Australian archbishop promotes ecumenical creed on human sexuality

Washington D.C., Jan 20, 2017 / 11:08 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Catholics must fight the societal ills of contempt, poverty, and unemployment through solidarity, recent speakers at the Catholic University of America in Washington D.C. insisted.

“The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost,” Arthur Brooks, president of the American Enterprise Institute, quoted the Gospel of Luke in his Jan. 17 address to Catholic University students on “bringing America together.”

“We’re sought. We seek others,” he continued. “If we want to change public policy and we want to change American culture, it’s not good enough to burn a bunch of money to help poor people. What are you going to do today to need somebody at the peripheries of society?”

Brooks gave the first CEO lecture of 2017 at the Busch School of Business and Economics, in which he emphasized the importance of work in human dignity.

There are many poor or unemployed persons living “at the periphery” of society who “we prefer not to see,” he said, asking the students in attendance, “If all the poor people in Washington, D.C. suddenly disappeared, how would your life change?”

“I daresay that most of you, your friendships wouldn’t change,” he answered to the students, adding that “really, intimately,” their lives would “not change very much” without the poor nearby.

“This is a country that has split in two so much” that “we don’t need the poor,” he said. “We don’t need millions and millions of our fellow Americans in any meaningful way.”

One in six “able-bodied men” are not even looking for work, he noted, and rising rates of alcoholism, drug overdoses, and suicides among white working-class middle-aged men without college degrees are “unseen and unheard.”

Yet this phenomenon of not “needing” the poor is toxic to society, he said, because “we need every human.” Every person “has the same inherent dignity,” he insisted.

“That is the source, all the politics aside, of the divisiveness” in society, he said, of “what’s pulling us apart.” The problem of “contempt” for fellow human beings, what he described as “the utter conviction of the worthlessness of another human being” is also at the heart of societal problems.

How can Catholics fight this? By going to the peripheries, befriending those with whom they disagree, and creating jobs that give human dignity back to the poor and the marginalized, he said.

He used the example of a program of the New York -based Doe Fund “Ready, Willing & Able,” which helps formerly homeless persons by employing them.

They “get back on their feet through work, through ordinary, sanctified, hard, honest work,” Brooks said. “That’s the equalizer. Human dignity is equalized when we all work in a sanctified way.”

The previous week, on Jan. 10, Bishop Robert McElroy of San Diego and Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston addressed a conference on “Erroneous Autonomy: The Dignity of Work.”

When global markets and institutions are divorced from morality, human dignity is threatened, they insisted. Catholic social teaching challenges the autonomy of markets by emphasizing the dignity of the worker and the right of workers to organize to protect their rights, they said.

“Increasing international trade and financial relationships, combined with rapidly advancing technological innovation and the world of the internet, have produced what we call globalization,” Cardinal O’Malley said.

“This development has produced enormous amounts of wealth but not a fair and just distribution of the proceeds,” he added.

Three current social trends are operating apart from morality and pose special dangers to the common good, Bishop McElroy observed.

“The first of these is the drive for the sovereignty of markets. The second is the technocratic paradigm which seeks dominance over the environment and culture. The third, and most worrying, is nationalism.”

“In a very real way they have been evacuated of moral substance and operate autonomously from any moral anchors as principles of politics and governance in our national life,” he said.

Globalism was said by St. John Paul II in his 1991 encyclical Centesimus annus to “lack morality,” Cardinal O’Malley noted. Thus, leaders “have the responsibility to establish a moral framework which can assess and direct the purposes and the consequences of globalization.”

Human dignity is “the cornerstone” of the Church’s social teaching, Cardinal O’Malley said, citing Pope Francis.

“This means that each individual is to be protected by a moral framework of human rights and that the work a person does, whether manual labor, mining, or intellectual and professional work, is understood as an expression of their dignity.”

The Church must work with unions to ensure the dignity of workers is protected against markets that are separated from morality, Cardinal O’Malley maintained.

“The case for unions is rooted in the Catholic sense of our responsibilities to each other as members of the human family; we are not to be left alone in society and or in the economy,” he said.

“We are called to support the right of workers, all workers, private and public sector workers, to organize and be represented in the marketplace and in negotiations by an institution, the union, which gives workers leverage and a voice in the major decisions affecting them and their families.”

Pope Francis “has been a strong public advocate for the dignity of labor, including making interventions when companies were intending significant elimination of jobs,” he continued, noting that the Pope “has argued strongly that in the midst of the forces of technology and globalization, people cannot be reduced to arguments for greater efficiency.”

Health care, the minimum wage, and immigration are all present-day issues closely tied to Catholic social teaching and the dignity of the worker, Cardinal O’Malley explained.

“Debates about minimum wages are most relevant to those closest to poverty,” he said. “Catholic teaching about the option for the poor places us in support of reasonable initiatives to raise the minimum wage.”

“Affordable health care is foundational for the well-being of individuals and families and lack of health care directly threatens human dignity,” he said, emphasizing that “our moral obligation not to abandon people in their times of need is clear.”

Just this past week, the U.S. bishops’ conference asked Congress not to repeal the Affordable Care Act without having a replacement plan in place that would ensure health care coverage for those who most need it.

“While every country must balance numerous factors in determining immigration policy, particularly with regard to security, our national history and our principles call us to be a welcoming society,” Cardinal O’Malley continued.

“For decades the U.S. Catholic Bishops Conference has called for systematic immigration reform, including protection of undocumented individuals and families.”

[…]

Denver, Colo., Jul 26, 2019 / 11:38 am (CNA).- Philosophy does not teach its students the Bible. It does not teach one how to minister to a congregation. It does not teach one how to distribute the sacraments.

Despite this, seminarians are required to study between two and four years of philosophy, depending on their diocese and seminary, before they transfer to a major seminary to study exclusively theology, taking up time during which they could study pastoral ministry or theology.

This study, which might seem impractical, is fundamental to seminarians’ understanding their future education and the people with whom they will interact as pastors, according to the Congregation for Catholic Education.

The congregation, in its 2011 decree on the reform of ecclesiastical studies of philosophy, wrote that “philosophy is indispensable for theological formation.”

Modern-day priests are not the first Catholics to have studied philosophy along with theology. A plethora of the saints have done the same, and many of them are renowned philosophers themselves.

St. Thomas Aquinas is an example of these influential theologian-philosophers. They have taken advantage of the advanced logic and specialized vocabulary of philosophy, and used it to clarify and deepen their understanding of theology, Notre Dame Seminary rector Fr. James Wehner believes.

“St. Thomas Aquinas was the best; he bridged both disciplines”, Fr. Wehner said. “He was a philosopher and a theologian, and I think today you can’t study either without studying him – the perfect example of how both were bridged together. “

Philosophy has helped theologians better to understand problems such as the existence of evil, free will, and the existence of the soul, and then to apply their findings to theology, as can be seen through their writings.

Philosophy already dealt with issues such as those, requiring deep thought and logic in order to make conclusions, as seen within their papers, and so the transition from philosophy to theology was smooth, Fr. Harrison Ayre, a priest of the Diocese of Victoria, believes.

These philosopher-priests then brought their logic into the faith, many of their ideas helping to develop dogma, Fr. Ayre said, referring to the ecumenical councils.

The study of philosophy helps theologians better understand the specifics of what ancient theologians mean by their use of philosophical terms, as they often described theological thoughts with philosophical terms capable of capturing the depth necessary in order to discuss theology, Fr. Aye believes.

This is important as many conclusions of the Church were made through ecclesial councils during the early part of the Church during which most scholars relied heavily on philosophy, and the writings stemming from these are not fully understandable without an understanding of the use of terms and ideas during the time of their writing.

Philosophy helped many early theologians better understand their faith through logic and come to natural conclusions rather than resting entirely on faith, and it continues to do so, Fr. Ayre believes.

The Congregation for Catholic Education wrote that “philosophical wisdom forms the summit that reason can reach.”

“Philosophy trains the mind to do the work of theology,” Fr. Wehner explained.

Fr. Ayre recalled: “One of my professors in seminary said that Jesus redeems the whole man, including the man, so use it. We sometimes tend to eschew the reasonableness of faith thinking it’s not important, ‘I just believe and that’s enough.’”

“Now not everyone’s gonna be philosophers, and not everyone’s gonna seek those deep questions of life, but we also ought not to have an attitude that looks negatively at rational thought and life of the Church because it’s these rational things that ultimately are the underpinning of the life of the Church,” he continued.

Catholicism is not fideistic, so in order to be able to understand its teachings reason is necessary, and this is why the Church has so long encouraged the study of philosophy, Fr. Ayre told CNA.

There are some truths the Church believes, inspired by divine revelation, that could not be arrived at through reason alone, but this is why it is important to have a combination of faith and reason, Fr. Wehner believes.

“I think one could make a statement that everything the Catholic Church teaches is ‘reasonable.’ People might not believe the teachings, but one can’t say that they violate reason,” Fr. Wehner continued.

Although not all truths can be reasoned to, they all are reasonable, so reason can help us understand revealed truths, he believes.

“Faith and reason are the two ways which God has allowed has allowed human beings to know the truth,” Fr. Wehner said.

For a priest who will be in charge of teaching congregations about the faith, a deeper understanding past baseless faith-statements is necessary so that he can better explain it and help people understand why, not just what we believe, Fr. Ayre believes.

“That’s going to take shape in homilies, that’s going to take shape in the classroom, that’s going to take shape with a couple who’s preparing to get married,” Fr. Wehner said. “So we’re not all going to be theologians and philosophers, but we have to be trained to understand the mysteries of the faith, the way God chose to reveal them to us.”

Philosophy also helps priests understand their parishioners when they come for help with problems. Having studied philosophy, a priest can better understand the “underpinning of problems”, as Fr. Ayre says.

As counsel is a major part of the priest’s role, it is essential that he is able to enter into these counseling opportunities with understanding and a broader view, Fr. Ayre has found through his priesthood.

“Philosophy actually gives you these critical tools to get to the root of the problem,” Fr. Ayre said. “It gives you those critical and rational tools to be able to do that with people, so it’s very helpful in that regard.”

“It helps you to be able to address the deep concerns in peoples’ lives in a rational way because the faith is not something irrational. It is something rational. And so you want to be able to give a rational basis for that, so philosophy is definitely something incredibly helpful,” he continued.

Fr. Ayre also credits philosophy with helping him understand the beliefs of those who are not Catholic.

“It allows you to be able to understand things from the natural realm much more clearly, to understand opposing positions, and it’s the underpinning of doing theology,” he said. “You can’t really do theology without philosophy.”

[…]

El Paso, Texas, Jul 31, 2019 / 12:25 am (CNA).- A Catholic diocese has teamed up with a local immigration aid group to help refugees on the western Texas-Mexico border.

The Catholic Diocese of El Paso and the HOPE Border Institute introduced a new Go-… […]