April 7, 2008
Editorial Observer
The Vatican and Globalization: Tinkering With Sin
By EDUARDO PORTER
It’s hard to erect rules to last forever. The recent suggestion by a bishop from the Vatican’s office of sin and penance that globalization and modernity gave rise to sins different from those dating from medieval times seemed to many like an acknowledgment that the world is, indeed, changing.
Norms encoded hundreds of years ago to guide human behavior in a small-scale agrarian society could not account for a globalized postindustrial information economy. Polluting the environment, drug trafficking, performing genetic manipulations or causing social inequities, new sinful behaviors mentioned by Msgr. Gianfranco Girotti, regent of the Vatican Penitentiary, are arguably more relevant to many contemporary Catholics than contraception.
“If yesterday sin had a rather individualistic dimension, today it has a value and resonance that is above all social, because of the great phenomenon of globalization,” Monsignor Girotti told the newspaper L’Osservatore Romano.
Sin, however, doesn’t take well to tinkering. Many Catholic thinkers reacted strongly against the idea that new sins were needed to complement, or supplement, the classical canon. They accused the press of exaggerating Monsignor Girotti’s words. Their reaction underscored how tough it is for the church to manage a moral code grounded in eternal verities at a time of furious change.
The Vatican has long been riven by this tension between dogma and the outside world. Yet it could apply to any religion: it’s hard to rejigger the rules when truth is meant to be fixed forever.
The core benefits of religions, unlike other, worldly institutions, often relate to the afterlife. Some social scientists argue, however, that many benefits of church membership are to be had this side of death. The gains are not unlike the advantages of a club of like-minded people. Religions provide rules to live by, solace in times of trouble and a sense of community. Some economic studies suggest that this can promote higher levels of education and income, more marriage and less divorce.
Such a club needs strong, believable rules. Like marriage, membership will be more valuable the more committed the other participants are to the common cause. Demanding rules — say celibacy, or avoiding meat during Lent — help enhance the level of commitment.
Strict rules, says the Nobel-winning economist Gary Becker, screen out free riders who wish to enjoy the benefits of membership but are unwilling to invest the necessary zeal in the enterprise. Rules provide commitment devices — like 10-point plans to stop drinking. And they tie members closer by substituting taboos — like drinking and dancing — with acceptable activities, like prayer or Sunday school.
Larry Iannaccone, an economist at George Mason University who has studied religions, notes that some of the most successful, like Jehovah’s Witnesses or Pentecostal Christians, which have very fervent congregations, have strict requirements. Religions relax the rules at their own peril.
“Religions are in the unusual situation in which it pays to make gratuitously costly demands,” Mr. Iannaccone said. “When they weaken their demands they make on members, they undermine their credibility.”
The Vatican is particularly attentive to these strictures. Catholicism has lost traction in many parts of the world. Only 24 percent of American adults identify with the church, though more than 31 percent say they were raised Catholic. In Italy, only about one in four respondents to a 2002 poll said religion was very important.
Many traditionalists attribute the church’s decline to the weakening of its strictures. They believe it was damaged by the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, which tried to bring the church closer to the people, proclaimed religious freedom, embraced people of other Christian faiths and acknowledged truth in other religions.
So it is perhaps unsurprising that the church has been pushing the other way. Pope Benedict XVI has brought back rites abandoned after Vatican II and reasserted the church’s hold on truth.
In this context, it could be tricky to update sins in a way that could de-emphasize individual trespasses and shift the focus to social crimes bearing a collective guilt. New sins might be a better fit for the modern world, but they risk alienating the membership.
Christianity
April 14, 2008
Uncertain Church Awaits Pope in U.S.
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
Less than two weeks ago, as final preparations were being made for the visit of Pope Benedict XVI to the United States, the bishop of Camden, N.J., announced plans to close or merge nearly half the parishes in his diocese. Meanwhile, Catholics in New Orleans, Boston, New York, Toledo, Ohio, and nearly three dozen other dioceses are mourning the loss of parishes and parochial schools they grew up in.
So when the pope arrives in the United States on Tuesday, he will find an American church in which many Catholics are eager not only for his spiritual guidance, but also for his acknowledgment that their church is going through a time of pain and uncertainty.
Hundreds of parishes are being closed and consolidated, and the reasons are usually intertwined with the other big challenges facing the church: a shortage of priests, fallout from the sexual abuse scandal, insufficient funds to maintain aging churches, demographic changes and sometimes not enough people attending Mass to justify keeping parishes open.
And yet for most observant Catholics, their primary experience of the church is their local parish.
“It’s frustrating because you start to see the bishop as the enemy, and it puts you where you’re conflicted,” said Leah Vassallo, a lawyer whose parish in Malaga, N.J., is among those to be closed. “Obviously you don’t want to give up your faith or go to a different religion, or not go to church at all. But it does disenfranchise you. We’re going to be a lot more hesitant before we give money to the church.”
A resistance movement to church closings that began in Boston has spread to other dioceses. On Sunday, Catholics in six dioceses — New York, Boston, Buffalo, Camden, New Orleans and Toledo — announced that they were forming a national group, the Coalition for Parishes, to try to prevent the closing or merging of viable churches.
In addition to the issues the closings and consolidations present, this will be the first visit by any pope since the sexual abuse scandal erupted in 2002, taking a spiritual, emotional and financial toll on Catholics across the country. The scandal revealed more than 5,000 victims, and left behind five bankrupt dioceses. It has cost the church more than $2 billion, so far, and it is not over. Last week the family of two young boys filed a civil lawsuit against a Massachusetts priest accusing him of molesting the boys as recently as 2005.
One of the scandal’s repercussions is that lay Catholics across the country are demanding more financial accountability from their bishops and more control over decisions, especially when it comes to closing parishes.
Many dioceses are also closing parochial elementary, junior and high schools that have provided a rigorous education for generations of Catholics and non-Catholics.
The cost of legal fees and settlements to abuse victims has put financial pressure on many dioceses. But in many cases, the far larger reason for the closings is demographic.
Urban enclaves of Italian, Irish, Polish and Eastern European Catholics who had their own ethnic parishes are dispersing to the suburbs and seeing their previous parishes shuttered — or having to learn to share their churches with immigrants from Latin America, Asia and Africa. In some parishes the new mix has been joyous, in others uneasy.
The pope is expected to praise the American church’s vibrancy during his visit, and there is much for the church to celebrate. Catholics are the biggest religious group in the United States, about 23 percent of the population, a proportion that has held steady. Many parishes are healthy, and some are growing, with the influx of immigrants, especially Hispanics.
A poll released on Sunday by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University showed a mixed performance review for the American bishops: 22 percent of Catholics are “very satisfied” with the bishops, 50 percent are “somewhat satisfied,” 21 percent are “somewhat dissatisfied,” and 6 percent are “very dissatisfied.” It is an improvement from 2002, the outbreak of the scandal.
But most priests, and even many bishops, will acknowledge the woes.
Of 18,634 parishes in 2007, 3,238 were without resident pastors. More than 800 parishes have been closed since 1995, most since 2000. (Some bishops are preparing their parishioners for more closings ahead.) The number of priests ordained in 2007 fell to 456, less than half the number of new priests in 1965. Nearly 3 in 10 Catholics who attend Mass weekly or more said they had been personally affected by the priest shortage, according to the Georgetown poll.
“There’s a crisis,” said William V. D’Antonio, a fellow of the Life Cycle Institute at the Catholic University of America. “We’re running out of priests. The average age of priests currently active is over 60. We have recruitment of new priests way below replacement level.”
Groups that advocate opening the priesthood to women and to married men are using the pope’s visit to promote their causes. But there is nothing to suggest that the Vatican is close to reversing itself. The solutions promoted by American bishops are to work harder at recruiting candidates for the priesthood, and to ordain permanent deacons — laymen who can preach and perform many ministerial duties.
Peter Borre, a parishioner who helped form the Council of Parishes in Boston, said that if he could address Pope Benedict XVI, he would say: “The shortage of priests, Your Holiness, is both a symptom and a problem itself. The deeper problem is not a responsibility of the flock, it’s a failure of bishops to inspire and draw more people into the priesthood.”
Some bishops, like Joseph Galante in Camden, have tried to involve the laity in the painful restructuring process. But since the sexual abuse scandal, they are finding many of their parishioners have become more confrontational.
The restiveness is not only among laity. In Belleville, Ill., last month, 45 priests took the step of publicly releasing a letter to the Vatican’s representative in Washington calling for their bishop to step down. They accused the bishop, Edward K. Braxton, of poor communication with priests and of misappropriating more than $17,000 and using it to buy liturgical garments and furniture. (The bishop has apologized, but said he would not resign.)
In Boston, Catholics have spent the last four years taking turns camping inside five churches that the archdiocese wants to close. They figure that if the church is occupied, the archdiocese will not be able to padlock it.
In Boston and Toledo, some Catholics are suing the church to prevent the closings.
The quandary for the church is that the agitation is coming from some of the most religiously committed Catholics, said Mr. D’Antonio, co-author of a recent book that surveyed the members of “Voice of the Faithful,” another church reform group.
“These are really the loyal Catholics speaking out for change,” Mr. D’Antonio said. “They are the ones who have been the Eucharistic ministers, they went to Catholic parochial schools and colleges, got a terrific education, and now they want to change the church.”
Ms. Vassallo, the lawyer in Camden who objects to the closing of her parish (the diocese there is reducing the number to 66 from 124), spends every Thursday from 11 p.m. to midnight in her church praying before the Blessed Sacrament. She is one in a chain of parishioners who keep up this Eucharistic Adoration for 48 uninterrupted hours every week.
As Catholics they are devoted to their church, but don’t necessarily agree with all of its decisions. As Americans, accustomed to life in a democracy, they think they have a right to say so.
Dan Thiel, a contractor and excavator in Upper Sandusky, Ohio, was in a ministerial training program for five years in the Toledo diocese, which assigned him to help gather information from parishes on which ones could be closed or clustered. In the end, he said, he was appalled because some very alive parishes were cut. His own was reduced to a chapel, without a resident priest.
“They’ve totally abandoned our community,” said Mr. Thiel, who is now president of United Parishes, a group that is fighting parish closings in Toledo. “They took the buildings, they took the money, and said, ‘You guys can go somewhere else.’ ”
“There are so many people that want to be active in this church, that want to know more about their faith, and now they’re so offended,” Mr. Thiel said. “I tell people all the time, ‘Don’t leave your church. It’s not the pope. It’s not the bishop. It’s your community.’ ”
Uncertain Church Awaits Pope in U.S.
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
Less than two weeks ago, as final preparations were being made for the visit of Pope Benedict XVI to the United States, the bishop of Camden, N.J., announced plans to close or merge nearly half the parishes in his diocese. Meanwhile, Catholics in New Orleans, Boston, New York, Toledo, Ohio, and nearly three dozen other dioceses are mourning the loss of parishes and parochial schools they grew up in.
So when the pope arrives in the United States on Tuesday, he will find an American church in which many Catholics are eager not only for his spiritual guidance, but also for his acknowledgment that their church is going through a time of pain and uncertainty.
Hundreds of parishes are being closed and consolidated, and the reasons are usually intertwined with the other big challenges facing the church: a shortage of priests, fallout from the sexual abuse scandal, insufficient funds to maintain aging churches, demographic changes and sometimes not enough people attending Mass to justify keeping parishes open.
And yet for most observant Catholics, their primary experience of the church is their local parish.
“It’s frustrating because you start to see the bishop as the enemy, and it puts you where you’re conflicted,” said Leah Vassallo, a lawyer whose parish in Malaga, N.J., is among those to be closed. “Obviously you don’t want to give up your faith or go to a different religion, or not go to church at all. But it does disenfranchise you. We’re going to be a lot more hesitant before we give money to the church.”
A resistance movement to church closings that began in Boston has spread to other dioceses. On Sunday, Catholics in six dioceses — New York, Boston, Buffalo, Camden, New Orleans and Toledo — announced that they were forming a national group, the Coalition for Parishes, to try to prevent the closing or merging of viable churches.
In addition to the issues the closings and consolidations present, this will be the first visit by any pope since the sexual abuse scandal erupted in 2002, taking a spiritual, emotional and financial toll on Catholics across the country. The scandal revealed more than 5,000 victims, and left behind five bankrupt dioceses. It has cost the church more than $2 billion, so far, and it is not over. Last week the family of two young boys filed a civil lawsuit against a Massachusetts priest accusing him of molesting the boys as recently as 2005.
One of the scandal’s repercussions is that lay Catholics across the country are demanding more financial accountability from their bishops and more control over decisions, especially when it comes to closing parishes.
Many dioceses are also closing parochial elementary, junior and high schools that have provided a rigorous education for generations of Catholics and non-Catholics.
The cost of legal fees and settlements to abuse victims has put financial pressure on many dioceses. But in many cases, the far larger reason for the closings is demographic.
Urban enclaves of Italian, Irish, Polish and Eastern European Catholics who had their own ethnic parishes are dispersing to the suburbs and seeing their previous parishes shuttered — or having to learn to share their churches with immigrants from Latin America, Asia and Africa. In some parishes the new mix has been joyous, in others uneasy.
The pope is expected to praise the American church’s vibrancy during his visit, and there is much for the church to celebrate. Catholics are the biggest religious group in the United States, about 23 percent of the population, a proportion that has held steady. Many parishes are healthy, and some are growing, with the influx of immigrants, especially Hispanics.
A poll released on Sunday by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University showed a mixed performance review for the American bishops: 22 percent of Catholics are “very satisfied” with the bishops, 50 percent are “somewhat satisfied,” 21 percent are “somewhat dissatisfied,” and 6 percent are “very dissatisfied.” It is an improvement from 2002, the outbreak of the scandal.
But most priests, and even many bishops, will acknowledge the woes.
Of 18,634 parishes in 2007, 3,238 were without resident pastors. More than 800 parishes have been closed since 1995, most since 2000. (Some bishops are preparing their parishioners for more closings ahead.) The number of priests ordained in 2007 fell to 456, less than half the number of new priests in 1965. Nearly 3 in 10 Catholics who attend Mass weekly or more said they had been personally affected by the priest shortage, according to the Georgetown poll.
“There’s a crisis,” said William V. D’Antonio, a fellow of the Life Cycle Institute at the Catholic University of America. “We’re running out of priests. The average age of priests currently active is over 60. We have recruitment of new priests way below replacement level.”
Groups that advocate opening the priesthood to women and to married men are using the pope’s visit to promote their causes. But there is nothing to suggest that the Vatican is close to reversing itself. The solutions promoted by American bishops are to work harder at recruiting candidates for the priesthood, and to ordain permanent deacons — laymen who can preach and perform many ministerial duties.
Peter Borre, a parishioner who helped form the Council of Parishes in Boston, said that if he could address Pope Benedict XVI, he would say: “The shortage of priests, Your Holiness, is both a symptom and a problem itself. The deeper problem is not a responsibility of the flock, it’s a failure of bishops to inspire and draw more people into the priesthood.”
Some bishops, like Joseph Galante in Camden, have tried to involve the laity in the painful restructuring process. But since the sexual abuse scandal, they are finding many of their parishioners have become more confrontational.
The restiveness is not only among laity. In Belleville, Ill., last month, 45 priests took the step of publicly releasing a letter to the Vatican’s representative in Washington calling for their bishop to step down. They accused the bishop, Edward K. Braxton, of poor communication with priests and of misappropriating more than $17,000 and using it to buy liturgical garments and furniture. (The bishop has apologized, but said he would not resign.)
In Boston, Catholics have spent the last four years taking turns camping inside five churches that the archdiocese wants to close. They figure that if the church is occupied, the archdiocese will not be able to padlock it.
In Boston and Toledo, some Catholics are suing the church to prevent the closings.
The quandary for the church is that the agitation is coming from some of the most religiously committed Catholics, said Mr. D’Antonio, co-author of a recent book that surveyed the members of “Voice of the Faithful,” another church reform group.
“These are really the loyal Catholics speaking out for change,” Mr. D’Antonio said. “They are the ones who have been the Eucharistic ministers, they went to Catholic parochial schools and colleges, got a terrific education, and now they want to change the church.”
Ms. Vassallo, the lawyer in Camden who objects to the closing of her parish (the diocese there is reducing the number to 66 from 124), spends every Thursday from 11 p.m. to midnight in her church praying before the Blessed Sacrament. She is one in a chain of parishioners who keep up this Eucharistic Adoration for 48 uninterrupted hours every week.
As Catholics they are devoted to their church, but don’t necessarily agree with all of its decisions. As Americans, accustomed to life in a democracy, they think they have a right to say so.
Dan Thiel, a contractor and excavator in Upper Sandusky, Ohio, was in a ministerial training program for five years in the Toledo diocese, which assigned him to help gather information from parishes on which ones could be closed or clustered. In the end, he said, he was appalled because some very alive parishes were cut. His own was reduced to a chapel, without a resident priest.
“They’ve totally abandoned our community,” said Mr. Thiel, who is now president of United Parishes, a group that is fighting parish closings in Toledo. “They took the buildings, they took the money, and said, ‘You guys can go somewhere else.’ ”
“There are so many people that want to be active in this church, that want to know more about their faith, and now they’re so offended,” Mr. Thiel said. “I tell people all the time, ‘Don’t leave your church. It’s not the pope. It’s not the bishop. It’s your community.’ ”
April 16, 2008
Op-Ed Contributor
God and Man at Notre Dame
By KENNETH L. WOODWARD
POPE BENEDICT XVI will give several speeches during his visit to the United States, but the most consequential for American Catholics may be his address to the presidents of Catholic colleges and universities tomorrow.
Benedict has shown himself concerned about preserving the specifically Roman Catholic identity of all Catholic institutions, particularly those in higher education. His predecessor, John Paul II, tried to do this by insisting that Catholic theology professors sign a document called a mandatum affirming their fidelity to the papal teaching. Conservative Catholics are counting on Benedict to enforce this approach.
Yet, because Benedict is at heart a professor, I hope that he recognizes that fidelity to church teachings cannot be coerced.
No question, a Catholic university should be identifiably Catholic. But the problem of institutional identity goes far beyond litmus tests for theologians.
Arguments over the “identity crisis” on Catholic campuses have been going on for 50 years — long enough to realize that there is no single thing that makes a Catholic university Catholic. Indeed, the question of Catholic identity has as much to do with the changes in Catholic students and their parents as it does with faculty members and administrations.
In the early 1960s, half of all Catholic children attended Catholic grade and high schools. The 10 percent or so who went on to college had some 300 Catholic colleges and universities to choose from — more, in fact, than in the rest of the world combined. Catholics were expected to attend one of these; those who wanted to attend, say, an Ivy League college often had to get permission from their pastor.
Today few Catholic students or parents are likely to choose a Catholic university if Princeton or Stanford is an option. A Catholic higher education, in other words, is less prized by many Catholic parents — including complaining conservatives — than the name on the college diploma.
Another difference is this: Well into the 1960s, Catholic college freshmen arrived with a knowledge of the basics of their religion — enough, at least, to question the answers they were given as children or, among the brighter students, to be challenged in theology classes toward a more mature grasp of their faith.
Most of today’s Catholic students, however, have no such grounding. Even the graduates of Catholic high schools, theology professors complain, have to be taught the fundamentals. As one Methodist theologian at Notre Dame wryly put it, “Before I teach my course on marriage I have to tell them first what their own church has to say on the subject.”
No question, Catholic colleges were more “Catholic” then than they are today. Most were small campuses with a liberal-arts curriculum, making it easy to weave theology into the classroom mix. Most teachers were Catholic and many were priests and nuns.
The ’60s changed all that. In 1966, the American Council on Education issued a study that failed to uncover a single Catholic university with a “distinguished or even strong” graduate department. This prompted Msgr. John Tracy Ellis, a leading American Catholic historian, to suggest a radical consolidation: American Catholics should support no more than three Catholic universities, one on each coast and one in between.
Ellis knew it would never happen, given the independence of each university. Yet his pronouncement prompted a contest among Catholic universities in the hope of surviving the final cut. The rush was on to upgrade faculty and facilities, which meant competing for the best teachers and students regardless of religion. Then there was the Second Vatican Council’s urging Catholics to embrace the modern world. This prompted many priests and nuns to abandon Catholic institutions to work “in the world,” further accelerating the need for lay faculty members. Faculty strikes over academic freedom at Catholic universities led many to turn control over to lay-dominated boards of trustees.
Led by the Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, the longtime president of Notre Dame, Catholic educators redefined the relationship between church and university. As Father Hesburgh adroitly put it, a Catholic university is the place “where the church does its thinking.” Learning, in other words, is not indoctrination.
Since those transformative years, the number of Catholic colleges and universities has declined by a third. Some secularized, cutting all ties to the church, in order to survive. Others, especially those for women, closed their doors for lack of applicants. Many more grew through compromise: though nominally Catholic, they offered theology as not much more than a series of selections in a menu of course options.
America can still boast of a monopoly of the world’s best Catholic educational institutions. Some are small liberal-arts colleges that have preserved or reinvented classical Catholic humanism. Others are more sectarian, fashioned in reaction to the demand for orthodoxy by John Paul II. A few universities like Notre Dame (my alma mater) have attained elite status while remaining manifestly Catholic.
I hope Pope Benedict will keep this diversity in mind when tomorrow he discusses the issue of institutional identity. I hope, too, that someone in his entourage will point out that there are more Catholic students at many of the big public universities in the Midwest than at any Catholic college. They are there by choice, their own or that of their parents.
What these students and their teachers need is a vision of what it means to be an educated Catholic, not just a lecture on preserving Catholic institutional identity. If Benedict can manage that, his words will be worth remembering.
Kenneth L. Woodward, a contributing editor at Newsweek, is writing a book about religion and American culture since 1950.
Op-Ed Contributor
God and Man at Notre Dame
By KENNETH L. WOODWARD
POPE BENEDICT XVI will give several speeches during his visit to the United States, but the most consequential for American Catholics may be his address to the presidents of Catholic colleges and universities tomorrow.
Benedict has shown himself concerned about preserving the specifically Roman Catholic identity of all Catholic institutions, particularly those in higher education. His predecessor, John Paul II, tried to do this by insisting that Catholic theology professors sign a document called a mandatum affirming their fidelity to the papal teaching. Conservative Catholics are counting on Benedict to enforce this approach.
Yet, because Benedict is at heart a professor, I hope that he recognizes that fidelity to church teachings cannot be coerced.
No question, a Catholic university should be identifiably Catholic. But the problem of institutional identity goes far beyond litmus tests for theologians.
Arguments over the “identity crisis” on Catholic campuses have been going on for 50 years — long enough to realize that there is no single thing that makes a Catholic university Catholic. Indeed, the question of Catholic identity has as much to do with the changes in Catholic students and their parents as it does with faculty members and administrations.
In the early 1960s, half of all Catholic children attended Catholic grade and high schools. The 10 percent or so who went on to college had some 300 Catholic colleges and universities to choose from — more, in fact, than in the rest of the world combined. Catholics were expected to attend one of these; those who wanted to attend, say, an Ivy League college often had to get permission from their pastor.
Today few Catholic students or parents are likely to choose a Catholic university if Princeton or Stanford is an option. A Catholic higher education, in other words, is less prized by many Catholic parents — including complaining conservatives — than the name on the college diploma.
Another difference is this: Well into the 1960s, Catholic college freshmen arrived with a knowledge of the basics of their religion — enough, at least, to question the answers they were given as children or, among the brighter students, to be challenged in theology classes toward a more mature grasp of their faith.
Most of today’s Catholic students, however, have no such grounding. Even the graduates of Catholic high schools, theology professors complain, have to be taught the fundamentals. As one Methodist theologian at Notre Dame wryly put it, “Before I teach my course on marriage I have to tell them first what their own church has to say on the subject.”
No question, Catholic colleges were more “Catholic” then than they are today. Most were small campuses with a liberal-arts curriculum, making it easy to weave theology into the classroom mix. Most teachers were Catholic and many were priests and nuns.
The ’60s changed all that. In 1966, the American Council on Education issued a study that failed to uncover a single Catholic university with a “distinguished or even strong” graduate department. This prompted Msgr. John Tracy Ellis, a leading American Catholic historian, to suggest a radical consolidation: American Catholics should support no more than three Catholic universities, one on each coast and one in between.
Ellis knew it would never happen, given the independence of each university. Yet his pronouncement prompted a contest among Catholic universities in the hope of surviving the final cut. The rush was on to upgrade faculty and facilities, which meant competing for the best teachers and students regardless of religion. Then there was the Second Vatican Council’s urging Catholics to embrace the modern world. This prompted many priests and nuns to abandon Catholic institutions to work “in the world,” further accelerating the need for lay faculty members. Faculty strikes over academic freedom at Catholic universities led many to turn control over to lay-dominated boards of trustees.
Led by the Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, the longtime president of Notre Dame, Catholic educators redefined the relationship between church and university. As Father Hesburgh adroitly put it, a Catholic university is the place “where the church does its thinking.” Learning, in other words, is not indoctrination.
Since those transformative years, the number of Catholic colleges and universities has declined by a third. Some secularized, cutting all ties to the church, in order to survive. Others, especially those for women, closed their doors for lack of applicants. Many more grew through compromise: though nominally Catholic, they offered theology as not much more than a series of selections in a menu of course options.
America can still boast of a monopoly of the world’s best Catholic educational institutions. Some are small liberal-arts colleges that have preserved or reinvented classical Catholic humanism. Others are more sectarian, fashioned in reaction to the demand for orthodoxy by John Paul II. A few universities like Notre Dame (my alma mater) have attained elite status while remaining manifestly Catholic.
I hope Pope Benedict will keep this diversity in mind when tomorrow he discusses the issue of institutional identity. I hope, too, that someone in his entourage will point out that there are more Catholic students at many of the big public universities in the Midwest than at any Catholic college. They are there by choice, their own or that of their parents.
What these students and their teachers need is a vision of what it means to be an educated Catholic, not just a lecture on preserving Catholic institutional identity. If Benedict can manage that, his words will be worth remembering.
Kenneth L. Woodward, a contributing editor at Newsweek, is writing a book about religion and American culture since 1950.
Church must decide which it serves: the state or God
Nigel Hannaford
Calgary Herald
Saturday, May 03, 2008
Politicians who love the Kingdom of God must deal with a tough question: Should they advocate cutting loose the church from its tax advantages? For its own protection, should donations to churches cease to be tax deductible? There is a case for it. A recent decision of the Ontario Human Rights Commission reminds us that he who pays the piper, calls the tune. If the OHRC's tune is to be widely echoed, it is not one churches can dance to, lest their message be compromised.
Christian Horizons is a mission to the developmentally challenged, started 40 years ago by a minister with two children who might have been institutionalized, had he not started it. Its history is a notable testimony to the power of God, working for good through individuals. Now, it runs 180 group homes in Ontario and cares for 1,400 clients with a staff of 2,500.
A condition of employment though, is that staff sign the mission's code of conduct. Consistent with Christian orthodoxy, it features a clear ban on unbiblical sexual behaviour: adultery and sex before marriage are no-nos, likewise homosexual relationships.
At airport security, nobody is obliged to be searched who chooses not to board the plane. Working for Christian Horizons is like that; nobody must work for it who chooses not to sign the paper. Some non-Christians might think it quaint, but it's their organization. In any case, many people (and not just Christians,) positively approve those principles.
However, the OHRC has decided Christian Horizons must not only drop its code of conduct, but send its whole staff for sensitivity training.
What happened was that an employee outed herself, resigned, then complained to the commission that by insisting on its code, Christian Horizons had discriminated against her.
The OHRC agreed, ordering Christian Horizons to pay her money. And to change its culture. "Christian Horizons shall develop and adopt an anti-discrimination and an anti-harassment policy as well as a human rights training program for all employees and managers . . . [and] shall cease and desist from imposing the Lifestyle and Morality Statement as a condition of employment."
Why? Briefly, the OHRC said it was fine for Christian Horizons to provide a Christian home atmosphere, using committed Christian workers, for developmentally challenged children who would otherwise be institutionalized. But as it was contracted to Ontario's Ministry of Community and Social Services, it couldn't discriminate against gays on the public nickel.
There is some logic to this.
It does, however, leave Christian Horizons with a miserable dilemma. It can stick to its doctrine, but for want of cash do no good. Or it can continue its good work, but to the glory of the Ontario Ministry of Community and Social Services, not God. The trouble is, this goes for any Christian organization -- and non-Christian religious organizations, too. A Christian school that's 50 per cent funded by the state, has no right to complain if the state vetoes textbooks it doesn't like. A church running a soup kitchen or providing other relief using public funds leaves itself open to governmental prescription.
And I don't think the church generally has appreciated that the state has no obligation to give it a property-tax break or make tithes tax-deductible, if the church preaches a message the state doesn't like. Which, in times past, it often has.
Long before there were tax breaks, the church did good work out of love for God. The first hospitals, schools and universities were founded hundreds of years ago by the church. As this was to the state's advantage, it gave the church concessions. This, too, was logical: why make it more difficult for somebody caring for the sick by taxing his hospital?
But those were different days. In Christendom, even men who rejected Christ for themselves nonetheless acknowledged His church as the source of morality.
Today's consensus places equality above biblical teachings as the supreme moral virtue. Indeed, for mankind's greater comfort, the very concept of sin has been banished and this OHRC decision is a case in point. For it does not merely find Christian Missions discriminated against a lesbian employee by insisting on its moral code. It says the moral code must go -- AND goes on to tell the mission what it must think: out with Scripture and in with contemporary understandings of human rights. Our moral code is better than your moral code, believe it.
This has disturbing, oppressive overtones. The day is coming when the church, as an institution, will have to decide which it will serve. (For Christian Horizons, that day is here.)
Loss of tax privileges would grievously hurt its ability to serve the community. Yet, the church's first duty is to be faithful to God's word -- service is a consequence of that, not the church's prime function -- and that may come at a price.
Didn't it always, though? The quicker the church weans itself off tax privileges, the quicker it will be strengthened to resist the state when the state intrudes on its doctrine.
Caesar is welcome to his tax, but not to worship.
nhannaford@theherald.canwest.com
© The Calgary Herald 2008
Nigel Hannaford
Calgary Herald
Saturday, May 03, 2008
Politicians who love the Kingdom of God must deal with a tough question: Should they advocate cutting loose the church from its tax advantages? For its own protection, should donations to churches cease to be tax deductible? There is a case for it. A recent decision of the Ontario Human Rights Commission reminds us that he who pays the piper, calls the tune. If the OHRC's tune is to be widely echoed, it is not one churches can dance to, lest their message be compromised.
Christian Horizons is a mission to the developmentally challenged, started 40 years ago by a minister with two children who might have been institutionalized, had he not started it. Its history is a notable testimony to the power of God, working for good through individuals. Now, it runs 180 group homes in Ontario and cares for 1,400 clients with a staff of 2,500.
A condition of employment though, is that staff sign the mission's code of conduct. Consistent with Christian orthodoxy, it features a clear ban on unbiblical sexual behaviour: adultery and sex before marriage are no-nos, likewise homosexual relationships.
At airport security, nobody is obliged to be searched who chooses not to board the plane. Working for Christian Horizons is like that; nobody must work for it who chooses not to sign the paper. Some non-Christians might think it quaint, but it's their organization. In any case, many people (and not just Christians,) positively approve those principles.
However, the OHRC has decided Christian Horizons must not only drop its code of conduct, but send its whole staff for sensitivity training.
What happened was that an employee outed herself, resigned, then complained to the commission that by insisting on its code, Christian Horizons had discriminated against her.
The OHRC agreed, ordering Christian Horizons to pay her money. And to change its culture. "Christian Horizons shall develop and adopt an anti-discrimination and an anti-harassment policy as well as a human rights training program for all employees and managers . . . [and] shall cease and desist from imposing the Lifestyle and Morality Statement as a condition of employment."
Why? Briefly, the OHRC said it was fine for Christian Horizons to provide a Christian home atmosphere, using committed Christian workers, for developmentally challenged children who would otherwise be institutionalized. But as it was contracted to Ontario's Ministry of Community and Social Services, it couldn't discriminate against gays on the public nickel.
There is some logic to this.
It does, however, leave Christian Horizons with a miserable dilemma. It can stick to its doctrine, but for want of cash do no good. Or it can continue its good work, but to the glory of the Ontario Ministry of Community and Social Services, not God. The trouble is, this goes for any Christian organization -- and non-Christian religious organizations, too. A Christian school that's 50 per cent funded by the state, has no right to complain if the state vetoes textbooks it doesn't like. A church running a soup kitchen or providing other relief using public funds leaves itself open to governmental prescription.
And I don't think the church generally has appreciated that the state has no obligation to give it a property-tax break or make tithes tax-deductible, if the church preaches a message the state doesn't like. Which, in times past, it often has.
Long before there were tax breaks, the church did good work out of love for God. The first hospitals, schools and universities were founded hundreds of years ago by the church. As this was to the state's advantage, it gave the church concessions. This, too, was logical: why make it more difficult for somebody caring for the sick by taxing his hospital?
But those were different days. In Christendom, even men who rejected Christ for themselves nonetheless acknowledged His church as the source of morality.
Today's consensus places equality above biblical teachings as the supreme moral virtue. Indeed, for mankind's greater comfort, the very concept of sin has been banished and this OHRC decision is a case in point. For it does not merely find Christian Missions discriminated against a lesbian employee by insisting on its moral code. It says the moral code must go -- AND goes on to tell the mission what it must think: out with Scripture and in with contemporary understandings of human rights. Our moral code is better than your moral code, believe it.
This has disturbing, oppressive overtones. The day is coming when the church, as an institution, will have to decide which it will serve. (For Christian Horizons, that day is here.)
Loss of tax privileges would grievously hurt its ability to serve the community. Yet, the church's first duty is to be faithful to God's word -- service is a consequence of that, not the church's prime function -- and that may come at a price.
Didn't it always, though? The quicker the church weans itself off tax privileges, the quicker it will be strengthened to resist the state when the state intrudes on its doctrine.
Caesar is welcome to his tax, but not to worship.
nhannaford@theherald.canwest.com
© The Calgary Herald 2008
http://www.latimes.com/news/printeditio ... 8310.story
From the Los Angeles Times
Group of evangelical Christians writes manifesto urging separation of religious beliefs and politics
By politicizing faith, Christians become 'useful idiots' for one party or another, the group warns
By Rebecca Trounson
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
May 10, 2008
A group of prominent U.S. evangelical Christians is urging other evangelicals to step back from partisan politics and avoid becoming "useful idiots" for any political party.
In an often strongly worded statement released this week, more than 70 pastors, scholars and business leaders said faith and politics have become too closely intertwined and that evangelicals err when they use their religious beliefs for political purposes.
About a quarter of U.S. adults call themselves evangelical Christians, polls show, and for the last 30 years, the "religious right" has been a reliable base of support for the Republican Party. But Christians from both ends of the political spectrum have made the mistake of politicizing their faith, the group declares in the document, called “An Evangelical Manifesto.”
When that occurs, "faith loses its independence, the church becomes 'the regime at prayer,' Christians become 'useful idiots' for one political party or another, and the Christian faith becomes an ideology in its purest form," the document says.
Three years in the making, the manifesto was signed by many high-profile, mostly centrist evangelicals, including Leith Anderson, president of the National Assn. of Evangelicals; Jim Wallis, founder of Sojourners magazine; and Frank Wright, president of National Religious Broadcasters.
Many of the most prominent conservative evangelicals did not sign. A spokesman for James Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family, said Dobson had concerns about the document and decided not to add his name.
One of the statement's drafters said one purpose was to reclaim the word "evangelical" from its political association.
"This is not primarily a political movement," said the Rev. John Huffman Jr., senior pastor of St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church in Newport Beach and board chairman of the evangelical magazine Christianity Today. "Evangelicalism is a theological understanding that we are called to be followers of Jesus Christ, and that's not captive to a culture, society or nation."
Huffman and other organizers said the document's release was not timed to the U.S. presidential contest. But he said he hoped one result would be to persuade some of the more outspoken evangelical voices to tone down their political rhetoric.
"The evangelical umbrella is very large and I won't try to detract from anyone who loves Jesus and has a biblical rationale for their views on any issue," Huffman said. "But we hope some who've been more strident in their statements will be a little more cautious in the future."
Analyst Michael Cromartie, vice president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., said he expected the statement to have limited political impact.
"It's mainly a warning to people not to confuse their personal faith with political convictions," he said.
****
Pope improves image
A new survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life shows that Pope Benedict XVI improved his image among Americans with a recent U.S. visit. The poll, conducted shortly after the pope's April 15-20 visit to the East Coast, shows that 61% of Americans say they have a favorable impression of Benedict, up from 52% in late March.
rebecca.trounson@ latimes.com
From the Los Angeles Times
Group of evangelical Christians writes manifesto urging separation of religious beliefs and politics
By politicizing faith, Christians become 'useful idiots' for one party or another, the group warns
By Rebecca Trounson
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
May 10, 2008
A group of prominent U.S. evangelical Christians is urging other evangelicals to step back from partisan politics and avoid becoming "useful idiots" for any political party.
In an often strongly worded statement released this week, more than 70 pastors, scholars and business leaders said faith and politics have become too closely intertwined and that evangelicals err when they use their religious beliefs for political purposes.
About a quarter of U.S. adults call themselves evangelical Christians, polls show, and for the last 30 years, the "religious right" has been a reliable base of support for the Republican Party. But Christians from both ends of the political spectrum have made the mistake of politicizing their faith, the group declares in the document, called “An Evangelical Manifesto.”
When that occurs, "faith loses its independence, the church becomes 'the regime at prayer,' Christians become 'useful idiots' for one political party or another, and the Christian faith becomes an ideology in its purest form," the document says.
Three years in the making, the manifesto was signed by many high-profile, mostly centrist evangelicals, including Leith Anderson, president of the National Assn. of Evangelicals; Jim Wallis, founder of Sojourners magazine; and Frank Wright, president of National Religious Broadcasters.
Many of the most prominent conservative evangelicals did not sign. A spokesman for James Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family, said Dobson had concerns about the document and decided not to add his name.
One of the statement's drafters said one purpose was to reclaim the word "evangelical" from its political association.
"This is not primarily a political movement," said the Rev. John Huffman Jr., senior pastor of St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church in Newport Beach and board chairman of the evangelical magazine Christianity Today. "Evangelicalism is a theological understanding that we are called to be followers of Jesus Christ, and that's not captive to a culture, society or nation."
Huffman and other organizers said the document's release was not timed to the U.S. presidential contest. But he said he hoped one result would be to persuade some of the more outspoken evangelical voices to tone down their political rhetoric.
"The evangelical umbrella is very large and I won't try to detract from anyone who loves Jesus and has a biblical rationale for their views on any issue," Huffman said. "But we hope some who've been more strident in their statements will be a little more cautious in the future."
Analyst Michael Cromartie, vice president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., said he expected the statement to have limited political impact.
"It's mainly a warning to people not to confuse their personal faith with political convictions," he said.
****
Pope improves image
A new survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life shows that Pope Benedict XVI improved his image among Americans with a recent U.S. visit. The poll, conducted shortly after the pope's April 15-20 visit to the East Coast, shows that 61% of Americans say they have a favorable impression of Benedict, up from 52% in late March.
rebecca.trounson@ latimes.com
Author confronts liberal Christians
Minister's book touches off heated debate
Graeme Morton
Calgary Herald
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Rev. Gretta Vosper has laid down a radical challenge for Christians . . . a call to change the way we think and talk about God, Jesus, the Bible and our spiritual life.
And while such a collective shift will be a major leap of faith, Vosper says the alternative for the liberal wing of modern Christianity will be a relentless slide into obscurity.
The Toronto-based United Church minister has touched off heated debate in the faith community with her book With or Without God -- Why the Way We Live is More Important Than What We Believe, published in March. Reader response has ranged from praise for its bold vision to concern that Vosper is "throwing the baby out with the bathwater" to vitriolic attacks.
"There's been no official response from the (United) church yet," says Vosper, who will be speaking in Calgary on June 12.
Vosper makes no bones she wants to confront liberal Christian denominations, "who have had access to contemporary scholarship for a couple of generations and have not brought it into the worship space." She expresses the wish that her book "irritates us all into the growth we so disturbingly need." Vosper says those who view Bible stories, Jesus and even God metaphorically, instead of literally, have to show the courage to say out loud that these can be valuable as metaphors and symbols, not as facts.
"We currently have a number of things in church that can help people in their daily lives, but they all have to go back to God or Jesus to be validated. But there are so many rituals across faith traditions which could be examined for their spiritual power and shared," says Vosper.
When asked for her personal vision of God, Vosper suggests it is "that which compels me to be in positive relationship with the world" instead of a omnipresent entity who loves, judges, comforts and punishes.
"We have the choice to make that relationship sacred or to desecrate it. If we make it sacred, we are deepening and expanding the experience of God in the world. And that goes for relationships with ourselves, other people and the planet." Vosper says this loss of a clear message is part of the reason many mainline Protestant denominations are struggling to keep members.
"Once contemporary scholarship hollowed out the Bible as the divine word of God and took away the divinity of Jesus in any way particular to him and not shared by all of life, you wonder what is it that we're actually saying," says Vosper.
"We've used the words, keep the rituals and had the organ sound the same tunes. But the substance has been lacking and it's led to an integrity issue in the liberal church. We need to uncurl our fingers and let go of the words and rituals that aren't working anymore." Despite her theological differences with them, Vosper says Christianity's evangelical leaders who have a strong sense of God and deep relationships with Jesus are able to "walk that talk with an integrity that gathers people to them." Is it too late to revitalize the liberal arm of the Christian community that is struggling to find its place in the world? Vosper says if the debate she's trying to spur had taken place in the 1960s, the church would have transformed itself theologically while maintaining the important, relevant work of challenging social, economic and political issues instead of being largely ignored.
"The young generation are very passionate and knowledgeable about justice issues, but they lack ways to become engaged," says Vosper. "The church is still well positioned to create meaningful ways to engage people in changing the world. But if we continue to sideline ourselves with archaic language, ritual and music, we'll lose that chance." Calgary's Rev. Bill Phipps knows something about creating controversy. As United Church moderator a decade ago, he took major flak for discounting Jesus' divinity. Phipps is just beginning to read Vosper's book, but he lauds her courage for speaking up.
"She's someone who is leading a congregation and not writing from a position of academic security. Anyone who is on the line every Sunday preaching or comforting a family who's just had a tragic death, I admire for pushing the boundaries and getting people to think," says Phipps.
Rev. Tom Melvin of Deer Park United, former chairman of the United Church's Calgary presbytery, says Vosper raises some timely questions.
"We need to be intentional about how we do church -- the way we worship, speak and act. We have to pay attention to how we express ourselves as people of faith because the power of language is extremely important," says Melvin.
"But for me, it's my personal belief in Jesus that allows one to be able to have all those characteristics that she calls for -- the openness, honesty, integrity, creativity and intellectual rigour that are necessary for moving forward." gmorton@theherald.canwest.com
© The Calgary Herald 2008
Minister's book touches off heated debate
Graeme Morton
Calgary Herald
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Rev. Gretta Vosper has laid down a radical challenge for Christians . . . a call to change the way we think and talk about God, Jesus, the Bible and our spiritual life.
And while such a collective shift will be a major leap of faith, Vosper says the alternative for the liberal wing of modern Christianity will be a relentless slide into obscurity.
The Toronto-based United Church minister has touched off heated debate in the faith community with her book With or Without God -- Why the Way We Live is More Important Than What We Believe, published in March. Reader response has ranged from praise for its bold vision to concern that Vosper is "throwing the baby out with the bathwater" to vitriolic attacks.
"There's been no official response from the (United) church yet," says Vosper, who will be speaking in Calgary on June 12.
Vosper makes no bones she wants to confront liberal Christian denominations, "who have had access to contemporary scholarship for a couple of generations and have not brought it into the worship space." She expresses the wish that her book "irritates us all into the growth we so disturbingly need." Vosper says those who view Bible stories, Jesus and even God metaphorically, instead of literally, have to show the courage to say out loud that these can be valuable as metaphors and symbols, not as facts.
"We currently have a number of things in church that can help people in their daily lives, but they all have to go back to God or Jesus to be validated. But there are so many rituals across faith traditions which could be examined for their spiritual power and shared," says Vosper.
When asked for her personal vision of God, Vosper suggests it is "that which compels me to be in positive relationship with the world" instead of a omnipresent entity who loves, judges, comforts and punishes.
"We have the choice to make that relationship sacred or to desecrate it. If we make it sacred, we are deepening and expanding the experience of God in the world. And that goes for relationships with ourselves, other people and the planet." Vosper says this loss of a clear message is part of the reason many mainline Protestant denominations are struggling to keep members.
"Once contemporary scholarship hollowed out the Bible as the divine word of God and took away the divinity of Jesus in any way particular to him and not shared by all of life, you wonder what is it that we're actually saying," says Vosper.
"We've used the words, keep the rituals and had the organ sound the same tunes. But the substance has been lacking and it's led to an integrity issue in the liberal church. We need to uncurl our fingers and let go of the words and rituals that aren't working anymore." Despite her theological differences with them, Vosper says Christianity's evangelical leaders who have a strong sense of God and deep relationships with Jesus are able to "walk that talk with an integrity that gathers people to them." Is it too late to revitalize the liberal arm of the Christian community that is struggling to find its place in the world? Vosper says if the debate she's trying to spur had taken place in the 1960s, the church would have transformed itself theologically while maintaining the important, relevant work of challenging social, economic and political issues instead of being largely ignored.
"The young generation are very passionate and knowledgeable about justice issues, but they lack ways to become engaged," says Vosper. "The church is still well positioned to create meaningful ways to engage people in changing the world. But if we continue to sideline ourselves with archaic language, ritual and music, we'll lose that chance." Calgary's Rev. Bill Phipps knows something about creating controversy. As United Church moderator a decade ago, he took major flak for discounting Jesus' divinity. Phipps is just beginning to read Vosper's book, but he lauds her courage for speaking up.
"She's someone who is leading a congregation and not writing from a position of academic security. Anyone who is on the line every Sunday preaching or comforting a family who's just had a tragic death, I admire for pushing the boundaries and getting people to think," says Phipps.
Rev. Tom Melvin of Deer Park United, former chairman of the United Church's Calgary presbytery, says Vosper raises some timely questions.
"We need to be intentional about how we do church -- the way we worship, speak and act. We have to pay attention to how we express ourselves as people of faith because the power of language is extremely important," says Melvin.
"But for me, it's my personal belief in Jesus that allows one to be able to have all those characteristics that she calls for -- the openness, honesty, integrity, creativity and intellectual rigour that are necessary for moving forward." gmorton@theherald.canwest.com
© The Calgary Herald 2008
New priests answer deep spiritual calling
New careers offer chance to help people
Graeme Morton
Calgary Herald
Sunday, June 01, 2008
Cynics would say they are signing up to crew a leaky, some might even suggest sinking, spiritual ship.
But for eight southern Alberta women and men who were ordained as priests and deacons in the Anglican Church last Sunday, it's a matter of following a deep, personal calling that transcends today's turbulent headlines.
The Anglican Church, Canada's second largest Protestant denomination, has experienced a significant drop in membership in recent decades.
The debate over whether the church should bless same-sex unions has created deep divisions in both the Canadian and global Anglican community, which numbers more than 70 million. The Lambeth Conference, a high-level gathering of Anglican bishops which opens July 16 in Canterbury, England, is already bristling with contention between conservative and liberal viewpoints.
Still, for these new priests and deacons taking this pivotal step in their spiritual journey, the glass looks half full, not half empty. Some already have church postings, others will get their assignments in the days and weeks ahead.
Tara Livingston, ordained as a priest, says she was always coming up with logical reasons why she should quit her theological studies every year.
"But I kept going because I really felt I have some unique gifts that I can offer to this vocation," she adds.
The mother of two, Livingston says her sons, 10 and 9, still think it's a little strange when their mom picks them up at school wearing her clerical collar.
"They were a little confused at first about what mom does for a job, but they understand it now when I say, 'I talk to people about God.' "
Livingston says the diversity within the Anglican tent is both a strength and a natural source of strife for the church.
"The Anglican church could look very different in the years ahead, and that's OK," says Livingston. "We're in a painful period right now . . . kind of like the birth pangs of a new entity."
For many like Bonnie Luft and Ed Davies, the Anglican priesthood is a midlife shift into a second career. Luft had a successful stint in business, advertising and marketing, while Davies was a geologist before both felt called to a religious vocation.
"God kept opening some doors for me and closing others," says Luft, who came from an evangelical faith background. "Throughout this process, I trusted that God was in control."
Despite the ongoing secularization of western society and the Anglican world's myriad challenges, Luft says she's convinced the church's message is still important.
"I have a chance to make a difference in people's lives every day, and that's very special."
Davies notes that Christ's apostles also went through mid-life career shifts, dropping their fishing nets and other tools of their trades to take up a new calling.
"I'm a good listener. I think I have some pastoral gifts to help people achieve what they're trying to achieve," says Davies.
Deacons perform similar roles as priests, but do not preside at sacraments such as the eucharist. Many become priests, usually within one year, but some choose to remain vocational deacons.
Alan Getty has been working toward ordination for a decade since he felt a "very specific calling" to religious life during a backpacking trek through Europe at age 19.
"I want to be in the frontline trenches of preaching, teaching and pastoral care," says Getty. "We're in a dynamic time in the Anglican church. What's going to happen in the future is far from a foregone conclusion."
Fellow deacon Myron Penner will lead a ministry team at St. Barnabas Anglican in Three Hills, where he serves as an associate professor at Prairie Bible College.
"I'd say these are more exciting than desperate times in the Anglican church," says Penner, who says it's been a fascinating journey from seeing himself as a purely academic theologian to an emerging role in rural ministry.
As a newly appointed vocational deacon, Monica King will provide an Anglican presence in the central Alberta town of Trochu.
"I think I'll be more bold in stepping in to help people," says King, a lifelong Anglican. "To have a clergy presence, to be able to do one-on-one pastoral work, is a very big thing in a small community like mine."
Archdeacon Barry Foster of the Calgary Anglican diocese says the church is encouraged by both the quality and quantity of this new leadership wave.
"As a denomination, Anglicans don't actively recruit new clergy," says Foster. "It's almost a mysterious process how people who feel this calling approach us and we help them discern their future."
Foster says the Anglican church, like many employers, is facing a jump in retirements among its baby boomer clergy during the next decade.
"But right now, we have a pretty good balance between the availability of candidates and positions to work in."
gmorton@theherald.canwest.com
© The Calgary Herald 2008
New careers offer chance to help people
Graeme Morton
Calgary Herald
Sunday, June 01, 2008
Cynics would say they are signing up to crew a leaky, some might even suggest sinking, spiritual ship.
But for eight southern Alberta women and men who were ordained as priests and deacons in the Anglican Church last Sunday, it's a matter of following a deep, personal calling that transcends today's turbulent headlines.
The Anglican Church, Canada's second largest Protestant denomination, has experienced a significant drop in membership in recent decades.
The debate over whether the church should bless same-sex unions has created deep divisions in both the Canadian and global Anglican community, which numbers more than 70 million. The Lambeth Conference, a high-level gathering of Anglican bishops which opens July 16 in Canterbury, England, is already bristling with contention between conservative and liberal viewpoints.
Still, for these new priests and deacons taking this pivotal step in their spiritual journey, the glass looks half full, not half empty. Some already have church postings, others will get their assignments in the days and weeks ahead.
Tara Livingston, ordained as a priest, says she was always coming up with logical reasons why she should quit her theological studies every year.
"But I kept going because I really felt I have some unique gifts that I can offer to this vocation," she adds.
The mother of two, Livingston says her sons, 10 and 9, still think it's a little strange when their mom picks them up at school wearing her clerical collar.
"They were a little confused at first about what mom does for a job, but they understand it now when I say, 'I talk to people about God.' "
Livingston says the diversity within the Anglican tent is both a strength and a natural source of strife for the church.
"The Anglican church could look very different in the years ahead, and that's OK," says Livingston. "We're in a painful period right now . . . kind of like the birth pangs of a new entity."
For many like Bonnie Luft and Ed Davies, the Anglican priesthood is a midlife shift into a second career. Luft had a successful stint in business, advertising and marketing, while Davies was a geologist before both felt called to a religious vocation.
"God kept opening some doors for me and closing others," says Luft, who came from an evangelical faith background. "Throughout this process, I trusted that God was in control."
Despite the ongoing secularization of western society and the Anglican world's myriad challenges, Luft says she's convinced the church's message is still important.
"I have a chance to make a difference in people's lives every day, and that's very special."
Davies notes that Christ's apostles also went through mid-life career shifts, dropping their fishing nets and other tools of their trades to take up a new calling.
"I'm a good listener. I think I have some pastoral gifts to help people achieve what they're trying to achieve," says Davies.
Deacons perform similar roles as priests, but do not preside at sacraments such as the eucharist. Many become priests, usually within one year, but some choose to remain vocational deacons.
Alan Getty has been working toward ordination for a decade since he felt a "very specific calling" to religious life during a backpacking trek through Europe at age 19.
"I want to be in the frontline trenches of preaching, teaching and pastoral care," says Getty. "We're in a dynamic time in the Anglican church. What's going to happen in the future is far from a foregone conclusion."
Fellow deacon Myron Penner will lead a ministry team at St. Barnabas Anglican in Three Hills, where he serves as an associate professor at Prairie Bible College.
"I'd say these are more exciting than desperate times in the Anglican church," says Penner, who says it's been a fascinating journey from seeing himself as a purely academic theologian to an emerging role in rural ministry.
As a newly appointed vocational deacon, Monica King will provide an Anglican presence in the central Alberta town of Trochu.
"I think I'll be more bold in stepping in to help people," says King, a lifelong Anglican. "To have a clergy presence, to be able to do one-on-one pastoral work, is a very big thing in a small community like mine."
Archdeacon Barry Foster of the Calgary Anglican diocese says the church is encouraged by both the quality and quantity of this new leadership wave.
"As a denomination, Anglicans don't actively recruit new clergy," says Foster. "It's almost a mysterious process how people who feel this calling approach us and we help them discern their future."
Foster says the Anglican church, like many employers, is facing a jump in retirements among its baby boomer clergy during the next decade.
"But right now, we have a pretty good balance between the availability of candidates and positions to work in."
gmorton@theherald.canwest.com
© The Calgary Herald 2008
Minister challenges faithful to rethink concept of God
Graeme Morton
Calgary Herald
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Rev. Gretta Vosper says the dramatic rethinking of Christianity she advocates in her bestseller With or Without God will come with a high cost.
Vosper told more than 200 Calgarians at a public talk at Hillhurst United Church Thursday night that the church has been on a long journey in pursuit of the truth since its earliest days.
"We've tweaked and changed our faith over time, but we've always remembered what we had to do to keep our God happy and ourselves safe," says Vosper, a Toronto United Church minister and leader of the Canadian Centre for Progressive Christianity.
"The ideas we have to open ourselves to will cost us much, including that sense of security, and we've retreated from that cost in the past."
In her book, Vosper contends the liberal wing of the Christian church is headed for obscurity if it doesn't shed well-entrenched rituals, words and concepts she claims are obsolete in the light of modern science and reason.
"We have to accept the cost of saying publicly that the Bible is a human construction and the concepts of Jesus and God can be thought of as metaphors, rather than in literal terms," said Vosper.
Vosper said while she doesn't agree with the theology of fundamentalist Christians, she says they are "drenched in integrity" for actively living their particular faith. Progressive Christians, she adds, all too often have large gaps between what they say during Sunday worship and what they believe in their hearts. Such waffling has led to a mass exodus to either evangelical churches or out of church doors altogether.
She asked the Calgary crowd to name concepts that are vital in their own faith journeys. Dozens of responses ranged from wholeness, awe and compassion to peace, respect and joy.
"To me, you're naming Christianity, those values that we need to live by, not some ancient words, doctrines and rules that no longer apply," Vosper told the audience. "We have to leave this legacy of important values to our kids and grandkids. And if that costs me the words God and Jesus, I'm willing to do that."
Vosper said many references to God in the Bible are tied to destructive attitudes and have too often spawned an atmosphere of judgment, despair and even horror.
"Solid values should be more important that being conversant with ancient theological ideas," she said.
During a lively question-and-
answer session, one woman asked whether Vosper should still minister within the United Church while leading a "Godless, Christless sect."
Vosper said her local presbytery (governing body) has examined her movement's document of beliefs and found them "well within the bounds of the United Church."
And despite her call for sweeping reform within the Christian community, Vosper says the church can still play an important role in the world.
"I don't see a lot of other institutions fighting for the important values that we all talked about as a counterbalance to the self-serving and materialistic society that seems so dominant today," says Vosper.
"We need to dream again as Christians, but to realize our visions come from within us, not from a supernatural being."
gmorton@theherald.canwest.com
© The Calgary Herald 2008
****
Bishops condemn stem cell research
Barbara Liston
Reuters
Saturday, June 14, 2008
American Catholic bishops Friday condemned the destruction of human embryos for stem cell research as a "gravely immoral act" in the organization's first formal statement on the issue.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops voted 191-1 to adopt the statement, without debate or discussion.
"Harvesting these 'embryonic stem cells' involves the deliberate killing of innocent human beings, a gravely immoral act," the organization said.
The identity of the one dissenter or the reason for his dissent was not made public at the gathering in Orlando.
Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City, Kansas, said ballots are signed but are destroyed after they are counted. Naumann said the reason for the 'no' vote could be as simple as a disagreement with the phrasing in the document.
"I'm assuming the person isn't going against the Pope's teaching," Naumann said.
The bishops' vote to adopt the statement, which will be distributed to Catholics in a brochure, came without debate. Hot-button issues like abortion and stem cell research mobilized the Republican Party's conservative Christian base to help keep President George W. Bush in the White House in 2004.
They may not have the same impact in the November election, as Republican candidate John McCain is viewed by many religious conservatives as soft on core issues like gay marriage and stem cell research.
Individual bishops and conference officials have spoken out regularly over the years on embryonic stem cell research. But Bishop Arthur Seratelli of Paterson, New Jersey, said Catholics and the public generally remained confused about the moral and ethical implications of the research, and on the church's position.
"U.S. Catholics and the general public deserve a clear, concise and unambiguous statement," Seratelli said.
The formal statement on embryonic stem cell research is planned as the first of two related documents to be brought forward from the bishops' Committee on Pro-Life Activities, according to Archbishop John Myers of Newark.
Myers said a forthcoming longer, more pastoral statement directed especially toward married Catholics and those dealing with infertility will tackle the issues of in-vitro fertilization and the adoption of embryos by couples.
The spare embryos eyed by scientists for research are a byproduct of in-vitro fertilization. Myers said the Holy See is studying the issue of embryo adoption.
The bishops cautioned that stem cell harvesting from spare embryos will spur the creation of additional embryos for scientific purposes and cloning, which the bishops said "reduces human procreation to a mere manufacturing process."
© The Calgary Herald 2008
Graeme Morton
Calgary Herald
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Rev. Gretta Vosper says the dramatic rethinking of Christianity she advocates in her bestseller With or Without God will come with a high cost.
Vosper told more than 200 Calgarians at a public talk at Hillhurst United Church Thursday night that the church has been on a long journey in pursuit of the truth since its earliest days.
"We've tweaked and changed our faith over time, but we've always remembered what we had to do to keep our God happy and ourselves safe," says Vosper, a Toronto United Church minister and leader of the Canadian Centre for Progressive Christianity.
"The ideas we have to open ourselves to will cost us much, including that sense of security, and we've retreated from that cost in the past."
In her book, Vosper contends the liberal wing of the Christian church is headed for obscurity if it doesn't shed well-entrenched rituals, words and concepts she claims are obsolete in the light of modern science and reason.
"We have to accept the cost of saying publicly that the Bible is a human construction and the concepts of Jesus and God can be thought of as metaphors, rather than in literal terms," said Vosper.
Vosper said while she doesn't agree with the theology of fundamentalist Christians, she says they are "drenched in integrity" for actively living their particular faith. Progressive Christians, she adds, all too often have large gaps between what they say during Sunday worship and what they believe in their hearts. Such waffling has led to a mass exodus to either evangelical churches or out of church doors altogether.
She asked the Calgary crowd to name concepts that are vital in their own faith journeys. Dozens of responses ranged from wholeness, awe and compassion to peace, respect and joy.
"To me, you're naming Christianity, those values that we need to live by, not some ancient words, doctrines and rules that no longer apply," Vosper told the audience. "We have to leave this legacy of important values to our kids and grandkids. And if that costs me the words God and Jesus, I'm willing to do that."
Vosper said many references to God in the Bible are tied to destructive attitudes and have too often spawned an atmosphere of judgment, despair and even horror.
"Solid values should be more important that being conversant with ancient theological ideas," she said.
During a lively question-and-
answer session, one woman asked whether Vosper should still minister within the United Church while leading a "Godless, Christless sect."
Vosper said her local presbytery (governing body) has examined her movement's document of beliefs and found them "well within the bounds of the United Church."
And despite her call for sweeping reform within the Christian community, Vosper says the church can still play an important role in the world.
"I don't see a lot of other institutions fighting for the important values that we all talked about as a counterbalance to the self-serving and materialistic society that seems so dominant today," says Vosper.
"We need to dream again as Christians, but to realize our visions come from within us, not from a supernatural being."
gmorton@theherald.canwest.com
© The Calgary Herald 2008
****
Bishops condemn stem cell research
Barbara Liston
Reuters
Saturday, June 14, 2008
American Catholic bishops Friday condemned the destruction of human embryos for stem cell research as a "gravely immoral act" in the organization's first formal statement on the issue.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops voted 191-1 to adopt the statement, without debate or discussion.
"Harvesting these 'embryonic stem cells' involves the deliberate killing of innocent human beings, a gravely immoral act," the organization said.
The identity of the one dissenter or the reason for his dissent was not made public at the gathering in Orlando.
Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City, Kansas, said ballots are signed but are destroyed after they are counted. Naumann said the reason for the 'no' vote could be as simple as a disagreement with the phrasing in the document.
"I'm assuming the person isn't going against the Pope's teaching," Naumann said.
The bishops' vote to adopt the statement, which will be distributed to Catholics in a brochure, came without debate. Hot-button issues like abortion and stem cell research mobilized the Republican Party's conservative Christian base to help keep President George W. Bush in the White House in 2004.
They may not have the same impact in the November election, as Republican candidate John McCain is viewed by many religious conservatives as soft on core issues like gay marriage and stem cell research.
Individual bishops and conference officials have spoken out regularly over the years on embryonic stem cell research. But Bishop Arthur Seratelli of Paterson, New Jersey, said Catholics and the public generally remained confused about the moral and ethical implications of the research, and on the church's position.
"U.S. Catholics and the general public deserve a clear, concise and unambiguous statement," Seratelli said.
The formal statement on embryonic stem cell research is planned as the first of two related documents to be brought forward from the bishops' Committee on Pro-Life Activities, according to Archbishop John Myers of Newark.
Myers said a forthcoming longer, more pastoral statement directed especially toward married Catholics and those dealing with infertility will tackle the issues of in-vitro fertilization and the adoption of embryos by couples.
The spare embryos eyed by scientists for research are a byproduct of in-vitro fertilization. Myers said the Holy See is studying the issue of embryo adoption.
The bishops cautioned that stem cell harvesting from spare embryos will spur the creation of additional embryos for scientific purposes and cloning, which the bishops said "reduces human procreation to a mere manufacturing process."
© The Calgary Herald 2008
Europe far from a secular wasteland
Unique religious communities spark renaissance
Wayne Holst
Calgary Herald
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Editor's note: Calgarians Wayne and Marlene Holst recently spent a month visiting a number of spiritual landmarks in Europe.
"My greatest life satisfaction is the changed lives I have seen as a result of our L'Arche communities," said Jean Vanier during the half-hour we shared with him at his home in Trosly-Breuil.
"My greatest concern is for more assistants making long-term commitments to live with our core community members. We now have 134 communities in 35 countries around the world," Vanier said in a quiet spirit of characteristic thoughtfulness.
I remember, during a 1967 visit, when there was just one community, the one we were now visiting.
We could not let our jet-lag prevent us from this special opportunity to be with Jean as he is about to celebrate his 80th birthday in the French village where he founded L'Arche in 1964.
Trosly-Breuil continues to exude its old French village charm. Val Fleuri, the asylum that Vanier helped to empty of its sad occupants so they could become part of happy homes, is getting a significant, government-funded facelift.
We spent nine nights with L'Arche communities in France, Italy, Germany and the Netherlands. As we found in Britain and Ireland two years ago, these communities all share a common spirit even though they function in a variety of cultural contexts.
We spent a day at Taize, another thriving spiritual centre -- this time in Burgundy, mid-France -- which I first visited as a student 40 years ago.
Many hundreds of youth visit here daily and there is no doubt about the special draw of this place with its unique worship style, basic living conditions and group studies.
The largest number of guests now come from Russia, the Ukraine and Eastern Europe as well as Germany. I agree with Philip Jenkins, a writer who has reflected positively on religion in modern Europe, that Taize is a sign of spiritual renaissance on a continent that many would be too quick to write off as a secular wasteland.
We spent time with our hostess, Aska, from Poland, who is working in the reception at Taize while discerning her vocational future.
If you want to hear classic medieval chant at its best -- and before the reforms of Palestrina -- visit the Church of St. Gervais, near Notre Dame de Paris. Young sisters and brothers of the Monastic Communities of Jerusalem sing daily noon-hour prayers in ancient harmonies; accompanied by traditional stringed instruments.
St. Gervais is a magnificent alternative to thronged churches like Notre Dame, Ste-Chappelle and Sacre-Coeur. Here, a spirit of simple reverence and basic but soaring hymnic majesty, is real.
Our hosts in Aix-en-Provence, Cours Mirabeau -- the intellectual and cultural heart of southern France -- were the Oblates of Mary Immaculate. Fathers Ned (Ireland) and Kennedy (Haiti) were our special hosts in the centre begun by the order's founder Eugene de Mazenod. Located in a thriving university town, this international community of missionary life continues its historic focus on evangelization, especially among youth.
"There are more churches per block in Aix than anywhere else," said Father Ned, a man with an encyclopedic mind and a pastoral heart.
Of course, Ned was at his best when discussing the regenerating 19th-century vision of the now-sainted Oblate founder de Mazenod.
The Augustinian Church in Erfurt, a German Evangelical Lutheran spiritual seminar, retreat and renewal centre, the Wartburg in Eisenach where "heretic Luther" translated the New Testament from Hebrew and Greek into the vernacular within less than a year; the Castle Church of Wittenberg -- and the representative door upon which the Great Reformer nailed his 95 theses in 1517 -- all were wonderful to see for the first time since these sites are located in what was previously Communist East Germany.
Our favourite Lutheran site, however, was the Kaiser-Wilhelm Kirche on the Kurfurstendamm in Berlin.
A magnificent museum, located in the tower of the old structure, displayed a cross of nails melted down from the famous ruins of Coventry Cathedral in England, destroyed by the Luftwaffe in November, 1940.
After the Second World War, both churches engaged in mutual reconstruction as a magnificent symbol of reconciliation. The new sanctuary here is a lovely study in blue light that has to be experienced to be fully appreciated. Many thousands do just that each day, escaping the bustling streets into the affecting calm of a resurrected church in the midst of a new, wonderfully-united Berlin. Just off the town square in old Delft, the Netherlands, an historic centre of the Dutch Reformation, stands the Oude Kirk (Old Church).
Artifacts from the past are well-complemented here by a modern community of faith. Youth and young-married people congregate at the Old Church. From Delft, many of them plan international service missions to Africa and Asia -- co-sponsored by the churches and the government of the Netherlands.
In unique ways, the Dutch seem to be setting a standard, evident also in Germany, for helping the young develop an integrated spirituality by serving others around the globe.
Canadians can learn a lot about the spiritual life from brothers and sisters in Europe whom we saw creatively engaging youth and cultural arts; linking the traditional with the contemporary and witnessing to one's faith through service.
© The Calgary Herald 2008
Unique religious communities spark renaissance
Wayne Holst
Calgary Herald
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Editor's note: Calgarians Wayne and Marlene Holst recently spent a month visiting a number of spiritual landmarks in Europe.
"My greatest life satisfaction is the changed lives I have seen as a result of our L'Arche communities," said Jean Vanier during the half-hour we shared with him at his home in Trosly-Breuil.
"My greatest concern is for more assistants making long-term commitments to live with our core community members. We now have 134 communities in 35 countries around the world," Vanier said in a quiet spirit of characteristic thoughtfulness.
I remember, during a 1967 visit, when there was just one community, the one we were now visiting.
We could not let our jet-lag prevent us from this special opportunity to be with Jean as he is about to celebrate his 80th birthday in the French village where he founded L'Arche in 1964.
Trosly-Breuil continues to exude its old French village charm. Val Fleuri, the asylum that Vanier helped to empty of its sad occupants so they could become part of happy homes, is getting a significant, government-funded facelift.
We spent nine nights with L'Arche communities in France, Italy, Germany and the Netherlands. As we found in Britain and Ireland two years ago, these communities all share a common spirit even though they function in a variety of cultural contexts.
We spent a day at Taize, another thriving spiritual centre -- this time in Burgundy, mid-France -- which I first visited as a student 40 years ago.
Many hundreds of youth visit here daily and there is no doubt about the special draw of this place with its unique worship style, basic living conditions and group studies.
The largest number of guests now come from Russia, the Ukraine and Eastern Europe as well as Germany. I agree with Philip Jenkins, a writer who has reflected positively on religion in modern Europe, that Taize is a sign of spiritual renaissance on a continent that many would be too quick to write off as a secular wasteland.
We spent time with our hostess, Aska, from Poland, who is working in the reception at Taize while discerning her vocational future.
If you want to hear classic medieval chant at its best -- and before the reforms of Palestrina -- visit the Church of St. Gervais, near Notre Dame de Paris. Young sisters and brothers of the Monastic Communities of Jerusalem sing daily noon-hour prayers in ancient harmonies; accompanied by traditional stringed instruments.
St. Gervais is a magnificent alternative to thronged churches like Notre Dame, Ste-Chappelle and Sacre-Coeur. Here, a spirit of simple reverence and basic but soaring hymnic majesty, is real.
Our hosts in Aix-en-Provence, Cours Mirabeau -- the intellectual and cultural heart of southern France -- were the Oblates of Mary Immaculate. Fathers Ned (Ireland) and Kennedy (Haiti) were our special hosts in the centre begun by the order's founder Eugene de Mazenod. Located in a thriving university town, this international community of missionary life continues its historic focus on evangelization, especially among youth.
"There are more churches per block in Aix than anywhere else," said Father Ned, a man with an encyclopedic mind and a pastoral heart.
Of course, Ned was at his best when discussing the regenerating 19th-century vision of the now-sainted Oblate founder de Mazenod.
The Augustinian Church in Erfurt, a German Evangelical Lutheran spiritual seminar, retreat and renewal centre, the Wartburg in Eisenach where "heretic Luther" translated the New Testament from Hebrew and Greek into the vernacular within less than a year; the Castle Church of Wittenberg -- and the representative door upon which the Great Reformer nailed his 95 theses in 1517 -- all were wonderful to see for the first time since these sites are located in what was previously Communist East Germany.
Our favourite Lutheran site, however, was the Kaiser-Wilhelm Kirche on the Kurfurstendamm in Berlin.
A magnificent museum, located in the tower of the old structure, displayed a cross of nails melted down from the famous ruins of Coventry Cathedral in England, destroyed by the Luftwaffe in November, 1940.
After the Second World War, both churches engaged in mutual reconstruction as a magnificent symbol of reconciliation. The new sanctuary here is a lovely study in blue light that has to be experienced to be fully appreciated. Many thousands do just that each day, escaping the bustling streets into the affecting calm of a resurrected church in the midst of a new, wonderfully-united Berlin. Just off the town square in old Delft, the Netherlands, an historic centre of the Dutch Reformation, stands the Oude Kirk (Old Church).
Artifacts from the past are well-complemented here by a modern community of faith. Youth and young-married people congregate at the Old Church. From Delft, many of them plan international service missions to Africa and Asia -- co-sponsored by the churches and the government of the Netherlands.
In unique ways, the Dutch seem to be setting a standard, evident also in Germany, for helping the young develop an integrated spirituality by serving others around the globe.
Canadians can learn a lot about the spiritual life from brothers and sisters in Europe whom we saw creatively engaging youth and cultural arts; linking the traditional with the contemporary and witnessing to one's faith through service.
© The Calgary Herald 2008
July 27, 2008
Op-Ed Contributor
The Pope vs. the Pill
By JOHN L. ALLEN Jr.
FORTY years ago last week, Pope Paul VI provoked the greatest uproar against a papal edict in the long history of the Roman Catholic Church when he reiterated the church’s ban on artificial birth control by issuing the encyclical “Humanae Vitae.” At the time, commentators predicted that not only would the teaching collapse under its own weight, but it might well bring the “monarchical papacy” down with it.
Those forecasts badly underestimated the capacity of the Catholic Church to resist change and to stand its ground.
Down the centuries, Catholics have frequently groused about papal rulings. Usually they channeled that dissent into blithe disobedience, though occasionally a Roman mob would run the Successor of Peter out of town on a rail just to make a point. In 1848, Pope Pius IX was driven into exile by Romans incensed at his refusal to embrace Italy’s unification.
Never before July 25, 1968, however, had opposition been so immediate, so public and so widespread. World-famous theologians called press conferences to rebut the pope’s reasoning. Conferences of Catholic bishops issued statements that all but licensed churchgoers to ignore the encyclical. Pastors openly criticized “Humanae Vitae” from the pulpit.
In a nutshell, “Humanae Vitae” held that the twin functions of marriage — to foster love between the partners and to be open to children — are so closely related as to be inseparable. In practice, that meant a resounding no to the pill.
The encyclical quickly became seen, both in the secular world and in liberal Catholic circles, as the papacy’s Waterloo. It was so out of sync with the hopes and desires of the Catholic rank and file that it simply could not stand.
And in some ways, it didn’t. Today polls show that Catholics, at least in the West, dissent from the teaching on birth control, often by majorities exceeding 80 percent.
But at the official level, Catholicism’s commitment to “Humanae Vitae” is more solid than ever.
During his almost 27-year papacy, John Paul II provided a deeper theoretical basis for traditional Catholic sexual morality through his “theology of the body.” In brief, the late pope’s argument was that human sexuality is an image of the creative love among the three persons of the Trinity, as well as God’s love for humanity. Birth control “changes the language” of sexuality, because it prevents life-giving love.
That’s a claim many Catholics might dispute, but the reading groups and seminars devoted to contemplating John Paul’s “theology of the body” mean that Catholics disposed to defend the church’s teaching now have a more formidable set of resources than they did when Paul VI wrote “Humanae Vitae.”
In addition, three decades of bishops’ appointments by John Paul II and Benedict XVI, both unambiguously committed to “Humanae Vitae,” mean that senior leaders in Catholicism these days are far less inclined than they were in 1968 to distance themselves from the ban on birth control, or to soft-pedal it. A striking number of Catholic bishops have recently brought out documents of their own defending “Humanae Vitae.”
Advocates of the encyclical draw assurance from the declining fertility rates across the developed world, especially in Europe. No country in Europe has a fertility rate above 2.1, the number of children each woman needs to have by the end of her child-bearing years to keep a population stable.
Even with increasing immigration, Europe is projected to suffer a population loss in the 21st century that will rival the impact of the Black Death, leading some to talk about the continent’s “demographic suicide.”
Not coincidentally, Europe is also the most secular region of the world, where the use of artificial contraception is utterly unproblematic. Among those committed to Catholic teaching, the obvious question becomes: What more clear proof of the folly of separating sex and child-bearing could one want?
So the future of “Humanae Vitae” as the teaching of the Catholic Church seems secure, even if it will also continue to be the most widely flouted injunction of the church at the level of practice.
The encyclical’s surprising resilience is a reminder that forecasting the Catholic future in moments of crisis is always a dangerous enterprise — a point with relevance to a more recent Catholic predicament. Many critics believe that the church has not yet responded adequately to the recent sex-abuse scandals, leading to predictions that the church will “have to” become more accountable, more participatory and more democratic.
While those steps may appear inevitable today, it seemed unthinkable to many observers 40 years ago that “Humanae Vitae” would still be in vigor well into the 21st century.
Catholicism can and does change, but trying to guess how and when is almost always a fool’s errand.
John L. Allen Jr. is the senior correspondent for The National Catholic Reporter and the author of “The Rise of Benedict XVI.”
Op-Ed Contributor
The Pope vs. the Pill
By JOHN L. ALLEN Jr.
FORTY years ago last week, Pope Paul VI provoked the greatest uproar against a papal edict in the long history of the Roman Catholic Church when he reiterated the church’s ban on artificial birth control by issuing the encyclical “Humanae Vitae.” At the time, commentators predicted that not only would the teaching collapse under its own weight, but it might well bring the “monarchical papacy” down with it.
Those forecasts badly underestimated the capacity of the Catholic Church to resist change and to stand its ground.
Down the centuries, Catholics have frequently groused about papal rulings. Usually they channeled that dissent into blithe disobedience, though occasionally a Roman mob would run the Successor of Peter out of town on a rail just to make a point. In 1848, Pope Pius IX was driven into exile by Romans incensed at his refusal to embrace Italy’s unification.
Never before July 25, 1968, however, had opposition been so immediate, so public and so widespread. World-famous theologians called press conferences to rebut the pope’s reasoning. Conferences of Catholic bishops issued statements that all but licensed churchgoers to ignore the encyclical. Pastors openly criticized “Humanae Vitae” from the pulpit.
In a nutshell, “Humanae Vitae” held that the twin functions of marriage — to foster love between the partners and to be open to children — are so closely related as to be inseparable. In practice, that meant a resounding no to the pill.
The encyclical quickly became seen, both in the secular world and in liberal Catholic circles, as the papacy’s Waterloo. It was so out of sync with the hopes and desires of the Catholic rank and file that it simply could not stand.
And in some ways, it didn’t. Today polls show that Catholics, at least in the West, dissent from the teaching on birth control, often by majorities exceeding 80 percent.
But at the official level, Catholicism’s commitment to “Humanae Vitae” is more solid than ever.
During his almost 27-year papacy, John Paul II provided a deeper theoretical basis for traditional Catholic sexual morality through his “theology of the body.” In brief, the late pope’s argument was that human sexuality is an image of the creative love among the three persons of the Trinity, as well as God’s love for humanity. Birth control “changes the language” of sexuality, because it prevents life-giving love.
That’s a claim many Catholics might dispute, but the reading groups and seminars devoted to contemplating John Paul’s “theology of the body” mean that Catholics disposed to defend the church’s teaching now have a more formidable set of resources than they did when Paul VI wrote “Humanae Vitae.”
In addition, three decades of bishops’ appointments by John Paul II and Benedict XVI, both unambiguously committed to “Humanae Vitae,” mean that senior leaders in Catholicism these days are far less inclined than they were in 1968 to distance themselves from the ban on birth control, or to soft-pedal it. A striking number of Catholic bishops have recently brought out documents of their own defending “Humanae Vitae.”
Advocates of the encyclical draw assurance from the declining fertility rates across the developed world, especially in Europe. No country in Europe has a fertility rate above 2.1, the number of children each woman needs to have by the end of her child-bearing years to keep a population stable.
Even with increasing immigration, Europe is projected to suffer a population loss in the 21st century that will rival the impact of the Black Death, leading some to talk about the continent’s “demographic suicide.”
Not coincidentally, Europe is also the most secular region of the world, where the use of artificial contraception is utterly unproblematic. Among those committed to Catholic teaching, the obvious question becomes: What more clear proof of the folly of separating sex and child-bearing could one want?
So the future of “Humanae Vitae” as the teaching of the Catholic Church seems secure, even if it will also continue to be the most widely flouted injunction of the church at the level of practice.
The encyclical’s surprising resilience is a reminder that forecasting the Catholic future in moments of crisis is always a dangerous enterprise — a point with relevance to a more recent Catholic predicament. Many critics believe that the church has not yet responded adequately to the recent sex-abuse scandals, leading to predictions that the church will “have to” become more accountable, more participatory and more democratic.
While those steps may appear inevitable today, it seemed unthinkable to many observers 40 years ago that “Humanae Vitae” would still be in vigor well into the 21st century.
Catholicism can and does change, but trying to guess how and when is almost always a fool’s errand.
John L. Allen Jr. is the senior correspondent for The National Catholic Reporter and the author of “The Rise of Benedict XVI.”
Keeping the Faith
Calgary Herald
Saturday, August 09, 2008
Knights urged to reject pro-choice politicians
Members of the Knights of Columbus, the world's largest fraternal Catholic organization, have been urged to enter the political fray on abortion.
During the group's annual international convention in Quebec City last week, more than 1,000 K of C members were told by their Supreme Knight, Carl Anderson, to "shine a bright line of separation" between themselves and all pro-abortion politicians.
"There are more than 150 million Catholics in North America and if we stand together and demand better from our politicians, we can transform politics," added Anderson.
Americans go to the polls in November in what is shaping up to be a tight presidential election while Canadians may also face a federal election this winter.
Andrew Walther, director of media relations for the 1.7-million member organization, said the abortion issue is the most compelling of our times.
"This is a call to all Catholics to vote with a well-formed conscience; to really consider the impact of abortion. There shouldn't be this idea that you have a public persona that is completely secular and that you keep your religion in your church on Sundays," said Walther.
"Catholics really have the ability to transform the culture, of creating a society where everyone is respected as a person," he added.
Catholics make up about 43 per cent of the Canadian population and an estimated 25 per cent of the U.S. population.
- - -
'Take a flyer' on God's message: church leader
The founder of one of the largest churches in the U.S. encouraged his peers this week to "take a flyer" when it comes to living out God's message.
Bill Hybels, senior pastor at the Willow Creek Community Church in suburban Chicago, told the opening session of the annual Leadership Summit that, "once in a while, you need an action plan that takes your breath away."
Hybels spoke via simulcast to thousands of participants across North America, including hundreds of Calgarians who gathered at First Alliance Church on Thursday and Friday.
Hybels said Willow Creek members recently opted to address world hunger in a personal way by eating nothing but rice and beans for five days while limiting their consumption of goods and services. They shipped millions of pre-packaged meals to Zimbabwe and collected $750,000 for projects to help the poor.
"When you challenge your people, you'll be surprised at how they'll react," Hybels told delegates.
Hybels said leaders with a Christian world view seek guidance from the Bible, trusted advisers and their own hard-won experience before making important moves.
He noted tough decisions had to be made recently to get the Willow Creek program back on track after a period of stagnant attendance.
"But problems within your church or business don't go away if you just leave them alone," Hybels said. "Leaders can't be passive or averse from decision-making; that's why God gave us these gifts."
gmorton@theherald.canwest.com
© The Calgary Herald 2008
Calgary Herald
Saturday, August 09, 2008
Knights urged to reject pro-choice politicians
Members of the Knights of Columbus, the world's largest fraternal Catholic organization, have been urged to enter the political fray on abortion.
During the group's annual international convention in Quebec City last week, more than 1,000 K of C members were told by their Supreme Knight, Carl Anderson, to "shine a bright line of separation" between themselves and all pro-abortion politicians.
"There are more than 150 million Catholics in North America and if we stand together and demand better from our politicians, we can transform politics," added Anderson.
Americans go to the polls in November in what is shaping up to be a tight presidential election while Canadians may also face a federal election this winter.
Andrew Walther, director of media relations for the 1.7-million member organization, said the abortion issue is the most compelling of our times.
"This is a call to all Catholics to vote with a well-formed conscience; to really consider the impact of abortion. There shouldn't be this idea that you have a public persona that is completely secular and that you keep your religion in your church on Sundays," said Walther.
"Catholics really have the ability to transform the culture, of creating a society where everyone is respected as a person," he added.
Catholics make up about 43 per cent of the Canadian population and an estimated 25 per cent of the U.S. population.
- - -
'Take a flyer' on God's message: church leader
The founder of one of the largest churches in the U.S. encouraged his peers this week to "take a flyer" when it comes to living out God's message.
Bill Hybels, senior pastor at the Willow Creek Community Church in suburban Chicago, told the opening session of the annual Leadership Summit that, "once in a while, you need an action plan that takes your breath away."
Hybels spoke via simulcast to thousands of participants across North America, including hundreds of Calgarians who gathered at First Alliance Church on Thursday and Friday.
Hybels said Willow Creek members recently opted to address world hunger in a personal way by eating nothing but rice and beans for five days while limiting their consumption of goods and services. They shipped millions of pre-packaged meals to Zimbabwe and collected $750,000 for projects to help the poor.
"When you challenge your people, you'll be surprised at how they'll react," Hybels told delegates.
Hybels said leaders with a Christian world view seek guidance from the Bible, trusted advisers and their own hard-won experience before making important moves.
He noted tough decisions had to be made recently to get the Willow Creek program back on track after a period of stagnant attendance.
"But problems within your church or business don't go away if you just leave them alone," Hybels said. "Leaders can't be passive or averse from decision-making; that's why God gave us these gifts."
gmorton@theherald.canwest.com
© The Calgary Herald 2008
A love that scares us
Christianity has always dealt in hard truths
Michael Gerson
Calgary Herald
Sunday, August 10, 2008
In a recent investigative profile, The Associated Press tells the depressingly familiar story of televangelist Kenneth Copeland.
His ministry's private jet and lakeside mansion. The complex web of ranching, oil and media interests that benefits his extended family. In this case, there is no taint of hypocrisy. Copeland practises what he preaches -- a doctrine that God wants his followers to prosper in very material ways.
This prosperity gospel combines two of the most powerful forces on Earth: the profit motive and the power of positive thinking. At its best, it inspires hard work, generosity and the avoidance of life-destroying vices. At its worst, it is religiously infantile.
"I believe God wants to give us nice things," says evangelist Joyce Meyer.
"I think God wants us to be prosperous," pastor Joel Osteen assures us. "I think He wants us to be happy."
Whatever ethical problems such leaders may or may not have, they face a large theological challenge.
A religious system that promises happiness and "nice things" is difficult to reconcile with the faith whose founder had "no place to lay his head," urged his followers not to store up "treasures on Earth," and called on them to deny themselves and take up a cross of suffering.
This has never made the best marketing message. What company would adopt the electric chair or the hangman's noose as its logo?
Christianity has always dealt in hard truths -- God is not a means to our own ends, suffering is unavoidable in lives bounded by mortality and often wrecked by failure.
Suffering for the sake of suffering is useless; it is merely masochism.
But when suffering cannot be escaped as the health-and-wealth preachers promise -- or even nobly endured as the stoics promise -- it may perhaps be transformed.
"If you and I can share our pain," said the late theologian Henri Nouwen, "suddenly we find grace and joy coming in. In your tears and anguish and struggle, you suddenly discover community, you suddenly discover friendship, you suddenly discover affection, you suddenly discover forgiveness, you suddenly discover healing.
"All these things come through vulnerability."
In this odd faith where the poor in spirit are blessed, the highest ideal is suffering for others -- though most of us do precious little of it. This model of spiritual leadership has nothing to do with conventional measures of success and influence. It is found in the medical missionary who buries his or her life in the forgotten relief of forgotten suffering. In the dying pope who speaks for the vulnerable by exposing his own shocking vulnerability.
One of the most vivid literary pictures of this leadership comes from a strange source -- a self-loathing, self-described "Catholic agnostic," prone to prostitutes, opium and suicide attempts.
In Graham Greene's "The Power and the Glory," set in the 1930s, Mexico's authorities destroy churches and hunt down priests for execution. An unnamed whiskey priest -- disguised and constantly moving -- doggedly performs his sacramental duties while knowing he is a spiritual failure. He has a mistress, a child and a problem with alcohol. But stripped of dignity, respect and possessions, he discovers an identification with the poor around him.
"When you visualized a man or woman carefully," he observes, "you could always begin to feel pity -- that was a quality God's image carried with it. When you saw the lines at the corners of the eyes, the shape of the mouth, how the hair grew, it was impossible to hate. Hate was just a failure of imagination."
Having reached safety in a neighboring state, the whiskey priest returns, knowing he will be captured and killed, to deliver the last rights to a murderer. The priest is driven by suffering and sin down to the level of his fellow men, until he is worthy to die for them.
During this hard descent into sainthood, he finds God's love is often different than we expect.
"It would be enough to scare us -- God's love. It set fire to a bush in the desert, didn't it, and smashed open graves and set the dead walking in the dark. Oh, a man like me would run a mile to get away if he felt that love around."
But ultimately, this love offers a hope greater than health and prosperity: that even our flawed and half-hearted lives may, perhaps, be redeemed -- and even used as an instrument to redeem others.
michaelgerson@cfr.org
© The Calgary Herald 2008
Christianity has always dealt in hard truths
Michael Gerson
Calgary Herald
Sunday, August 10, 2008
In a recent investigative profile, The Associated Press tells the depressingly familiar story of televangelist Kenneth Copeland.
His ministry's private jet and lakeside mansion. The complex web of ranching, oil and media interests that benefits his extended family. In this case, there is no taint of hypocrisy. Copeland practises what he preaches -- a doctrine that God wants his followers to prosper in very material ways.
This prosperity gospel combines two of the most powerful forces on Earth: the profit motive and the power of positive thinking. At its best, it inspires hard work, generosity and the avoidance of life-destroying vices. At its worst, it is religiously infantile.
"I believe God wants to give us nice things," says evangelist Joyce Meyer.
"I think God wants us to be prosperous," pastor Joel Osteen assures us. "I think He wants us to be happy."
Whatever ethical problems such leaders may or may not have, they face a large theological challenge.
A religious system that promises happiness and "nice things" is difficult to reconcile with the faith whose founder had "no place to lay his head," urged his followers not to store up "treasures on Earth," and called on them to deny themselves and take up a cross of suffering.
This has never made the best marketing message. What company would adopt the electric chair or the hangman's noose as its logo?
Christianity has always dealt in hard truths -- God is not a means to our own ends, suffering is unavoidable in lives bounded by mortality and often wrecked by failure.
Suffering for the sake of suffering is useless; it is merely masochism.
But when suffering cannot be escaped as the health-and-wealth preachers promise -- or even nobly endured as the stoics promise -- it may perhaps be transformed.
"If you and I can share our pain," said the late theologian Henri Nouwen, "suddenly we find grace and joy coming in. In your tears and anguish and struggle, you suddenly discover community, you suddenly discover friendship, you suddenly discover affection, you suddenly discover forgiveness, you suddenly discover healing.
"All these things come through vulnerability."
In this odd faith where the poor in spirit are blessed, the highest ideal is suffering for others -- though most of us do precious little of it. This model of spiritual leadership has nothing to do with conventional measures of success and influence. It is found in the medical missionary who buries his or her life in the forgotten relief of forgotten suffering. In the dying pope who speaks for the vulnerable by exposing his own shocking vulnerability.
One of the most vivid literary pictures of this leadership comes from a strange source -- a self-loathing, self-described "Catholic agnostic," prone to prostitutes, opium and suicide attempts.
In Graham Greene's "The Power and the Glory," set in the 1930s, Mexico's authorities destroy churches and hunt down priests for execution. An unnamed whiskey priest -- disguised and constantly moving -- doggedly performs his sacramental duties while knowing he is a spiritual failure. He has a mistress, a child and a problem with alcohol. But stripped of dignity, respect and possessions, he discovers an identification with the poor around him.
"When you visualized a man or woman carefully," he observes, "you could always begin to feel pity -- that was a quality God's image carried with it. When you saw the lines at the corners of the eyes, the shape of the mouth, how the hair grew, it was impossible to hate. Hate was just a failure of imagination."
Having reached safety in a neighboring state, the whiskey priest returns, knowing he will be captured and killed, to deliver the last rights to a murderer. The priest is driven by suffering and sin down to the level of his fellow men, until he is worthy to die for them.
During this hard descent into sainthood, he finds God's love is often different than we expect.
"It would be enough to scare us -- God's love. It set fire to a bush in the desert, didn't it, and smashed open graves and set the dead walking in the dark. Oh, a man like me would run a mile to get away if he felt that love around."
But ultimately, this love offers a hope greater than health and prosperity: that even our flawed and half-hearted lives may, perhaps, be redeemed -- and even used as an instrument to redeem others.
michaelgerson@cfr.org
© The Calgary Herald 2008
Pastor says Christianity's arena poised for growth
Joel Osteen believes Canadians are ready for a spiritual revival
Graeme Morton
Calgary Herald
Saturday, August 16, 2008
From Joel Osteen's home in the heart of the American Bible Belt, the future of Christianity looks bright indeed.
"Maybe I'm a little biased, but I see faith as being at an all-time high," says Osteen via phone from Houston.
"I never dreamed we'd be ministering out of a basketball arena, seeing 30,000 or 40,000 people coming out on a weekend," says Osteen, the lead pastor at Lakewood Church, one of the largest in the U.S.
"People are not ashamed of their faith; they're talking more about it. Today, I have pastor friends all over the U.S. who have churches of 5,000 and 10,000 members."
Osteen was scheduled to host a Night of Hope rally at the Saddledome next Sunday, but the Calgary event has now been rescheduled for Sunday, Nov. 9.
Those who have already purchased tickets for next Sunday's rally can use them for the November event. Full refunds will also be available through Ticketmaster.
At 45, Osteen has become one of the dominant figures in the American evangelical Christian world.
Lakewood, where Osteen became senior pastor after his father John's death in 1999, now operates out of the former Compaq Center, a 16,000-seat arena where the NBA's Houston Rockets played for almost 20 years.
Osteen's televised sermons are seen around the world and draw millions of faithful U.S. viewers every week. His debut book, Your Best Life Now, sold more than five million copies and was a permanent fixture on the New York Times best-seller list for months. Osteen is regularly called on to comment on spiritual issues on programs like CNN's Larry King Live.
While Canadian church attendance lags behind the U.S., Osteen senses there's still a hunger for spiritual revival north of the 49th parallel.
A major challenge for many Canadian churches is the aging of their congregations amid increasing troubles attracting young adults, teens and children on Sunday mornings.
"When the church is relevant and practical, the young people are keen to be a part of it," says Osteen. "When we're not judging that their hair is longer or they like their music loud, then we connect with kids."
Osteen say while his father was raised in the Southern Baptist tradition and Lakewood continues to respect that faith heritage, it's crucial for Christianity to move with the times.
"We don't sing as many old hymns as maybe we used to. Our services are more contemporary and upbeat and our youth pastors can really relate to kids and talk to them on their terms," says Osteen.
He admits there's a fine line between borrowing too much from pop culture and staying true to the Biblical message to win the hearts of young people.
"I know some pastors hold their churches in bars; that's not for me but I'm not going to judge them if they reach people," Osteen says.
"I think more of in terms of talking to youth about how to deal with peer pressure, what their purpose is in life and why they should remain pure."
Osteen has been criticized by others in the faith community for being long on showmanship and short on scripture. He studied radio and TV communications at Oklahoma's Oral Roberts University and guided Lakewood's TV ministry for 17 years. His first sermon was given on Jan. 17, 1999.
"I had no desire to do it, I didn't think I had it in me to get up and preach," says Osteen.
"My dad had asked me to try preaching for years and he died the Friday after my first sermon, so I think I realized that it wasn't a coincidence."
Osteen casts himself more in the role of a laid-back storyteller than a fire-and-brimstone preacher.
"Often I'll just try to relate one passage of scripture to what's going on in peoples' lives and in the world," says Osteen.
"If I can just take 'love your enemies' or 'be grateful today' and expand on it in relevant terms, that's what I can do best."
Osteen says many churches have followed Lakewood's organizational model for success and that small congregations still have a vital role to play in spreading the gospel.
"People criticize us for being so large, but I always tell them we never started out to be big. Lakewood started with 90 people," Osteen adds.
Osteen, whose wife Victoria and two children often join him on the road, still travels to about 20 live rallies each year across North America, somewhat of a rarity in this electronic age.
"It's very expensive to rent arenas, so you just don't see as much of the touring evangelists anymore. But God's just blessed us with his favour; to see these arenas filled up everywhere we go still amazes me."
gmorton@theherald.canwest.com
© The Calgary Herald 2008
****
Nine centuries of caring for the ill
Order's local branch donates $100,000 to area hospices
Graeme Morton
Calgary Herald
Saturday, August 16, 2008
An ancient Christian charitable order which traces its roots back to the Crusades is still alive and well in Calgary.
The Military and Hospitaller Order of St. Lazarus of Jerusalem, which was originally formed more than 900 years ago, has 28 active members in its Calgary branch, called a commandery.
In its infancy, the order was created to assist European knights who were stricken with leprosy during their campaigns in the Holy Land. That emphasis on caring for leprosy victims has continued through the centuries, but is now a smaller component of the order's work.
The Calgary group, one of 12 St. Lazarus orders across Canada with a total membership of about 400, now focuses on fundraising for local hospices and palliative care centres.
They recently donated a total of $100,000 to Hospice Calgary and facilities performing similar roles in Okotoks, Black Diamond and Lethbridge, having raised the money through volunteer work at casinos.
Peter Mortimer-Rae is a longtime member of the Calgary commandery.
"I was drawn to the order for a couple of reasons, including the history. If any organization can last this long, it's got to have something going for it," says Mortimer-Rae.
"And there's certainly a spiritual aspect to it, helping people who are in the final stage of their lives."
Sarah Walker, executive director of Hospice Calgary, lauds the work of St. Lazarus members.
"The Living with Cancer day program this money supports benefits people from all faiths and all walks of life," says Walker. "We're the kind of an organization that nobody wants to talk about, because death is a difficult subject for many people to deal with, but they are awfully glad to have us there when the time comes."
Barbara Hongisto joined the order five years ago and now serves as Calgary commander.
"It makes you feel good to know that you're helping serve a real need in society and to meet and work together with people from other traditions in the Christian community," says Hongisto.
The order helps fund the printing and distribution of thousands of copies of A Caregiver's Guide, a book which is given free of charge to families of palliative care patients.
The order also has a strong ecumenical flavour to it, creating bursaries to support religious studies students at a number of Canadian theological colleges and universities.
The Calgary commandery will host the order's next national convention in May, 2009. More information on the order is available at www.stlazarus.ca or at bhongisto@shaw.ca.
gmorton@theherald.canwest.com
© The Calgary Herald 2008
Joel Osteen believes Canadians are ready for a spiritual revival
Graeme Morton
Calgary Herald
Saturday, August 16, 2008
From Joel Osteen's home in the heart of the American Bible Belt, the future of Christianity looks bright indeed.
"Maybe I'm a little biased, but I see faith as being at an all-time high," says Osteen via phone from Houston.
"I never dreamed we'd be ministering out of a basketball arena, seeing 30,000 or 40,000 people coming out on a weekend," says Osteen, the lead pastor at Lakewood Church, one of the largest in the U.S.
"People are not ashamed of their faith; they're talking more about it. Today, I have pastor friends all over the U.S. who have churches of 5,000 and 10,000 members."
Osteen was scheduled to host a Night of Hope rally at the Saddledome next Sunday, but the Calgary event has now been rescheduled for Sunday, Nov. 9.
Those who have already purchased tickets for next Sunday's rally can use them for the November event. Full refunds will also be available through Ticketmaster.
At 45, Osteen has become one of the dominant figures in the American evangelical Christian world.
Lakewood, where Osteen became senior pastor after his father John's death in 1999, now operates out of the former Compaq Center, a 16,000-seat arena where the NBA's Houston Rockets played for almost 20 years.
Osteen's televised sermons are seen around the world and draw millions of faithful U.S. viewers every week. His debut book, Your Best Life Now, sold more than five million copies and was a permanent fixture on the New York Times best-seller list for months. Osteen is regularly called on to comment on spiritual issues on programs like CNN's Larry King Live.
While Canadian church attendance lags behind the U.S., Osteen senses there's still a hunger for spiritual revival north of the 49th parallel.
A major challenge for many Canadian churches is the aging of their congregations amid increasing troubles attracting young adults, teens and children on Sunday mornings.
"When the church is relevant and practical, the young people are keen to be a part of it," says Osteen. "When we're not judging that their hair is longer or they like their music loud, then we connect with kids."
Osteen say while his father was raised in the Southern Baptist tradition and Lakewood continues to respect that faith heritage, it's crucial for Christianity to move with the times.
"We don't sing as many old hymns as maybe we used to. Our services are more contemporary and upbeat and our youth pastors can really relate to kids and talk to them on their terms," says Osteen.
He admits there's a fine line between borrowing too much from pop culture and staying true to the Biblical message to win the hearts of young people.
"I know some pastors hold their churches in bars; that's not for me but I'm not going to judge them if they reach people," Osteen says.
"I think more of in terms of talking to youth about how to deal with peer pressure, what their purpose is in life and why they should remain pure."
Osteen has been criticized by others in the faith community for being long on showmanship and short on scripture. He studied radio and TV communications at Oklahoma's Oral Roberts University and guided Lakewood's TV ministry for 17 years. His first sermon was given on Jan. 17, 1999.
"I had no desire to do it, I didn't think I had it in me to get up and preach," says Osteen.
"My dad had asked me to try preaching for years and he died the Friday after my first sermon, so I think I realized that it wasn't a coincidence."
Osteen casts himself more in the role of a laid-back storyteller than a fire-and-brimstone preacher.
"Often I'll just try to relate one passage of scripture to what's going on in peoples' lives and in the world," says Osteen.
"If I can just take 'love your enemies' or 'be grateful today' and expand on it in relevant terms, that's what I can do best."
Osteen says many churches have followed Lakewood's organizational model for success and that small congregations still have a vital role to play in spreading the gospel.
"People criticize us for being so large, but I always tell them we never started out to be big. Lakewood started with 90 people," Osteen adds.
Osteen, whose wife Victoria and two children often join him on the road, still travels to about 20 live rallies each year across North America, somewhat of a rarity in this electronic age.
"It's very expensive to rent arenas, so you just don't see as much of the touring evangelists anymore. But God's just blessed us with his favour; to see these arenas filled up everywhere we go still amazes me."
gmorton@theherald.canwest.com
© The Calgary Herald 2008
****
Nine centuries of caring for the ill
Order's local branch donates $100,000 to area hospices
Graeme Morton
Calgary Herald
Saturday, August 16, 2008
An ancient Christian charitable order which traces its roots back to the Crusades is still alive and well in Calgary.
The Military and Hospitaller Order of St. Lazarus of Jerusalem, which was originally formed more than 900 years ago, has 28 active members in its Calgary branch, called a commandery.
In its infancy, the order was created to assist European knights who were stricken with leprosy during their campaigns in the Holy Land. That emphasis on caring for leprosy victims has continued through the centuries, but is now a smaller component of the order's work.
The Calgary group, one of 12 St. Lazarus orders across Canada with a total membership of about 400, now focuses on fundraising for local hospices and palliative care centres.
They recently donated a total of $100,000 to Hospice Calgary and facilities performing similar roles in Okotoks, Black Diamond and Lethbridge, having raised the money through volunteer work at casinos.
Peter Mortimer-Rae is a longtime member of the Calgary commandery.
"I was drawn to the order for a couple of reasons, including the history. If any organization can last this long, it's got to have something going for it," says Mortimer-Rae.
"And there's certainly a spiritual aspect to it, helping people who are in the final stage of their lives."
Sarah Walker, executive director of Hospice Calgary, lauds the work of St. Lazarus members.
"The Living with Cancer day program this money supports benefits people from all faiths and all walks of life," says Walker. "We're the kind of an organization that nobody wants to talk about, because death is a difficult subject for many people to deal with, but they are awfully glad to have us there when the time comes."
Barbara Hongisto joined the order five years ago and now serves as Calgary commander.
"It makes you feel good to know that you're helping serve a real need in society and to meet and work together with people from other traditions in the Christian community," says Hongisto.
The order helps fund the printing and distribution of thousands of copies of A Caregiver's Guide, a book which is given free of charge to families of palliative care patients.
The order also has a strong ecumenical flavour to it, creating bursaries to support religious studies students at a number of Canadian theological colleges and universities.
The Calgary commandery will host the order's next national convention in May, 2009. More information on the order is available at www.stlazarus.ca or at bhongisto@shaw.ca.
gmorton@theherald.canwest.com
© The Calgary Herald 2008
Rebel heads to Rome to work for world's poor
Ed Struzik
Edmonton Journal
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Camille Piche was on his way to the impoverished city of Cochabamba in Bolivia in February to meet Catholic missionaries working with the poor when he was blindsided by a letter from his boss.
Would he consider coming to Rome to assume the role of worldwide director of Peace and Justice in an office situated up the hill from the Vatican? The St. Albert-based priest's initial response was, "No." Having spent most of his life working with the poor and indigenous people in the Mackenzie Valley of the Northwest Territories, on reserves in northern Alberta, in the slums of Haiti and with Mayan peasants in Guatemala, living in the relative lap of luxury in one of the most beautiful cities in the world just didn't seem to be the thing to do.
More important, he was 70 years old and had not been in the best of health.
So Piche politely suggested someone younger and more energetic be given the opportunity to work with front-line groups such as Amnesty International, Bread for the World, the Rainbow of Hope for Children and other non-government organizations that share the same cause as this arm of the Catholic Church.
But Rev. Oswald Firth, the General Councillor of the worldwide Oblate Missionaries, wouldn't be denied. There is in Piche, he says, "the kind of fire and passion that is needed in a man who is going to work with the wounded and the oppressed and who can show solidarity with them." "It always happens like that," says Piche, at home packing his modest belongings.
"Just when I line up a nice cushy job in Colombia, I get summoned to Rome." Piche's Road to Rome began long before South America and well before he became a priest in 1963. In seeking ordination, the son of devout farmers from Gravelbourg, Sask., was following in the footsteps of an uncle, brother, cousin and two sisters who went on to become a bishop, priests, a nun and lay missionary, respectively.
But Piche's conventional Catholic view of life changed dramatically a year later when he took his Obedience with the Oblate missionaries. He was living in the Dogrib community of Rae in the Northwest Territories. Poor as his family was, he never imagined the kind of grinding poverty the Dene people there endured.
"Seeing a family of nine children, the poorest of the poor, living in a tent in -60 C weather in January, it was obvious to me that children freezing in totally inadequate housing was definitely not God's will." So Piche did what other Oblate missionaries in the Canadian North had begun to do. He started a co-op to answer the pressing needs of the people in the community. Together, they built new homes, a handicraft centre and a means of distributing firewood to everyone who needed it.
The experience, he says, redefined what it meant to be a Catholic priest. Liturgical celebrations, he realized, meant nothing if the people he served didn't have the means of self-determination.
Since then, Piche has been on fire, promoting aboriginal interests in Canada and abroad. He was the one who got the idea of inviting the Pope to Fort Simpson in the Northwest Territories. He was the one who convinced the Oblates to turn the Lac Ste. Anne pilgrimage grounds over to Metis and aboriginal control. The apology the Oblates made to residential school victims was spearheaded, in part, by him.
"I've known Camille for a long, long time," says Charles Wood, former chief of Saddle Lake, a former residential school student and one of the board members who took control of the Lac Ste. Anne land trust.
"This I can say about him. Of all the priests I have known over the years, and I have known many, he's the one who truly exemplifies what a priest should be. He's kind, understanding and compassionate. He also believes what my people believe -- that there is one God and one Creator for all of mankind." At his most serious, Piche has the no-nonsense, resolute look of a strict Catholic priest.
That may be why his quick wit and mischievous sense of humour can be so disarming.
Pat Scott, a former journalist who is now a land-claims negotiator for the Dehcho in the Northwest Territories, recalls visiting Piche at his home in the Northwest Territories more than 25 years ago.
"I had long hair and a beard back then," he says. "Camille and I were outside talking when these kids rode up, pointing at me and asking: 'Father, is that Jesus?' Camille didn't miss a beat.
"Yup," he said. "And off the kids went to tell everyone they had just seen Jesus." Piche, Rene Fumoleau, Lou Menez and other like-minded Oblates in the North were rebels, sympathetic to the tenets of liberation theology and to the aspirations of an increasingly disgruntled Dene leadership that resented the fact most government decisions affecting the territory were being made from Ottawa.
What Piche desires most now is that the Oblates forge a new relationship with First Nations people.
"Aboriginal people throughout the world have had to bear the brunt of injustice, in many cases with their lives," he says. "It is true that we imposed our Latin language and rituals, our religious customs and ways and too readily interpreted their spirituality as superstition.
"Perhaps now, if these events can be understood as a certain purification of our mission we can continue our ministry with a renewed dialogue. We can work along with First Nations and not for them." Piche says in his new role, he will do whatever he can to work with others to hold governments and corporations accountable for what they do in the Third World.
"Our work will really take place at the grassroots, as it has in my case, with countless numbers of people working sometimes at the personal level or with others to give hope and combat poverty," Piche says.
"It's important that we network with others, either Oblates, NGOs, or other socially conscious groups, to bring about structural change and improve the lives of many so that the poor will realize their dignity as beloved sons and daughters of God."
© The Calgary Herald 2008
Ed Struzik
Edmonton Journal
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Camille Piche was on his way to the impoverished city of Cochabamba in Bolivia in February to meet Catholic missionaries working with the poor when he was blindsided by a letter from his boss.
Would he consider coming to Rome to assume the role of worldwide director of Peace and Justice in an office situated up the hill from the Vatican? The St. Albert-based priest's initial response was, "No." Having spent most of his life working with the poor and indigenous people in the Mackenzie Valley of the Northwest Territories, on reserves in northern Alberta, in the slums of Haiti and with Mayan peasants in Guatemala, living in the relative lap of luxury in one of the most beautiful cities in the world just didn't seem to be the thing to do.
More important, he was 70 years old and had not been in the best of health.
So Piche politely suggested someone younger and more energetic be given the opportunity to work with front-line groups such as Amnesty International, Bread for the World, the Rainbow of Hope for Children and other non-government organizations that share the same cause as this arm of the Catholic Church.
But Rev. Oswald Firth, the General Councillor of the worldwide Oblate Missionaries, wouldn't be denied. There is in Piche, he says, "the kind of fire and passion that is needed in a man who is going to work with the wounded and the oppressed and who can show solidarity with them." "It always happens like that," says Piche, at home packing his modest belongings.
"Just when I line up a nice cushy job in Colombia, I get summoned to Rome." Piche's Road to Rome began long before South America and well before he became a priest in 1963. In seeking ordination, the son of devout farmers from Gravelbourg, Sask., was following in the footsteps of an uncle, brother, cousin and two sisters who went on to become a bishop, priests, a nun and lay missionary, respectively.
But Piche's conventional Catholic view of life changed dramatically a year later when he took his Obedience with the Oblate missionaries. He was living in the Dogrib community of Rae in the Northwest Territories. Poor as his family was, he never imagined the kind of grinding poverty the Dene people there endured.
"Seeing a family of nine children, the poorest of the poor, living in a tent in -60 C weather in January, it was obvious to me that children freezing in totally inadequate housing was definitely not God's will." So Piche did what other Oblate missionaries in the Canadian North had begun to do. He started a co-op to answer the pressing needs of the people in the community. Together, they built new homes, a handicraft centre and a means of distributing firewood to everyone who needed it.
The experience, he says, redefined what it meant to be a Catholic priest. Liturgical celebrations, he realized, meant nothing if the people he served didn't have the means of self-determination.
Since then, Piche has been on fire, promoting aboriginal interests in Canada and abroad. He was the one who got the idea of inviting the Pope to Fort Simpson in the Northwest Territories. He was the one who convinced the Oblates to turn the Lac Ste. Anne pilgrimage grounds over to Metis and aboriginal control. The apology the Oblates made to residential school victims was spearheaded, in part, by him.
"I've known Camille for a long, long time," says Charles Wood, former chief of Saddle Lake, a former residential school student and one of the board members who took control of the Lac Ste. Anne land trust.
"This I can say about him. Of all the priests I have known over the years, and I have known many, he's the one who truly exemplifies what a priest should be. He's kind, understanding and compassionate. He also believes what my people believe -- that there is one God and one Creator for all of mankind." At his most serious, Piche has the no-nonsense, resolute look of a strict Catholic priest.
That may be why his quick wit and mischievous sense of humour can be so disarming.
Pat Scott, a former journalist who is now a land-claims negotiator for the Dehcho in the Northwest Territories, recalls visiting Piche at his home in the Northwest Territories more than 25 years ago.
"I had long hair and a beard back then," he says. "Camille and I were outside talking when these kids rode up, pointing at me and asking: 'Father, is that Jesus?' Camille didn't miss a beat.
"Yup," he said. "And off the kids went to tell everyone they had just seen Jesus." Piche, Rene Fumoleau, Lou Menez and other like-minded Oblates in the North were rebels, sympathetic to the tenets of liberation theology and to the aspirations of an increasingly disgruntled Dene leadership that resented the fact most government decisions affecting the territory were being made from Ottawa.
What Piche desires most now is that the Oblates forge a new relationship with First Nations people.
"Aboriginal people throughout the world have had to bear the brunt of injustice, in many cases with their lives," he says. "It is true that we imposed our Latin language and rituals, our religious customs and ways and too readily interpreted their spirituality as superstition.
"Perhaps now, if these events can be understood as a certain purification of our mission we can continue our ministry with a renewed dialogue. We can work along with First Nations and not for them." Piche says in his new role, he will do whatever he can to work with others to hold governments and corporations accountable for what they do in the Third World.
"Our work will really take place at the grassroots, as it has in my case, with countless numbers of people working sometimes at the personal level or with others to give hope and combat poverty," Piche says.
"It's important that we network with others, either Oblates, NGOs, or other socially conscious groups, to bring about structural change and improve the lives of many so that the poor will realize their dignity as beloved sons and daughters of God."
© The Calgary Herald 2008
Beijing denies bishops' request to visit Vatican
Philip Pullella
Reuters
Saturday, October 04, 2008
China has denied permission for Catholic bishops to travel to Rome for a Church meeting, a Vatican spokesman said Friday, in a sign of new strains between Beijing's Communist government and the Vatican.
Chief Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi said Beijing, which has had difficult relations with the Vatican over the years, had made it clear in preliminary contacts that travel requests would be denied.
Bishops from Macao and Hong Kong, regions with a degree of autonomy from Beijing, will attend the month-long synod, which starts Sunday.
"(There were) talks with the Chinese authorities to see if other bishops from mainland China could come. It was clear that there would be no agreement and they won't come," Lombardi said.
China's Communist government does not allow its Catholics to recognize the Pope's authority and forces them to be members of a state-backed Catholic organization. China's eight to 12 million Catholics are split between the officially approved church and an "underground" one loyal to the Pope.
The lack of participation by the mainland bishops came as a surprise because there had been signs of an improvement in relations this year.
A bishop from Hong Kong represented Pope Benedict at the opening ceremony of the Olympics in August and, in May, China's national orchestra played for the Pope at an unprecedented concert in the Vatican.
Benedict has made improving relations with China a main goal and hopes diplomatic ties can be restored.
China says before restoring ties the Vatican must sever relations with Taiwan, which Beijing considers a renegade province.
© The Calgary Herald 2008
Philip Pullella
Reuters
Saturday, October 04, 2008
China has denied permission for Catholic bishops to travel to Rome for a Church meeting, a Vatican spokesman said Friday, in a sign of new strains between Beijing's Communist government and the Vatican.
Chief Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi said Beijing, which has had difficult relations with the Vatican over the years, had made it clear in preliminary contacts that travel requests would be denied.
Bishops from Macao and Hong Kong, regions with a degree of autonomy from Beijing, will attend the month-long synod, which starts Sunday.
"(There were) talks with the Chinese authorities to see if other bishops from mainland China could come. It was clear that there would be no agreement and they won't come," Lombardi said.
China's Communist government does not allow its Catholics to recognize the Pope's authority and forces them to be members of a state-backed Catholic organization. China's eight to 12 million Catholics are split between the officially approved church and an "underground" one loyal to the Pope.
The lack of participation by the mainland bishops came as a surprise because there had been signs of an improvement in relations this year.
A bishop from Hong Kong represented Pope Benedict at the opening ceremony of the Olympics in August and, in May, China's national orchestra played for the Pope at an unprecedented concert in the Vatican.
Benedict has made improving relations with China a main goal and hopes diplomatic ties can be restored.
China says before restoring ties the Vatican must sever relations with Taiwan, which Beijing considers a renegade province.
© The Calgary Herald 2008
ROME: Pope Benedict XVI warned on Sunday that modern culture is pushing God out of people's lives, causing nations once rich in religious faith to lose their identities.
Benedict celebrated a Mass in the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls to open a worldwide meeting of bishops on the relevance of the Bible for contemporary Catholics.
``Today, nations once rich in faith and vocations are losing their own identity, under the harmful and destructive influence of a certain modern culture,'' said Benedict, who has been pushing for religion to be given more room in society.
The meeting of 253 bishops, known as a synod of bishops, will run from Monday through Oct. 26. The Vatican said that despite Benedict's efforts to improve relations with Communist China, no bishops have come from the mainland, although there are prelates from Macau and Hong Kong.
``Surely they tried, I mean the Holy See tried but obviously they could not make agreement,'' Hong Kong Cardinal Joseph Zen said as he entered the basilica.
``Maybe the Holy See welcomes someone that they (the Chinese) would not allow,'' he said, adding that China might try to send a bishop who is not acceptable to the Holy See.
Chinese bishops have not been allowed to travel to similar meetings in the past.
Ties between the Vatican and China's communist government have long been strained. Beijing objects to the Vatican's tradition of having the pope name his own bishops, calling it interference in China.
China appoints bishops for the state-sanctioned Catholic church. In recent years, some of those bishops have received the Vatican's tacit approval.
Still, many of the country's estimated 12 million Catholics worship in congregations outside the state-approved church with bishops loyal to the pope.
A document prepared for the meeting rejects a fundamentalist approach to the Bible and said a key challenge was to clarify for the faithful the relationship of scripture to science. A rabbi will address the conference on Monday in what is believed to be the first time a Jew has participated in such a meeting.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Worl ... .cms#write
Benedict celebrated a Mass in the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls to open a worldwide meeting of bishops on the relevance of the Bible for contemporary Catholics.
``Today, nations once rich in faith and vocations are losing their own identity, under the harmful and destructive influence of a certain modern culture,'' said Benedict, who has been pushing for religion to be given more room in society.
The meeting of 253 bishops, known as a synod of bishops, will run from Monday through Oct. 26. The Vatican said that despite Benedict's efforts to improve relations with Communist China, no bishops have come from the mainland, although there are prelates from Macau and Hong Kong.
``Surely they tried, I mean the Holy See tried but obviously they could not make agreement,'' Hong Kong Cardinal Joseph Zen said as he entered the basilica.
``Maybe the Holy See welcomes someone that they (the Chinese) would not allow,'' he said, adding that China might try to send a bishop who is not acceptable to the Holy See.
Chinese bishops have not been allowed to travel to similar meetings in the past.
Ties between the Vatican and China's communist government have long been strained. Beijing objects to the Vatican's tradition of having the pope name his own bishops, calling it interference in China.
China appoints bishops for the state-sanctioned Catholic church. In recent years, some of those bishops have received the Vatican's tacit approval.
Still, many of the country's estimated 12 million Catholics worship in congregations outside the state-approved church with bishops loyal to the pope.
A document prepared for the meeting rejects a fundamentalist approach to the Bible and said a key challenge was to clarify for the faithful the relationship of scripture to science. A rabbi will address the conference on Monday in what is believed to be the first time a Jew has participated in such a meeting.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Worl ... .cms#write
Vatican urges psych tests for priests
Philip Pullella
Reuters
Friday, October 31, 2008
Candidates for the Catholic priesthood should undergo psychological tests to screen out heterosexuals unable to control their sexual urges and men with strong homosexual tendencies, the Vatican said on Thursday.
In a new document -- the second in three years to deal with the effects of a sexual abuse scandal that rocked the church six years ago -- the Vatican said the early detection of "sometimes pathological" psychological defects in men before they become priests would help avoid tragic consequences.
"The church . . . has a duty of discerning a vocation and the suitability of candidates for the priestly ministry," said the document from the Vatican's Congregation for Catholic Education.
"The priestly ministry . . . requires certain abilities as well as moral and theological virtues, which are supported by a human and psychic -- and particularly affective -- equilibrium, so as to allow the subject to be adequately predisposed for giving of himself in the celibate life," it said.
Vatican officials told a news conference the tests would not be obligatory, but decided on a case-by-case basis when seminary rectors wanted to be sure a man was qualified for the priesthood. The testing by a psychologist or psychotherapist should aim to detect "grave immaturity" and imbalances in the candidates' personality.
"Such areas of immaturity would include strong affective dependencies, notable lack of freedom in relations, excessive rigidity of character, lack of loyalty, uncertain sexual identity, and deep-seated homosexual tendencies, etc. If this should be the case, the path of formation will have to be interrupted," the document said.
The Vatican said it was "not enough to be sure that (a candidate) is capable of abstaining from sexual activity," but seminary rectors also need to "evaluate his sexual orientation."
Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski, head of the Vatican department that prepared the report, was asked why a man with deep-seated homosexual tendencies could not become a priest while one with deep-seated heterosexual tendencies could? He said homosexuality was "a deviation, an irregularity and a wound" that did not allow priests to carry out their mission properly.
A sexual abuse scandal first uncovered in the U.S. in 2002, then spread throughout the world, involved mostly abuse of teenage boys by priests.
SNAP, a U.S.-based group of victims of sexual abuse, said the document did not go far enough. "Catholic officials continue to fixate on the offenders and ignore the larger problem: the church's virtually unchanged culture of secrecy and unchecked power in the hierarchy. These broader factors are deeply rooted in the church and contribute heavily to extensive and ongoing clergy sex abuse and coverup," it said.
Gay groups have accused the church of using homosexuals as scapegoats for the abuse scandals.
Philip Pullella
Reuters
Friday, October 31, 2008
Candidates for the Catholic priesthood should undergo psychological tests to screen out heterosexuals unable to control their sexual urges and men with strong homosexual tendencies, the Vatican said on Thursday.
In a new document -- the second in three years to deal with the effects of a sexual abuse scandal that rocked the church six years ago -- the Vatican said the early detection of "sometimes pathological" psychological defects in men before they become priests would help avoid tragic consequences.
"The church . . . has a duty of discerning a vocation and the suitability of candidates for the priestly ministry," said the document from the Vatican's Congregation for Catholic Education.
"The priestly ministry . . . requires certain abilities as well as moral and theological virtues, which are supported by a human and psychic -- and particularly affective -- equilibrium, so as to allow the subject to be adequately predisposed for giving of himself in the celibate life," it said.
Vatican officials told a news conference the tests would not be obligatory, but decided on a case-by-case basis when seminary rectors wanted to be sure a man was qualified for the priesthood. The testing by a psychologist or psychotherapist should aim to detect "grave immaturity" and imbalances in the candidates' personality.
"Such areas of immaturity would include strong affective dependencies, notable lack of freedom in relations, excessive rigidity of character, lack of loyalty, uncertain sexual identity, and deep-seated homosexual tendencies, etc. If this should be the case, the path of formation will have to be interrupted," the document said.
The Vatican said it was "not enough to be sure that (a candidate) is capable of abstaining from sexual activity," but seminary rectors also need to "evaluate his sexual orientation."
Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski, head of the Vatican department that prepared the report, was asked why a man with deep-seated homosexual tendencies could not become a priest while one with deep-seated heterosexual tendencies could? He said homosexuality was "a deviation, an irregularity and a wound" that did not allow priests to carry out their mission properly.
A sexual abuse scandal first uncovered in the U.S. in 2002, then spread throughout the world, involved mostly abuse of teenage boys by priests.
SNAP, a U.S.-based group of victims of sexual abuse, said the document did not go far enough. "Catholic officials continue to fixate on the offenders and ignore the larger problem: the church's virtually unchanged culture of secrecy and unchecked power in the hierarchy. These broader factors are deeply rooted in the church and contribute heavily to extensive and ongoing clergy sex abuse and coverup," it said.
Gay groups have accused the church of using homosexuals as scapegoats for the abuse scandals.
Author draws wisdom from hermit lifestyle
Bourgeault to lead workshops, lecture in Calgary
Graeme Morton
Calgary Herald
Sunday, November 02, 2008
Cynthia Bourgeault wears many hats while she acts as a thoughtful, challenging voice on the state of Christianity and spirituality today.
Bourgeault is an author, lecturer, workshop leader, Episcopal (Anglican) priest, grandmother . . . and a hermit.
Yes, there are still hermits in this sophisticated, noisy, urban society -- people who intentionally seek out solitude and silence to allow that quiet, inner voice of the divine to be heard.
"The point is when you're in actual physical reclusion to make it count for something," says Bourgeault, who'll be in Calgary in mid-November for a series of workshops and public lectures based on her new book, The Wisdom Jesus.
"Being constantly busy in the outside world lets us wear all sorts of clothes of our own desiring, which can hide what's underneath. Being in reclusion allows you to take a look at deeper issues," she adds.
Bourgeault divides her year between teaching -- this fall she's at the Vancouver School of Theology -- and pursuing a hermit's lifestyle on Eagle Island, a green dot of land off the coast of Maine.
There, she has built a modest, 900-square-foot home heated by wood and powered by a solar panel, and she proudly notes is mortgage-free.
In summer, Eagle Island can be home for up to 35 people.
During the long off-seasons? "The population can range from zero to three," says Bourgeault with an easy laugh. "There's me and a lobsterman and his wife who are seventh-generation lighthouse keepers." Bourgeault says her Eagle Island solitude and meditation helped her crystallize the intriguing concepts of her latest book.
"In that silence, I came to a realization of a new take on Jesus and seeing where some of the old traditions had gotten stuck," says Bourgeault.
She encourages readers to take a more activist, intensely personal role in revitalizing spirituality and, potentially, a collective western church that is struggling mightily.
"My question is where do you find a frame of reference that connects you to eternal truth," says Bourgeault.
"The western church talks about the eye of the heart which allows you to grasp things fresh from deep within your own inner knowing." Bourgeault says through the centuries, Christians have been conditioned not to trust their own inner voice.
"We've been taught to be sheep and to divest ourselves 0f something we really do know," she adds.
Bourgeault maintains that her concept of Jesus as first and foremost a wisdom teacher in no way "demotes" Him from long-standing veneration as a saviour of a flawed creation. But she says individuals should take responsibility for, and put in the effort through contemplation, of nurturing their own understanding of God and the profound, outside-the-box wisdom of Christ.
The final chapters of The Wisdom Jesus offer instruction on a number of core practices, including meditation, centring prayer, chanting and lectio divina, a four-step sacred reading process designed to open practitioners to Christ's wisdom.
Bourgeault shakes her head at the state of organized Christianity in the western world.
"Some days, I don't know if I'm a midwife or a hospice worker," she says, sighing.
"It looks like traditional Christianity is in a booster rocket stage -- where it's going to cast off something from in its midst that's really new and the rest will tumble back to earth in smouldering ashes." Bourgeault says she's eagerly anticipating heading into a prolonged period of solitude on Eagle Island in April.
"There's a project I want to work on that's going to take some very delicate listening, writing and being present in the moment without much interruption," she adds.
"I have no plans to leave in any big way. Conditions have been moving in a way that I can actually financially sustain more time on the island." Bourgeault will lead a Wisdom Jesus weekend from Nov. 14 to 16 at Christ Church Anglican, 3602 8th St. S.W.
She will be giving a reading and lecture on Nov. 14, a full-day "wisdom school" on Nov. 15 and preaching on Nov. 16 at 10:30 a.m.
Registration and information for the weekend is available online at wisdomcentre.ca or by calling Christ Church at 403-243-4680, ext. 22.
Bourgeault will also give the Swanson Lecture in Christian Spirituality, sponsored by the University of Calgary's Chair of Christian Thought, on Nov. 17 (7:30 p.m.) at Hope Lutheran Church, 3527 Boulton Rd. N.W.
gmorton@theherald.canwest.com
© The Calgary Herald 2008
Bourgeault to lead workshops, lecture in Calgary
Graeme Morton
Calgary Herald
Sunday, November 02, 2008
Cynthia Bourgeault wears many hats while she acts as a thoughtful, challenging voice on the state of Christianity and spirituality today.
Bourgeault is an author, lecturer, workshop leader, Episcopal (Anglican) priest, grandmother . . . and a hermit.
Yes, there are still hermits in this sophisticated, noisy, urban society -- people who intentionally seek out solitude and silence to allow that quiet, inner voice of the divine to be heard.
"The point is when you're in actual physical reclusion to make it count for something," says Bourgeault, who'll be in Calgary in mid-November for a series of workshops and public lectures based on her new book, The Wisdom Jesus.
"Being constantly busy in the outside world lets us wear all sorts of clothes of our own desiring, which can hide what's underneath. Being in reclusion allows you to take a look at deeper issues," she adds.
Bourgeault divides her year between teaching -- this fall she's at the Vancouver School of Theology -- and pursuing a hermit's lifestyle on Eagle Island, a green dot of land off the coast of Maine.
There, she has built a modest, 900-square-foot home heated by wood and powered by a solar panel, and she proudly notes is mortgage-free.
In summer, Eagle Island can be home for up to 35 people.
During the long off-seasons? "The population can range from zero to three," says Bourgeault with an easy laugh. "There's me and a lobsterman and his wife who are seventh-generation lighthouse keepers." Bourgeault says her Eagle Island solitude and meditation helped her crystallize the intriguing concepts of her latest book.
"In that silence, I came to a realization of a new take on Jesus and seeing where some of the old traditions had gotten stuck," says Bourgeault.
She encourages readers to take a more activist, intensely personal role in revitalizing spirituality and, potentially, a collective western church that is struggling mightily.
"My question is where do you find a frame of reference that connects you to eternal truth," says Bourgeault.
"The western church talks about the eye of the heart which allows you to grasp things fresh from deep within your own inner knowing." Bourgeault says through the centuries, Christians have been conditioned not to trust their own inner voice.
"We've been taught to be sheep and to divest ourselves 0f something we really do know," she adds.
Bourgeault maintains that her concept of Jesus as first and foremost a wisdom teacher in no way "demotes" Him from long-standing veneration as a saviour of a flawed creation. But she says individuals should take responsibility for, and put in the effort through contemplation, of nurturing their own understanding of God and the profound, outside-the-box wisdom of Christ.
The final chapters of The Wisdom Jesus offer instruction on a number of core practices, including meditation, centring prayer, chanting and lectio divina, a four-step sacred reading process designed to open practitioners to Christ's wisdom.
Bourgeault shakes her head at the state of organized Christianity in the western world.
"Some days, I don't know if I'm a midwife or a hospice worker," she says, sighing.
"It looks like traditional Christianity is in a booster rocket stage -- where it's going to cast off something from in its midst that's really new and the rest will tumble back to earth in smouldering ashes." Bourgeault says she's eagerly anticipating heading into a prolonged period of solitude on Eagle Island in April.
"There's a project I want to work on that's going to take some very delicate listening, writing and being present in the moment without much interruption," she adds.
"I have no plans to leave in any big way. Conditions have been moving in a way that I can actually financially sustain more time on the island." Bourgeault will lead a Wisdom Jesus weekend from Nov. 14 to 16 at Christ Church Anglican, 3602 8th St. S.W.
She will be giving a reading and lecture on Nov. 14, a full-day "wisdom school" on Nov. 15 and preaching on Nov. 16 at 10:30 a.m.
Registration and information for the weekend is available online at wisdomcentre.ca or by calling Christ Church at 403-243-4680, ext. 22.
Bourgeault will also give the Swanson Lecture in Christian Spirituality, sponsored by the University of Calgary's Chair of Christian Thought, on Nov. 17 (7:30 p.m.) at Hope Lutheran Church, 3527 Boulton Rd. N.W.
gmorton@theherald.canwest.com
© The Calgary Herald 2008
December 13, 2008
Vatican Issues Instruction on Bioethics
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN and ELISABETTA POVOLEDO
The Vatican issued its most authoritative and sweeping document on bioethical issues in more than 20 years on Friday, taking into account recent developments in biomedical technology and reinforcing the church’s opposition to in vitro fertilization, human cloning, genetic testing on embryos before implantation and embryonic stem cell research.
The Vatican says these techniques violate the principles that every human life — even an embryo — is sacred, and that babies should be conceived only through intercourse by a married couple.
The 32-page instruction, titled “Dignitas Personae,” or “The Dignity of the Person,” was issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican’s doctrinal office, and carries the approval and the authority of Pope Benedict XVI.
Under discussion for six years, it is a moral response to bioethical questions raised in the 21 years since the congregation last issued instructions.
It bans the morning-after pill, the intrauterine device and the pill RU-486, saying these can result in what amount to abortions.
The Vatican document reiterates that the church is opposed to research on stem cells derived from embryos. But it does not oppose research on stem cells derived from adults; blood from umbilical cords; or fetuses “who have died of natural causes.”
The document does not prohibit the use of vaccines developed using “cell lines of illicit origin” if children’s health is at stake. But it says that “everyone has the duty” to inform health care providers of personal objections to such vaccines.
The church also objects to freezing embryos, arguing that doing so exposes them to potential damage and manipulation, and that it raises the problem of what to do with frozen embryos that are not implanted. There are at least 400,000 of these in the United States alone.
“Our advice is that freezing should not take place,” said Bishop Elio Sgreccia, president emeritus of the Pontifical Academy for Life. “Because once it is done, you’re in a situation where to correct the error implies a further offense. Once you have them, what do you do with them?”
The Vatican’s intended audience is not only individual Roman Catholics, but also non-Catholic doctors, scientists, medical researchers and legislators who might consider regulating stem cell research and other recent developments in biomedical technology.
In the United States, President-elect Barack Obama has said he will end the restrictions on federal financing of embryonic stem cell research that were instituted by President Bush.
Among the new developments discussed in the document are the attempts by scientists to find alternative techniques of producing embryonic-like stem cells that could ultimately be used in medical treatments, without involving human embryos, said the Rev. Thomas Berg, executive director of the Westchester Institute for Ethics and the Human Person, a Catholic ethics institute in New York. He said such techniques could “allow us to get past this cultural divide on stem cell research.”
Father Berg said he was pleased to see that the Vatican document did not prohibit such techniques, although it cautioned that there must be absolute assurance that human embryos were not destroyed in the process.
The document does little to clarify the Vatican’s position on whether couples can “adopt” surplus embryos that have been frozen and abandoned. Such “prenatal adoption,” although rare, has been promoted by some Catholics and evangelical Christians. The document says that while “prenatal adoption” is “praiseworthy,” it presents ethical problems similar to certain types of in vitro fertilization — in particular, surrogate motherhood, which the church prohibits.
Experts said that there was little new in this document, but that it might still come as a surprise to many Catholics who were unaware of the church’s ban on in vitro fertilization.
Kathleen M. Raviele, an obstetrician and gynecologist in Georgia who is president of the Catholic Medical Association, said she tells her patients: “God creates through an act of love, and that’s not what’s happening in the laboratory. It’s the technician who’s creating. What in vitro does, is it separates the creation of a child from the marital act.”
But the Vatican’s opposition to in vitro fertilization seemed neither moral nor intuitive to Josephine Johnston, a research scholar at the Hastings Center, an independent bioethics research institute in Garrison, N.Y.
“For a married couple who go to get in vitro fertilization, the Vatican’s idea that it’s not done with a serious amount of love and commitment is very bizarre to me, because it’s such a deliberate act, done in the cold light of day, with enormous amounts of thought and intention attached to it,” she said. “The idea that it’s not done within the spirit of marital love, I find very strange.”
Archbishop Luis Francisco Ladaria Ferrer, a Jesuit who is secretary of the doctrinal office, said at a news conference in Rome that the document would probably “be accused of containing too many bans.” Nonetheless, he said that the church felt a duty “to give voice to those who have no voice.”
Laurie Goodstein reported from New York, and Elisabetta Povoledo from Rome.
Vatican Issues Instruction on Bioethics
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN and ELISABETTA POVOLEDO
The Vatican issued its most authoritative and sweeping document on bioethical issues in more than 20 years on Friday, taking into account recent developments in biomedical technology and reinforcing the church’s opposition to in vitro fertilization, human cloning, genetic testing on embryos before implantation and embryonic stem cell research.
The Vatican says these techniques violate the principles that every human life — even an embryo — is sacred, and that babies should be conceived only through intercourse by a married couple.
The 32-page instruction, titled “Dignitas Personae,” or “The Dignity of the Person,” was issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican’s doctrinal office, and carries the approval and the authority of Pope Benedict XVI.
Under discussion for six years, it is a moral response to bioethical questions raised in the 21 years since the congregation last issued instructions.
It bans the morning-after pill, the intrauterine device and the pill RU-486, saying these can result in what amount to abortions.
The Vatican document reiterates that the church is opposed to research on stem cells derived from embryos. But it does not oppose research on stem cells derived from adults; blood from umbilical cords; or fetuses “who have died of natural causes.”
The document does not prohibit the use of vaccines developed using “cell lines of illicit origin” if children’s health is at stake. But it says that “everyone has the duty” to inform health care providers of personal objections to such vaccines.
The church also objects to freezing embryos, arguing that doing so exposes them to potential damage and manipulation, and that it raises the problem of what to do with frozen embryos that are not implanted. There are at least 400,000 of these in the United States alone.
“Our advice is that freezing should not take place,” said Bishop Elio Sgreccia, president emeritus of the Pontifical Academy for Life. “Because once it is done, you’re in a situation where to correct the error implies a further offense. Once you have them, what do you do with them?”
The Vatican’s intended audience is not only individual Roman Catholics, but also non-Catholic doctors, scientists, medical researchers and legislators who might consider regulating stem cell research and other recent developments in biomedical technology.
In the United States, President-elect Barack Obama has said he will end the restrictions on federal financing of embryonic stem cell research that were instituted by President Bush.
Among the new developments discussed in the document are the attempts by scientists to find alternative techniques of producing embryonic-like stem cells that could ultimately be used in medical treatments, without involving human embryos, said the Rev. Thomas Berg, executive director of the Westchester Institute for Ethics and the Human Person, a Catholic ethics institute in New York. He said such techniques could “allow us to get past this cultural divide on stem cell research.”
Father Berg said he was pleased to see that the Vatican document did not prohibit such techniques, although it cautioned that there must be absolute assurance that human embryos were not destroyed in the process.
The document does little to clarify the Vatican’s position on whether couples can “adopt” surplus embryos that have been frozen and abandoned. Such “prenatal adoption,” although rare, has been promoted by some Catholics and evangelical Christians. The document says that while “prenatal adoption” is “praiseworthy,” it presents ethical problems similar to certain types of in vitro fertilization — in particular, surrogate motherhood, which the church prohibits.
Experts said that there was little new in this document, but that it might still come as a surprise to many Catholics who were unaware of the church’s ban on in vitro fertilization.
Kathleen M. Raviele, an obstetrician and gynecologist in Georgia who is president of the Catholic Medical Association, said she tells her patients: “God creates through an act of love, and that’s not what’s happening in the laboratory. It’s the technician who’s creating. What in vitro does, is it separates the creation of a child from the marital act.”
But the Vatican’s opposition to in vitro fertilization seemed neither moral nor intuitive to Josephine Johnston, a research scholar at the Hastings Center, an independent bioethics research institute in Garrison, N.Y.
“For a married couple who go to get in vitro fertilization, the Vatican’s idea that it’s not done with a serious amount of love and commitment is very bizarre to me, because it’s such a deliberate act, done in the cold light of day, with enormous amounts of thought and intention attached to it,” she said. “The idea that it’s not done within the spirit of marital love, I find very strange.”
Archbishop Luis Francisco Ladaria Ferrer, a Jesuit who is secretary of the doctrinal office, said at a news conference in Rome that the document would probably “be accused of containing too many bans.” Nonetheless, he said that the church felt a duty “to give voice to those who have no voice.”
Laurie Goodstein reported from New York, and Elisabetta Povoledo from Rome.
It's Christmas, bring out the babe in the manger
By Nigel HannafordDecember 23, 2008 9:01 AM
I don't ride a donkey, and I haven't wrapped a towel around my head since I did the nativity play myself in fifth grade. How does this actually affect me? Should it, even?
Photograph by : Getty Images
Every year, the gold-painted figurines come out of the box. Joseph, Mary, the infant Jesus, the ox, the ass and three wise men. Briefly, the Middle East of 2,000 years ago is acknowledged if not actually recreated on our mantelpiece. There they will stay until Twelfth Night, at which point it's back in the box for another 50 weeks.
The nativity scene displayed on Christmas cards, posters, in churches, here and there in the window of a believing shopkeeper and brought to life in countless pageants across the country, is the one bit of the religious side of Christmas that you can't dodge at this time of the year--the reason for the season, as it were, right before your eyes.
For that alone, and contra grinch-gonzo Christopher Hitchens whose recent hit-piece on Christmas opened some windows into a soul that appears to desperately need some lovin', I'm all for it. In what Hitchens calls the annual "restatement" of his "core objection" to Christmas, he complains that Christmas paraphernalia is inescapable for a month, rather in the manner of North Korea's "Dear Leader" propaganda for those who live there. No doubt for the atheist Hitchens, and thousands of carol-addled retail clerks, it is a pain in the ear, although one wonders if Hitchens would actually decline a decent bottle of scotch from somebody who wished him a merry Christmas. (Not until he had personally made sure it was decent scotch, I imagine. Were I of his opinions, I would still do no less.)
For myself however, not being an atheist, anything gets my vote that at least keeps the person of Jesus in front of a generation that seldom sees the inside of a church to hear His message of life.
The only problem with the old nativity scene is this: It tends to reinforce the subliminal impression that God entered a different world from the one we live in today. That is, the trappings of life have changed so much in 2,000 years that there's a relevance hurdle to jump: I don't ride a donkey, and I haven't wrapped a towel around my head since I did the nativity play myself in fifth grade. How does this actually affect me? Should it, even?
Now, sometimes a progressive church will attempt a Shakespeare-in-modern dress approach to the nativity play, and have Joseph wheeling Mary down the road on a bicycle with flat tires, only to get refused entry at the Holiday Inn. Jesus is then born in a Dumpster, the star becomes a bright street light, and instead of shepherds keeping their watch by night, He is visited by homeless people. The irony is that these are often the churches that deny the virgin birth, and for the rest of the year advocate a gospel the Saviour never preached.
But, such appeals to contemporary understanding are unnecessary, whoever is putting them on, and with whatever purpose in mind. The fact is that in the things that matter, this old world hasn't changed a bit since Christ was born.
To be precise, culture has evolved, empires rise and fall and technology has advanced beyond ancient imaginings, but one thing has never changed --the nature of mankind.
If people are greedy today, they were so then. Were people angry and full of hate then? Same today. Promiscuity and hypocrisy span the ages, likewise dishonesty, cheating and the bearing of false witness, as the Old Testament describes what we call lying under oath. And, I would wager, today's generation is no more likely to elect Christ prime minister than the one into which he was born: Crucifixion is out of style, happily, but assassination is not, and would remain the likely outcome of a three-year course in miracles and repentance if God's intervention in the world had been deferred to the 21st century.
But, to the enormous gain of the world, it wasn't. Not everybody hears the words of Jesus, and not all who hear, obey. But, how enduringly instructive are His words: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself."
However imperfectly, Christ's followers have tried to flesh that out over the centuries. It is the source-text for great acts of charity, of learning, and care for others. It is what made ordinary people give up what they had so that they could give their lives to bringing a message of hope to other people weighed down by the burden of their regrets, and their fears. It is what has led millions to lay down their lives, sometimes figuratively but all too often literally, to see a parallel and hidden kingdom take shape and bring blessing wherever it reaches--from the tops of office towers, to the lowliest homes, to prisons, dictatorships, even in the incarnate evil of concentration camps.
You want to know what the world would be like without the spirit of God abroad in it? Ask yourself the same question one of Hitchens' critics asked: If you were starving, who would be more likely to give you a bowl of soup: Mother Teresa, or somebody who thought Chris Hitchens had nailed it?
Same message, same audience, same Saviour, same desperate humanity. If nativity scenes and Christmas carols are the entry points in 21st century Canada, I guess we'll just have to work with them.
© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service
By Nigel HannafordDecember 23, 2008 9:01 AM
I don't ride a donkey, and I haven't wrapped a towel around my head since I did the nativity play myself in fifth grade. How does this actually affect me? Should it, even?
Photograph by : Getty Images
Every year, the gold-painted figurines come out of the box. Joseph, Mary, the infant Jesus, the ox, the ass and three wise men. Briefly, the Middle East of 2,000 years ago is acknowledged if not actually recreated on our mantelpiece. There they will stay until Twelfth Night, at which point it's back in the box for another 50 weeks.
The nativity scene displayed on Christmas cards, posters, in churches, here and there in the window of a believing shopkeeper and brought to life in countless pageants across the country, is the one bit of the religious side of Christmas that you can't dodge at this time of the year--the reason for the season, as it were, right before your eyes.
For that alone, and contra grinch-gonzo Christopher Hitchens whose recent hit-piece on Christmas opened some windows into a soul that appears to desperately need some lovin', I'm all for it. In what Hitchens calls the annual "restatement" of his "core objection" to Christmas, he complains that Christmas paraphernalia is inescapable for a month, rather in the manner of North Korea's "Dear Leader" propaganda for those who live there. No doubt for the atheist Hitchens, and thousands of carol-addled retail clerks, it is a pain in the ear, although one wonders if Hitchens would actually decline a decent bottle of scotch from somebody who wished him a merry Christmas. (Not until he had personally made sure it was decent scotch, I imagine. Were I of his opinions, I would still do no less.)
For myself however, not being an atheist, anything gets my vote that at least keeps the person of Jesus in front of a generation that seldom sees the inside of a church to hear His message of life.
The only problem with the old nativity scene is this: It tends to reinforce the subliminal impression that God entered a different world from the one we live in today. That is, the trappings of life have changed so much in 2,000 years that there's a relevance hurdle to jump: I don't ride a donkey, and I haven't wrapped a towel around my head since I did the nativity play myself in fifth grade. How does this actually affect me? Should it, even?
Now, sometimes a progressive church will attempt a Shakespeare-in-modern dress approach to the nativity play, and have Joseph wheeling Mary down the road on a bicycle with flat tires, only to get refused entry at the Holiday Inn. Jesus is then born in a Dumpster, the star becomes a bright street light, and instead of shepherds keeping their watch by night, He is visited by homeless people. The irony is that these are often the churches that deny the virgin birth, and for the rest of the year advocate a gospel the Saviour never preached.
But, such appeals to contemporary understanding are unnecessary, whoever is putting them on, and with whatever purpose in mind. The fact is that in the things that matter, this old world hasn't changed a bit since Christ was born.
To be precise, culture has evolved, empires rise and fall and technology has advanced beyond ancient imaginings, but one thing has never changed --the nature of mankind.
If people are greedy today, they were so then. Were people angry and full of hate then? Same today. Promiscuity and hypocrisy span the ages, likewise dishonesty, cheating and the bearing of false witness, as the Old Testament describes what we call lying under oath. And, I would wager, today's generation is no more likely to elect Christ prime minister than the one into which he was born: Crucifixion is out of style, happily, but assassination is not, and would remain the likely outcome of a three-year course in miracles and repentance if God's intervention in the world had been deferred to the 21st century.
But, to the enormous gain of the world, it wasn't. Not everybody hears the words of Jesus, and not all who hear, obey. But, how enduringly instructive are His words: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself."
However imperfectly, Christ's followers have tried to flesh that out over the centuries. It is the source-text for great acts of charity, of learning, and care for others. It is what made ordinary people give up what they had so that they could give their lives to bringing a message of hope to other people weighed down by the burden of their regrets, and their fears. It is what has led millions to lay down their lives, sometimes figuratively but all too often literally, to see a parallel and hidden kingdom take shape and bring blessing wherever it reaches--from the tops of office towers, to the lowliest homes, to prisons, dictatorships, even in the incarnate evil of concentration camps.
You want to know what the world would be like without the spirit of God abroad in it? Ask yourself the same question one of Hitchens' critics asked: If you were starving, who would be more likely to give you a bowl of soup: Mother Teresa, or somebody who thought Chris Hitchens had nailed it?
Same message, same audience, same Saviour, same desperate humanity. If nativity scenes and Christmas carols are the entry points in 21st century Canada, I guess we'll just have to work with them.
© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service
Pope becomes one of world's oldest YouTube stars
By Philip Pullella, ReutersJanuary 24, 2009 8:01 AM
Pope Benedict on Friday became one of the oldest people to have his own You-Tube channel. He cautioned the young to use new media wisely and avoid online obsessions that can isolate them from real life.
The Vatican channel, www.you-tube.com/vatican, will broadcast short video news clips about the 81-year-old Pope's activities and Vatican and Church events, with audio and text initially in English, Spanish, German and Italian.
The daily video clips will be about two minutes long.They will be produced by the Vatican's television centre and Vatican Radio journalists and web managers.
The channel's launch was combined with the release of the Pope's message for the Church's World Day of Communications, whose theme is"New Technologies, New Relationships:Promoting a Culture of Respect, Dialogue and Friendship."
Henrique de Castro, managing director of European sales and media solutions for Google, which owns YouTube, told a news conference the YouTube channel will have no advertising and that Google would not make any money from the venture.
"Our strategy is to get people to come to our sites," he said.
The channel marks the Vatican's deepest plunge into new media.
The Vatican's website, www. vatican. va, began in 1995.
In his welcome message to YouTube users, the Pope said he hoped the initiative would be put to "the service of the truth".
In his separate, written message for the church's communications, he cautioned young people to seek quality and not quantity in their online relationships and not to forget human contact.
"It would be sad if our desire to sustain and develop online friendships were to be at the cost of our availability to engage with our families, our neighbours and those we meet in the daily reality of our places of work, education and recreation," the pope wrote.
"If the desire for virtual connectedness becomes obsessive, it may in fact function to isolate individuals from real social interaction while also disrupting the patterns of rest, silence and reflection that are necessary for healthy human development."
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
By Philip Pullella, ReutersJanuary 24, 2009 8:01 AM
Pope Benedict on Friday became one of the oldest people to have his own You-Tube channel. He cautioned the young to use new media wisely and avoid online obsessions that can isolate them from real life.
The Vatican channel, www.you-tube.com/vatican, will broadcast short video news clips about the 81-year-old Pope's activities and Vatican and Church events, with audio and text initially in English, Spanish, German and Italian.
The daily video clips will be about two minutes long.They will be produced by the Vatican's television centre and Vatican Radio journalists and web managers.
The channel's launch was combined with the release of the Pope's message for the Church's World Day of Communications, whose theme is"New Technologies, New Relationships:Promoting a Culture of Respect, Dialogue and Friendship."
Henrique de Castro, managing director of European sales and media solutions for Google, which owns YouTube, told a news conference the YouTube channel will have no advertising and that Google would not make any money from the venture.
"Our strategy is to get people to come to our sites," he said.
The channel marks the Vatican's deepest plunge into new media.
The Vatican's website, www. vatican. va, began in 1995.
In his welcome message to YouTube users, the Pope said he hoped the initiative would be put to "the service of the truth".
In his separate, written message for the church's communications, he cautioned young people to seek quality and not quantity in their online relationships and not to forget human contact.
"It would be sad if our desire to sustain and develop online friendships were to be at the cost of our availability to engage with our families, our neighbours and those we meet in the daily reality of our places of work, education and recreation," the pope wrote.
"If the desire for virtual connectedness becomes obsessive, it may in fact function to isolate individuals from real social interaction while also disrupting the patterns of rest, silence and reflection that are necessary for healthy human development."
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
Praying to the wrong saint?
Calgary HeraldFebruary 14, 2009
Today we celebrate the Feast of St. Valentine, the patron saint of happy unions. And for those who are not part of a happy couple, you're out of luck. The Catholic Church has just issued one more reason for lovelorn singletons to boycott St. Valentine's Day: Val, it seems, only blesses those who have already found true love.
But don't despair.The Catholic Church has a patron saint for everything, and within its canon, the angel Raphael is tasked with the job of playing Cupid.
Contrary to popular belief, St. Raphael is the universe's divine matchmaker, helping forge happy partnerships the world over.
"He's the person you should dedicate your day or pray to if you are looking for Mr. or Mrs. Right," says Claire Ward, the spokeswoman for the Catholic Enquiry Office.
According to the Book of Tobit (considered canonical by the Roman Catholic church, but not by Protestants), St. Raphael helped get Tobias to the church on time to marry the virtuous Sarah, after seven of her previous bridegrooms died on the eve of their weddings.
The Catholic office, concerned by a drop in Catholic weddings in England and Wales, even has a website offering a prayer to St. Raphael. He will help singles choose "a good and virtuous spouse," promises the prayer, describing Raphael as a "heavenly helper famed for his matchmaking prowess."
The prayer should be said for nine consecutive days, starting today( http://www.life4seekers.co.uk/lifestyle ... St.Raphael. html).Way to go, Ralphie. Here's hoping the greeting card companies don't find out about ya. In the meantime, Happy Valentine's Day.
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
Calgary HeraldFebruary 14, 2009
Today we celebrate the Feast of St. Valentine, the patron saint of happy unions. And for those who are not part of a happy couple, you're out of luck. The Catholic Church has just issued one more reason for lovelorn singletons to boycott St. Valentine's Day: Val, it seems, only blesses those who have already found true love.
But don't despair.The Catholic Church has a patron saint for everything, and within its canon, the angel Raphael is tasked with the job of playing Cupid.
Contrary to popular belief, St. Raphael is the universe's divine matchmaker, helping forge happy partnerships the world over.
"He's the person you should dedicate your day or pray to if you are looking for Mr. or Mrs. Right," says Claire Ward, the spokeswoman for the Catholic Enquiry Office.
According to the Book of Tobit (considered canonical by the Roman Catholic church, but not by Protestants), St. Raphael helped get Tobias to the church on time to marry the virtuous Sarah, after seven of her previous bridegrooms died on the eve of their weddings.
The Catholic office, concerned by a drop in Catholic weddings in England and Wales, even has a website offering a prayer to St. Raphael. He will help singles choose "a good and virtuous spouse," promises the prayer, describing Raphael as a "heavenly helper famed for his matchmaking prowess."
The prayer should be said for nine consecutive days, starting today( http://www.life4seekers.co.uk/lifestyle ... St.Raphael. html).Way to go, Ralphie. Here's hoping the greeting card companies don't find out about ya. In the meantime, Happy Valentine's Day.
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
This is an interesting article about the notion of sin and institutionalized forgiveness. Has some parallels in our tradition...
February 13, 2009, 8:37 pm
Sin, and Its Indulgences
By The Editors
(Photo: Nicole Bengiveno/New York Times)
Catholic churches have recently revived indulgences, a spiritual tradition that faded away in the 1960’s after the Second Vatican Council. The indulgence, as Paul Vitello of The New York Times explained in a recent article, is “a sort of amnesty from punishment in the afterlife.” Some liberal Catholics see the return of indulgences as a setback to modernization of the church. But church leaders say they deepen the spiritual experience of seeking penance.
What are the historical roots of indulgences and the implications of their revival?
John L. Allen Jr., correspondent for The National Catholic Reporter Robert W. Staffern, professor of medieval history Colleen Carroll Campbell, author of a study on young Catholics Leonard Swidler, professor of Catholic thought
Interesting and related links at;
http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/ ... 8ty&emc=ty
February 13, 2009, 8:37 pm
Sin, and Its Indulgences
By The Editors
(Photo: Nicole Bengiveno/New York Times)
Catholic churches have recently revived indulgences, a spiritual tradition that faded away in the 1960’s after the Second Vatican Council. The indulgence, as Paul Vitello of The New York Times explained in a recent article, is “a sort of amnesty from punishment in the afterlife.” Some liberal Catholics see the return of indulgences as a setback to modernization of the church. But church leaders say they deepen the spiritual experience of seeking penance.
What are the historical roots of indulgences and the implications of their revival?
John L. Allen Jr., correspondent for The National Catholic Reporter Robert W. Staffern, professor of medieval history Colleen Carroll Campbell, author of a study on young Catholics Leonard Swidler, professor of Catholic thought
Interesting and related links at;
http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/ ... 8ty&emc=ty
Pope out of touch with real world: Vatican insider
Herald News ServicesMarch 20, 2009
Pope Benedict's repeated gaffes and the Vatican's inability to manage his messages in the Internet era are threatening to undermine his papacy, Vatican insiders said Thursday.
The Holy See is struggling to contain international anger over the Pope's claim on his first official visit to Africa that AIDS "cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which even aggravates the problems."
His remarks--and a recent furor over his lifting of the 20-year excommunication of a British bishop who questioned the Holocaust --has left him looking isolated and out of touch.
One Vatican insider described the Pope's four-year-old papacy as "a disaster," recalling his previous inflammatory remarks on Islam and homosexuality.
"He's out of touch with the real world," the insider said. "There are priests and bishops in Africa who accept that condoms are a key part of the fight against AIDS, and yet the Pope adheres to this very conservative line that they encourage promiscuity."
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
Herald News ServicesMarch 20, 2009
Pope Benedict's repeated gaffes and the Vatican's inability to manage his messages in the Internet era are threatening to undermine his papacy, Vatican insiders said Thursday.
The Holy See is struggling to contain international anger over the Pope's claim on his first official visit to Africa that AIDS "cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which even aggravates the problems."
His remarks--and a recent furor over his lifting of the 20-year excommunication of a British bishop who questioned the Holocaust --has left him looking isolated and out of touch.
One Vatican insider described the Pope's four-year-old papacy as "a disaster," recalling his previous inflammatory remarks on Islam and homosexuality.
"He's out of touch with the real world," the insider said. "There are priests and bishops in Africa who accept that condoms are a key part of the fight against AIDS, and yet the Pope adheres to this very conservative line that they encourage promiscuity."
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
Facebook users urged to send condoms to Pope
Canwest News ServiceMarch 28, 2009
Pope Benedict was accused on Friday of "distorting" scientific evidence --following his claim that distributing condoms in Africa was exacerbating the HIV-AIDS crisis.
The British publication The Lancet, one of the world's most respected medical journals, demanded a retraction of his comments, which it claimed manipulated science to promote the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church.
"Whether the Pope's error was due to ignorance or a deliberate attempt to manipulate science to support Catholic ideology is unclear," the journal said in an editorial, which demanded a retraction of the remarks.
The Pope was criticized after saying during his African tour that condoms not only did not help stem the spread of HIV, but they in fact "aggravated" the problem by encouraging promiscuity.
The Vatican faces the prospect of being bombarded with condoms in a protest organized through Facebook, a social networking website. Up to 60,000 people have pledged to send condoms to him in the next few days.
Campaigners described it as "peaceful provocation" by young people.
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
****
Harvard Expert Agrees With the Pope - No Proof Condoms Help Slow Infection Rate
Saturday March 28, 2009
A few weeks ago, Pope Benedict XVI was criticized for downplaying the importance of condoms in the fight to slow HIV infection rates. Now a Harvard expert on HIV prevention supports the Pope's position. Edward C. Green director of the AIDS Prevention Center at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies says there is no consistent association between condom availability and HIV infection rates. He claims that if condom distribution was working, after 25 years we should have seen a difference in the infection rate. More conflicting messages about condoms will only make it more difficult to change people's high risk behaviors. While condoms are the only answer they are a very important part of our fight to slow the HIV infection rate.
http://aids.about.com/b/2009/03/28/harv ... tion-2.htm
Canwest News ServiceMarch 28, 2009
Pope Benedict was accused on Friday of "distorting" scientific evidence --following his claim that distributing condoms in Africa was exacerbating the HIV-AIDS crisis.
The British publication The Lancet, one of the world's most respected medical journals, demanded a retraction of his comments, which it claimed manipulated science to promote the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church.
"Whether the Pope's error was due to ignorance or a deliberate attempt to manipulate science to support Catholic ideology is unclear," the journal said in an editorial, which demanded a retraction of the remarks.
The Pope was criticized after saying during his African tour that condoms not only did not help stem the spread of HIV, but they in fact "aggravated" the problem by encouraging promiscuity.
The Vatican faces the prospect of being bombarded with condoms in a protest organized through Facebook, a social networking website. Up to 60,000 people have pledged to send condoms to him in the next few days.
Campaigners described it as "peaceful provocation" by young people.
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
****
Harvard Expert Agrees With the Pope - No Proof Condoms Help Slow Infection Rate
Saturday March 28, 2009
A few weeks ago, Pope Benedict XVI was criticized for downplaying the importance of condoms in the fight to slow HIV infection rates. Now a Harvard expert on HIV prevention supports the Pope's position. Edward C. Green director of the AIDS Prevention Center at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies says there is no consistent association between condom availability and HIV infection rates. He claims that if condom distribution was working, after 25 years we should have seen a difference in the infection rate. More conflicting messages about condoms will only make it more difficult to change people's high risk behaviors. While condoms are the only answer they are a very important part of our fight to slow the HIV infection rate.
http://aids.about.com/b/2009/03/28/harv ... tion-2.htm
and does the 10 commandments teach anything about abusing others faith ??remember: LORD JESUS CHANGES HEARTS AND NOT MY POST.
your posts are usually anti ismaili in almost all the forums and here you are talking about christianity
if you wanna talk about christianity be a true christian first and then try to teach people.
Christ's cross leads to purpose-filled life for many
By Warren Harbeck, For The Calgary HeraldApril 10, 2009
The cross is inseparable from the message of Easter. For Christianity, it is both a cross of suffering and a cross of victory, a cross of death and a cross of new life.
The 19th century hymn writer John Bowring declares:
In the Cross of Christ I glory,
Towering o'er the wrecks of time;
All the light of sacred story
Gathers round its head sublime.
And just what is this "sacred story" that has elevated this instrument of unbearable torture into a symbol of unfathomable hope?
No mere trinket dangling from a charm bracelet, the cross in the Roman Empire of 2,000 years ago was anything but charming. You could hang from it as a means of execution --capital punishment for all kinds of offences, from murder and insurrection, to theft, and yes, even to accepting the title, "the Messiah, the Son of God,"which, according to the Gospel of Matthew, was Jesus' "offence."
"Offence?" What possible offence could there be in a long-awaited Messiah proclaiming, "Blessed are the poor," "Blessed are the pure in heart," "Blessed are the peacemakers,"
"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness"?
What possible offence could there be in proclaiming "release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind"?
What possible offence could there be in staring death in the face and praying, "Not what I want but what you want?"
Here was what the invisible, compassionate presence of God looked like in flesh and blood. And in His self-awareness, Jesus dared even to say, "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father."
Yet hadn't Jesus taught His followers, that "unless a grain of wheat falls in the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain?"
In enduring the cross and scorning its shame, and anticipating His resurrection from the dead and the outpouring of His Spirit upon many, had He not become that grain that brought forth a field of wheat across the centuries and in all its varieties? Wheat filled with one and the same Spirit that was in Him? Wheat that was to become bread for a spiritually-starved world?
So, was this His ultimate offence? As the Son of God, being that grain of wheat?
And were His accusers and executioners unwitting accomplices in the germination of that grain of wheat?
Jesus' cross, far from being a scandal, became the catalyst for something better. In the cross, the sun had gone down on one day and risen on another.
Exclusivity yielded to inclusivity. Not just a few, but all people of godly longing would find their life's purpose in bearing fruit just as Jesus did, for the same scripture that declares "God is love" goes on to say that, like Him, "so are we in this world."
This linkage of lifestyle with wheat and the cross is brought into sharp focus for Christians in Holy Communion.
Jesus referred to Himself as the Bread of Life, the wheat that nourishes others through His brokenness. He called on His followers, likewise, to take up the cross and become bread broken for others.
I'll conclude this Good Friday column with the refrain from Rory Cooney's popular hymn, "Bread of Life," often sung during Communion:
I myself am the bread of life,
You and I are the bread of life,
Taken and blessed, broken and shared by Christ,
That the world might live.
Warren Harbeck Is A Scripture scHolar and Writer living in cocHrane.
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
By Warren Harbeck, For The Calgary HeraldApril 10, 2009
The cross is inseparable from the message of Easter. For Christianity, it is both a cross of suffering and a cross of victory, a cross of death and a cross of new life.
The 19th century hymn writer John Bowring declares:
In the Cross of Christ I glory,
Towering o'er the wrecks of time;
All the light of sacred story
Gathers round its head sublime.
And just what is this "sacred story" that has elevated this instrument of unbearable torture into a symbol of unfathomable hope?
No mere trinket dangling from a charm bracelet, the cross in the Roman Empire of 2,000 years ago was anything but charming. You could hang from it as a means of execution --capital punishment for all kinds of offences, from murder and insurrection, to theft, and yes, even to accepting the title, "the Messiah, the Son of God,"which, according to the Gospel of Matthew, was Jesus' "offence."
"Offence?" What possible offence could there be in a long-awaited Messiah proclaiming, "Blessed are the poor," "Blessed are the pure in heart," "Blessed are the peacemakers,"
"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness"?
What possible offence could there be in proclaiming "release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind"?
What possible offence could there be in staring death in the face and praying, "Not what I want but what you want?"
Here was what the invisible, compassionate presence of God looked like in flesh and blood. And in His self-awareness, Jesus dared even to say, "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father."
Yet hadn't Jesus taught His followers, that "unless a grain of wheat falls in the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain?"
In enduring the cross and scorning its shame, and anticipating His resurrection from the dead and the outpouring of His Spirit upon many, had He not become that grain that brought forth a field of wheat across the centuries and in all its varieties? Wheat filled with one and the same Spirit that was in Him? Wheat that was to become bread for a spiritually-starved world?
So, was this His ultimate offence? As the Son of God, being that grain of wheat?
And were His accusers and executioners unwitting accomplices in the germination of that grain of wheat?
Jesus' cross, far from being a scandal, became the catalyst for something better. In the cross, the sun had gone down on one day and risen on another.
Exclusivity yielded to inclusivity. Not just a few, but all people of godly longing would find their life's purpose in bearing fruit just as Jesus did, for the same scripture that declares "God is love" goes on to say that, like Him, "so are we in this world."
This linkage of lifestyle with wheat and the cross is brought into sharp focus for Christians in Holy Communion.
Jesus referred to Himself as the Bread of Life, the wheat that nourishes others through His brokenness. He called on His followers, likewise, to take up the cross and become bread broken for others.
I'll conclude this Good Friday column with the refrain from Rory Cooney's popular hymn, "Bread of Life," often sung during Communion:
I myself am the bread of life,
You and I are the bread of life,
Taken and blessed, broken and shared by Christ,
That the world might live.
Warren Harbeck Is A Scripture scHolar and Writer living in cocHrane.
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
April 11, 2009
Op-Ed Contributor
Finding Our Way Back to Lent
By JAMES CARROLL
Boston
MOST American Catholics were well acquainted with poverty even before the stock market crash of 1929. My mother quit school after eighth grade to add a wage to the family income. Later, she supported my father as he went to night school. Like millions of Catholics, their faith was a source of meaning and dignity at a time when both were in short supply.
The Depression stamped them for life. Born into the aftermath, I was shaped by those years as well. During these past weeks, I’ve worried that we might be facing an unexpected replay of our parents’ and grandparents’ economic distress. But I’ve also been remembering more vividly the Lenten seasons of my midcentury childhood, when I most sharply felt the pull of Catholicism.
By requiring fasting and abstinence, the observance of Lent somehow helped us cope with the multitude of other deprivations we could not choose or escape. My brothers and I gave up candy, but what really impressed us was Mom forgoing Chesterfields and Dad going “on the wagon,” which meant, he laughed, drinking from only the water cart.
From February on, I counted the turning pages of the calendar. The main point was to get through those 40 days. It was the same number of days a famished Jesus spent in the desert and the number of years the Hebrews wandered in the wilderness. “God’s will” was the name we gave to suffering, and God’s grace was the promise that it would end ... eventually.
There was always doom in the air of the penitential season, and Lenten fervor was fueled by dread, as the oft-recited Act of Contrition put it, “of the loss of heaven and the fires of hell.” A damning God demanded penance, sacrifice and constant vigilance. My first wallet, a gift when I received the sacrament of confirmation, came with a card that defined my initiation: “I am a Catholic. In case of an accident, please call a priest.”
The Catholic theology of damnation was mitigated, if not eliminated, by the reforms of the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s. The dread of Hell evaporated as Catholics embraced a far more positive, all-merciful God. Those wallet cards disappeared overnight, and we started eating meat on Fridays. The sadomasochist in the sky, divine zapper, was gone, along with the gatekeeping role of the clergy.
Lent remains an important part of the Catholic calendar, but self-denial now, more suggested than required, aims less at penitence than at compassionate identification with, as Pope Benedict wrote at the beginning of this year’s Lent, the impoverished “situation in which so many of our brothers and sisters live.” Like Lent, today’s economic crisis can help stir that overdue empathy.
Still, as for self-denial, one could be forgiven this year, perhaps, for wanting to give it up. There are plenty of difficulties in everyday life without choosing to increase them. Job loss is hell enough. In affluent America, seemingly out of nowhere, material insecurity has undermined assurance, and familiar structures of order have tumbled with the indexes.
Lent offers one answer to today’s new reality. The season begins with the word “Remember,” uttered as a blot of ashes is smudged on the forehead. Remembering the transience of life — ashes to ashes, dust to dust — remains the essence of the observance. This year, I received my ashes at the Catholic church across the street from Harvard University, where the basilica was surprisingly overflowing with hundreds of undergraduates — a privileged elite attending to what every person has in common, and wants ordinarily to deny.
All things are passing; this is the unsettling fact from which, during normal times, we’ve tried to escape by acquiring money and spending it. A consciousness of our own mortality — made more acute by material worries — reminds us of what matters most in life, including intimations, however they come, of what lies beyond, whatever it is.
Lent concludes today, but this probably isn’t the end of our troubles. There is nothing wrong with job security, and there is nothing right with suffering, but insecurity is normal again. Lent tells us we may as well get used to it — and remember that it always was.
James Carroll, a columnist on leave from the Boston Globe and a scholar in residence at Suffolk University, is the author, most recently, of “Practicing Catholic.”
Op-Ed Contributor
Finding Our Way Back to Lent
By JAMES CARROLL
Boston
MOST American Catholics were well acquainted with poverty even before the stock market crash of 1929. My mother quit school after eighth grade to add a wage to the family income. Later, she supported my father as he went to night school. Like millions of Catholics, their faith was a source of meaning and dignity at a time when both were in short supply.
The Depression stamped them for life. Born into the aftermath, I was shaped by those years as well. During these past weeks, I’ve worried that we might be facing an unexpected replay of our parents’ and grandparents’ economic distress. But I’ve also been remembering more vividly the Lenten seasons of my midcentury childhood, when I most sharply felt the pull of Catholicism.
By requiring fasting and abstinence, the observance of Lent somehow helped us cope with the multitude of other deprivations we could not choose or escape. My brothers and I gave up candy, but what really impressed us was Mom forgoing Chesterfields and Dad going “on the wagon,” which meant, he laughed, drinking from only the water cart.
From February on, I counted the turning pages of the calendar. The main point was to get through those 40 days. It was the same number of days a famished Jesus spent in the desert and the number of years the Hebrews wandered in the wilderness. “God’s will” was the name we gave to suffering, and God’s grace was the promise that it would end ... eventually.
There was always doom in the air of the penitential season, and Lenten fervor was fueled by dread, as the oft-recited Act of Contrition put it, “of the loss of heaven and the fires of hell.” A damning God demanded penance, sacrifice and constant vigilance. My first wallet, a gift when I received the sacrament of confirmation, came with a card that defined my initiation: “I am a Catholic. In case of an accident, please call a priest.”
The Catholic theology of damnation was mitigated, if not eliminated, by the reforms of the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s. The dread of Hell evaporated as Catholics embraced a far more positive, all-merciful God. Those wallet cards disappeared overnight, and we started eating meat on Fridays. The sadomasochist in the sky, divine zapper, was gone, along with the gatekeeping role of the clergy.
Lent remains an important part of the Catholic calendar, but self-denial now, more suggested than required, aims less at penitence than at compassionate identification with, as Pope Benedict wrote at the beginning of this year’s Lent, the impoverished “situation in which so many of our brothers and sisters live.” Like Lent, today’s economic crisis can help stir that overdue empathy.
Still, as for self-denial, one could be forgiven this year, perhaps, for wanting to give it up. There are plenty of difficulties in everyday life without choosing to increase them. Job loss is hell enough. In affluent America, seemingly out of nowhere, material insecurity has undermined assurance, and familiar structures of order have tumbled with the indexes.
Lent offers one answer to today’s new reality. The season begins with the word “Remember,” uttered as a blot of ashes is smudged on the forehead. Remembering the transience of life — ashes to ashes, dust to dust — remains the essence of the observance. This year, I received my ashes at the Catholic church across the street from Harvard University, where the basilica was surprisingly overflowing with hundreds of undergraduates — a privileged elite attending to what every person has in common, and wants ordinarily to deny.
All things are passing; this is the unsettling fact from which, during normal times, we’ve tried to escape by acquiring money and spending it. A consciousness of our own mortality — made more acute by material worries — reminds us of what matters most in life, including intimations, however they come, of what lies beyond, whatever it is.
Lent concludes today, but this probably isn’t the end of our troubles. There is nothing wrong with job security, and there is nothing right with suffering, but insecurity is normal again. Lent tells us we may as well get used to it — and remember that it always was.
James Carroll, a columnist on leave from the Boston Globe and a scholar in residence at Suffolk University, is the author, most recently, of “Practicing Catholic.”
Easter brings promise of life, hope and redemption
For the Calgary Herald
April 12, 2009
The Cross alone could not explain the Christian faith, indeed, it would remain a tragedy, an indication of the absurdity of being. "If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain . . . and you are still in your sins" (1 Cor 15: 14-17). Without the fact of the Resurrection, the Christian life would be simply in vain.
The enemies of the Christian faith have attempted to debunk or to deny the Resurrection in many different ways.
For instance, Jesus didn't really die but merely swooned or fainted on the cross; the women went to the wrong tomb; the disciples stole the body; early Christians, either consciously or unconsciously, conformed the story of Jesus to pagan legends and mystery cults surrounding the dying and rising gods; the appearances are apocalyptic creations; the appearances are the result of mass suggestion; the family tomb of Jesus had recently been found in Talpiot (shades of the silly Da Vinci Code all over again). And so on.
It is easy to respond to each of these challenges, but the primary importance is to be accorded to the theme of the appearances, which constitute a fundamental condition for belief in the Risen One who left the tomb empty.
Jesus' resurrection was not a return to a body again subject to death.
It is not to be considered as on the same level as the resuscitation of Lazarus or that of the widow's son of Nairn.
It is essentially the entry of Christ into a new mode of existence, his exaltation in glory.
Certain elements do, however, tend to come up again and again in the various accounts: the fact that the apostles at first doubted; the reality of the body of the Risen Lord; the implicit assertion of Jesus' Lordship in the mission appearances; the link between seeing the Risen Lord and having an official mission.
As a result of these appearances, the disciples are radically transformed.
The disciples, who have not distinguished themselves for their brilliance, and having proved themselves cowardly, suddenly become fearless, and make converts in the very city of Jesus' humiliation and death--even though be-coming a Christian meant a break with the former community, and some were eventually martyred for their preaching.
The Lord's Day is changed from the Sabbath to Sunday and the latter is now perceived as the true Day of the Lord, the day of the new creation.
The novelty of the Resurrection consists in the fact that Jesus, raised from the lowliness of his earthly existence, is constituted Son of God "in power." Jesus, humiliated up to the moment of his death on the cross, can now say to the eleven, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me," (Mat-thew 28: 18).
With the Resurrection begins the proclamation of the Gospel of Christ to all peoples--the Kingdom of Christ begins--this new Kingdom that knows no power other than that of truth and love. The Resurrection thus reveals definitively the real identity and the extraordinary stature of the Crucified One. An incomparable and towering dignity: Jesus is God!
To live in the belief in Jesus Christ, to live in truth and love implies daily sacrifice, implies suffering. Christianity is not the easy road; it is, rather, a difficult climb, but one illuminated by the light of Christ and by the great hope that is born of him.
The meaning of the Resurrection can't be exhausted but it at least means that history has a goal towards which it moves.
A new age of fulfilment has begun, and it rules out any understanding of human history which appeals to futility. - The right meaning of history's goal is to be seen in the life and death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.
Suffering is not an accidental fluke in an otherwise sensible history but part of its sense,
- History has surprises; there are novelties in the course of history; that the course of history, like the course of our lives, can be changed,
- God not only will act, but He is already acting; constant pressure on the kingdoms of this world,
- The destiny of each one of us is bound up with the destiny of all, and with the whole created reality,
- Judgment and mercy outlast even death,
- Jesus' resurrection proclaims that death, whatever else it negates, does not negate the power of God,
- Jesus's resurrection is a representation of our resurrection, what God has raised was not Jesus's memory or his message, but his person,
- Death does not negate the individual person. Our bodies will be transformed but there will be essential continuity.
The believer, however, finds himself between two poles.
On the one hand, the Resurrection, which in a certain sense is already present and operating within us, and on the other, the urgency to enter into the process which leads everyone and everything towards that fullness described in the Letter to the Romans with a bold image: As the whole of Creation groans and suffers almost as with the pangs of childbirth, so we groan in the expectation of the redemption of our bodies, of our redemption and resurrection (cf. Rom. 8: 18-23).
Fred Henry is the catholic bishop of Calgary
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
For the Calgary Herald
April 12, 2009
The Cross alone could not explain the Christian faith, indeed, it would remain a tragedy, an indication of the absurdity of being. "If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain . . . and you are still in your sins" (1 Cor 15: 14-17). Without the fact of the Resurrection, the Christian life would be simply in vain.
The enemies of the Christian faith have attempted to debunk or to deny the Resurrection in many different ways.
For instance, Jesus didn't really die but merely swooned or fainted on the cross; the women went to the wrong tomb; the disciples stole the body; early Christians, either consciously or unconsciously, conformed the story of Jesus to pagan legends and mystery cults surrounding the dying and rising gods; the appearances are apocalyptic creations; the appearances are the result of mass suggestion; the family tomb of Jesus had recently been found in Talpiot (shades of the silly Da Vinci Code all over again). And so on.
It is easy to respond to each of these challenges, but the primary importance is to be accorded to the theme of the appearances, which constitute a fundamental condition for belief in the Risen One who left the tomb empty.
Jesus' resurrection was not a return to a body again subject to death.
It is not to be considered as on the same level as the resuscitation of Lazarus or that of the widow's son of Nairn.
It is essentially the entry of Christ into a new mode of existence, his exaltation in glory.
Certain elements do, however, tend to come up again and again in the various accounts: the fact that the apostles at first doubted; the reality of the body of the Risen Lord; the implicit assertion of Jesus' Lordship in the mission appearances; the link between seeing the Risen Lord and having an official mission.
As a result of these appearances, the disciples are radically transformed.
The disciples, who have not distinguished themselves for their brilliance, and having proved themselves cowardly, suddenly become fearless, and make converts in the very city of Jesus' humiliation and death--even though be-coming a Christian meant a break with the former community, and some were eventually martyred for their preaching.
The Lord's Day is changed from the Sabbath to Sunday and the latter is now perceived as the true Day of the Lord, the day of the new creation.
The novelty of the Resurrection consists in the fact that Jesus, raised from the lowliness of his earthly existence, is constituted Son of God "in power." Jesus, humiliated up to the moment of his death on the cross, can now say to the eleven, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me," (Mat-thew 28: 18).
With the Resurrection begins the proclamation of the Gospel of Christ to all peoples--the Kingdom of Christ begins--this new Kingdom that knows no power other than that of truth and love. The Resurrection thus reveals definitively the real identity and the extraordinary stature of the Crucified One. An incomparable and towering dignity: Jesus is God!
To live in the belief in Jesus Christ, to live in truth and love implies daily sacrifice, implies suffering. Christianity is not the easy road; it is, rather, a difficult climb, but one illuminated by the light of Christ and by the great hope that is born of him.
The meaning of the Resurrection can't be exhausted but it at least means that history has a goal towards which it moves.
A new age of fulfilment has begun, and it rules out any understanding of human history which appeals to futility. - The right meaning of history's goal is to be seen in the life and death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.
Suffering is not an accidental fluke in an otherwise sensible history but part of its sense,
- History has surprises; there are novelties in the course of history; that the course of history, like the course of our lives, can be changed,
- God not only will act, but He is already acting; constant pressure on the kingdoms of this world,
- The destiny of each one of us is bound up with the destiny of all, and with the whole created reality,
- Judgment and mercy outlast even death,
- Jesus' resurrection proclaims that death, whatever else it negates, does not negate the power of God,
- Jesus's resurrection is a representation of our resurrection, what God has raised was not Jesus's memory or his message, but his person,
- Death does not negate the individual person. Our bodies will be transformed but there will be essential continuity.
The believer, however, finds himself between two poles.
On the one hand, the Resurrection, which in a certain sense is already present and operating within us, and on the other, the urgency to enter into the process which leads everyone and everything towards that fullness described in the Letter to the Romans with a bold image: As the whole of Creation groans and suffers almost as with the pangs of childbirth, so we groan in the expectation of the redemption of our bodies, of our redemption and resurrection (cf. Rom. 8: 18-23).
Fred Henry is the catholic bishop of Calgary
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald