the liquefaction of the Saint's blood to occur. Tradition holds, If the blood does not liquefy, Naples will experience a catastrophic event in the coming months.

You can also find out more about the festival right here.

Let there be "Light"

How time flies.

It was five years ago next month that Pope John Paul added the Luminous Mysteries, or Mysteries of Light, to one of the Church's most enduring devotions, the rosary. And Our Sunday Visitor has taken note of this:

Baptism in the Jordan. Wedding at Cana. Proclamation of the kingdom. Transfiguration. Institution of the Eucharist. Pope John Paul II brought these major events in Jesus’ life to the beloved Rosary, and catechized millions of Catholics at the same time.

In October 2002 — five years ago — he published his apostolic letter “Rosarium Virginis Mariae” (“On the Most Holy Rosary”) and launched a Year of the Rosary for Catholics around the world to pay special notice to this important devotion.

With this document, Pope John Paul, like many popes before him, proposed the Rosary as a rich source of spiritual nourishment and prayer. “With the Rosary,” he wrote, “the Christian people sit at the school of Mary and are led to contemplate the beauty on the face of Christ and to experience the depths of his love.”

But he also added his own personal stamp on how the Rosary is prayed in a way his predecessors never did. Set in a pontificate loaded with important teaching documents, “Rosarium Virginis Mariae” remains among the most dramatic, most personal and most accessible of them all.

“This letter is one of the most accessible things that he wrote. It’s a wonderful introduction to the Rosary,” said Amy Welborn, co-author of Praying the Rosary (OSV, $6.95). “It situates the Rosary within the whole spiritual life in a very helpful way.”

To sense that this apostolic letter was a personal matter for the pope, one need look no further than its date of publication: Oct. 16, 2002, the 24th anniversary of his election to the papacy.

He chose to make the letter public on this day, despite that just a few days earlier, on Oct. 6, the church celebrated the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary — a seemingly perfect day for such an event.

“How many graces have I received in these years from the blessed virgin through the Rosary,” Pope John Paul wrote. Of course, his devotion to Mary was widely known and an intense personal matter. When ordained an auxiliary bishop of Krakow, Poland, in 1958, he took the motto “Totus Tuus” (“totally yours”) — words taken from a prayer to Mary penned by St. Louis de Montfort. He also strayed from episcopal tradition and included the letter M, for Mary, in his coat of arms.

In addition to writing about the rich meaning of this prayer, Pope John Paul proposed the addition of five new mysteries to the 15 that already had made up the traditional Rosary for many centuries.

For generations, Christians prayed the Joyful Mysteries, which highlight events from the early life of Christ; the Sorrowful Mysteries, which highlight the suffering he endured at the end of his life; and the Glorious Mysteries, which focus on the heavenly glory of the Lord and his mother.

To these, the pope added the Luminous Mysteries (sometimes called the Mysteries of Light), five significant events from the public ministry of Jesus as it is presented in the gospels.

In this way, Pope John Paul filled the significant and centuries-old “gap” in the Rosary between the beginning and the end of Jesus’ life on earth.

“The addition of these new mysteries,” he wrote, “is meant to give it fresh life and to enkindle renewed interest in the Rosary’s place within Christian spirituality as a true doorway to the depths of the heart of Christ, ocean of joy and light, of suffering and of glory.” He added that the new mysteries would help the Rosary “become more fully ‘a compendium of the gospel.’”

You can read more analysis at the OSV link above.

And you can read John Paul's beautiful letter on the rosary at the Vatican website, right here.

D'oh!

A few weeks ago, I got an e-mail from a deacon candidate, directing me to a website he's set up all about the diaconate.

I promised him that I'd post on it.

But then, life being what it is, I forgot all about it -- until this morning, when I started sifting through my mailbox.

D'oh!

So, with sincerest apologies to Tim Heller, the author of the site, here it is. And it's really very good.

Drop by his web site and browse around. You'll find articles on the diaconate, essays, reflections, superb quotes, and really lovely photographs (including some nice ones from a favorite place of mine, the Abbey of Gethsemani, where Thomas Merton lived.)

The site looks to be a great resource for deacons, aspirants, candidates and anyone looking for a little spiritual soul food. Visit, and spread the word!

Tony, Tony, look around...

Tony Blair continues to stand on the shore, gazing at the water and casually testing the water with his toe. But is he finally ready to dive in and swim the Tiber?

Rocco over at Whispers points us to this intriguing piece of news:

Tony Blair, the former prime minister of Great Britain who is now a special envoy to the Middle East, has accepted Cardinal Egan's invitation to be the guest speaker at the 62nd Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner.

The annual charity benefit, a major event on New York's social calendar, will be held on Thursday, Oct. 18, at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.

Blair, who joins a distinguished list of Smith Dinner speakers from the worlds of politics, the military, business and industry and entertainment, is the second British prime minister to speak. Winston Churchill was the first, addressing the dinner exactly 60 years ago in October 1947.

Past speakers include Presidents Ronald Reagan and John F. Kennedy, Sen. John McCain, former Secretary of State Gen. Colin Powell and comedian Bob Hope.

Blair, who became leader of Britain's Labour Party in 1994, was prime minister from May 1997 until stepping down on June 27 of this year.

That same day, he was appointed special envoy of the Quartet on the Middle East on behalf of the United Nations, the European Union, the United States and Russia.

A centrist as prime minister, Blair was instrumental in negotiating the 1998 Good Friday Agreement that was a breakthrough in the Northern Ireland peace process after 30 years of conflict. He also was a strong supporter of U.S. foreign policy and a major participant in the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

A member of the Church of England, Blair has shown an interest in the Catholic Church. His wife and children are Catholics and he has often attended Mass with them.

The Alfred E. Smith Dinner was established in 1946 to honor the memory of the former New York governor, a native of the Lower East Side, who was the first Catholic to run for president on a major party ticket as the Democratic candidate in 1928.

Stay tuned.

Earlier in the summer, there were rumblings that Blair might even be mulling becoming a deacon.

A New York City Catholic school with just two students

This news comes right from my own backyard, New York City, where the Archdiocese is running one Catholic school in Greenwich Village with a surprising number of students.

Two.

From WCBS-TV:

When school is dismissed at the end of the day, there's nothing unusual about seeing a rush of children plow through the doors in a frenzy of excitement. But instead of the student body pouring out of the new Academy of St. Joseph, little Sebastian Reardon and Intonina Machniewska-Schlussman are the only students leaving to go play.

That's because at the Catholic school in Greenwich Village, Sebastian and Intonina are the student body.

"It's a great school and we're willing to experiment, just try it out," says Gosia Machniewska-Schlussman, Intonina's mother.

And it's an experiment that costs $25,000 a year in tuition to test. But because Sebastian and Intonina are the only students in their pre-kindergarten and kindergarten classes, they are receiving individual hands on attention from their teachers, which suits their parents just fine.

"I wanted a small environment for him and Catholic education would be good for him," said Emily Reardon, Sebastian's mother.

Added Mrs. Machniewska-Schlussman: "It's a great school. We went to see last Friday what she has learned in a week and it was amazing."

Right now the school only offers pre-kindergarten and kindergarten, but the archdiocese plans to add a grade each year all the way up to 8th grade.

"We have a business plan and we are confident, based on the research that we have done, that the school will succeed," said Joseph Zwelling, of the New York Archdiocese.

The archdiocese, which runs the school, blames low enrollment on the fact that parents were not able to come to any open houses before it opened.

"We were expecting 4, 5 to start in pre-k and kindergarten, but we were hampered from getting to that point because the school was under construction," Zwelling said.

Machniewska-Schlussman says she's not worried about Intonina not being surrounded by other students and missing out on the ability to socialize. "We are going to the park. She will have plenty of interaction with plenty of classmates from previous school," she says.

Visit the link and you can watch the video of the story, as well.

Image: from CBS

Jailed nun: "Being imprisoned was a special gift from God"

A Pennsylvania nun who spent time in a federal prison learned a lot from the experience -- including, she says, what it is like to live in a "state of uncertainty."

This, from the Catholic Exponent, in nearby Youngstown, Ohio:

Serving a prison sentence in a federal penitentiary is something that Humility of Mary Sister Sheila Salmon will never forget. But she learned some life lessons there that she will carry with her wherever she goes. Among them: that federal prisoners are treated as things, not persons; that many people in prisons should not be there; and that “being imprisoned was a special gift from God.”

Sister Sheila was back at her motherhouse in western Pennsylvania recently and was interviewed by the Catholic Exponent concerning her misdemeanor sentence for protesting at the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security and Economic Cooperation, formerly known as the U.S. Army School of the Americas, in Fort Benning, Ga.

The nun, who lives in Sebastian, Fla., and does outreach work with Mexican migrants at Our Lady of Guadalupe there, had served a 100-day sentence in early 2007 for her participation in the annual peaceful protest last November against the school, which trains Latin America security personnel in combat, counter-insurgency and counter-narcotics. This time, as in 1999, she crossed the line and trespassed on federal property with 15 others, ranging in age from 17 to 70. Sister Sheila was 70 at the time of her arrest.

“The protest itself is a peaceful funeral procession,” she explained. “You carry a cross with the name of someone who, it has been documented, has been killed by one of the SOA graduates. The protests started in 1984 with nine persons present; last year there were 22,000.” The Humility of Mary community here has been participating for nine years. In the last year or so, she said, she “felt I had to take a stronger stand and go through the fence [trespass]. Part of our charism as a community is nonviolent resistance to unjust things.” Noting that she worked in the South for six years with a priest who was later killed by people trained at the SOA, she now works in Florida at a parish where she met a man from El Salvador whose brother was killed by someone trained at the SOA. So taking the protest to another level with trespassing felt right, she added.

Once assigned to Tallahassee Federal prison and the only person serving a misdemeanor sentence among the 1,100 women there, Sister Sheila settled into her days and nights living in a 6’ X 8’ cube. “I have to tell you,” she said, “the inmates were wonderful to me. They could not have been any nicer. There is a whole rumor mill that exists in a prison; they know who is coming in, what they have done. They would come up and say, ‘Are you really a nun?’ When I told them I was really a nun and was in for 100 days for stepping on the grass [federal property], they said, ‘That’s stupid. You shouldn’t be here.’ They said they would watch out for me.”

Although she was “treated well” there, Sister Sheila admitted that “I was not used to the constant noise and the total lack of privacy. I wasn’t used to guards screaming at you all the time, which they did. The hardest adjustment for me was to come to the realization that I was being treated as a thing, not a person. I was not a person while I was in prison, except to the inmates. I don’t think anyone could ever get used to that. There is something about people hollering at you all the time for the sake of hollering that is unsettling.”

The experience taught her about the way in which prisoners “live in a state of uncertainty,” she added. “There is tremendous uncertainty in every move. What is going to happen next? [Prison authorities] keep changing things but will not tell you why. But I found that the fact that we were all living in a state of uncertainty…created a bond of compassion. We were all uncertain together.” She also discovered that prisoners there – who came from all levels of education and none at all – shared a loss of control over their own lives. “When you have lost all control over everything that makes you you,” she observed, “everything that separates you from others is gone as well. So in a way, I considered being there a special gift from God, because I don’t think I ever noticed these things before.”

There's much more about her experience at the Youngstown newspaper's link.

Is "Do Unto Others" part of our DNA?

Here's an interesting take on morality from, of all places, the New York Times. It's weekly Science Times section today looks at whether or not we are hard-wired to be good. Is doing unto others part of our evolution? Read on:

In a series of recent articles and a book, “The Happiness Hypothesis,” Jonathan Haidt, a moral psychologist at the University of Virginia, has been constructing a broad evolutionary view of morality that traces its connections both to religion and to politics.

Dr. Haidt (pronounced height) began his research career by probing the emotion of disgust. Testing people’s reactions to situations like that of a hungry family that cooked and ate its pet dog after it had become roadkill, he explored the phenomenon of moral dumbfounding — when people feel strongly that something is wrong but cannot explain why.

Dumbfounding led him to view morality as driven by two separate mental systems, one ancient and one modern, though the mind is scarcely aware of the difference. The ancient system, which he calls moral intuition, is based on the emotion-laden moral behaviors that evolved before the development of language. The modern system — he calls it moral judgment — came after language, when people became able to articulate why something was right or wrong.

The emotional responses of moral intuition occur instantaneously — they are primitive gut reactions that evolved to generate split-second decisions and enhance survival in a dangerous world. Moral judgment, on the other hand, comes later, as the conscious mind develops a plausible rationalization for the decision already arrived at through moral intuition.

Moral dumbfounding, in Dr. Haidt’s view, occurs when moral judgment fails to come up with a convincing explanation for what moral intuition has decided.

So why has evolution equipped the brain with two moral systems when just one might seem plenty?

“We have a complex animal mind that only recently evolved language and language-based reasoning,” Dr. Haidt said. “No way was control of the organism going to be handed over to this novel faculty.”

He likens the mind’s subterranean moral machinery to an elephant, and conscious moral reasoning to a small rider on the elephant’s back. Psychologists and philosophers have long taken a far too narrow view of morality, he believes, because they have focused on the rider and largely ignored the elephant.

Dr. Haidt developed a better sense of the elephant after visiting India at the suggestion of an anthropologist, Richard Shweder. In Bhubaneswar, in the Indian state of Orissa, Dr. Haidt saw that people recognized a much wider moral domain than the issues of harm and justice that are central to Western morality. Indians were concerned with integrating the community through rituals and committed to concepts of religious purity as a way to restrain behavior.

On his return from India, Dr. Haidt combed the literature of anthropology and psychology for ideas about morality throughout the world. He identified five components of morality that were common to most cultures. Some concerned the protection of individuals, others the ties that bind a group together.

Of the moral systems that protect individuals, one is concerned with preventing harm to the person and the other with reciprocity and fairness. Less familiar are the three systems that promote behaviors developed for strengthening the group. These are loyalty to the in-group, respect for authority and hierarchy, and a sense of purity or sanctity.

The five moral systems, in Dr. Haidt’s view, are innate psychological mechanisms that predispose children to absorb certain virtues. Because these virtues are learned, morality may vary widely from culture to culture, while maintaining its central role of restraining selfishness. In Western societies, the focus is on protecting individuals by insisting that everyone be treated fairly. Creativity is high, but society is less orderly. In many other societies, selfishness is suppressed “through practices, rituals and stories that help a person play a cooperative role in a larger social entity,” Dr. Haidt said.

He is aware that many people — including “the politically homogeneous discipline of psychology” — equate morality with justice, rights and the welfare of the individual, and dismiss everything else as mere social convention. But many societies around the world do in fact behave as if loyalty, respect for authority and sanctity are moral concepts, Dr. Haidt notes, and this justifies taking a wider view of the moral domain.

There's a lot to absorb, and even more to puzzle over, so check the Times link and read the whole thing.

Image: "The Golden Rule" by Norman Rockwell

Netherlands Dominicans in dutch with their superiors

Well, I'm sure some people in the Netherlands thought it sounded like a good idea at the time.

But, not surprisingly, the Dominicans who run their order disagreed and decided -- as the Church teaches -- that only validly ordained priests can celebrate mass:

The leaders of the Catholic Dominican order on Tuesday censured Dutch members who said unordained ministers, including gays and women, should be able celebrate the Eucharist if priests were not available.

A booklet sent to parishes in the Netherlands earlier this month sent shock waves through the Church by making a radical proposal to deal with the shortage of Roman Catholic priests.

It said unordained ministers chosen by their priestless congregations should be allowed to celebrate the Eucharist, the centrepiece of the mass in which Catholics believe bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ.

"Whether they are women or men, homo or hetero, married or single, makes no difference. What is important is an infectious attitude of faith," the booklet said. The main point was to keep local faith communities together, with or without a priest.

Underscoring its concern, the Vatican distributed a statement by the Rome headquarters of the Dominicans saying the solution to the shortage of priests proposed by the Dutch Dominicans was not acceptable.

"While we share their concern about the availability of the Eucharist and priestly ministry, we believe this concern must be responded to in careful theological and pastoral reflection...," it said.

Yes. That phrasing is, if nothing else, remarkably diplomatic.

My favorite Pope John Paul moment. Ever.

Rocco over at Whispers in the Loggia has taken the trouble to remind us that this marks the 20-year anniversary of Pope John Paul II's monumental and memorable trip to the United States, an 11-day visit that left an indelible impression on so many.

One emotional highpoint came in Los Angeles, when Tony Melendez, born without arms, sang for the pontiff. In the video below, he recalls that event, and it's replayed. The performance, is a stunner -- even more so for the pope's extraordinary and beautiful response. Watch it and weep. It reminds me of what a journalist covering John Paul's election in 1979 said: "They haven't elected a man from Rome. They've elected one from Galilee."

A land dispute to sink your teeth into

It's not exactly the Hatfields and McCoys, but a similar long-standing feud is heating up between Catholics and Orthodox in, of all places, Transylvania:

When Dumitru Butuza's wife died earlier this year, the Transylvanian farmer went to his village priest to ask that the church bell be rung, a tradition in this part of Romania. The priest refused: he is an Orthodox Christian, while Mr Butuza is a Catholic.

Mr Butuza's reaction was to take matters into his own hands. Determined to honour his wife, he went to the church belfry and pushed the button that activates the bells. The priest responded by calling the police. Officers arrived, bundled Mr Butuza, 71, into a squad car and then threw him in jail, charging him with burglary.

He was later released without charge, but the incident is one of hundreds in an undeclared war between members of the Catholic and Orthodox churches raging through this region of forests and mountains.

The cause of the unrest is simple. When the Communists seized power in Romania after the Second World War, they banned Catholicism, then transferred more than 2,000 Catholic churches to Orthodox control. Now the Catholics want those churches back, but in all but a handful of cases, the Orthodox church has said no.

Catholics have been trying to reclaim their churches ever since the Communists were overthrown in the 1989 revolution.

A restitution law passed in 2002 has allowed Romanians to reclaim property confiscated by the Communists, most notably the so-called Castle Dracula at Bran, the country's top tourist spot, which was handed back earlier this year to a member of the Austrian Habsburg family.

But in apparent deference to the wishes of the Orthodox Church, a powerful force in today's Romania, the 2002 law made an exception for Catholic churches. As a result, a total of 2,200 Catholic properties remain in Orthodox hands.

The Catholics launched court actions to recover other property, including houses and land, with limited success.

Then in January, Romania was admitted to the European Union after promising to respect the rule of law. Under the spotlight of Brussels, court cases then began to move faster, and the trickle of properties handed back to the Catholics has become a flood.

Meanwhile, the European Court in Strasbourg has ordered Romania to hand back one Catholic property, and other cases are being considered.

In the town of Buzas, this has caused a furore. While the church remains in Orthodox hands, the Catholics are pushing local courts for the return of forest land and the priest's house. "The law is very clear," says the Catholic parish priest, Florin Costin. "Everything that is confiscated by the Communists must be given back."

The link above has more details and history. Meantime, if you're pining to visit the land of Dracula, the good people of Romania are only too happy to oblige, with this website offering helpful advice.

Pope's last words were " an act of very high prayer"

A doctor who treated the ailing Pope John Paul in his final days has put to rest a recurring rumor about the pontiff's treatment:

Doctors assisting Pope John Paul II in his final days never suspended medical treatment and the pontiff did not ask them to do so, his personal physician said.

Pro-euthanasia activists in Italy have said the pope refused medical treatment such as artificial respiration and feeding because he wanted to be allowed to die.

The Catholic Church forbids euthanasia, which has been at the centre of a heated debate in Italy in recent months. However, the church's Catechism says medical procedures that are "burdensome, dangerous, extraordinary or disproportionate to the expected outcome" can be discontinued with the permission of the patient or family.

Renato Buzzonetti, the late pope's long-time doctor, said the pontiff's last known words, "Let me go to the house of the father", should not be interpreted as if he had asked doctors to stop treating him.

"That sentence was an act of very high prayer. . . an almost unique example of his attachment to the faith of the Lord and at the same time to life, which John Paul II deeply loved until the very last moment," Buzzonetti said in an interview with daily La Repubblica.

"It is not true that the medical treatment of the Holy Father was interrupted," said Buzzonetti, who was the pope's doctor for nearly 27 years.

Oh, the places you'll go: a Catholic volunteer who blogs from Latin America

What's it like to drop everything and leave the world you know to live as a volunteer in Latin America for two years?

Patrick Furlong is eager to let you know, and his blog, Oh The Places You'll Go, is opening a window on his brave new world. Catholic News Service has the details behind it:

"You leave your family, you leave your friends, and you know that you're going to be gone for two years," said Patrick Furlong. "A lot changes. When I get back, I don't know what it's going to be like."

Leaving the United States for two years, living on $60 a month and washing his laundry by hand wasn't where Furlong expected to find himself in five years when he graduated from high school and left his native Albuquerque, N.M., to attend Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.

But Furlong's experiences in college led him down a path of service that continues to inspire and amaze not just him, but anyone who reads the Web log, or blog, he writes as a witness to his life.

Furlong has been serving with the Holy Cross Associates for the last 12 months. He keeps his blog -- http://pjfurlong.blogspot.com -- with the hope that college students considering volunteer work after graduation might catch a glimpse of what it is like in the trenches.

He described his doubts, his trials and the joy he has found as a volunteer with the Holy Cross Associates in a telephone interview with Catholic News Service this summer from Santiago, Chile. In August he headed to another volunteer position in Quito, Ecuador, to teach poor children and their parents 12 hours a day, five days a week.

Furlong said his decision to commit to a service program came from the experiences he had on alternative school-break trips in college. Serving in places such as Kentucky, Guatemala, Ecuador, the Dominican Republic and Mexico introduced Furlong to a poverty he couldn't ignore.

He recalled a woman he met after a hard day in Mexico whose comments crystallized his need to volunteer.

"She said, 'You have an obligation to do something about this. You've seen it. You can't turn your back on it,'" he said. "That's what it means to get ruined by poverty. After you've seen what you've seen, you can't forget it."

Furlong's blog isn't an advertisement. He said his life as a volunteer has been a joyful but difficult one. There are things he wished he had known before he got to Chile, but they are things that can't be learned from brochures or recruiters.

He said he hopes his blog will provide answers to questions that potential volunteers don't even know they have, volunteers who might be -- as he was -- a little naive about life as a volunteer.

Read more up at the link, or at his blog, to get a rare glimpse at Furlong's life.

Singer Danielle Rose becomes a "Disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ"

It's always heartening to hear of someone entering religious life. But this news is especially interesting, concerning as it does a young woman who had achieved considerable success in the field of Catholic music.

The following is the release put out by her music publisher:

The Holy Spirit called and she answered! On August 2, 2007 Danielle Rose entered religious life as an aspirant with a community of Franciscan Sisters called "The Disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ." After much prayer and discernment following a vocal injury in 2006, where Danielle was unable to sing or speak without pain, Danielle discovered her gift of sabbatical during that time of healing. In the stillness and silence, she experienced the power of the Holy Spirit directing her life in a new way. Danielle felt God calling her to discern a vocation to become a religious sister.

Danielle relays this message to all:

“I am deeply grateful for all who have supported me and my ministry. My YES to Jesus has been borne out of the joyful experience of evangelizing as a music missionary. Although I will not be able to come pray with your community face-to-face, I will most certainly be praying with you, and will join you in song around the altar with the angels and saints at every Mass. I deeply desire to do the will of God, and would be very grateful for your prayers on my behalf as I begin the formal process of discernment in the convent. Thank you for all you do to glorify the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Before entering the community, Danielle completed her final recording project with WLP. This new recording titled "I Thirst" is a musical meditation inspired by the life and prayers of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta. It is said that Christ spoke to the young Mother Teresa of his thirst for souls, and asked if she would be his light to the poor. This became her sole motivation for serving the poor--to quench Christ's thirst for souls. After learning the truth of Mother Teresa's spiritual struggles after founding the Missionaries of Charity, Danielle found strength and inspiration in the story of how she was united not only to Christ's thirst on the cross, but also to the loneliness and desolation of the poor whom she served. Danielle reflects on this mystery and wants people to know that "Jesus thirsts for you."

Those interested in Danielle Rose's music can visit The Catholic Music Network for more information, or drop by her publisher, World Library Publications.

UPDATE: A reader is wondering if I know anything about Danielle Rose's community. I did a little Googling and found their website right here. Check it out.

Divorced and Catholic: a ministry to help the healing

Divorced Catholics face unique challenges -- and often stigmas -- coping with their new status. And the Catholic Review in Baltimore just published news about a remarkable ministry that has been there to help them over the hurdles:

When Claire Lotz of Fullerton received her divorce decree in the 1970s, the Catholic mother of two felt like a pariah in society and disconnected from her religion.

“I didn’t know any other divorced people and I felt like I was excommunicated from the Church,” said Ms. Lotz, now a 65-year-old parishioner of St. Joseph, Fullerton. “In my generation, we were raised to believe that divorce was a big no-no.”

Shame kept her from taking Communion for years.

However, after moving from Howard County to the Baltimore area in the late 1980s, she was referred to the Friends of Mercy – a support group for people who are separated, divorced and widowed launched by a nun from Mercy High School, Baltimore – and the humiliation she felt about her divorce was replaced with confidence and a re-energized religious bearing.

As the group prepared to celebrate its 20th anniversary Sept. 16, Ms. Lotz reflected on the vital part it has played in her life – which includes a strong network of friends and the place where she met the man she married three years ago.

The anniversary celebration will include a liturgy celebrated by Bishop Mitchell T. Rozanski, eastern vicar, and a buffet dinner at the Sheppard Pratt Conference Center in Towson.

Though wheelchair-bound these days, 81-year-old Friends of Mercy founder Sister Joannes Clifford, R.S.M., has maintained her passion for the group throughout the past 20 years and has served as a steadfast champion of its more than 50 constituents.

The origin of the group – which regularly meets at Mercy High School’s Northeast Baltimore campus and other venues 2 p.m. on the third Sunday of each month – can be traced to Sister Joannes, who took a course on ministering to the newly single in 1979, after receiving letters from Mercy High alums seeking advice following the collapse of their marriages.

Break-ups are never easy for those who go through it, but Catholics suffer unique guilt over the end of a marriage because of the Church’s opposition to remarriage without an annulment, Sister Joannes said.

“They feel like they are divorced from their spouse and the Church,” she said. “I wanted to find a way to help provide some support for them.”

Fortified with a grant, Sister Joannes began holding periodic lectures for the newly single featuring top speakers to help separated, divorced and widowed citizens deal with their new status.

In 1987. a group of people attending one of these lectures approached her about starting a monthly support group and the Friends of Mercy held its first meeting later that year.

The link above has much more about how the Friends of Mercy operates. It sounds like it's been a welcome source of healing and help to many.

Now available: John Paul II relics

Looking for a unique Christmas gift? Or perhaps just a meaningful memento for yourself or someone you love?

Zenit reports the following:

People who want to receive a relic "ex indumentis" -- from the clothing -- or a holy card of Pope John Paul II, may do so by writing to the Vicariate of Rome.

The Vicariate of Rome is accepting requests via mail, fax or e-mail for the religious items. The petition should be sent to "Holy Cards and Relics Service," and should indicate a shipping address.

The holy cards contain the prayer to obtain graces through the intercession of the Servant of God John Paul II and can be requested in English, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Polish and Portuguese.

Though the vicariate is not charging for the holy card, donations are accepted to cover the printing and mailing expenses.

You can find out more by visiting the official website devoted to the cause of his beatification and sainthood. (Yes, in the internet age, the Church now has such things.)

Keyes jumps in

Pro-life voters now have another choice for president -- and a Catholic, at that. But, given his track record, on a hunch, I'd say his chances are slim-to-none.

It's Alan Keyes:

Alan Keyes, a Marylander who ran unsuccessfully for the GOP presidential nomination in 1996 and 2000, has formally entered the 2008 White House campaign.

Keyes, 56, announced on his Web site, RenewAmerica, he filed his candidacy Friday with the Federal Election Commission.

He told radio talk show host Janet Parshall he was unmoved by what he called the lack of moral courage the other candidates had demonstrated.

"The one thing I've always been called to do is to raise the standard ... of our allegiance to God and his authority that has been the foundation stone of our nation's life," said Keyes.

Keyes, who held several positions in the U.S. State Department during the Reagan administration, ran for the U.S. Senate from Maryland in 1998 and 1992.

During the 1996 campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, he was briefly detained by police in Atlanta after trying to force his way into a candidates' debate without an invitation.

Illinois Republicans recruited him in 2004 to run against the Democratic candidate -- and eventual winner -- Barack Obama for a vacant U.S. Senate seat.

Keyes accused Obama during the campaign of taking the wicked and evil position on issues like abortion.

You can visit his website right here.

He may make the GOP debates a little livelier. But that's about it. To my knowledge, Keyes has a perfect track record of having never won an election for anything, anywhere. Given the way the primaries are being front-loaded, this could be a short candidacy. Very short.

Cardinal Sean, hanging with deacons

One of my favorite bloggers (and favorite prelates) is Cardinal Sean O'Malley up in Boston. Every Friday, he updates his self-titled blog, detailing all his comings and goings around Beantown. This week's post was notable for the prominent mention of deacons, both transitional and permanent:

Saturday morning we had an ordination of three Capuchin deacons and two priests. They are young men who are stationed in Jamaica Plain, and we went to Yonkers, N.Y. for the ordination ceremony...It was a very beautiful ceremony. It was, in fact, the first time that I have ever ordained deacons and priests in the same Mass. The ritual has that ceremony in it, and I know that in Rome that is very common, but here in the United States, those sacraments are usually administered separately...

[On Sunday], we had 27 men in our permanent diaconate program receive the ministry of acolyte. The acolyte used to be what was called a minor order in the Church, along with lector, porter and exorcist. Major orders were sub-deacon, deacon and priest. Now that has all been changed. We still have what are called ministries, and the ministries are acolyte and lector.

By virtue of receiving the acolyte ministry, the men become ordinary ministers of the Eucharist and can distribute communion. It is a very simple but lovely ceremony in which they are presented with the chalice and paten, and a prayer is said over them. These ministries have been a way of building up towards ordination to the permanent diaconate. I think it calls people to a greater seriousness in their commitment and their preparation. It is a preparation for what we look forward to happening in May when we have the ordination of this class of permanent deacons at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross.

I was glad to see so many people attend. We had the members of the English and Spanish programs together for the Mass. If I recall correctly, there were 10 Hispanic candidates and 17 English-speaking candidates.

Many of their pastors were present to concelebrate, which was a wonderful show of support. After all, it can be very difficult for a pastor to get away from his parish on Sunday.

It's always refreshing to see an archbishop give a tip of his mitre to the deacons, and soon-to-be deacons. Congratulations, brothers. And prayerful good wishes to one and all as you continue your journey.

Not everyone is singing aves for Ave Maria

Well, the shiny new Catholic town of Ave Maria in Florida is up and running, and the university bearing its name is also open for business. But according to local reports, not everybody is thrilled with any of this:

The students of Ave Maria University returned this semester to a brand new campus in a town that a few months ago did not exist.

But as incoming freshmen sit through their first classes in Sacred Scripture and Moral Theology, residents in neighboring Immokalee worry that the new town, which covers thousands of acres of farmland and promises to bring more development to the area, will undermine their livelihoods and their community.

Ave Maria University was founded in 2002 by Tom Monaghan, the multimillionaire founder of Domino's Pizza and conservative Catholic philanthropist, who moved the campus from Naples, Fla., to a 5,000-acre tract five miles from Immokalee, which is 30 miles northeast of Naples.

It is part of an ambitious development called Ave Maria Town, which will include 11,000 homes, three golf courses and its own water park, all oriented around a towering church.

Before it was transformed by more than $400 million in private investment, the land on which Ave Maria rises was home to tomatoes and citrus harvested by migrants, many of them undocumented, who earn as little as 45 cents for every 32-pound bucket picked.

One of those workers is Lucas Benitez, who came to Immokalee from his family farm in Guerrero, Mexico, more than a decade ago after a drop in corn prices following adoption of the North America Free Trade Agreement -- the free-trade pact of Mexico, Canada and the United States.

After years of picking tomatoes, Benitez co-founded the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, an organization that fights for better wages and working conditions for farmworkers.

He sees Ave Maria as ''the NAFTA of Immokalee,'' and says its backers want to replace the farms with gated communities.

''They aren't talking about improving the town or creating more employment,'' he said. ``They are talking about getting rid of the workers who have lived here for decades.''

Benitez said the impact was already being felt through Collier County's crackdown on trailers where the farmworkers live. In the past year and a half, 226 trailers have been condemned, said Nancy Freeze, the Immokalee director of the Health Department.

Freeze said the trailers were closed as a result of safety concerns. ''We need migrant-worker housing,'' she said, ``but if there's a place that's not up to code, then we close it.''

To Fred Thomas, who lives in Immokalee and is a former director of the county housing authority, the trailers represent the canary in the mine of affordable housing.

''If you're talking to people on the lower end of the economic scale, they may suspect that Naples is creeping into Immokalee,'' he said, ''and that is a legitimate concern.'' Naples has the second-highest concentration of millionaires in the nation, according to Kiplinger.com.

The concerns of Immokalee's residents go beyond jobs and housing.

The Rev. Hector Rubin is the priest of Immokalee's Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, where, he estimated, 70 percent of his parishioners were migrant workers. He believes the Catholic Church must tend to all of the immigrants' needs -- ''not just the religious needs, but educational, social, and material ones as well'' -- and said his parish had become a home away from home for workers in Immokalee without friends or family.

When Monaghan announced plans to move Ave Maria close to Immokalee, Rubin said, ''many Catholics open to human values feared that the university was trying to stop whatever inroads the church was making to new immigrants.'' He said this fear was rooted in the orthodoxy of Ave Maria, which, he said, ``rejects any social or theological change in the traditional practice of the Catholic Church.''

The people behind Ave Maria don't see themselves that way.

The Rev. Robert Garrity, chaplain of Ave Maria University, said Ave Maria students were already doing charitable work in Immokalee, tutoring students and giving free language lessons.

Nor does everyone in Immokalee see Ave Maria as an interloper. Juan Barrera, a child of undocumented farmworkers, said he grew up ''living the migrant life.'' He was the first in his family to go to college, and was hired as an assistant construction manager at Ave Maria.

A devout Catholic who speaks English as effortlessly as Spanish, Barrera thinks Ave Maria will provide Immokalee with a model for building a stronger community, and instill Christian values in its younger generations. He enrolled his 10-year-old son in Ave Maria's K-12 school.

Barrera's attitude toward Ave Maria is emblematic of many of Immokalee's second-generation immigrants -- restaurant owners, doctors and teachers -- who see Ave Maria as an opportunity rather than as a threat.

Read on for more.

Bringing a "fiesta spirit" to mass

If you need further evidence that the Catholic Church has a big tent, consider this: on one hand you have devout traditionalists -- the kind who couldn't sleep Thursday night because they were so excited about EWTN broadcasting its first mass of the "extraordinary rite" early Friday morning. On the other hand, you have foot-stomping, hand-clapping Charismatics. Both have found a happy home in the Church.

And this weekend, a suburban Chicago paper took a look at the charismatic presence in the Church:

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Catholic charismatic renewal, a small spiritual movement recognized by church leaders but largely unknown to the average U.S. Catholic.

Is this "small" movement part of the 120 million worldwide or just the U.S. presence?

It's small because it involves just 3 million of the 64.4 million U.S. Catholics, as stated below.

With his eyes closed and arms outstretched, Mauricio Mendoza is deep in prayer.

The Elgin resident speaks softly in an unrecognizable language. His body shakes. Shouts of "hallelujah" echo through the room.

It's a common scene at many Pentecostal churches. But Mendoza is one of about 60 Spanish-speaking Roman Catholics who gather weekly for a two-hour charismatic prayer and healing service at their local parish, St. Joseph in Elgin.

"We started praying and singing. Little by little, more people started coming together," said Francisco Fausto, a founding member of St. Joseph's charismatic prayer group.

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Catholic charismatic renewal, a small spiritual movement recognized by church leaders but largely unknown to the average U.S. Catholic.

The faithful have a strong belief in God's daily intervention in human affairs through the Holy Spirit. Speaking in tongues, divine healing, prophesying and other "gifts of the Holy Spirit" are emphasized.

The movement has declined since peaking in the early 1970s, but experts believe a resurgence is under way, fueled by Hispanics.

As the U.S. Hispanic Catholic population grows, experts predict their distinctive form of Catholicism could begin to change the face of the nation's largest religious institution.

"There's no question that Latinos are the leading edge of the charismatic movement at this point," said Luis Lugo, director of the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, one of two Washington-based think tanks that produced a recent groundbreaking study on Hispanic religious life.

Lugo said Hispanics bring a "fiesta spirit" to Mass.

"It's a much more expressive, emotional approach to worship -- the raising of hands, the clapping, etc. …," he said. "But it's not just restricted to that. It also involves high-octane Pentecostalism -- speaking in tongues, divine healing, prophesy, exorcisms. Parts of the Pentecostal movement have found their way into the Roman Catholic Church."

Sixty-two percent of Hispanic Catholics cited in Lugo's study said they attend Masses that include raising hands, clapping, shouting or jumping. Half said the services they attend include speaking in tongues, prophesying, praying for divine healing or receiving a word of knowledge from God. A smaller percentage said they participate in small group meetings featuring those characteristics.

It's all much closer to a typical Pentecostal service than a mainline Catholic Mass, which -- although it includes singing, spoken prayer and praise, and interaction between the priest and parishioners -- is much more subtle.

Elgin prayer group founder Fausto, a Guatemalan immigrant, said he was instantly drawn to the high-spirited style of worship he discovered more than three decades ago at a charismatic gathering at the University of Notre Dame that drew thousands of Catholics from across the country.

"Before, my prayers were like when you put a cassette tape in a player," he recalled. "Nothing was spontaneous like it is now. … Now everything has a different meaning."

More than half of the Hispanic Catholics surveyed by Pew identified themselves as either charismatic or Pentecostal.

Notre Dame theology professor Timothy Matovina, an expert on Hispanic Catholicism, called the charismatic movement "probably the most understudied and important dynamic in Latino Catholicism."

He explained why it resonates among Hispanics, who constitute one-third of all U.S. Catholics.

"When you look at the Latino practice of popular religion … it's very expressive, very ornate," said Matovina, director of the university's Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism. "This (charismatic movement) kind of naturally resonates with their preferred cultural prayer style."

Just 12 percent of non-Hispanic Catholics describe themselves as charismatic.

Worldwide, the 500 million charismatic faithful -- both Catholic and Protestant -- constitute one-fourth of the Christian population. It is one of the fastest-growing segments of Christianity, the Pew Center reported.

The link explains the origins of the movement, and even has video, so check it out.

Photo: Sister Bernadette Beamsley leads the group in a dance around the room during a worship service at the Women of Worship 4-day charismatic Catholic conference. Photo by Rick West, The Daily Herald.

Homily for September 15-16, 2007: Our Lady Queen of Martyrs

This weekend, my parish, Our Lady Queen of Martyrs, is celebrating its feast day, as it does every year, on the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows. This year marks the 90th anniversary of the parish, and the 80th year of the school. Saturday night, we had a large concelebrated mass with retired Brooklyn Bishop Thomas Daily presiding. Below is the homily I preached at that mass, as well as at all the masses on Sunday.

About 20 years ago, a songwriter who grew up in Forest Hills – Paul Simon -- wrote that “these are the days of miracles and wonders.”

I thought about that when I started to put together my thoughts for this weekend. The story of this parish in Forest Hills is one of “miracles and wonders,” too.

In the gospel we just heard, two words recur – joy and rejoicing. The message is all about God’s mercy and love for us – and about celebrating something that is treasure.

This weekend, as we celebrate our parish feast, we celebrate a treasure, too. We mark the 80th year of our school. And this date has special significance: It was 90 years ago yesterday, September 15th, 1917, the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, that Father Joseph McLaughlin was assigned as the parish’s first pastor.

I’m going to talk a little about our history this morning, and also about the woman at the heart of it all, our patroness, Our Lady Queen of Martyrs.

The Jesuit writer James Martin was a member of this parish before he became a priest. He told me one time he used to call this “Our Lady of Queens Boulevard.” I’m sure a lot of people have done that. It’s such a landmark.

But ironically, 80 years ago, when our school began, there wasn’t a Queens Boulevard. There wasn’t much of anything. It was country. There was a ragged two-lane road called Hoffman Boulevard – later known as Queens Boulevard -- that stretched out to Long Island. And not much else.

A lot of this area was, literally, a dump. In “The Great Gatsby,” F. Scott Fitzgerald described driving to Long Island through “a valley of ashes…a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens.”

That was Queens, in the 1920s.

But in 1927, there were miracles and wonders. Charles Lindburgh flew across the Atlantic. Henry Ford began producing the Model A. In October, The Jazz Singer opened and motion pictures talked. The New York Yankees, with its fabled Murderers Row, swept the World Series. William Paley created something called the Columbia Phonographic Broadcasting System. A year later, he dropped Phonographic and “CBS” was born.

And that fall, in the countryside of Queens, Father McLaughlin was finalizing the plans for a school at Our Lady Queen of Martyrs.

The parish was 10 years old. A census at the time counted just 78 Catholics. Not 78 families. 78 men, women and children. They worshipped first in private homes, then in a small wooden chapel built on this property.

By the 1920s, they were desperate to build a bigger church. But before building the church that we are in right now, the families wanted a school. That was what was most important to them. They broke ground in January of 1928. And eight months later, it opened, with 211 students. At its peak, in 1955, the school had 859 students…and 21 sisters, from the Immaculate Heart of Mary, IHM, teaching.

Those were indeed the days of miracles and wonders!

But this feast we celebrate this weekend is more than an exercise in nostalgia. As I mentioned earlier, we are here, as well, to honor the woman to whom this parish is dedicated: Our Lady, Queen of Martyrs. I’d like us to consider just what that means.

It’s a title that joins Mary in a profound way to her son’s passion and death.

But it also joins her uniquely to us. To all her children. All those who suffer. Because Mary knows.

We are used to thinking of Mary as a quiet, almost passive figure. But we should dispel that notion. Just think for a moment about her life.

This is a young girl who spoke with angels – who not only listened to what an angel said, but challenged him and questioned him until he had to remind her: “Nothing is impossible with God.”

This is a teenager who, pregnant and unmarried, dropped everything and went to take care of her cousin before she took care of herself.

Just a few months later, she fled the country and a murderous dictator with her newborn baby. She became a refugee in an alien land.

This is a mother, and a widow, who years later watched as her child was imprisoned, and then executed.

In short, it’s hard to escape the fact that Mary was a woman of extraordinary resilience and -- faith. She did what she had to do, trusting completely in God. At every challenge, she rose to the occasion.

I like to think that the title “Queen of Martyrs” implies not only the tragedy she witnessed, and the pain she felt – but also acknowledges her strength and courage in the face of brutality and suffering.

I also think that Mary speaks in a profound way to our own time -- to all who have to face persecution, or terror, or loss. She bears with us all the martyrdoms of life. She offers us understanding. And she points the way.

Remember the wedding feast at Cana. After having the audacity to tell the Son of God that he should do something, she tries another tack. She pulls aside a servant and points to Jesus and says: “Do whatever he tells you.” Those are the last words she speaks in any of the gospels. It is her great message to the world. Do whatever he tells you.

It is a message the founders of this parish sought to live – and we can nothing greater than to follow that example and uphold the beautiful legacy that they have left us.

This morning, as we prepare to receive Mary’s son in the Eucharist, we rededicate ourselves to Him… through her…just as the founders of this parish did all those years ago.

Look around you at what started with just 78 men, women and children. Look at the beautiful shrine that grew from Fitzgerald’s “valley of ashes.”

I think the first miracle was that this parish was built at all.

But…that miracle wasn’t the last. Thousands of lives have been shaped by what has been done here, in our school and in this parish.

Paul’s letter to Timothy today tells us: “Indeed, the grace of the Lord has been abundant.”

We have been richly blessed. And we thank God and Our Lady for making the impossible possible.

The motto of our parish assembly next week says it so well: “In thanksgiving to God for all that we have been, for all that we are, and for all that we will be.”

My friends, that is our prayer. And that is our hope.

Paul Simon was right. But God’s continuing grace, and Mary’s continued presence in the life of this parish reminds us: the “days of miracles and wonders”…aren’t over.

In so many ways, they're just beginning.

Photo: Interior, Our Lady Queen of Martyrs Church, Forest Hills, New York

Hang on a sec, God is on the other line...

There's nothing quite like a good vocation story. Sometimes, when you least expect it, your spiritual cell phone rings and you're astonished to find that God is on the line. He can call when you least expect it.

Case in point: an Indianapolis paper has a nifty little interview with a widower who has embarked on a second career -- as a Catholic priest:

Father Kevin Morris of Plainfield's St. Susanna Catholic Church never planned to be a priest.

For 10 years, he lived with his wife, Carol, on Indianapolis' Eastside and worked as an accountant at JennAir. But Carol lost her battle with ovarian cancer in 1990, and Morris, now 51, felt a call to switch professions.

Now Morris leads a fast-growing church and Catholic school in Plainfield and sometimes is still surprised to find himself part of the priesthood.

Question: Why did you feel called to the priesthood?
Answer: Weird things happen. I was sitting in church one day, and I wasn't in the mood to be there and I didn't want to be there, when suddenly I had the feeling that Christ was here. I thought he said to me, "Kevin, you're sitting on the sidelines. It's time to get in the game." I was afraid to turn sideways because I thought Christ was sitting right there.

Q: What do you think your wife would say if she knew you were a priest?
A: I think she would be supportive. But I could picture her rolling her eyes at me. "You're a priest? Sure." That's what she would say. I still see my in-laws fairly often, and they're very supportive. We didn't have any children, but I married up; there's no doubt about that.

Q: How did you arrive at St. Susanna?
A. I was assigned here by the Archdiocese of Indianapolis. After I was ordained in 1997, I spent two years in Richmond as an associate priest. I've been here eight years and right now will stay until July 1, 2011. You serve one six-year term and have an option to stay for another six years, which is what I did.

Q: How has being an accountant helped you lead the church?
A: It's interesting because I spend a lot more time looking at budgets and balance sheets and things than I thought you would. Since I have a background in that, it's not difficult. I thought there would be more sacramental time, but being the administrator of the parish and school takes more time than I thought it would.

Q: What is it like to lead the church in celebrating Mass on Sundays?
A: I hear people in the church who are asked to do things say, "I'm not worthy to do that." Well, who do you think is standing behind the altar? It's neat to see all of the people when I'm standing up there. We're all in this together, and I'm just the one who's been chosen to stand in front.

Q: What are some special moments in your job?
A: It's the distribution of sacraments. Sacraments happen at important moments in people's lives: christenings, marriages and the anointing of the sick, which used be called last rites. To be there with people during those important moments is a neat thing. I'm a "cradle Catholic," been Catholic all of my life, so I've been around priests and thought they're just normal people. But when I walk into a hospital room, people tell me they feel a presence there that I'm not aware of.

Q: How hard is it to come up with topics for the homily?
A: That all depends. Sometimes I'm walking up the aisle and I'm thinking, "OK, Lord, I need an idea pretty quick." Other times I'll know by Tuesday afternoon.

Q: Do you spend a lot of time interacting with parishioners?
A: Constantly. I had three appointments today (Wednesday) and I've got a couple more yet this afternoon. Last night I got stopped three times just walking across the church parking lot. A lot of times it's not like a formal thing, though people do make appointments.

Q: What do "second career" priests such as you mean for the church? Is the church recruiting people like you?
A: Yes, they're doing that very much so. Almost everyone coming through now is doing it as a second career thing. Second-career priests have got a little more experience in life.

Q: What are some major issues facing the Catholic Church?
A: The priest shortage is huge. I also think part of the problem is the leadership is ultraconservative and it doesn't seem to be that way with the rank and file. Not that I necessarily disagree with them, but I think the leadership worries more about things regular people don't worry about.

Q: You work 60 to 72 hours a week. What do you do when you're not working?
A: I've got season tickets for the Colts. I've always been a fan of spectator sports. I'm also suffering through Notre Dame's season as well. I go to Indians games as well. People know that if I have a weekend off, I'm in a stadium somewhere.

You can visit the good Father's parish at their website.

Wanted: Hispanic priests

In another sign of the Church's growing Hispanic population in the United States, more and more dioceses are looking for vocations south of the border.

The AP reports:

They're in a new country, working a new job and living a new life, but for the Latin American immigrants who come to the United States every year, going to church doesn't have to be any different from worshipping back home.

Churches across the nation are actively pursuing clergy from Honduras to Argentina to meet the demands of an ever-growing number of Hispanic parishioners.

Some Roman Catholic dioceses send recruiters to Latin America to bring priests or seminarians to the United States. The Episcopal Church, through its Central and South American Province, has a direct connection to Latin Americans who want to serve here. And Southern Baptist churches rely on word of mouth to find Latin American ministers.

The reasons go beyond merely finding someone to conduct Spanish-language services. Churches also want to connect with congregants on a cultural level, and Latin American clergy can tailor services to immigrants from specific countries.

‘‘I was an immigrant myself,'' said Pastor Hector Llanes, a native of El Salvador who leads a Baptist church in Phoenix. ‘‘I have a great deal of sympathy for immigrants, and even though there are cultural differences between Mexicans, Central Americans and South Americans, there is a way in which we feel part of the same community.

‘‘We talk about the same things - the customs, the food, soccer,'' he added. ‘‘It's just a natural bond.''

Making a connection is vital, said Edwin Hernandez, program director of the Center for the Study of Latino Religion at the University of Notre Dame.

‘‘It's about the nuances of cultural identity that immediately create a bonding that can never be replicated by anybody else,'' he said. ‘‘The cultural identification and bonding that occur when a person of the same background is leading them, serving them and overall providing spiritual leadership is a big draw, and it sustains people's faith.''

The recruitment wasn't necessarily needed in the past. When waves of Polish, German, and Irish immigrants were coming to the United States in the 19th and 20th centuries, for example, their Catholic priests followed them.

That's not happening anymore. Churches now need to actively seek out clergy and seminarians, said Bill D'Antonio, a retired sociologist who has taught at the University of Connecticut and at The Catholic University of America.

According to recent estimates by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, in Washington, D.C., Hispanics comprise a third of all Catholics and 6 percent of evangelical Protestants in the United States.

The group predicts a continued rapid growth of Hispanic Christians, 68 percent of whom are Roman Catholic and 15 percent of whom are born-again or evangelical Protestants.

With the growth, coupled with a competition for congregants among Christian faiths, church leaders realize they can't afford to fail to meet the needs of Hispanic believers.

Veronica Raya, an immigrant from Mexico City living in New York City, said she switched churches several years ago because she didn't feel a cultural connection with her previous pastor, who was born in the United States and spoke Spanish as a second language.

‘‘It makes you feel more like you are in a strange country and you cannot bring your own customs and worship like you're used to,'' she said.

Check out the link for more.

Good art and bad theology? Or vice versa?

The picture below was posted at David Kuo's Beliefnet blog, J-Walking. Overlooking its artistic merits (or lack thereof), I was curious to see what others thought. I can appreciate the point it makes, but I have misgivings about the theology behind it. Are we to wash the feet of everyone, even those whose stated desire is our destruction?

I sent it to a good friend, and she was deeply offended. (And she thought Hillary looked weird.) I pointed out to her that, well, Christ did wash the feet of Judas. But then again: the only feet he washed belonged to his apostles. Which certainly would not describe some of those pictured.

The picture, by the way, comes to us from this website.

Thoughts?

Googling God

A few weeks ago, I attended a Theology on Tap by Mike Hayes, of the Paulist online magazine Busted Halo, where he offered a preview of his upcoming book, Googling God, all about Generation X and faith.

I'd been raving about some of his insights to people -- and now folks can see for themselves just what I was gushing about.

His book has finally been published, and an excerpt now appears on the BH website:

When Paulist Father Brett Hoover and I founded BustedHalo.com in 2000, our mission was to minister to the “spiritual but not religious crowd” in their 20s and 30s. Much of our early research led us to think differently about young adults and how technology was influencing their lives. Of the more than 600 young adults we interviewed from across the country 89% stated that the number one thing they wanted in a spiritual website was information that they could find quickly and then get out.

The validity of that early research has been borne out in my experience ministering to young adults over the last seven years. Over that time I have run into countless 20- and 30-somethings who assume that they can “google” God. They believe religion should work the way the ubiquitous search engine Google works—instantaneously. When this approach fails them, they need spiritual mentors to help guide them through the ambiguities of life. Most often, however, those mentors don’t exist. Couple this mentality with the tragic events of recent years such as Columbine, 9-11, Katrina, and now Virginia Tech, and it is no surprise that young adults are also longing for something secure that transcends the madness of the current age. Simply put, they want something to believe in and someone to help them understand that belief more holistically.

But my experience has also taught me that trying to speak in general terms about the spiritual lives of the 20-30’s crowd as a whole is nearly impossible. There are distinct differences in how those on either end of that age group approach belief. Millions of GenXers (those in their 30s) still long for a communal spirituality as well as, a prophetic and altruistic tendency that places the poor at the forefront of their religiosity. They are still hoping to find God within themselves and those around them, while those in their 20s, known as Millennials, long for greater security and a sense of permanence.

In Googling God I’ve done my best to reflect the varied experiences of the young adults I’ve met over the past 7 years. To that end I interviewed 12 individuals from both groups—GenXers and Millennials—who allowed me to explore their journey of faith. The following brief excerpts from those interviews make one thing abundantly clear: Ministry to this age group cannot be a one-size-fits-all approach.

Continue right here for more. Fascinating stuff. This is going to resonate with young people, with youth ministers, and with anyone who wants to understand what the next generation believes -- and how that may affect the Church.

Why I love having a blog

It's because I get to post stuff like this.

I was delighted to learn that My Close Personal Friend Stephen Colbert had a chat last night on his show with another friend of mine, Fr. James Martin.

The interview, about Mother Teresa, is below. Enjoy. (And, a tip of the biretta, by the way, to Diane at Catholic Colbert!)

When that other person running the parish isn't a priest

Here's something relatively new that I suspect we'll be hearing about more and more: men and women who are not priests who are assigned to work as pastoral associates at a parish. The Tidings in Los Angeles more:

"God is asking for the freedom to re-arrange the pieces of our lives," Cardinal Roger Mahony told those gathered at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels Sept. 9 for the Mass of Commissioning of Pastoral Associates.

Each of the four commissioned, the cardinal said, have been open to change, to the "interruptions" God has brought to their lives, and has allowed God to "re-arrange their lives" so that they can respond to the call and challenge as pastoral associates.

The four newly commissioned pastoral associates are: Noel Fuentes for St. Raphael Church, Goleta; Claire Henning, St. Paul the Apostle, Westwood; Kathy Russell, St. Brendan, Los Angeles; and Deacon Bob Seidler, St. John Eudes, Chatsworth.

During his homily, Cardinal Mahony spoke from his own personal experience in the seminary and early priesthood. As a young man, though raised in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, he entered St. John's Seminary in Camarillo hoping to be ordained for the Diocese of Monterey. He wanted to work with the Spanish speaking, with migrant workers, but "God interrupted" his life.

As he told those assembled for the commissioning, "our view is limited, but the twists and turns of our lives are always to our benefit." Most importantly, he added, "we must ask ourselves, 'Where am I with God's plans?' For that is the challenge of discipleship. In St. Luke's Gospel [for last Sunday], Jesus asked Peter, James, John and his disciples to interrupt their work, to come follow him."

"God's ways are not our ways," said the cardinal. "He calls us radically to this type of relationship."

Pastoral associates are professional ministers who share with their pastors the overall care of the parish. He or she is a member of the parish staff, usually full-time, and is accountable to the pastor. Called to serve "in the name of the Church," they are commissioned by the archbishop after they are professionally prepared and formed for this service and leadership. (They are not to be confused with Parish Life Directors, who administer parishes which are without resident pastors.)

Each of the newly commissioned has come from a unique background and type of work experience, and each will bring her or his strengths and talents to the work of pastoral associate.

"In the cardinal's homily I felt like it was written for me," said Kathy Russell. "My life has been completely re-arranged. I am a widow now. I was a happy wife and mother of five, and even before my husband was ill, I felt this call to service, and he kept saying, 'Yes, it's who you are, and somehow you will be.' I never imagined it would be in this form, but that's how it all evolved."

With a background in business, Deacon Bob Seidler has been in charge of ministries within his parish and will now assume more duties in the business area. With his commissioning he was especially happy about this further calling to minister in the church.

"As we make this public statement," he said, "it is a message to the people of the Archdiocese: 'Yes, lay people can come forward and do these kinds of jobs in the Church.'"

"It's especially important," he added, "for the three women who were commissioned today. For me it's an affirmation of something I am pretty much already doing. But it's a step in the right direction. For the women it is a public recognition and hopefully they will be able to go back to their own churches and have a similar public recognition in front of their own parishioners. They are filling a new role in the lay leadership in the church. We're all called to ministry. Our baptism sends us in this direction and everyone is called. It's just that not everyone answers that call."

There's more at the link about the people involved. (As an aside: it's unfortunate that Deacon Seidler didn't make clear that as a deacon he is not, in fact, "a lay person.")

Photo: Cardinal Roger Mahony commissions (from left) Noel Fuentes, Claire Henning, Kathy Russell and Deacon Bob Seidler as pastoral associates during Mass Sept. 9 at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. By Sr. Nancy Munro, CSJ, The Tidings

Jane Wyman: buried in a habit

News reports of Jane Wyman's funeral have mentioned her devout Cathoicism -- and a detail that may surprise some people: she was buried in a habit.

This, from a local TV station:

Adopted son Michael Reagan attended the service with his wife and their daughter, Ashley, and son, Cameron, who was a pallbearer.

When he first spoke, Reagan, a syndicated radio show host, was choked up.

"Hopefully I can get through this," he said, adding that his mother "spent a lot of time on her knees, praying for me."

He recalled asking for a bicycle when he was 10. His mother told him he would have to get a job.

"She built men, not boys," he said. "I was lucky to be her son."

For most of his life, he said he was asked about his famous father.

"A lot of people talk about my father, but I am who I am today because of my mother," he said.

Wyman, a convert to Catholicism, joined a Dominican order in the latter part of her life. She was buried in her habit.

The Rev. Howard Lincoln of Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Palm Desert, where Wyman's funeral Mass was celebrated, said Wyman was especially generous to him.

"I saw my first $100,000 check because of Jane Wyman," he said.

Wyman's donations paid for padded pews, kneelers and a new sound system at the church.

Reagan said his mother always wanted everyone to be comfortable, half- seriously adding that was why she sprang for the cushions.

Lincoln called her "the antithesis of Norma Desmond," the vain, washed- up "Sunset Boulevard" character.

"She was long on style, but longer on substance," Lincoln said. The priest was philosophical about Wyman's passing.

"She has never been as alive as she is right now," he said. "She was one of those people who understood that there is no permanent address on this globe. Her new home is heaven." Wyman, he said, was "very plugged-in to our Lord."

About that habit: a reader tells me that Wyman was a third order Dominican.

Image: St. Catherine founding the Third and Second Order Dominicans, by Cosimo Roselli

Kathy Mattea: "When I am the most vulnerable, I am the most teachable"

This piece ran nearly a month ago on a little blog run by Tony Rossi, The Intersection, but it's too good to pass up.

It's a compelling and actually inspiring interview with singer-songwriter Kathy Mattea, who talks about her Catholic upbringing and her own faith journey through a lot of peaks and, lately, some very dark valleys:

Tony: On your album “Roses,” you recorded a song called “Till I Turn To You.” I like the song because it takes a brutally honest look at the difficulties of doing things God’s way instead of our own way. In particular, there’s the line, “I know others fall down on their knees for mercy / But you may have to hurt me before I see the light.” Which type of person are you – the one who falls down on their own to ask for mercy or the one who needs a little convincing?

Kathy: Oh, it’s pain. But you see my point of view today is that that pain is not caused by God. That pain is caused by me staying in my own will. And a lot of times I have to - because I’m a stubborn cuss – I have to do it my own way until it hurts bad enough that I am willing to try something else and I’m willing to let that help in. And to me, that’s the nature of sin. It’s not “I do bad.” It’s “I’m blind.” If I’m doing things my own way, sometimes even if it’s painful, that is the known experience. And when I let go of the known, that’s where the rubber meets the road about whether God is real or not real – about faith. Many times that feels like free-falling off a cliff and I will hold onto the painful thing until I have no choice because I want the comfort and predictability of that misery. But eventually it hurts so bad that I have no choice but to surrender. And that’s my cycle.

Tony: So even though you know it in your head, you still wind up having to go through it all the time anyway.

Kathy: Yeah, because the stuff of life comes at you from a different angle every time like the stuff with my dad and watching him physically deteriorate. But he was wide open about it and we had great talks about life and God and what it’s all about and what he learned. He just always squeezed out his wisdom like a tube of toothpaste as he walked towards his death. My mother completely checked out. Her mind broke because she could not bear the idea. They were two different kinds of anguish. So it comes at you different every time. You think, I went through that with him but this is a completely different experience.

Tony: Were you able to find any blessings during the time of your parents’ illnesses?

Kathy: Oh my God, so many of them. You know there was this moment with my mother that was the defining moment of that concept you just brought up. It was about a year before she died and I made a driving trip to visit some old college friends. And on the way I stopped at my Mom’s house. And as part of this, I had ordered a guitar for a friend of mine’s kid and so I had it sent to my mom’s house in West Virginia. When I got there, it arrived. I thought I better check it out to make sure it got shipped okay, that nothing got damaged. So we’re sitting on the porch and I tune the thing up and I hit a chord and my mother starts singing “Love at the Five and Dime” (Editor’s Note: one of Kathy’s first hit songs). My mother, you have to understand, was tone deaf and would never sing. And she starts singing it. And I wasn’t singing, I was just hitting the chord to see if the guitar worked! And the caregiver looked up and she said, “Oh that’s right. She gets restless around dinner every night because she feels she should be doing something so we bring her in the kitchen when we cook dinner and bring the little boom box in to play your greatest hits record every night and she sings along.” So I got that record out and went through the titles in order and my mom sang every song with me. And she couldn’t make a sentence at that point!

Tony: But she remembered all the lyrics?

Kathy: She remembered all the lyrics and sang with me. And you know even as late as this summer when she didn’t know who I was and she didn’t remember why she was supposed to know me, she could still sing all the verses of “You Are My Sunshine” to me. And that is a picture to me of how deeply seated music is for us and how important it is.

Tony: And that is a moment you’ll carry with you forever.

Kathy: Forever.

It's a long and remarkably thoughtful interview, so be sure to read the whole thing. You'll be glad you did.

"You are my light"

The always-reliable and alert Amy Welborn, over at Charlotte Was Both, has reminded us that today is the feast of St. John Chrysostom -- his last name meaning "golden mouth," celebrated for his gift for preaching. She quotes from today's Office of Readings, which gives a small glimpse at his remarkable talent:

If Christ is with me, whom shall I fear? Though the waves and the sea and the anger of princes are roused against me, they are less to me than a spider’s web. Indeed, unless you, my brothers, had detained me, I would have left this very day. For I always say “Lord, your will be done”; not what this fellow or that would have me do, but what you want me to do. That is my strong tower, my immovable rock, my staff that never gives way. If God wants something, let it be done! If he wants me to stay here, I am grateful. But wherever he wants me to be, I am no less grateful.

Yet where I am, there you are too, and where you are, I am. For we are a single body, and the body cannot be separated from the head nor the head from the body. Distance separates us, but love unites us, and death itself cannot divide us. For though my body die, my soul will live and be mindful of my people.

You are my fellow citizens, my fathers, my brothers, my sons, my limbs, my body. You are my light, sweeter to me than the visible light. For what can the rays of the sun bestow on me that is comparable to your love? The sun’s light is useful in my earthly life, but your love is fashioning a crown for me in the life to come.

There's a very good link right here that can tell you more about the good saint's life and work.

One of my most vivid memories of St. John is the liturgy that bears his name. It is one of the oldest rites still consistently celebrated -- maybe, even, the oldest -- in the Church, and is a cornerstone of the Eastern Rite Catholic Church. I had the good fortune of attending this liturgy a couple years ago during my diaconate formation.

It's a very different experience from what we know in the Latin Rite, with a lot of incense, singing, chanting and prayerful action conducted behind screen doors. The deacon has a prominent role, too. You can read more about it at this link. Some of the prayers are just beautiful:

Cry out with joy to God all the earth, O sing to the glory of His name, O render Him glorious praise.

Through the prayers of the Mother of God, O Savior, save us.

Say to God: How Tremendous Your deeds! Because of the greatness of Your strength Your enemies cringe before You.

Through the prayers of the Mother of God, O Savior, save us.

Before You all the earth shall bow; shall sing to You, sing to Your name, O Most High!

Through the prayers of the Mother of God O Savior, save us.

Woman looks forward to being "first pregnant Catholic priest"

In what it bills as a "Web Exclusive," Newsweek has just posted an interview with a 25-year-old woman named Jessica Rowley, who last week was "ordained" a priest in Missouri.

At one point, she emphasizes that she did all the things that men do to become priests -- including spending 10 months as a deacon -- and that she looks forward to having children and becoming the first pregnant Catholic priest. (Um, I have a feeling she may hear from her bishop before it goes that far...)

Below, some excerpts:

What made you decide to become a Catholic priest?
Jessica Rowley: It was a long process that started at a very young age. I [grew up Roman Catholic and] was always attracted to the church and to things spiritual. I was always affirmed by my youth minister that I had gifts for ministry.

Your husband, who is Protestant, helped you realize that you wanted to be a priest. Tell me about that.
I began going to church with him, and he began going to mass with me. At his church there were female pastors. He’s a member of the United Church of Christ. It’s a progressive, mainline Protestant denomination. They ordain women, and they’re open to gays and lesbians in their congregation.

That’s when you thought the ministry might be possible for you?
That’s when I decided to go to seminary. I figured I couldn’t be Roman Catholic anymore. When I was in seminary, I found the Ecumenical Catholic Communion. It resonated with the sacraments I grew up with, and I knew this was the place I was called.

Have you heard from the Roman Catholic hierarchy?
The community I belong to hasn’t felt anything from the bishop, but local Roman Catholic pastors have warned their congregations not to attend [ECC churches].

How has your family handled your decision? Are they still Roman Catholic?
They are. They are actually incredibly supportive. My immediate family came for the ordination. My grandmother bought me all the vestments.

How many people are in your congregation?
We have 80 registered members. And we have a number of people who come who are also part of the Roman Catholic churches but who come to worship with us as a place to refresh their souls—a lot of Catholic sisters and ex-priests.

How does being married affect the way you do your job?
It’s been nothing but a blessing in my ministry. It isn’t so odd if we look at the Episcopal Church or other denominations that have had married clergy for a long time. Being exposed to those traditions made me see that it could be possible. Married priesthood was a reality in the Catholic Church in medieval centuries. It wasn’t until later that celibacy was mandated. [In the Ecumenical Catholic Communion] we have married priests. We have women priests. We have out gay and lesbian priests in partnered relationships. We see the benefit of intimate connections. That helps us relate to couples. We also receive the kind of emotional support that so many Roman Catholic priests have to live without because they’re mandated to be celibate.

There's much more at the Newsweek link.

Whatever else Jessica Rowley may be, she's not a Catholic priest. And she should brace herself for hearing the news that, in fact, she's no longer Catholic.

Photo: by Vivian Lodderhose/Newsweek

From Bush to Bono

The other day, I posted the item from the Washington Post about the implicit (or even explicit) Catholicism of rock and roll. Now, as kind of a sideways addendum, there's this interesting piece of news about one of the people mentioned in the essay, Bono:

Bono, the lead singer of U2 and a self-proclaimed nonpartisan, has just made an intriguing hire to his operation: Matthew Dowd, a former top adviser to George W. Bush.

Mr. Dowd, Mr. Bush’s chief campaign strategist in 2004, began work last week as the chief strategist for the One Campaign, the anti-poverty organization that Bono founded, Mr. Dowd said today.

“It fit in with where I was in my life, which is no longer wanting to be in partisan politics,” he said in an interview. “It seemed perfect.”

Bono has attracted both Republicans and Democrats, including Bill Frist and Tom Daschle, to lend their support to the One Campaign. But Mr. Dowd, while a former Democrat, has strong Republican ties that make him an unusual choice for what could be a visible position.

He will be lobbying presidential candidates from both parties to support the One Campaign, a job that may be more difficult after he publicly distanced himself from Mr. Bush’s presidency last spring. In an interview with The Times in March, Mr. Dowd expressed disappointment with Mr. Bush’s leadership on Iraq and other issues, and said he felt “a calling of trying to re-establish a level of gentleness in the world.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if I wasn’t walking around in Africa or South America doing something that was like mission work,” he said then of his future career prospects.

Now, Mr. Dowd said, people in politics probably don’t see him as a member of either party. “I don’t want to be viewed as a Republican and I don’t want to be viewed as a Democrat,” he said. “I’d rather be viewed as a human being.”

How cool is that? Matthew Dowd may well have found the "mission work" he feels called to do. God love him.

Photo: Matthew Dowd and Bono, from the New York Times

A married Episcopalian priest converts -- and so does his flock

Here's something exciting: an Episcopalian priest converts to Catholicism -- and brings a big part of his flock with him.

Oh, and he's married with kids, too:

For the Rev. Eric L. Bergman, the duties of a Roman Catholic priest mean including his wife and four children whenever possible.

While Roman Catholic priests may not marry, Bergman was ordained under a Pastoral Provision approved by Pope John Paul II in 1980. Bergman was an Episcopalian priest, a faith that permits its priests to marry, when he sought priesthood in the Roman Catholic Church.

On April 21, 2007, Bergman was ordained a priest of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Scranton by John Dougherty, auxiliary bishop. Bergman said his family continues to be an important part of his life as a priest.

"We do a lot of things together," Bergman said during a telephone interview from Scranton, Pa. "I'm at my office and my family is with me. Priesthood offers some flexibility. I can work 14 hours one day and be off the next. For someone who likes a regimented schedule, this would not be the job."

[snip]

Born in Tennessee, Bergman grew up in the Episcopal faith and was baptized in 1971. He earned an undergraduate degree from James Madison University in Virginia and a master's of divinity from Yale.

In 1997, he was ordained an Episcopal priest.

His faith journey brought him to Roman Catholicism.

"I was at a retreat in 2004 when I realized that, based on my beliefs, I would become Catholic whether or not I could become a priest," he said. "I had a congregation with many who had the same beliefs I had."

Bergman, 36, and half of his parishioners made the conversion.

"I remained the pastor of these people who converted with me," he said. "This has happened five other times in the United States."

Bergman now serves a congregation of 70 as chaplain of the St. Thomas More Society, a community of Catholic converts.

"We were all confirmed together on Oct. 31, 2005," he said. "We are a society of the diocese. Other people are looking to us as an example. I am in correspondence with 20 men who want to do the same thing I did. Since the Pastoral Provision of John Paul II in 1980, 100 men have been ordained. We have seen a real increase.

"Anglicanism is a bridge between Protestantism and Catholicism," he said. "A lot of Anglicans think of themselves as Catholics not in communion with Rome. Liturgy is similar to a Catholic mass. It's a natural jump for a lot of people."

Bergman said he believed Catholicism more closely mirrored his beliefs.

"I don't want to malign or disparage Anglicanism," he said. "It is a lot of people's faith. I grew up in that church. It is where I obtained spirituality and an appreciation for scripture and music."

When he and many of his parishioners felt the pull to the Roman Catholic church, he said they did not have to leave behind many of the traditions with which they were familiar.

While this sort of conversion-and-ordination is becoming more common, what strikes me as unusual about Father Eric's case is that he's quite young -- and that he brought a significant part of his flock with him.

Welcome, one and all. It's great to have you. Make yourselves right at home.

Photo: The Rev. Eric L. Bergman was recently ordained into the priesthood by John M. Dougherty, auxiliary bishop of Scranton, Pa. Bergman is shown here with his wife, Kristina, and their children, Clara, 5, Eric, 4, Julia, 2, and Joan who is 9 months old. Photo from the Charleston Daily Mail.

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