U.S. bishops praise Biden’s repeal of travel ban

Los Angeles, Calif., May 19, 2018 / 06:03 am (CNA/EWTN News).- May 21 will mark the memorial of Mary, Mother of the Church, added to the Roman calendar this year by Pope Francis.

The annual memorial is intended to foster Marian devotion among Catholic… […]

Denver Newsroom, Aug 10, 2021 / 16:32 pm (CNA).

With five children ages 10 and under to care for, and a pair of goats, a rabbit, chickens and a dog to tend to, Maureen and Matt McKinley rely on a structured routine to keep their busy lives on track.

Chores, nap times, scheduled story hours – they’re all important staples of their day. But the center of the McKinleys’ routine, what focuses their family life and strengthens their Catholic faith, they say, is the Traditional Latin Mass. 

Its beauty, reverence, and timelessness connect them to a rich liturgical legacy that dates back centuries.

“This is the Mass that made so many saints throughout time,” observes Maureen, 36, a parishioner at Mater Misericordiæ Catholic Church in Phoenix.

“You know what Mass St. Alphonsus Ligouri, St. Therese, St. Teresa of Avila and St. Augustine were attending? The Traditional Latin Mass,” Maureen says.

“We could have a conversation about it, and we would have all experienced the exact same thing,” she says. “That’s exciting.”

Recent developments in the Catholic Church, however, have curbed some of that excitement. On July 16, Pope Francis released a motu proprio titled Traditiones custodis, or “Guardians of the Tradition”, that has cast doubt on the future of the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) – and deeply upset and confused many of its devotees.

Pope Francis’ directive rescinds the freedom Pope Benedict XVI granted to priests 14 years ago to say Masses using the Roman Missal of 1962, the form of liturgy prior to Vatican II, without first seeking their bishop’s approval. Under the new rules, bishops now have the “exclusive competence” to decide where, when, and whether the TLM can be said in their dioceses.

In a letter accompanying the motu proprio, Pope Francis maintains that the faculties granted to priests by his predecessor have been “exploited to widen the gaps, reinforce the divergences, and encourage disagreements that injure the Church, block her path, and expose her to the peril of division.”

Using the word “unity” a total of 15 times in the accompanying letter, the pope suggests that attending the TLM is anything but unifying, going so far as to correlate a strong personal preference for such masses with a rejection of Vatican II.

Weeks later, many admirers of the “extraordinary” form of the Roman rite – the McKinleys among them – are still struggling to wrap their minds and hearts around the pope’s order, and the pointed tone he used to deliver it. 

Maureen McKinley says she had never considered herself a “traditionalist Catholic” before. Instead, she says she and her husband have just “always moved toward the most reverent way to worship and the best way to teach our children.”

“It didn’t feel like I became a particular type of Catholic by going to Mater Misericordiæ. But since the motu proprio came out, I feel like I have been categorized, like I was something different, something other than the rest of the Church,” she says.

“It feels like our Holy Father doesn’t understand this whole group of people who love our Lord so much.” 

McKinley isn’t alone in feeling this way. Sadness, anger, frustration, and disbelief are some common themes in conversations among those who regularly attend the TLM.

They want to understand and support the Holy Father, but they also see the restriction as unnecessary, especially when plenty of other more pressing issues in the Church abound.

Eric Matthews, another Mater Misericordiæ parishioner, views the new restrictions as an “attack on devout Catholic culture,” citing the beauty that exists across the rites recognized within the Church. There are seven rites recognized in the Catholic Church: Latin, Byzantine, Alexandrian or Coptic, Syriac, Armenian, Maronite, and Chaldean. 

“It’s the same Mass,” says Matthews, 39, who first discovered the TLM about eight years ago. “It’s just different languages, different cultures, but the people that you have there are there for the right reasons.”

Different paths to the TLM

The pope’s motu proprio directly affects a tiny fraction of U.S. Catholics – perhaps as few as 150,000, or less than 1 percent of some 21 million regular Mass-goers, according to some estimates. According to one crowd-sourced database, only about 700 venues – compared to over 16,700 parishes nationwide – offer the TLM.

Also, since the motu proprio’s release July 16, only a handful of bishops have stopped the TLM in their dioceses. Of those bishops who have made public responses, most are allowing the Masses to continue as before – in some cases because they see no evidence of disunity, and in others because they need more time to study the issue.

But for those who feel drawn to the TLM – for differing reasons that have nothing to do with a rejection of Vatican II – it feels as if the ground has shifted under their feet.

Maureen McKinley wants her children to understand the importance of hard work, of which they have no shortage when it comes to their urban farm. After morning prayer, Maureen milks the family’s goats with the help of the children. Madeline (age 10) feeds the bunny; Augustine (7) exercises the dog; John (6) checks for eggs from the chickens; and Michael (4) helps anyone he chooses. 

With a noisy clatter in the kitchen, the McKinleys eat breakfast, tidy up their rooms, and begin their daily activities. They break at 11 a.m. to head to daily Mass at Mater Misericordiæ, an apostolate of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter (FSSP), where they first attended two years ago. 

Matt, 34, wanted to know how the early Christians worshipped.

“The funny thing about converts is they’re always wanting more,” says Maureen, who was, at first, a little resistant to the idea of attending the TLM because she didn’t know Latin. “Worship was a big part of his conversion.” 

Maureen agreed to follow her husband’s lead, and they continued to attend the TLM. What kept them coming back week after week was the reverence for the Eucharist.

“Matt had a really hard time watching so many people receive communion in the hand at the other parish,” says Maureen. “He says he didn’t want our kids to think that that was the standard. That’s the exception to the rule, not the rule.”

Reverence in worship also drew Elizabeth Sisk to the TLM. A 28-year-old post-anesthesia care unit nurse, she attends both the Novus Ordo, the Mass promulgated by St. Paul VI in 1969, and the extraordinary form in Raleigh, North Carolina, where her parish, the Holy Name of Jesus Cathedral, offers the TLM on the first Sunday of the month. 

Sisk has noticed recently that more people in her area — especially young people who are converts to Catholicism — are attending both forms of the Mass. While the Novus Ordo is what brought many of them, herself included, to the faith, she feels that the extraordinary form invites them to go deeper.

“We want to do something radical with our lives,” Sisk says. “To be Catholic right now as a young person is a really radical decision. I think the people who choose to be Catholic right now, we’re all in. We don’t want ‘watered-down’ Catholicism.”

With the lack of Christian values in the world today, Sisk desires “something greater,” which she says she can tell is happening in the TLM.

Many TLM parishes saw an increase in attendance during the pandemic, as they were often the only churches open while many others shut their doors or held Masses outside. This struck some as controversial, if not disobedient to the local government. For others, it was a saving grace to have access to the sacraments.

The priests at Erin Hanson’s parish obtained permission from the local bishop to celebrate Mass all day, every day, with 10 parishioners at a time during the height of the COVID pandemic.

“We were being told by the world that church is not necessary,” says Hanson, a 39-year-old mother of three. “Our priest says, ‘No, that’s a lie. Our church is essential. Our salvation is essential. The sacraments are essential.’”

Andy Stevens, 52, came into the Church through the TLM, much to the surprise of his wife, Emma, who had been a practicing Catholic for many years. Andy was “very adamantly not going to become Catholic,” but was happy to help Emma with their children at Mass. It wasn’t until they attended a TLM that Andy began to think differently about the Church.

“He believed that you die and then there is nothing, and he never really spoke to me about becoming a Catholic,” says Emma, 48, who was pregnant with their seventh child at the time.

Andy noticed an intense focus among the worshippers, which he recognized as a “real presence of God” that he didn’t see anywhere else. After the birth of their 7th child, he joined the Church.

All 12 of the Stevens’ children prefer the TLM to the Novus Ordo.

“It’s a Mass of the ages,” says their eldest son, Ryan, 27. “I can feel the veil between heaven and earth palpably thinner.” 

A native of Chicago, Adriel Gonzalez, 33, remembers attending the TLM as a child, which he did not particularly like. It was “very long, very boring,” and the people who went to the TLM were “very stiff and they could come off as judgmental” towards his family, he says.

Gonzalez, who also attended Mass in Spanish with his family, didn’t understand the differences among rites, since Chicago was a sort of “salad bowl, ethnically,” he says, and Mass was celebrated in many languages and forms. 

He took a step back from faith for some time, he says, noting that he had a “respectability issue” with the Christianity he grew up with. He watched as some of his friends were either thoughtless in the way they practiced their faith, or were “on fire,” but lacked intentionality. When he did come back to the faith, it was through learning about the Church’s intellectual tradition.

He spent time in monasteries and Eastern Catholic parishes with the Divine Liturgy because there was “something so obviously ancient about it.” He decided to stay within the Roman rite with a preference for a reverent Novus Ordo. 

When he moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan, Gonzalez committed to his neighborhood parish, which had a strong contingent of people who loved tradition in general. The parish instituted a TLM in the fall of 2020, when they started having Mass indoors again after the pandemic. 

“If I’m at a Latin Mass, I’m more likely to get a sense that this is a time-honored practice, something that has been honed over the millennia,” he says. “There is clearly a love affair going on here with the Lord that requires this much more elaborate song and dance.”

For Eric Matthews, the TLM feels a little like time travel. 

“It could be medieval times, it could be the enlightenment period, it could be the early 1900s, and the experience is going to be so similar,” he says.

“I just feel like that’s that universal timeframe – not just the universal Church in 2021 – but the universal Church in almost any time period. We’re the only church that can claim that.”

What happens now?

The motu proprio caught Adriel Gonzalez’ attention. He sought clarity about whether his participation in the extraordinary form was, in fact, part of a divisive movement, or simply an expression of his faith.

If it was a movement, he wanted no part of it, he says.

“As far as I can tell, the Church considers the extraordinary form and the ordinary form equal and valid,” says Gonzalez. “Ideally, there should be no true difference between going to one or the other, outside of just preference. It shouldn’t constitute a completely different reality within Catholicism.”

With this understanding, Gonzalez says he resonated with some of the reasoning set forth in the motu proprio because it articulated that the celebration of the TLM was never intended to be a movement away from the Novus Ordo or Vatican II. Gonzalez also emphasized that the extraordinary form was never supposed to be a “superior” way of celebrating the Mass. 

Gonzalez believes the Lord allowed the growth in the TLM “to help us to recover a love for liturgy, and to ask questions about what worship and liturgy looks like.” He would have preferred if what was good was kept and encouraged, and what was potentially dangerous “coaxed out and called out.” 

Erin Hanson, of Mater Misericordiæ, agrees. 

“If [Pope Francis] does believe there is division between Novus Ordo and traditional Catholics, I don’t think he did anything to try to fix that division,” she says. 

Hanson would like to know who the bishops are that Pope Francis consulted in making this decision, sharing that she doesn’t feel that there is any of the transparency needed for such a major document. If there are divisions, she says, she would like the opportunity to work on them in a different way. 

“This isn’t going to be any less divisive if he causes a possible schism,” Hanson says.

According to the motu proprio and the accompanying letter, the TLM is not to be celebrated in diocesan churches or in new churches constructed for the purpose of the TLM, nor should new groups be established by the bishops. Left out of their parish churches, some are worried their only option to attend Mass will be in a recreation center or hotel ballroom. 

Eric Matthews hopes that everyone is able to experience the extraordinary form at least once in their life so they can know that this is not about division.

“I can’t imagine someone going to the Latin Mass and saying, ‘This is creating disunity,’” he says. “There’s nothing to be afraid of with the Latin Mass. You’re just going to be surrounding yourself with people that really take it to heart.”

Maureen McKinley was home sick when her husband Matt found out about the motu proprio. He had taken the kids to a neighborhood park, where he ran into some friends who also attend Mater Misericordiæ. They asked if he had heard the news. 

“I felt disgust at a document that pretends to say so much while actually saying so little and disregards the Church’s very long and rich tradition of careful legal documents,” Matt McKinley says.

Bishop Thomas Olmsted of Phoenix stated that the TLM may continue at Mater Misericordiæ, as well as in chapels, oratories, mission churches, non-parochial churches, and at seven other parishes in the diocese. Participation in the TLM and all of the activities of the parish are so important to the McKinleys that they are willing to move to another state or city should further restrictions be implemented. 

For now, their family’s routine continues the same as before.

At the end of their day, the McKinleys pray a family rosary in front of their home altar, which has a Bible at the center, and an icon of Christ and a statue of the Virgin Mary. They eat dinner together, milk the goat again, and take care of their evening animal chores. After night prayer, the kids head off to bed, blessing themselves with holy water from the fonts mounted on the wall before they enter their bedroom. 

“The life of the Church springs from this Mass,” Maureen says. “That’s why we’re here—not because the Latin Mass is archaic, but that it’s actually just so alive.”

Editor’s note: Several of the people interviewed here also shared their stories with the CNA Newsroom podcast, and their voices appear on Episode 107: Extraordinary Times for the Extraordinary Form. Click here to listen to the episode.

[…]

Washington D.C., Nov 2, 2017 / 03:03 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Death. It’s a subject seen as sad, morbid and fearful, something that people would rather not think about, and certainly not discuss.

Yet for Catholics, death is an essential part of the faith.

“For those who die in Christ’s grace it is a participation in the death of the Lord, so that they can also share his Resurrection,” reads the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

The celebration of the sacraments hearken for a kind of death: death to self, death as a consequence of sin, a remembrance of Christ’s death and entrance into eternal life.

As the 20th century priest Fr. Henri Nouwen remarked, “Dying is the most general human event, something we all have to do.”

The question, he asks, is “Do we do it well?”

Hiding from death

Advances in medicine and technology have drastically increased life expectancies in the past century. In 1915, most people would not expect to live past age 55. A child born in the US in 2017 is expected to see their 85th birthday.

As a result, death has become something distant and even foreign, argues Julie Masters, a professor and chair of the Department of Gerontology at the University of Nebraska, Omaha.

“We get lulled into thinking death doesn’t hit us very often, because it waits until people are very old,” she told CNA. “We know that younger people do die, that middle aged people do die, but in this country, the majority of people who die are going to be older people.”

The average American in the 21st century simply doesn’t have the experience with death that previous generations had, she said. And this lack of experience can lend itself to fear and a tendency to ignore the uncomfortable unknown of the future.

“So we’ll put it off until we have to talk about it, and when we do talk about it, then we get in a pickle because we’re not sure what people want,” Masters said.

Hiding from death can have other consequences, as well. Cultural unease and inexperience with death can affect how we approach loved ones as they die.

“If we’re uncomfortable with death, if someone is dying, we may be unwilling to visit them because we don’t know what to say, when in reality we don’t need to say anything,” Masters said. “We may be less available to comfort them.”

Avoidance of death can also impact vulnerable members of society who are not actively dying, Masters warned.

“Our uncomfortableness with dying may be symptomatic of our desire to control dying and death,” she said. When that control or the fear of becoming a “burden” gives way to conversations about physician-assisted suicide, she continued, “we look at the most vulnerable and say ‘are they really worthy of living, think of all the resources they’re taking up?’”

“Each step in that slope, it gets easier to get rid of people who are no longer valuable or are vulnerable. Yet don’t we learn from the vulnerable?” she questioned. “They’re the ones who teach the strong what’s most valuable in life.”

But Masters also sees a desire to move towards a broader discussion of how to die well. She pointed to the spread of Death Cafes and other guided discussion groups that encourage conversations about death, dying and preparation for the end of life.

Churches can offer a similar kinds of programming, she suggested: “People want to talk about it, they just need the place to do that.”

What does it mean to have a ‘happy death’?

While a person may plan for their death, ultimately the circumstances of one’s passing will be out of their control. However, everyone can aspire to a “good” or “happy” death, said Fr. Michael Witczak, an associate professor of liturgical studies at The Catholic University of America.

He told CNA that the essential qualities of a happy death are being in a state of grace and having a good relationship with God.

The idea of a happy death, or at the very least the aspiration of it, gained popular consideration in the Ars Moriendi – a collection of 15th Century Catholic works laying out the “Art of Dying,” he noted.

The texts elaborate on the temptations – such as despair – that face the dying, questions to ask the dying, advice for families and friends, how to imitate Christ’s life, and prayers for the bedside.

Resources such as these, from ages of the Church that had a more daily experience of death, Fr. Witczak suggested, can be a good resource for beginning to live “intentionally” and to think more about death and how to die well.

Masters agreed that intentionality is key in shifting the cultural mindset on death and dying.
“What if people approached death with the same joy that they greet the birth of a new baby?” she asked.

It’s a fitting analogue, she argues. Both processes – birth and death – are the defining markers of human life, and natural processes that all the living will experience. Both processes also open the door to a similar set of unknowns: What comes next? What will it be like afterwards? How will we cope?

She added that the modern tendency to view death with suspicion and trepidation – or to ignore it altogether – reflects something about the culture.

“If we’re so afraid of death and dying, I have to wonder if we’re also afraid of life and living.”

Last wishes

Discussing death is the first step in making practical preparations for it.

Without planning, Masters said, loved ones may not know a person’s preferences for treatment, finances, or funeral preparations, which can lead to sometimes sharp divides between friends and family. “When we get comfortable talking about death,” she noted, “we can let people know what our wishes are, so that hopefully our wishes are followed.”

Thorough planning includes setting advanced directives and establishing a power of attorney who can make medical decisions on one’s behalf if one is unable to do so.

It is also important to be aware of different care options in an individual’s geographic location. These include palliative care, which focuses on improving quality and length of life while decreasing the need for additional hospital visits. Not just limited to end-of-life situations, palliative care is available for a range of long-term illnesses, and seeks to relieve pain rather than cure an underlying condition.

Hospice care is also an option when the end of life approaches. At this point, the goal is no longer to extend the length of life, but to prepare for death, trying to alleviate pain and offer comfort, while also helping mentally, emotionally, and spiritually to prepare for death.

Funeral planning and creating a will are also important steps in the preparation process. Even for the young or those without material possessions, planning for one’s death can be useful for grieving friends and family members, Masters said. She explained that the idea of creating an “ethical will” is a Jewish tradition in which a person writes a letter or spiritual autobiography, leaving behind the values and morals they found important in their life to pass on to the next generation.

The practice, which is growing in popularity, is available to anyone “to put down into words what’s given their life meaning,” and can have special meaning for those who “feel, because they don’t have a lot of wealth or a lot of possessions, that they have nothing to leave their family.”

Masters pointed to a student of hers who wrote an ethical will shortly before passing away in college and the example of her own grandparents instilling the recitation of the Rosary as people who left behind some of their most meaningful gifts to their loved ones.

“It’s a testament to what that person believed in. What a gift that is!”

Paul Malley, president of the non-profit group Aging with Dignity, stressed that planning the more specific details of end-of-life care can help respect a person’s dignity during illness or on the deathbed.

“Those who are at the end of life, whether they may be suffering with a serious illness or disability, tend to have their dignity questioned,” he told CNA.

The sick and dying are often isolated, receiving care from medical professionals, he explained. And while advanced care planning often focuses on decisions regarding feeding tubes, ventilators, and other medical treatment options, that discussion “doesn’t tell your family anything about what dignified care means to you.”

“It’s important not to just talk about caregiving in terms of medical issues,” Malley stressed. “That’s a small fraction of a day – the rest of the day plays out at the bedside.”

Aging with Dignity promotes planning for acts of comfort, spiritual issues and family relationships in order to make the time surrounding death easier and more dignified for all involved.

“These issues were never talked about when it came to end-of-life care or advanced care planning.” Among some of the requests participants make, he elaborated, are small acts of comfort like cool cloths on a forehead, pictures of loved ones in a hospital room, favorite blankets on a bed, or requests for specific family or friends to come visit.

Planning to incorporate what Malley calls “the lost art of caregiving,” was important to his own family when his grandmother died. “One of the most important things for her was that she always wanted to have her feet poking out of the blanket because her feet were hot,” he recalled.

Although nurses and care providers would often bundle her feet up to try to keep her warm, her family was able to untuck her feet afterwards so she could stay comfortable.

“That might be something that sounds very trivial, very small, but for her, for my grandmother, laying in that bed where she couldn’t get up and couldn’t reach down to pull up her own blanket, having her feet stick out at the edge of the blanket was probably the most important thing to her all day long,” Malley said.

The end of the earthly pilgrimage

For Catholics, spiritual preparation for death should always include the sacraments, Fr. Witczak said.

The Sacrament of Reconciliation, important for all the faithful throughout their lives, is a particularly important spiritual medicine for those nearing death.

Additionally, Anointing of the Sick should be sought for those who have begun to be in danger of death due to sickness or old age, and it can be repeated if the sick person recovers and again becomes gravely ill, or if their condition becomes more grave.

“The Church wants people to celebrate the sacrament as often as they need to,” Fr. Witczak said.

The Eucharist can also be received at the end of life as “viaticum,” which means “with you on the way.”

“It’s receiving the Lord who will be with you on the way to the other side,” said Fr. Thomas Petri, O.P., vice president and academic dean at the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception at the Dominican House of Studies.

He added that the Eucharist can be received as viaticum more than once, should a person recover, and can also be given even if someone has already received the Eucharist earlier during the day.

A good death is a gift

Prayer, reception of the sacraments, and seeking forgiveness from God and one another can mark death as a time of peace, Fr. Petri said. Death can also be a time of surprise, as it “either amplifies the way a person has lived their life or it causes a complete reversal,” with some people undergoing profound conversions or surprising hardenings of the heart during their last days.

“Much of it really does really on the will of God,” he reflected, adding that we should all pray for the grace of a holy death.

Dying a happy death is not only a blessing for the person dying, but can be a gift to others as well, Fr. Petri said, noting that family and friends can be drawn closer to one another and to God as the result of a holy death.

Masters agreed, adding that “the dying can serve as examples or role models,” by teaching others how to die without fear.

Ultimately, Fr. Witczak said, Christians “do” death differently because Christians “do” life differently.

“I think as human beings, death is a topic we’re afraid of and we’re told not to think about, and the Christian tradition keeps trying to bring it before people, not to scare people, but rather to remind people of their ultimate destiny,” he said.

“This is not simple and it’s something people ultimately have to learn for themselves, but it’s the important task of life. I think what the Church tries to do is to help people live their life fully and even live their death as an entryway into the life that is promised to us by Jesus Christ.”

Looking toward death and the vulnerability that surrounds it can be a vital way of encountering death – and overcoming the fear of it, he said.

Masters agreed, noting that those who have had encounters with death or profound suffering often “look at life differently.”

“They understand it is so fleeting. But because they know how close death is they look at life in a different way.”

For many people, this different approach to life includes an increased focus on family, friends and service, she said. “That’s how you’re remembered at the end of the day: what did you do for other people?”

Starting with even the most basic conversations about death, she added, can be beneficial for those wanting to confront mortality.

“When you can acknowledge that you’re going to die, you can begin to live your life.”

[…]