San Angelo, Texas, Sep 14, 2017 / 03:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In the 1620s, while the pilgrims were landing on Plymouth Rock and having the first Thanksgiving, the Jumano tribe in Texas (before it was Texas) were allegedly having mysterious encounters w… […]
Worcester, Mass., Sep 13, 2017 / 03:29 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The first time Our Lady of Fatima appeared to the shepherd children, she asked a question.
For Father Mitch Pacwa, S.J., host of “EWTN Live,” this question could be addressed to e… […]
Washington D.C., Sep 13, 2017 / 03:14 pm (CNA).- Catholic moral theologians have responded to Steve Bannon’s accusation that the U.S. bishops are economically motivated in their stance on immigration, calling the former White House chief strategist “rash” in his take on the issue.
But what’s more, they say Catholics should not treat the guidance of the bishops as just another “guy with an opinion,” as Bannon said – even when dealing with situations that are applications of the Church’s doctrinal teaching.
“I absolutely reject Bannon’s way of formulating it in general,” Dr. Kevin Miller, a professor of theology at the Franciscan University of Steubenville, told CNA.
“In teaching about matters dealing with faith and morals: even when the bishops are speaking in a prudential way, in a non-magisterial way, they’re not just some other guy in the conversation,” he said. “There’s a certain kind of appropriate deference that is due there, even if one is to end up disagreeing with what they say or do there.”
“But I also disagree with Bannon because I think he’s making an artificial distinction between, on the one hand, the realm of faith and morals, and on the other hand, the realm of politics,” Miller added.
“Politics has to be engaged in morally and the Church has something to say – and has said a great deal over the centuries – over what that means.”
Miller’s comments came in response to remarks by former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, during an interview with CBS News’ “60 Minutes” host Charlie Rose, posted online Sept. 7. The full interview aired September 10. In the clip, Bannon criticized the U.S. Bishops’ immigration policy stances and said that the bishops support undocumented immigration because of a cynical “economic interest.”
Rose asked Bannon about the Trump administration’s recent announcement to phase out the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program (DACA). After Bannon defended the decision, Rose pressed further, noting that Bannon is a Catholic and that New York Archbishop Cardinal Timothy Dolan – along with other leaders – have opposed the move.
DACA was established in 2012 by former President Barrack Obama to create a pathway to legal residency for undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children so that qualifying individuals can work or continue their education. After challenges on the executive order’s constitutionality – which was partially upheld– the Trump administration responded to pressures from numerous state attorney generals to repeal the program. Currently, around 800,000 persons are part of the DACA program.
“The bishops have been terrible on this,” Bannon responded.
“By the way, you know why? Because [they have been] unable to really, to come to grips with the problems in the church, they need illegal aliens,” Bannon said. “They need illegal aliens to fill the churches. It’s obvious on the face of it.”
He continued, saying that while he respected the bishops on elements of doctrine, “this is not about doctrine. This is about the sovereignty of a nation.”
“And in that regard,” Bannon said, “they’re just another guy with an opinion.”
In response, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a statement saying that the bishops’ stance on issues including life, healthcare and immigration reform “is rooted in the Gospel of Jesus Christ rather than the convenient political trends of the day.”
“It is both possible and morally necessary to secure the border in a manner which provides security and a humane immigration policy,” the statement said. “For anyone to suggest that it is out of sordid motives of statistics or financial gain is outrageous and insulting.”
Cardinal Dolan also responded to the interview, calling Bannon’s insinuation that the bishops’ teaching is based on an economic incentive “preposterous.”
“That’s insulting and that’s just so ridiculous that it doesn’t merit a comment,” the cardinal said. Both Dolan’s comment and the statement from the bishops’ conference referenced long-standing Church teachings highlighting the Christian duty to care for one’s neighbors, as well as to protect the vulnerable within a society.
Miller explained that while there is an element of truth in Bannon’s statement, in that the statements of bishops’ conferences “don’t share in the magisterium,” or the official authoritative teaching of the Church, that does not mean the bishops’ statements or positions on policy should be disregarded. The lack of official magisterial weight of a statement like the bishops’ Sept. 5 comments in defense of DACA “doesn’t mean it doesn’t require significant, significant deference.”
Miller said it would be “rash” to disregard the guidance of the bishops, and that often, when a bishop comments or signs a statement, it’s generally “a fairly clear application” of teachings the Church does hold.
The professor also discussed the issue of prudential judgement, and that Catholics are able to disagree on matters of prudence in how a situation is handled or implemented. Dr. Miller acknowledged that in situations like immigration, there is a prudential component in determining how best the Church’s teachings should be applied. Yet, he continued, the bishops’ statements and judgement still require deference. The prudential character of subjects the bishops might talk about, Miller stressed, “doesn’t mean that you can feel free to ignore them and they’re like some guy next door.”
Miller also pushed back against the distinction Bannon made between matters of prudence and matters of “dogma.” He said that while Catholics can, in good faith, disagree on matters of practicality and approach, the bishops’ moral voice still has relevance to politics.
“Although there’s this difference between basic moral principle and prudential judgement about how to apply it in sometimes complex cases, I don’t think that that distinction is as neat as people sometimes think it is in at least some cases.” Miller explained that the Church has long spoken on the moral duties of nations, and their obligation to serve the common good. While states can do some things in the name of “sovereignty,” he continued, they must act in the interest of the common good – particularly with an eye towards the most vulnerable.
Joseph Capizzi, professor of theology at the Catholic University of America and executive director of the school’s Institute for Human Ecology, told CNA that while there may not be a definitive, set doctrine on immigration itself, there is aconsistent teaching within the Church “on principles that pertain to immigration.” He pointed to scriptures and to traditions reaching back to the earliest centuries of the Church that highlight the Church’s concern for “the poor, the outcast, refugees, orphans – the physically vulnerable.”
“Those are the first people who get our attention. We’re supposed to care for them.” Capizzi also pointed to the Church’s tradition of care for one’s neighbor and those within one’s community. The care for individuals of that community must be promoted in concert with the common good of the community and its people, he explained.
The issue of immigration is not one that is new for the Church in the United States, Capizzi said. “When many of our parents and grandparents came into this country, they faced very similar antagonisms,” and many of the same arguments used against immigration today were used in previous decades and centuries, he noted.
“The Catholic bishops are only articulating the same defense of good Catholic people that was articulated on behalf of their parents and their grandparents, and in some cases, themselves, over the course of the history of this country.”
The positive contribution of Catholic immigrants and immigrants in general to the Church and to the United States should outweigh the concerns raised by Bannon’s “crass” and “unprovable” statements, as well as those of a decline of Christianity in the United States and the West.
“There’s no question the Catholic Church benefits from the presence of hard-working, faithful young Catholic men and women who are coming into this country seeking better lives for themselves and their children,” Capizzi said.
Worcester, Mass., Sep 13, 2017 / 12:19 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Fans of Mother Angelica should know that her influence will not wane at EWTN, where she will always have a place, said the network’s CEO during the Family Talk at the 2017 EWTN Family Celebration in Worcester, Mass, Sept. 9-10.
“Her message really resonates with everyone universally… that’s an incredible, incredible thing,” said Michael P. Warsaw, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer at EWTN Global Catholic Network.
“One of the remarkable things we’ve commented about this: how fresh and how evergreen Mother Angelica’s shows are,” he said. “Many of these shows are 30 years old, and yet they seem as if they were just recorded today. Her message is really timeless in that respect.”
Mother Mary Angelica of the Annunciation, a Poor Clare nun, founded EWTN in 1981. She passed away on Easter Sunday 2016, after a long period out of the public eye following a severe stroke in 2001. In addition to running a network that became the largest religious media network in the world, she hosted a popular call-in show, “Mother Angelica Live,” in which she catechized, conducted interviews, and answered viewer questions.
Warsaw said that these shows still have global influence.
“One of the things that has really impacted me as I have traveled and we have expanded internationally is that Mother Angelica really does translate across any language group,” Warsaw said Sept. 9 at the EWTN Family Celebration in Worcester, Mass.
Warsaw, together with several other EWTN leaders, spoke to a crowd of hundreds at Worcester’s DCU Center on Saturday afternoon in a Family Talk. The talk is a way for EWTN viewers to engage with the network, asking questions and making suggestions.
One viewer, Maria from Somerset, Mass., wanted to be certain that EWTN would continue to broadcast Mother Angelica’s shows.
“I think you can count on the fact that Mother Angelica will always be a part of the on-air programming,” Warsaw replied.
Among stories recounted at the Family Talk was an Australian archbishop’s encounter with a woman who was in a rehabilitation center.
“He walked in and said ‘Hi, I’m the archbishop, I’m here to see you’,” Warsaw said.
“And she said: ‘Shh! I’m praying the rosary with EWTN. You should sit down and wait’.”
“And so, he dutifully pulled his rosary out of his pocket and prayed his rosary along with her, and made his visit afterward,” Warsaw said.
A recurring concern among attendees was the situation of family members and friends who were no longer practicing Catholics.
Zachary, a 14-year-old high school freshman, mentioned a friend who had drifted away from the faith and asked how to help her return to the practice of the faith.
Father Mark Mary Cristina, MFVA, responded: “Certainly encourage her to pray. If she’s not going to Mass, invite her to go to Mass with you.”
“Sometimes I think when we are in grief or struggling, practicing our faith can help increase our faith,” the priest said. “Certainly be a good listener, pray for her, try to encourage her to pray.”
“And we’ll pray for you,” Warsaw added.
Father Joseph Mary Wolfe, MFVA, chaplain for EWTN, reflected on the network’s coverage of pro-life issues.
“I believe that there are people walking this earth that are alive today because of EWTN’s pro-life programming,” he said.
For his part, Warsaw cited letters from women who had considered abortions at one point in their lives. Some had written in saying: “My baby was born because at that moment when I needed EWTN, you were there.”
He cited the launch of the news show EWTN Pro-Life Weekly and its focus on key issues in the pro-life cause at all stages of life.
“We’re really trying to motivate people to get involved in the pro-life movement, whatever state they are in,” said Warsaw. “There’s really no other outlet that has done as much in terms of the pro-life message, the pro-life cause, as the network has done over these years.”
“I think it comes back to the importance of prayer. The centrality of that is certainly Mother Angelica’s mission,” he said.
EWTN Global Catholic Network, in its 37th year, is the largest religious media network in the world. EWTN’s 11 TV channels are broadcast in multiple languages 24 hours a day, seven days a week to over 268 million television households in more than 145 countries and territories. EWTN services also include radio channels transmitted through SIRIUS/XM, iHeart Radio, and over 500 domestic and international AM & FM radio affiliates; a worldwide shortwave radio service; the largest Catholic website in the U.S.; electronic and print news services, including “The National Catholic Register” newspaper, and several global wire services; as well as a publishing arm. CNA is part of the EWTN family.
Washington D.C., Sep 13, 2017 / 06:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Christians in the Middle East are heroic witnesses to the faith, and the U.S. must help ensure they can stay in their homelands in peace, a Maronite bishop who is a leading advocate for the reg… […]
Oklahoma City, Okla., Sep 13, 2017 / 03:16 am (CNA).- Unlikely.
It’s a word often used to describe the story of Fr. Stanley Rother, an unlikely priest who came from an unlikely place in the middle of Oklahoma to take on an unlikely task and die an unlikely death, who is now on the unlikely path of becoming a canonized saint.
All of it certainly seemed unlikely, at least for a while, to Fr. Stanley’s little sister, Sr. Marita, who has been a religious sister since the age of 17.
One never really considers that saints could be found within one’s own family, Sister Marita told CNA.
“As young people, when we learned about the saints, their backgrounds, why they became a saint, we said: ‘How did they do it? We could never do that!’” Sr. Marita recalled.
“And then you see something like this in reality, and it puts a whole new perspective on life, on God’s purpose in our life and why we’re here.”
Sr. Marita’s big brother will be beatified in Oklahoma City on September 23. Pope Francis officially recognized his martyrdom, clearing the way for his beatification, in December 2016.
Fr. Stanley was killed in 1981 while serving at a mission parish in Guatemala, at which he had been stationed for 13 years. While at the mission, he had built schools, hospitals, wells and a Catholic radio station, as well as a strong rapport with and love for the people there. In the midst of Guatemala’s civil war, Fr. Stanley briefly left the country in 1981, but returned to be with his parishioners, which cost him his life.
For those who knew him as he was growing up, the idea that Stanley would become a great leader in the faith on the path to canonization would have seemed, well, unlikely.
Growing up with quiet, ‘occasionally ornery’ Stanley
“He was quiet, kind of bashful in a sense, so was I,” Sr. Marita said. “Introverted or whatever you want to call it.”
She said she remembered teachers calling Stanley, herself and their next brother Jim the “three little bears” at school “because we were just like stairsteps” – very close in age.
Stanley was well-behaved – they all were – at school, said Sr. Marita, because in a the small German Catholic town of Okarche, Oklahoma, surrounded by siblings and cousins and relatives, word spread fast if you decided to act up.
But that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t get up to the occasional “ornery” thing on the farm, Sr. Marita added.
One time in particular stood out to her. She was checking the hen house for eggs with Stanley when he asked her to reach up and check under a hen that she was sure had already been checked.
“And I said ‘well you just did it,’ and he said ‘I didn’t do that one.’ So I reached in,” Sr. Marita recalled.
But instead of grabbing a chicken egg, she got a hold of a big (non-venomous) bull snake that had been hiding out in the chicken house.
“And that made me really mad at him, so I chased him to the house for it,” Sr. Marita recalled.
“He got halfway there and I picked up a can from the yard and flung it at him…and it hit him right over the eye. He had a scar there the rest of his life,” she said. “I got in trouble for that one, because I could have hit him in the eye.”
“But that was probably the orneriest thing he did. That was such a scare for me, and he thought it was so funny, and he knew that it wouldn’t hurt me,” she said, laughing.
Stanley was busy helping his parents on the farm, and became president of the school’s chapter of Future Farmers of America, an agricultural club.
He was talented at farming, Sr. Marita said, but he couldn’t ignore God’s call.
Fostering a vocation
There are some things about Fr. Stanley’s story that are not so unlikely.
The fact that his vocation was fostered in the family home in Okarche, Oklahoma, where life revolved around family, farming, and the Catholic schools and parishes, seems very likely.
In fact, there was a lot of discernment about vocations within the Rother family. Sr. Marita said she doesn’t remember who told their parents first, but she and Stanley both declared that they were pursuing vocations the same summer – he would enter seminary, and she would enter religious life. Stanley had just finished high school, and Sr. Marita still had a year left. They hadn’t discussed their decisions with each other before telling their parents.
“We never talked about it that much in the family,” she said, as far as discerning vocations.
But they were surrounded by family and friends who shared their morals and values, and they prayed together daily.
“We went to Mass, and any time there was prayer in the church we were there. The school was a tremendous support as far as building on what the family had done, and the rosary in our family was an everyday occurrence,” Sr. Marita said.
“After our evening meal we knew that we would kneel for a good 20 minutes, it was our prayer time. And I don’t think we realized the importance of that until we moved on in life.”
The Rother’s parents, Franz and Gertrude, were supportive of their vocations, although they did report that the dinner table felt a little lonelier when it suddenly shrank from six to four.
Bright, but in unexpected ways
Never much for academics, Stanley would struggle when he entered seminary in San Antonio, Texas.
Latin was particularly difficult for him, so much so that he ended up failing out of his first seminary. When he returned to his home diocese, they offered him a second chance at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland.
There, he was able to receive the tutoring he needed to eventually graduate and be ordained.
Fr. Donald Wolf is the second cousin of Fr. Stanley Rother, on his mother’s side. Fr. Wolf told CNA that while everyone would “make a big deal” out of Fr. Stanley’s “not being very bright” academically, Fr. Stanley excelled in other areas.
“Everybody makes a big deal of the fact that he was asked to leave the seminary, he was never any good at Latin, and his studies were just not the first thing on his mind,” Fr. Wolf said.
“But he was, as his father was, a really really good mechanic. Not just that he kind of knew how to fix things, I mean he was really brilliant at that kind of stuff, and really really capable,” he recalled.
“So one of the things that marked his life was his mastery of those things – carpentry and masonry and plumbing and mechanics in a really remarkable way. So he did not think of himself as a failure, nor did his family. It was one of those attributes which his father had times 10 – his ability to solve problems, and his sense that he could do anything.”
The perfect fit: called to mission
When Stanley was still in seminary, Pope St. John XXIII asked the churches of North America to establish missions in Central America. Soon after, the diocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa established a mission in Santiago Atitlan in Guatemala, a poor rural community of mostly indigenous people.
Five years after he was ordained, Fr. Stanley asked to join the mission team, where he would spend the next 13 years of his life.
Although Guatemala was a long way from Okarche, the decision seemed to make sense to everyone – priests, family and Fr. Stanley himself believed this mission would be a “perfect fit,” Fr. Wolf said.
“Part of that was he just never fit in very well around here” as a priest in the diocese, Fr. Wolf said.
“He wasn’t very articulate, he wasn’t pushing for change everywhere, he wasn’t one of those guys who could attract notice…so when he volunteered to go to the mission, to do the kind of things that he could do well – taking care of the mechanical needs, taking care of the plants, making sure the plumbing worked and that the electricity stays on – everyone figured that was a perfect position for him, and he figured that it was a perfect position for him.”
Fr. Stanley, tri-lingual pastor extraordinaire
For Sr. Marita, however, finding out her brother volunteered to go on mission to Guatemala was kind of a shock. The two had had limited contact since joining religious life, and communicated mostly through letters, in which Fr. Stanley never expressed a desire for the missions.
“I had no idea he was leaning in that direction,” she recalled.
It wasn’t until she was able to visit him in Guatemala – once in 1973 and again in 1978 – that she was able to watch him in action and see how well it suited him.
By that time, Stanley, the Latin flunkie, had mastered Spanish and the local native Tzutuhil dialect, and had won over the hearts of the people, who seemed to swarm around him everywhere he went, she recalled.
“To see him in that vein was a grace, because I did not know that about him, how compassionate he was with people, how he responded with the young people, they would flock around him, come to chat when they saw him coming down the road.”
She said she remembered watching him help some young people fix a truck that had broken down – a chance to use his master mechanical skills. During his time at the mission, he also built a farmers’ co-op, a school, a hospital, and the first Catholic radio station, which was used for transmitting catechesis to the even more remote villages.
“He evolved very quickly into his role as pastor, as someone who was tri-lingual. He was, it would appear, perfectly equipped to take care of the challenges of the people in the middle of the challenges of that place,” Fr. Wolf said.
‘Absolute, resolute stubbornness’
Over the years, the violence of an ongoing Guatemalan civil war inched closer to Fr. Stanley’s once-peaceful village. Disappearances, killings and danger soon became a part of daily life, but Fr. Stanley remained steadfast and supportive of his people.
“The shepherd cannot run at the first sign of danger,” Fr. Stanley wrote in a letter home, which would become his signature quote.
“Pray for us that we may be a sign of the love of Christ for our people, that our presence among them will fortify them to endure these sufferings in preparation for the coming of the Kingdom.”
In 1980-1981, the situation reached a boiling point. At the behest of friends and family and with his name on a hit list, Fr. Stanley returned to Oklahoma for a few months in January 1981. But as the weeks and months went on and as Easter approached, he was anxious to get back to the mission.
“He really did become one of them, and they claimed him as one of them, so when you leave someone you really love, you want to be there for them,” Sr. Marita said.
In Guatemala, Holy Week is “a lived experience, it’s not just portrayal, so he wanted to be back for that, and celebrate that with them,” Sr. Marita recalled.
Sr. Marita was able to visit Fr. Stanley while he was home that winter. It was the last time she would see her older brother alive.
“As we talked about it, I realized more and more, that no matter what any of us said, he knew that he had to listen to how God was speaking to him (and return). And we accepted that, we weren’t too surprised that that was what he wanted to do.”
But not everyone was so supportive of his decision. Fr. Wolf said for years, many people, including people within the family, considered Fr. Stanley’s decision to leave the safety of the United States and face almost certain death as another sign that he just wasn’t very bright.
“One of my uncles in particular just was not at all impressed with Stanley’s decision to do this,” Fr. Wolf said.
Still, it wasn’t surprising to anyone who knew Fr. Stanley or the Rother family that once his mind was made up, there was little anyone could do to change it.
“One of the attributes of the Rother family – just ask around – is absolute, resolute stubbornness that they’re going to do what they’re going to do,” he said.
“And the Lord builds the supernatural upon the natural, and that was one of the natural attributes that he worked with, because Stanley was not going to be deterred.”
“But if you ever spent 10 minutes with his father you’d know that that’s something he came by perfectly naturally. His father, his father’s brothers, my mother, her brothers and sister – I mean it is a pretty tough crowd,” Fr. Wolf added with a laugh.
So Fr. Stanley returned in time to celebrate Easter with his people. A few months later, at 1:30 in the morning on July 28, 1981, three armed hitmen broke into the rectory where Fr. Stanley was sleeping. They were known for their kidnappings, and wanted to turn Father Stanley into one of “the missing.”
Not wanting to endanger the others at the parish mission, Fr. Stanley struggled but did not call for help. Fifteen minutes and two gunshots later, Fr. Stanley was dead. The men fled the mission grounds.
Fr. Stanley’s legacy
While the rest of Fr. Stanley’s body was buried in Okarche, his heart remained in Guatemala, and will become a relic once he’s beatified.
Sr. Marita said that in Guatemala, they were quick to call him a martyr, while the legacy of her brother’s witness continued to grow in Oklahoma over the years.
“Bishop (Eusebius) Beltran told my parents that he’ll be considered a saint one day, and they felt very strong about it, they had that to dream about at least before they died,” she said.
Gertrude Rother would pass away in 1987, just a few years after her son, and Franz Rother died in 2000. The Archdiocese of Oklahoma City officially started working on the cause of Fr. Stanley in 2007, though the church in Guatemala had already gotten it off the ground.
“When they started doing the interviewing it became more of a reality to everybody, that it would be for promoting his cause,” Sr. Marita said.
“It really is difficult for me to express in certain terms, but I am deeply grateful and proud of him. It’s an awesome experience, one that you would never dream of in your own family,” she said.
When asked what she hoped others learned from her brother’s witness, Sr. Marita said she hoped they would notice the steadfast faith with which he answered the call of God and gave his last breath serving others.
“It goes way back to his ordination card, which said: ‘For myself I am a Christian, for the sake of others I am a priest,’” she said.
“I feel like he really lived that out. I think young people today don’t know if they’re called to the priesthood or religious life, but we have to listen to the first call – come follow me – and then every day continue to follow him and hear that call from him.”
Fr. Wolf echoed her sentiments.
“It was his yes to what he was called to,” he said, “that manifests itself with his desire to remain there and to serve the people.”
“But it began when he said yes to his first invitation to vocation, when he said yes even after failing out of seminary, when he said yes at his ordination, and when he said yes to going to the mission and his yes to remain there after all the other Oklahomans had left.”
Fr. Rother will be beatified Sept. 23 at the Cox Convention Center in Oklahoma City. The Mass will be celebrated by Cardinal Angelo Amato, prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, and concelebrated by Archbishop Paul Coakley of Oklahoma City.
It will likely be a fitting celebration for a life of most unlikely circumstances.
Philadelphia, Pa., Sep 12, 2017 / 02:09 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- This week, First Things published “The Splendor of Truth in 2017”, an essay by Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia on St. John Paul II’s 1993 encyclical on fundamental questions regarding the Church’s moral teaching, Veritatis splendor.
In an interview with Catholic News Agency’s editor in chief JD Flynn, Archbishop Chaput discussed the enduring importance of Veritatis splendor:
You’ve written that “the wisdom of Veritatis splendor is more urgently needed than ever.” Why? What problems have compounded since its release?
We live in a liquid time. That’s how the late philosopher Zygmunt Bauman described it: “liquid modernity.” Changes in technology, science and culture now happen very rapidly. It’s hard to find firm ground where we can stand and make sense of things. The resulting confusion can undermine our beliefs about the meaning of our lives. It becomes easy to think that the basic character of the world, the nature of good and evil, the moral standards for human behavior, have somehow changed and become more ambiguous, more dependent on circumstances. But they haven’t.
Permanent truths about right and wrong govern our lives. The genius of Veritatis splendor is how persuasively it reminds us of that fact, and calls us back to what Augustine called the “tranquility of order” in our souls.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the Reformation lately because we mark its 500th anniversary next month. It’s striking how closely the moods of then and now resemble each other – not in the specific details, but the general spirit of unrest and anticipation. Something’s coming. People can feel it, some sort of “second Reformation” or deep realignment in the way we engage each other and the world. That’s a great opportunity for Christian hope and witness. Of course it also comes with some perils. This makes a strong grasp of truth all the more vital.
Nearly 25 years later, how has Veritatis splendor been received in the Church in the United States?
People have a natural thirst for solid ground and clarity. Among faithful young Catholic scholars, it’s been received very well. Actually, like water in a desert.
Has it had its intended effect? What fruit has it borne in the Church and in the world?
There’s been a long civil war in the Church over the meaning of Vatican II. It’s still with us. It probably won’t end until my generation – the boomers – moves on, because persons who actually lived through the council years tend to have a deep investment in their particular version of what the council did and meant.
Veritatis splendor is very much a fruit of the [Second Vatican] Council. Its immense value is its reaffirmation of the existence of permanent truths, its rejection of moral ambiguity, and the beauty of its presentation of truth as a source of Christian freedom and joy. So I don’t have any doubt that it will be remembered as one of the great papal contributions to Catholic life and thought.
Pope Francis has often warned against “moral pharisaism.” Is he criticizing the kind of moralistic legalism that John Paul II addressed in Veritatis splendor and elsewhere?
Pope Francis is exactly right that a religion which exhausts itself in moral rules and intellectual doctrines is dead and deadening. The heart of our faith is a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and then living out Christ’s love in the way we treat others. If we don’t do that, then our faith is really just an empty shell.
But Jesus also clearly said that he didn’t come to abolish the commandments or absolve anyone from the obligations of God’s law. That’s because God’s law is an expression of God’s love, even when it makes us uncomfortable. The laws of right and wrong are guide-rails meant to lead us to self-mastery, freedom and joy.
How should ordinary Catholics understand the relationship between truth, freedom, and happiness? How should this impact the way the Church “accompanies” those impacted by moral relativism?
Jesus said it himself: The truth will make us free. He also said that he himself is the way, the truth and the life – the source of lasting happiness. If we don’t know and walk with Jesus, everything else in our religious life is just noise. But note that Jesus accompanies us with a specific purpose: to love us, teach us and lead us home to heaven. Likewise, that’s our privilege and task with others. We need to listen to and understand the burdens of others, and treat them with prudence and respect. But there’s no real love, no authentic mercy, in remaining silent with those we accompany when they need to hear the truth.
What does Veritatis splendor have to say to the most visible moral issues of our time: especially abortion, the redefinition of marriage, and confusion about gender identity?
Issues like the redefinition of marriage and turmoil over gender identity were much less prominent 25 years ago. John Paul did speak frequently against abortion and eloquently in defense of the sanctity of life, especially in his encyclical Evangelium Vitae. Veritatis splendor is really about the framework, the basic architecture, of Catholic moral reasoning rather than specific issues. So it serves as a foundation for those other crucial matters, and it’s doubly important for that reason.
You write about totalitarianism caused by “casuistry, poisonous political thought, and systematic intellectual deceit” in other parts of the world. Can the United States stave that off? How do Catholics undertake their political responsibilities in a dramatically changing political and cultural landscape?
Democracy has a built-in capacity for tyranny. Tocqueville saw that clearly and said so in Democracy in America. In the United States, that natural drift toward tyranny has always been checked by the widespread practice of religious faith. As faith declines, the totalitarian current in democracy grows. Progressive political thought — or more accurately, thought that styles itself as “progressive” – can have a deeply intolerant streak. And that’s what we’re seeing now in the public discourse around sexual behavior and identity, marriage and the family, and religious liberty.
When a nation loses a firm sense of truth and its obligations, what remains, all that remains, is power and the struggle to get it. That’s reality, and democracies have no magic immunity to reality.
Washington D.C., Sep 12, 2017 / 03:04 am (CNA/EWTN News).- A Colorado baker’s fight to maintain his freedom of expression could be the most influential religious freedom decisions of the US Supreme Court in years, as the court considers the case this term.
“There is far more at stake in this case than simply whether Jack Phillips must bake a cake,” the US bishops’ conference and other Catholic groups stated in an amicus brief in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission. “It is about the freedom to live according to one’s religious beliefs in daily life and, in so doing, advance the common good.”
The Masterpiece Cakeshop case, to be decided by the Supreme Court in the next term, dates back to 2012. In July of that year, Jack Phillips went to work one July day at Masterpiece Cakeshop, his Lakewood, Colo. bakery in the suburbs of Denver.
Phillips had started his business in 1993 as a way to integrate his two loves — baking and art – into his daily work. Philipps named his shop “Masterpiece” because of the artistic focus of his work, but also because of his Christian beliefs. He drew from Christ’s Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew, specifically the commands “no man can serve two masters” and “you cannot serve both God and mammon.”
“I didn’t open this so I could make a lot of money,” Phillips said of his business. “I opened it up so that it would be a way that I could create my art, do the baking that I love, and serve the God that I love.” Phillips spoke last Wednesday at the Heritage Foundation at a panel event on his upcoming Supreme Court case.
One day in July of 2012, two men walked in to Masterpiece Cakeshop and began looking at pictures of wedding cakes. Phillips approached them and quickly ascertained that they were planning their own wedding and had wanted him to bake them a cake for their same-sex wedding.
“Right away, I’m thinking ‘how can I tell them politely that I can’t take care of this wedding for them, because I don’t do same-sex weddings’,” he recalled.
Phillips explained to the couple that he could not serve same-sex weddings – to do so would have been a violation of his Christian beliefs. He said has declined to make a number of types of cakes, including cakes for Halloween, bachelor parties, and a divorce, cakes with alcohol in the ingredients, and cakes with atheist messages.
Once they heard they would not be able to buy a cake from Masterpiece, the couple stormed out of the store angrily. During the ensuing hour, Phillips said his store received about a half-dozen threatening phone calls. Days later, he received a death threat where he had to call his sister, who was at the store with her four year-old daughter, and tell her to hide in the back of the store until police arrived on the scene.
The couple, meanwhile, filed a complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights Commission for discrimination.
The commission ordered Phillips to serve same-sex weddings and to undergo anti-discrimination training. In a hearing in 2014, the civil rights commissioner Diann Rice compared his declining to serve same-sex weddings to justifications for the Holocaust and slavery.
“Freedom of religion and religion has been used to justify all kinds of discrimination throughout history, whether it be slavery, whether it be the Holocaust,” Commissioner Rice said.
Alliance Defending Freedom took up Phillips’ case in court. He lost before an administrative judge in 2013, who ruled that the state could determine when his rights to free speech unlawfully infringed upon others’ rights.
Phillips then appealed his case to the state’s human rights commission, which ruled against him. He appealed again to the state’s court of appeals, which also ruled against him. The Colorado Supreme Court did not take up Phillips’ case.
The case was appealed to the Supreme Court. It was re-listed repeatedly throughout the winter and spring of 2017, before the Court finally decided to take the case in June, at the end of its term.
Once the case is decided at the Supreme Court, the ruling is expected to cap one of the most decisive religious freedom cases of this century.
“It has been said, and I think accurately so, that this could be one of the most important First Amendment cases in terms of free speech and the free exercise of religion in a century or more, and it could be a landmark, seismic kind of case of First Amendment jurisprudence,” Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) stated at a Thursday press conference at the U.S. Capitol.
As state amendments defining marriage as between one man and one woman were declared unconstitutional by the court in Obergefell v. Hodges in 2013, states have also begun enforcing laws against discrimination on basis of sexual identity. The conscientious refusal of certain business owners, like florists and bakers, to serve same-sex weddings has been ruled unlawful in several states, including Colorado.
In Phillips’ case, he has a right to freedom of expression as an artist, Alliance Defending Freedom has argued, and this right has been recognized as protected by the First Amendment. If the Supreme Court rules in Phillips’ favor in this case, it could have ramifications in other cases where business owners face discrimination lawsuits.
“The Supreme Court has said that things like that [art] are covered under the protection of the First Amendment,” Kristen Waggoner, senior vice president of the U.S. legal division for ADF, stated at the Heritage Foundation panel event.
Throughout the ordeal, Phillips has paid a heavy price for his stand. He has lost 40 percent of his family’s income and more than half his employees, he said.
The initial briefs have been filed with the Supreme Court. Amicus briefs are currently being filed, the opposing briefs will come in October, and the reply of ADF to those briefs the following month. The case will likely be decided late next spring.
ADF has argued in its brief before the Supreme Court that the rulings by the state’s court of appeals and human rights commission that the state can determine which free artistic expression is protected under the First Amendment stands in flagrant opposition to the original meaning of the Constitution.
“But just as the Commission cannot compel Phillips’s art, neither may the government suppress it,” ADF stated.
Instead, the conflict between Phillips’ freedom as an artist and the wishes of his customers should be solved by the citizens themselves, and not by the government, ADF said.
“There is a better way – one that allows the Commission to ensure that businesses do not refuse to serve people simply because of who they are, but protects individuals like Phillips from being forced to create expression about marriage that violates their core convictions,” ADF’s brief stated.
“The path to civility, progress, and freedom does not crush those who hold unpopular views, pushing them from the public square,” ADF said. “It allows free citizens to determine for themselves ‘the ideas and beliefs deserving of expression, consideration, and adherence’.”
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, along with the Colorado Catholic Conference, the Catholic Medical Association, and other Catholic non-profits have also weighed in on the case, submitting an amici curiae brief on behalf of Masterpiece Cakeshop.
Religious freedom must never mean just the freedom to worship or the freedom to practice one’s religion in private, the brief said. The First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause “guarantees every individual the right to seek the truth in religious matters and then adhere to that truth through private and public action.”
In an apostolic exhortation on the proclamation of the Gospel, Pope Francis recently insisted that “no one can demand that religion should be relegated to the inner sanctum of personal life, without influence on societal and national life, without concerns for the soundness of civil institutions, without a right to offer an opinion on events affecting society.”
New Haven, Conn., Sep 12, 2017 / 12:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- As Knights of Columbus members volunteer to aid the victims of recent storms, the organization has also raised over $1.3 million to help those affected by Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma.
“We have seen incredible generosity from our members, and we invite others to join us in providing aid that is urgently needed,” Supreme Knight Carl Anderson said in a Sept. 8 statement.
“The funds we raise will make a real difference in the lives of those already affected and those who are bracing for the worst.”
Hurricane Harvey has either damaged or destroyed over 93,000 Texas homes, and state authorities say the death toll has climbed to 70 people. While damage reports are still being conducted, Gov. Greg Abbott estimated that the cost to rebuild will be between $150-180 billion.
Hitting the Florida Keys on Sunday, Hurricane Irma was downgraded to a tropical storm on Monday after passing through Malibu towards southern Georgia. So far the hurricane has killed seven people in the U.S., adding to the 38 lives taken in the Caribbean.
Last week, members of the non-profit global fraternity volunteered to assist in Florida’s disaster plan, and Texas Knights have continued to bring aid to victims affected by the Hurricane Harvey.
Already providing shelter for the displaced victims of Texas, the Knights have started to remove debris in order to help people back into their homes. The organization has also provided thousands of meals to Texas residents, including 5,000 in Beaumont and 8,000 in Ingleside.
With the money fundraised from the Knights throughout the U.S., the fraternity has now opened its doors to receive donations from the general public.
New York City, N.Y., Sep 11, 2017 / 12:20 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- On the clear, sunny morning of Sept. 11, 2001, Fr. Kevin Madigan heard an explosion overhead.
He grabbed oils for anointing, ran out the door of St. Peter’s parish in New York City, and wandered towards the center of the commotion – the World Trade Center only a block away.
Fifty blocks uptown, Fr. Christopher Keenan, OFM watched with the world as the smoke rising from the twin towers darkened the television screen. Looking to help, he went to St. Vincent’s Hospital downtown to tend to those wounded in the attack – but the victims never came.
All the while, he wondered what had happened to a brother friar assigned as chaplain to the firefighters of New York City: Fr. Mychal Judge, OFM, named by some the “Saint of 9/11.”
Sixteen years ago on this day, hijackers flew planes into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, and the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. In a field in southern Pennsylvania, passengers retook control of the cockpit and crashed the plane before it could reach its intended target, presumed to be in Washington, D.C.
The consequences of the attacks have rippled throughout the United States as the attacks spurred a new global war on terror and irreversibly changed the country’s outlook on terror, security, and international engagement.
For Fr. Madigan, Fr. Keenan and Fr. Judge, the day changed their own lives and ministries, as a pastor lost nearly his entire congregation, and a friar put himself in harm’s way to take on a new position – an assignment he only received because another friar gave the ultimate sacrifice as the Twin Towers came down.
“This experience has seared our soul and our spirit and our life, and it has so seared our spirit and our life that it has penetrated our DNA,” Fr. Keenan told CNA.
“It has changed our lives and we will never be the same,” he said.
It was like losing a village
On Sept. 11, 2001, Fr. Kevin Madigan had been assigned to St. Peter’s Church in the financial district of Lower Manhattan. The parish is the oldest Catholic Church in New York State, “half a block literally from the corner of the World Trade Center,” Fr. Madigan explained to CNA.
“Prior to 9/11 it was a parish that basically serviced the people who came to the neighborhood who came to Mass or Confession, devotions and things like that.” The parish had a full and well-attended schedule of liturgies and prayers, with multiple Masses said during the morning and lunch hour. September 11th changed that.
“Immediately after 9/11, that community was no longer there, because it was like losing a village of 40,000 people next door.”
Fr. Madigan was leaving the sanctuary that morning, heading back to the rectory when overhead he heard the first plane hit the towers. Immediately he made his way towards the commotion, looking to minister to anyone who had been hurt by what had happened.
“I took the oils for anointing anyone who was dying – I didn’t know what was going on there,” he said. However, most of those fleeing the building did not need anointing, Fr. Madigan recalled. “Most people either got out alive or were dead. There weren’t that many people who were in that in-between area.”
Then, there was another explosion from the other tower, and an object – the wheel of an airplane, in fact – went whizzing by Fr. Madigan’s head.
“After the second plane hit I went back to the office and made sure all the staff got out of there fast,” evacuating staff who were unaware of the chaos outside.
Fr. Madigan was back on the street when firefighters began to wonder if the towers might fall.
Thinking it ridiculous, Fr. Madigan kept an eye on a nearby subway entrance, which linked to an underground passage north of the towers. Then, a massive cloud of dust swept towards Fr. Madigan and another priest as the towers did collapse; they ducked into the subway station, emerging amidst the thick smoke and dust several blocks away.
After the towers came down, Fr. Madigan made his way first to the hospital for an emergency health screening, then back to check on St. Peter’s. While he was away from his parish, firefighters and other first responders made use of the sanctuary, temporarily laying to rest over 30 bodies recovered from the wreckage.
The death of Father Mychal
In September of 2001, Fr. Christopher Keenan had been assigned to work with a community ministry program near the parish of St. Francis in midtown Manhattan. At St. Francis, he lived in community along with several other Franciscan Friars, including an old friend he had known for years – Fr. Mychal Judge, chaplain for the Fire Department of New York City. Through Fr. Judge, the Friars became especially close with some of their neighbors at a firehouse across the street, who let the friars park their car at the firehouse.
Although the plane flew overhead, Fr. Keenan told CNA that “like everyone else, we found out while watching TV.” As the friars and brothers watched the events unfold on the television, they saw the second plane hit the South Tower; Fr. Keenan decided to go to St. Vincent’s Hospital – one of the closest medical facilities to the Word Trade Center. At the time, he thought there would be injured people who would need to be anointed or would like someone to hear their confession.
However, once he got to St. Vincent’s he found a long line of doctors, nurses and other responders who had come to help: together they “were all waiting for these people to get out who never came.” Victims were either largely able to walk away on their own, or they never made it to the hospital at all.
Instead, Fr. Keenan told CNA, “my responsibility was after people were treated to contact their family members to come and get them.”
As patients began to go home, Fr. Keenan continued to wonder about his brother friar, Fr. Judge, asking firefighters if they knew what had happened to the chaplain. Fr. Keenan left the hospital in the early evening to go hear confessions, but stopped at the firehouse across the street to ask the firemen if they knew where Fr. Judge was: “they told me his body was in the back of the firehouse.”
The mere fact that his body was intact and present at the firehouse that day was in itself a small miracle, Fr. Keenan said. “Mychal’s body that was brought out was one of the only bodies that was intact, recognizable and viewable,” he said. Among those that died in the Twin Towers, he continued, “everyone was vaporized, pulverized and cremated” by the heat of the fire in the towers and the violence of the towers’ collapse. “He was one of the only ones able to be brought out and to be brought home.”
That morning, Fr. Judge had gone along with Battalion 1 to answer a call in a neighborhood close to the Trade Center. Also with the battalion were two French filmmakers filming a documentary on the fire unit. When the towers were hit, the Battalion was one of the first to arrive on the scene. In the film released by the brothers, Fr. Keenan said, “you can see his face and you can tell he knows what’s happening and his lips are moving and you can tell he’s praying his rosary.”
The group entered the lobby of the North Tower and stood in the Mezzanine as the South Tower collapsed – spraying glass, debris and dust throughout the building.
“All the debris roared through the glass mezzanine like a roaring train and his body happened to be blown into the escalators,” Fr. Keenan relayed the experience eyewitnesses told him. In the impact, Fr. Judge hit his head on a piece of debris, killing him almost instantly.
“All of a sudden they feel something at their feet and it was Mychal, but he was gone.“
Members of the fire department, police department and other first responders carried Fr. Judge’s body out of the wreckage, putting his body down first to run as the second tower collapsed, then again to temporarily rest it at St. Peter’s Church. Members of the fire department brought it back to the firehouse where Fr. Keenan saw his friend and prayed over his body.
Fr. Mychal Judge was later listed as Victim 0001 – the first death certificate processed on 9/11.
Despite the sudden and unexpected nature of the attacks, Fr. Keenan told CNA that in the weeks before his friend’s death, Fr. Judge had a sense his death was near.
“He just had a sense that the Lord Jesus was coming.” On several occasions, Fr. Keenan said, Fr. Judge had told him, “You know, Chrissy, the Lord will be coming for me,” and made other references to his death.
“He had a sense that the Lord was coming for him.”
The grueling aftermath
“There was no playbook for how you deal with something in the wake of something like that,” Fr. Madigan said of the aftermath of 9/11. Personally, Fr. Madigan told CNA, he was well-prepared spiritually and mentally for the senseless nature of the attacks.
“I understand that innocent people get killed tragically all the time,” he said, noting that while the scale was larger and hit so close to home, “life goes on.” For many others that he ministered to, however, “it did shake their foundations, their trust and belief in God.”
While the attacks changed the focus of his ministry as a parish priest at the time, they also posed logistical challenges for ministry and aid: St. Peter’s usual congregation of people who worked in and around the World Trade Center vanished nearly overnight. Instead, the whole area was cordoned off for rescue workers and recovery activities as the city began the long task of sorting and removing the debris and rubble.
In addition, a small chapel named St. Joseph’s Chapel, which was cared for and administered by St. Peter’s, was used by FEMA workers as a base for recovery activities during the weeks after the attack. During that time, the sanctuary was damaged and several structures of the chapel, including the pulpit, chairs and interior were rendered unusable. According to Fr. Madigan, FEMA denies that it ever used the space.
Still, the priests at St. Peter’s saw it as their duty to minister to those that were there – whoever they were.
“The parish, the church building itself was open that whole time,” he said, saying that anyone who had clearance to be within the Ground Zero area was welcome at the church. In the weeks after the attacks, the parish acted as sanctuary, as recovery workers who were discovering body parts and other personal effects “would come in there just to sort of try to get away from that space.”
“Myself and one of the other priests would be out there each day just to be able to talk to anyone who wants to talk about what’s going on,” he added. “We’d celebrate Mass in a building nearby.”
Today, Fr. Madigan has been reassigned to another parish in uptown Manhattan, and St. Peter’s now has found a new congregation as new residents have moved into the neighborhoods surrounding the former World Trade Center site.
Only two months after the attack, Fr. Keenan took on the role of his old friend, Fr. Judge: he was installed as chaplain for the 14,000 first responders of the the FDNY.
Immediately, Fr. Keenan joined the firefighters in their task of looking for the remains – even the most minute fragments – of the more than 2,600 people killed at the World Trade Center. “The rest of the recovery process then was for nine months trying to find the remains.”
For the firefighters in particular, there was a drive to find the remains of the 343 firefighters killed at the World Trade Center and help bring closure to the family members. “You always bring your brother home, you never leave them on the battlefield,” Fr. Keenan said.
The resulting amount of work, as well as the “intense” tradition among firefighters to attend all funerals for members killed in the line of duty meant that the job became all-consuming, with all one’s spare time spent at the World Trade Center site. Sometimes, Fr. Keenan said, he would attend as many as four, five, or six funerals or memorials a day – and many families held a second funeral if body parts were recovered from the site.
“Here are the guys, overtime, going to all the funerals, working spare time on the site looking for recovery, and taking care of the families,” he said. “I was 24/7, 365 for 26 months.”
In addition, Fr. Keenan and the rest of the FDNY worked inside “this incredible toxic brew” of smoke, chemicals and fires that burned among the ruins at Ground Zero for months.
“I would be celebrating Mass at 10:00 on a Sunday morning down there,” he recalled, “and just 30 feet from where I’m celebrating Mass at the cross, the cranes are lifting up the steel.”
While both buildings had contained more than 200 floors of offices, there was “not a trace of a computer, telephones, files, nothing. Everything was totally decimated.” Instead, all that was left was steel, dirt and the chemicals feeding the fires that smouldered underground in the footprint of the towers.
“The cranes are lifting up the steel and the air is feeding the fires underneath, and out of that is coming these incredible colors of yellow, black and green smoke, and we all worked in the recovery process.” The experience working the recovery at the World Trade Center site is one that Fr. Keenan considers a “gift” and an “honor.”
“It was an incredible experience really,” he said.
Fr. Keenan recounted a conversation the firefighters had with him a few days after he was commissioned. After pledging to “offer my life to protect the people and property of New York City,” the other firefighters told their new chaplain “we know you’re ours, don’t you forget that every one of us is yours,” promising to stand by their new shepherd. “I’m the most loved and cared for person in the world and who has it better than me?”
While the formal recovery process has ended and a new tower, One World Trade Center, stands just yards from the original site of Ground Zero, the experience – and the chemicals rescue workers came in contact with for months – still affect the firefighters.
In 2016 alone, “we put 17 new names on the wall,” said Fr. Keenan, “who died this past year from of the effects of 9/11.” He explained that in the years following the attack, thousands of rescuers and first responders – including Fr. Keenan himself, have developed different cancers and illnesses linked to their exposure at the World Trade Center site. In fact, at the time of the interview in 2016, Fr. Keenan had just returned from a screening for the more than 20 toxic chemicals the responders were exposed to. He warned that the “different cancers and the lung problems that are emerging are just the tip of the iceberg,” and worried that as time progressed, other cancers and illnesses linked to the attack recovery would emerge.
The first responders are also dealing with the psychological fallout of the attacks among themselves, Fr. Keenan said, though many are dealing with it in their own way, and with one another.
Looking back, Fr. Keenan told CNA he still finds it difficult to express the experience to others or to make sense of what it was like when he would go down into “the pit” to work alongside the firefighters and other first responders. “The only image I had as time went on and I asked ‘how do I make sense of this as a man of faith?’ is that it was like I was descending into hell and I was seeing the face of God on the people that were there.”
The same image had come to his mind to make sense of taking care of patients with AIDS in the 1990s he said, even though nothing can fully make sense of events like these.
“I was like a midwife to people in their birthing process from life to death to new life,” he recalled. “All I can do is be present there, they have to do the work, I can be present there I can pray with them.”
“That’s how in faith I kind of sort of comprehended it.”
This article was originally published on CNA Sept. 11, 2016.
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