02 December 2008

Fr. Philip's Vocation Story

I was born a poor white child. . .in rural Mississippi. Sorry, couldn't resist. Nonetheless, it's true.

Both sides of my family are Mississippi delta cotton farmers. Though no one farms now, both of my grandfathers planted cotton. My mother and all of her sisters "chopped cotton." My dad drove a tractor. All of them went to church. My mother's family went to the Baptist Church and my dad's family went to the Methodist Church.

My first memory of church goes back to the sixth grade when my mom and dad sent me and my little brother to Vacation Bible School. Mostly I remember being the only kid that week who had not "accepted Jesus into his heart as his personal Lord and savior." Come Friday, feeling the pressure, I walked the aisle, said the necessary things, and walked back to my pew complete with Jesus. It didn't take.

For the most part my family back then was not a church-going bunch. We went occasionally, but mostly we spent Sundays working in the gardens, the yards, doing necessary work around the house and farm. Sometime my sophomore year, mom and dad decided to start going to church again. They chose a United Methodist Church in the largest town near us. It was the local "bankers' and doctors'" church. Lots of old money. Lots of nice cars. Lots of snooty glances at the rubes from the woods. I hated it. We stopped going after about six months.

That next year I went to Mexico with my junior Spanish class. We cut and sold firewood from my family's property to pay for the trip. Our teacher, a Catholic woman, helped us with the hard labor and with our Spanish. Up until we got to the National Cathedral and the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the trip had been a bust for me. My roommates were jerks. I didn't have much money. And my Spanish was rotten. When we arrived at the plaza in front of the cathedral, one of a hundred tour buses packed full of tourists, I stood up and started to the front of the bus like a robot. One more stop, one more site, snap a pic, get back on the cool bus. Little did I know. . .

The second I stepped off the bus, even before my foot hit the pavement, I notices crowds of older women in black on their knees slowly making their way to the shrine. They were praying with these necklaces in their hands. I turned to my teacher and asked what was going on. While she formulated an answer I was horrified to see that these women had bloodied their knees crawling on the gravel and pavement. What kind of religion was this?! My teacher said something about devotion and praying for sons in the drug world and some other things about Mary. I didn't really hear it all.

When we got inside the cathedral, I was overwhelmed with a sense of familiarity and comfort. Just this energetic boost of being home and welcomed. There was a Mass going on. I pestered my teacher for details. She explained what she could. She showed me how to make the sign of cross using holy water. How to kneel. She told me the names of all the fantastical objects in the church--the crucifix, the statues of Mary and the saints, the fonts and confessionals and altars. I was overwhelmed. It was like someone was reminding me of things I had known all my life.

As I look back on that day what I know now is that God trapped me with the sacramental imagination. He was showing me His presence in all the things of this sacred place. I "recognized" them as holy, as set-aside, because without having the words to articulate the feeling, I felt holy as well, loved, wanted. With this feeling still rattling around inside, we walked over to the newly opened Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe. I knew nothing about this. Nothing at all. The story, once I heard it, didn't impress me all that much. Sounded kinda far-fetched to me. The new basilica was ugly. Stark, angular, modern, cold. Nothing like the near primitive wonder of the cathedral. We saw the relic. Big deal. Move on.

With the vision of the bloody old ladies still in my head and the incense still in my nose. And maybe even a bead or two of holy water still clinging to my forehead, I got back on the bus and started in on my teacher. I pestered her some more about why she was Catholic and where I could get more information and could I come to Mass at her Church and did her Church have classes for people who wanted to be Catholics and on and on and on. . .she good-naturedly answered my questions.

We drove over the mountains to a village called Taxco. A silver mining town for tourists. Our hotel perched on the side of the mountain and my room had a balcony looking out over the valley. At midnight the local set off a stream of fireworks. I went to the balcony. It was very breezy and cold for a Mexican March night. Just standing there alone watching the fireworks I had this sudden sense that everything around me was rushing toward me, almost as if I were falling standing straight up. For just a few seconds I didn't hear anything. Going back to bed, I prayed--something I never did!--and simply asked God to tell me what to do.

I woke up the next morning convinced I should be a priest. After that I started having dreams.

I was vested in red and saying Mass in my high school auditorium.
I was teaching a class and a man called me out of the classroom to say Mass.
I was standing in a sacristy and couldn't find the right vestments.
I was in the middle of saying Mass and the sacramentary was all wrong, misprinted. . .

Eventually, I told my grandmother. She gave me a cigar box full of Catholic paraphernalia: a rosary, prayer cards, a small crucifix, and a "question and answer" catechism, which never left my side. I took it to school and embarrassed myself arguing with the Baptists. Even my teachers got in on the arguments! The stuff in that box became a tangible link for me to the Church.

When my parents found out that I wanted to be a priest, they were a little upset. They put up some resistance at first but eventually gave way. By this time I had gone off to college and joined the Episcopal Church. Why the Episcopal Church and not the Catholic? The E.C. in my college town was an old-fashioned brick building built in the 1830's. Stained glass. Brass fixtures. Beautiful hangings. The priests there wore their clerics. The music was thundering, beautifully sung. The services were "churchy." The Catholic Church in town was easily confused with a dentist office. Built in the late 70's, it was a box with those 7-11 glass doors and the whole "stripped bare" vibe. No statues. No tabernacle. No stained glass. No nothing that identified this building as a Catholic Church. The services were informal to the point of being just slightly more organized than a Baptist picnic. The music was folksy guitar, hand-clapping, tamborine banging. The priest wore ugly, ugly, ugly vestments. There was absolutely nothing solemn, nothing transcendent, nothing attractive about any of it. The choice to become Episcopalian was too easy.

I was baptized in the E.C. in 1982 and confirmed later that year. I immediately went to the rector and told him that I wanted to be an Episcoplian priest. I was 18. He told me to finish my undergrad studies, think about getting a masters, and come back when I was around 24 to discuss the whole thing again. 24?! That was middle-aged!! Anyway, I became very active in my parish. After a few years and well into grad school, I had a falling out with the rector. Being a good Protestant, I stopped going to church in protest. In the meantime, all sorts of ideologies, practices, philosophies, and personalities were drawing my attention.

Since the E.C. offered almost nothing in the way of solid teaching on moral deliberation or anything in the way of substantial intellectual formation, I fell prey to one dubious theology after another. Finally, in my last year of PhD studies, I was convinced that God did not exist. Despite this, I was convinced by a British prof teaching in my department that I should move to the U.K. and become a "red priest," that is, an Anglican priest who rejects theism but works in the church for "social justice" using Marxist/socialist categories as guides.

I decided to take a year out and teach English in China. That was a disaster. However, I came back to the States rededicated to my vocation to become an Episcopal priest. I started the formal discernment process in my diocese--a two year procedural grind that worked to discourage many people by its sheer complexity and futility. I served as the guinea pig postulant for my parish "discernment committee." The whole thing was a farce. At the time, I submitted to it out of a sense of wanting to collaborate and a sense that the Spirit would work through the committee to help me discern my vocation.

The details of the process would be book-length so I'll have to summarize: I spent two years meeting nearly weekly with nine lay people from the parish who asked the same questions over and over again. . .eventually they sent a positive recommendation to the vestry of the parish who then met with me to ask me the same questions over and over again. On the night of the vestry vote on whether or not to send my application to the bishop, every single member of the vestry looked me in the eye and told me that I had his/her support and vote. I went home confirmed in my vocation and ready to start seminary. At around 11.30pm, the rector called to tell me that the vestry had rejected my application. The reason: I had the stuff for making a good priest but just not yet mature enough. I was 28 at the time. The rector could not tell me why those voting against my application had lied to me earlier.

This rejection sent me into an anti-religious tailspin. It was during this time that I pursued my interests in the occult and became more and more enamored with Marxism. I spent two years finishing up doctoral coursework and preparing for comprehensive exams. After passing my orals, the prospectus defense, and suffering through several personal traumas, I left the academic world for a job in the psychiatric world. Once in place in my new home, I begain to pursue the priesthood again. This time in another diocese with another parish. At the urging of my parish priest, a woman from Mississippi, I took on a Catholic spiritual director, a Paulist priest in a local parish. Over a year with him I found my Catholic vocation again.

On the national scene, the E.C. was committing suicide with one disastrous lurch away from the historic faith after another. Finally, in 1995, I had had enough and left the E.C. to become a Catholic. I joined the RCC as a liberal High Church Episcopalian, meaning I was formally a Catholic but my theology and church politics were modernist and my liturgical tastes were medieval. I still didn't care for the informal, hippie-dippie Catholic liturgy, but the friendliness and community that the RCC had compared very favorably the chill I felt in the cliquey country club world of the EC.

Once confirmed, I immediately started the process for joining the Paulists. I spent two years in discernment with these guys. On the advice of the vocations director, I quit my excellent job at the hospital and moved home to spend the summer before entering seminary with my parents. I got a job in a local psych hospital and basically spent my free time getting "caught up" on all things Catholic and Paulist. In June of 1998, I came home from work and my mom told me that the Fr. John, the Paulist vocations director, has called and wanted me to call him back. I did. He told me that the president of the Paulists had rejected my application for admission. Fr. John would not tell me why. He said, "They're afraid you will sue us." Apparently, Fr. John should not have encouraged me to quit my job before the final decision about my application was made!

I was devastated. My mom wanted me to drop the whole idea of priesthood. I agreed. I walked around the house that day, saying over and over again, "What am I going to do?" My mom kept crying and telling me to just forget the priesthood, get a job, get an apartment, and be happy doing that. In the meantime, I was injured at work and got a staph infection in the injured site (first lumbar disc). I spent the next seven months in agony--both physical and mental, trying to deal with doctors, hospitals, insurance people. It was during that period of pain, dependence, helplessness, and rebellion that I finally found my niche. Accidently.

I was browsing an internet site that had an alphabetic listing of links to the websites of men's religious orders. Most of them I had never heard of. I spotted one that intrigued me "Discalced Carmelites." As I went to click on the link, I accidently clicked on the link for "Dominicans." I was taken to the order's main webpage and it took me all of three minutes to find the US provinces and the southern province. I contacted the vocation director via email and the next day he called to chat with me for two hours. About a week later he came from New Orleans to my parents' house in Mississippi to interview me. We spent six hours together. He offered me an application at the end of the meeting.

What was special about this discernment? Over the years I've complicated the whole affair into something it isn't. For me, the simple truth is this: the Dominicans wanted me. The Episcopalians didn't want me. The Paulist rejected me. The Dominicans wanted me, and they promised to make use of my gifts. I was accepted into the 1999-2000 novitiate class. My acceptance was contingent on my finishing the PhD before July 1999. I wrote furiously from Feb to July, finishing a first draft by the time my plane left. I graduated with the PhD in May of 2000. I was simply professed in 2000; solemnly professed in 2003; ordained deacon in 2004 and priest in 2005.

Smooth sailing the whole way, you ask. Ohhhhh, no. The novitiate was very hard. My studium years were extremely difficult. I made the move from being an ideological Marixist with religious pretensions to being an orthodox Catholic. The move has not been applauded by all of my brothers and sisters in the Order. Sometimes, I get the impression that there is some "buyer's remorse" about accepting my application! However, I have found many brothers and sisters in the Order (from the whole theological spectrum) who share St Dominic's zeal for preaching the gospel and witnessing to the power of God's mercy.

Plans? The phrase "Dominican plans" is an oxymoron. Of course, we plan. But I've rarely seen these plans actually pan out. If I could simply chose my path I would continue teaching undergraduate philosophy, theology, and literature. I am developing a course that brings all three fields together. The University of Dallas is developing a creative writing program that I would probably be willing to hurt someone to join. The Angelicum has a Templeton Foundation grant for a project called "Science, Theology, and the Ontological Quest." The grant brings in scientists, philosophers, and theologians to teach and research on the intersections of science and faith. I'd love to be a part of this. I am also dedicated to adult lay formation at the level of teaching basic theological/philosophical methods. However, preaching, as always, remains primary and any and all of this stuff I've mentioned here is directed solely to the improvement of the preaching. Without that, there is no reason at all for me to be here.

Fr. Philip, OP

P.S. I almost completely forgot to mention what happened with my high school Spanish teacher, Mrs. Mary Eddy! I went home to visit my parents right after I got back from Oxford in 2004. I had been ordained a deacon at Blackfriars and was preparing to move to Houston, TX for my internship. I went to Mass at the local parish, which had moved to a newer building. I went in clerics to the 9am Mass. When I got there I asked around for Mrs. Eddy. It didn't take long before she came running up to me to say hello! She was very surprised to see me and more surprised to me in clerics. She told everyone that she was responsible for bringing me into the Church. Yup, I'd say she was. Goes to show you what just a little encouragement for a young man with a vocation can do. . .right?

Cherie Blair invited to the Angelicum

LifeSite News is reporting:

ROME, December, 3, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) – One of the most important institutions of higher learning in the Catholic world will host Cherie Blair, the adamantly pro-abortion wife of former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair, later this month. The Social Sciences faculty of the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome [where I am currently living and studying], known popularly as the Angelicum, is hosting Mrs. Blair at a conference on women’s rights on December 12.

I've received email about this asking for more information. I really don't know anything about it. I sent an email to the dean of the social sciences faculty, Sr. Helen Alford, OP, asking for a little clarification. Let's see what happens.

You can read the website for the conference here. Be sure to check out the "Links" button. I am hoping that the organizations linked in this list are linked for informational purposes only. If they are being endorsed, this is a problem.


Being a signal to the nations

First Week of Advent (T): Is 11.1-10; Luke 10.21-24
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
Convento SS Domenico e Sisto, Roma


For generations, prophets and kings failed to see and to hear. Though they waited faithfully, straining their eyes and ears against darkness and silence, they saw nothing; they heard nothing. In their anxious waiting they detected not one spark, not one whisper; yet, they waited. For whom did they wait? Isaiah tells God’s people that “on that day,” the day that their long patience will be rewarded; on that day, they will receive from the root of Jesse’s family tree, a sprout and then a blossom, and on that blooming sprout, a son, “the Spirit of the LORD shall rest. . .a Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, a Spirit of counsel and of strength, a Spirit of knowledge and of fear of the LORD.” This is the Son for whom they waited. And this is the Son we have seen and heard. Isaiah says, “On that day, the Gentiles shall seek out the root of Jesse…” That day, my fellow Gentiles, is today. Are you ready to see and hear the coming of the Lord?

Jesus, with his disciples, and in the middle of a crowd, lays claim to his inheritance as a prophesied son of Jesse. He says, “All things have been handed over to me by my Father.” As the inheriting son, the heir of the Father, Jesus lays claim to his father’s kingdom. Not so unusual. What is unusual is the claim immediately after: “No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him.” Now, this is a truly priceless heirloom to inherit—the gift of revealing the Father! And Jesus wastes no time in making use of this gift. In private, he turns to his disciples and says, “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see.” What do they see? The flesh and blood of Isaiah’s promise: the Spirit of wisdom, of counsel, of knowledge, and of strength, the Spirit of the Lord come among them as a man.

Are you ready to see and hear the coming of the Lord? The prophets and kings waited and waited only to end without seeing or hearing. Their efforts gave birth to a hope for the coming of the Messiah but their hopeful waiting bore them no Savior in their lifetime. It would be many generations later that a virgin girl would say yes to the Spirit and give birth to the Word Made Flesh, sending out to creation the very Word Who was spoken over the void, re-creating everything that is fallen, waking in everyone who is fallen that spark of the Father who seduces us back to His glory, so that we might live, against the defeat of death itself, a life everlasting, ever-blest, ever-joyous, a life that will be a signal to the nations that a justice and peace, the Father’s justice and peace, will rule.

Are you ready to wait on the Lord, all the while knowing that the Lord has come, is coming, and will come again? Are you ready to be a revelation of God to world, to one another? Are you ready to be a signal to the nations? You are given the Spirit of wisdom, strength, counsel, understanding, and the fear of the Lord, are you ready to greet him in the flesh? To offer him your life and work as a gift? To come to him like the kings of the east who saw and heard, who came to him, proclaiming him Lord and King? Are you ready? Are you ready?

30 November 2008

Archive: Christ the King & First Advent homilies

Since it looks like I will not finish this year's Christ the King homily anytime soon, here are the ones from the last two years and all three of my First Sunday of Advent homilies:

Who Is King of Your Heart? (2006)

Can a King Rule from a Cross?
(2007)

Waiting and Waiting Well (2005)

Advent is Scary (2006)

Do Nothing Special for Advent
(2007)

Are you ready? Are you sure?

First Sunday of Advent: Is 63.16-17, 19b; 64.2-7; 1 Cor 1.3-9; Mark 13.33-37
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
Convento SS Domenico e Sisto, Roma

Advent is to Christmas what Lent is to Easter: the time right before the arrival of an much anticipated divine revelation, a time when we make ourselves ready to be shown what God has to show us. Both Advent and Lent—though in profoundly different ways—prod us into remembering that not everything we can know about God and His will for us is knowable through argument, experiment, and rational deliberation. Yes, we are naturally graced in His image and likeness with every means we need to fine-tune our understanding of how we come to know, to sharpen the edges of what we know, to apply artfully, scientifically, technically the knowledge that we grow and harvest. But like children with little experience in the world of big things and predatory dangers—too ready to jump, so eager to do it on our own—we have to be shown, we have to be led to the show; however, what we need to know most is too bright, too sharp, so beautifully detailed and wondrously simple that to know it as it is would shock our natural apprehension, our graced comprehension, searing all our gifts of reason and will like food stamp baloney flash-fried in a hot buttered skillet. What we need is immeasurable holiness, Wisdom Himself. What we need to know of Wisdom is shown to us by Wisdom Himself. And like any adventure, like any enlightening quest we must be ready, fully prepared, wholly poised and trigger tight, at attention right on the blade’s edge set to see and hear and taste what Wisdom will expose to us. The days of Advent are the razor’s edge of the Incarnation, the blade against the skin of not-knowing-just-yet who comes to save us.

Though we are a month away from the solemnity of the nativity of our Lord, someone has already died for Christmas; or rather, someone has been killed at the beginning of another consumerist orgy before Christmas morning arrives. A stocker at Wal-Mart in Long Island, NY was trampled to death by shoppers rushing into the store to buy bargains. Every item bought in that Wal-Mart that day is an accessory to murder. What do we need to say about those who trampled him? Those who watched? Those who continued to snatch up the bargains? What a way for us to prepare for the coming of the Lord.

In some ancient pagan city long before the coming of Christ, this kind of human sacrifice might have been the perfect start to a holiday season of feasting and gift-giving, a raucous frolic of wailing and blood while waiting for the coming of a god in the flesh. Today, it is a headline. A link on Drudge. One of those news-of-the-bizarre items that we click on in order to watch the vid from Youtube, and then, bored with the shaky camera work and the lack of decent sound, we move on to the gossip about best-dressed or the least desirable relocation spot or top ten tips for knowing if he’s cheating on you. This man’s death is a passing moment, like a shampoo bottle over the laser-eye of the UPC scanner at the place of his death.

What do we need to know? Ask the question this way: what have we forgotten? We have forgotten too much. We have forgotten this: “You, LORD, are our father, our redeemer you are named forever.” And we are afraid to ask this: “Why do you let us wander, O LORD, from your ways, and harden our hearts so that we fear you not?” Why are we afraid to ask? Because we might hear this: “There is none who calls upon your name, who rouses himself to cling to you; for you have hidden your face from us and have delivered us up to our guilt.” If this doesn’t freeze your blood, you aren’t paying attention. The Lord has something to show us. And we are not ready. What do we need to see? What does the Lord want to show us? Our guilt. Yes, our guilt. Do you think that showing us our guilt is unnecessary? Or maybe you think that showing us our guilt is somehow unloving or unforgiving or mean-spirited? Maybe it is. For now. But we need to see it nonetheless. Why? Because if we see our guilt, if we give a knowing nod to our guilt, we recognize that at our roots, from our deepest selves, we are good people. Have we forgotten this?

If so, Advent is here to remind us. What will you wait for this next month? The opportunity to break out the carols? The tree? The Santa Claus cut-out? Or will you wait to remember that you are a loved creature, wholly prepared and waiting, anxiously anticipating and sitting on the blade’s edge, poised to be shown your perfection? Think: who is coming? Who is it that comes in the name of the Lord to take flesh and bone in the womb of the Blessed Mother to be born and raised as a man and to live as a teacher of the truth of his Father’s mercy to his passion and to his death on the cross and his burial in a fresh tomb and his rising again from the grave? Who comes? For whom do you wait? You say, “I wait for the coming of the Lord!” Really? Do you? Do you really wait for the coming of the Lord? Or do you wait for the coming of Christmas? For the sales? The stampedes? The chaos?

For whom do you watch? We are children too small and too fragile to see and hear what comes. But we must. We must be ready. Having spent at least a month praying for the coming of the Lord, we must be wholly prepared, entirely ready to receive among us the Son in the flesh, our means of becoming all that we were created to be. Our waiting is not simply about doing a duty. Our waiting is about sharpening, polishing, shining, clearing out, and making ready—what?—our heart, our minds, our souls. Making room, creating space and time, shoving aside in order to pull in. He Who Comes to us is the Child of the Spirit of God, the flesh and bone of the Mother, the Word given hands and feet to walk and do among us. This is as much as we can see and hear and taste. And maybe not even this. Maybe with all the preparation, all the time before, all the time we have to make ready for the revelation, even so, even still, we are not wholly still, utterly set to take in, to absorb, to stand under the event—the coming of the Son in the flesh. Emmanuel. He is with us. Our God is with us. For our sake, He is returned.

Now what? Are you different? Have you changed? If not, why not? Why did you wait? Why did you bother? Is your God with you? If so, who are you? Who were you before; who are you now? If for you Advent is about Christmas, about Wal-Mart and the stuff under the tree, don’t bother. Guilt will mean nothing to you anyway. Long ago you accepted that you are bad person. If, however, you feel the guilt, you feel the separation from God, rejoice! Yes, rejoice! Because your guilt means that you have an inkling of He Who Waits with you, for you. You know you need to know him. And He knows that you want to. Advent is not a stepping stone to Christmas any more than Lent is leads naturally to Easter. Advent is that long space before that makes Christmas into a feast about Christ. Without that, without the waiting, Christ’s coming in the flesh is a predictable miracle, a practiced trick of magic and rehearsed belief.

Make ready. The pan is hot. The butter is melted. Are you ready to be fried?


29 November 2008

The Ten-Year Solution to War

We all know some Obama Catholics who would think that this is a splendid idea! In fact, given the published arguments of some Obama Catholics, I'm not sure how they would distinguish their opposition to outlawing abortion in favor of reducing the number of abortions with the solution these folks have come up with.

This solution fits all the moral criteria that any modernist utilitarian Catholic would worship:

1). It's done by consensus of the "womenfolk," so it must be wise.
2). It's done to "reduce the number of killings in the future."
3). It's death--someone elses death--as a quick and easy solution to a complex problem.
4). It's an evil done with the good intention of preventing future inconveniences.
5). It's done in the name of peace and justice.
6). It's done in good conscience, no doubt.
7). We should not judge out of respect for cultural differences (see comments on the article).
8). Something about poverty, women's health, condoms. . .
9). Besides George W. Bush is evil.
10). The Pope is out of touch with mainstream American Catholics, so it's OK to ignore him.

Truly, this is a frightening world we live in. . .

Vampire Queen to Catholic (again)

Called Out of Darkness: A Spiritual Confession, Anne Rice.

It's old news now. Anne Rice--vampire queen, Goth diva, gay icon--has returned to Mother Church. Her book, Called Out of Darkness, chronicles her journey back to the Church after years of wandering low and lower in the wastes of atheism, radical politics, neo-pagan fantasy, and the blackness forest of all--grief.

I won't spoil the book by answering the Big Question--what happened to bring her back? I will tell you how God lured her back. He used the author's sacramental imagination. He used the stuff of creation and the art of His greatest love, man, to seduce our vampire queen back into the fold.

Rice goes into some detail when describing how the last few occult books lingered in her mind as pseudo-Christian tales of redemption. But the spark that lit the fire of the Holy Spirit in her was that human faculty that Augustine and Aquinas argue is vital to art: memory. She remembered her Catholic upbringing. She remembered the sisters. Her high school. The Mass before the Council. She remembered the Baltimore Catechism, the devotionals, the sacramentals, and all the things whose absence now left her without anchor or bearing.

She came back and now professes a love for Christ. And here's where things get muddled for our goth diva. She comes back to the Church but not to the fullness of the faith. She comes back to her pre-Vatican Two Catholic cultural identity but not to the difficult parts of being a Catholic. She embraces confession, the Mass, the Holy Father. She embraces all those parts of being Catholic that make being Catholic something special in the eyes of the world. What she has not embraced quite yet are those parts of the Catholic faith that the make us look like Old World peasants in the eyes of our WASPY neighbors: opposition to abortion, same-sex marriage, all male priesthood, etc. If one wanted to be cynical, one might point out that our vampire queen has embraced just enough of the Catholic faith to seem weird among her NYC cocktail party friends but not enough to get her booted off the circuit list as an intolerant right-wing freak. That would be cynical.

Here's what I'm very happy about: Anne Rice has returned to the Church. Like any of us she will likely spend some time figuring out how to embrace the Whole Truth of the Faith without losing herself in a bizarre kind of Romish fundamentalism. I think this book is the very first step among many steps she will make to come to the fullness of the faith.

I will recommend the book as a great boost for anyone whose faith in God's Self-revelation in His creation is lagging. To anyone who needs to hear that someone from the Bad Ole Days before the Glorious Revolution of 1965 has been saved from the wreck that their generation has made of the Church since 1965. The book is very readable, chatty almost, beautiful in places, and even prayerful. We can't overlook Rice's reluctance to embrace the fullness of the Church's moral teachings, but we can rejoice that now that she's one of us again, she has a much better chance of finding that oh-so-narrow, oh-so-long road to holiness.

28 November 2008

Questions...

Random questions. . .

1). What is your thesis about?

Very, very broadly: I will be researching and writing on the medieval debates about the temporal nature of creation and how these debates might help cosmologists today better understand how to talk about their theories of the origins of the universe in philosophical/theological terms. All cosmologies have philosophical/theological implications. More often than not, the scientists composing these theories have little or no philosophical/theological training, so they fail to grasp how their theories work or do not work when discussing existential or theological questions. Very often, scientists simply assume that the modern western scientific worldview is all-encompassing and omni-explanatory. In other words, they are reductionists, reducing everything to material processes signifed by mathematics. Whatever is not immediately reducible in this way is assumed to be either non-existent or existent in such a way that current technology cannot measure it. Now, this reductionist attitude is widespread but not wholly controlling in the scientific world. Lots of scientists embrace a healthy spiritual view of the universe and struggle to understand all that is with various non-materialistic theories, or theories that do not necessarily exclude the possibility of non-materially existing things. These are the scientists I want to talk to!

2. Did you ever get a response to the email you sent the DLC?

No, I never received a response. This question refers to a post earlier this month about the Dominican Leadership Conference's document on social justice, Call to Action. Evidence surfaced that the OP social justice promoters discussed the inclusion of our opposition to abortion in the document but decided against it for reasons that none too few of us think are dubious.

3. Response to a comment.

Earlier this morning I received a comment on this post via email that I initially deleted b/c it was posted anonymously. I'm posting it here b/c it is a perfect example of what I call "hit and run" commenting.

Posts like this remind me of the reason why I don't read Catholic blogs - of either the left or of the right, for there really isn't anything to choose between. Both are simply given over to the passions.

I have known holy Dominicans, but if this is the future of the Order, then may God have mercy on us all.

Note the following features: 1) the insincere attempt to establish credibility by confessing a lack of editorial bias ("either the left or the right"); 2) the know-nothing leveling of the left and right ("there really isn't anything to choose between"); 3) the stereotyping of all Catholic blogs as unworthy of attention b/c they are passionate (speaking of passions, that's hardly a rational conclusion); 4) another attempt at establishing credibility ("I have known holy Dominicans") and by implication, "You ain't one of them, Fr. Philip!"; and 5) a hasty judgment made based on one post on one blog run by one unholy Dominican ("if this is the future. . .God have mercy. . .").

Really, the interesting part of this for me is the assumption made by the commenter that holiness seems to somehow entail niceness or diplomacy. It certainly entails charity but charity is not charity if it is not also true. Charity is not equivalent to being sweet or polite. Sometimes the most loving thing you can do for someone is kick their rear-end. For a charitable rebuke to be spoiled, it must be shown to have been given out of ill will. Unless this commenter has better access to my motives than I do, I can't think why he/she would find the truth I've expressed in that post at all uncharitable.

The several attempts at establishing credibility to comment are laughable. If you want your observations to be taken seriously, resend the comment with your real name on it. Otherwise, you're just a hit and run ghost wailing "foul!" on the sidelines.

4. What are your summer 2009 plans? Can you come be our chaplain/retreat director/pastor, etc.?

The academic year here ends the last week of June. I will spend a week in St Louis at a preaching conference and then, I hope, head down to Irving to teach second term summer classes at the University of Dallas. This will help my 2009-2010 budget; give me time to work on my dissertation using UD's and SMU's libraries; get my books out of storage and shipped to Rome; and just generally reconnect and relax a little. Then I will spend some time with the Parentals in MS. Visit friends. Go on retreat. I will head back to Rome first week of October. So, yes, there is some time in there where I could give a talk or direct a retreat. But I need to firm up my schedule before committing to anything.




27 November 2008

New Arrivals...and some news

Some of you have asked whether or not the books you purchased for me have arrived. . .I've received books from the following benefactors in the last two weeks:

Taryn K. (1), William M. (1), Elizabeth R. (1), Anita S. (1), Martha L. (3), Lynn C.(1), Alice B. (1), and Kevin H. (1).

Thank You notes have either been dispatched or will be dispatched today!

I've already been warned by the Roman vets here that postal service around this time of year is dreadful. . .packages get delivered months after they are sent or lost forever.

Over the Christmas break, I will be outlining my license thesis and praying all the while for all my book benefactors. Since study is a form of prayer for Dominicans, you will all be placed before St. Thomas Aquinas in my prayer and his intercession invoked on your behalf.
Bold
NEWS: I briefly discussed my thesis topic with the philosophy dean. He nodded approval and noted that the topic is very large for a license thesis. I promised to focus it more. He said, "Use the license thesis as the first chapter of your doctoral dissertation."

Looks like I will be writing another doctoral dissertation. . .

26 November 2008

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

A very Happy Thanksgiving to all of my readers in the U.S.A.!

My readers, commenters, critics, book benefactors, prayer warriors (oh-rah!), spiritual mothers/fathers, spiritual son/daughters, all those who help to keep me on the straight and narrow and help to push and pull me through that %$#@ eye of the needle--you are all on the top of my list of those for whom I am deeply grateful!

Also on my list of those for whom I am grateful, all of those professors in my long academic history who have endured my procrastination, my weird mood swings in theory and focus, my often-time inexplicably bizarre writing style, my monkey-mind antics--Ann F.-W., (The Dissertation Director), Ellen G., Doug R., Deborah B., Chris F., Barry H., Michael M., Rick P., Jean DeB., Pat W., Denis M., Simon G., and many others who would probably rather just forget the whole nasty business!

On a list all her own is my Italian language teacher, Sabina! For her good cheer, determination, patience, and her willingness to lie to my face and tell me what a good Italian student I am, I give God thanks!

And on a list all to themselves are Mom & Pop, Andy & Marilyn, Megan & Melanie, Patrick H., Perry S., Michael K., and Rudy B. . . .those who know me and love me in spite of knowing me so well.

Being grateful builds humility.
Humility is necessary for prayer.
Prayer is the best way to God.
God is the Source of our blessings.
Therefore, bless God with your gratitude!

Here's a list of great poems for gratitude. . .

Fr. Philip, OP

24 November 2008

Dissenters "Leaping Forward" Into Deeper Irrelevance

Aging Hippie Dinosaur Alert!!!

Most of the dissident "Catholic" groups in the U.S. are planning a gathering in 2011 to stamp their feet and publicly pout because the Evil-Phallocentric-Celibate Hierarchy of Roman Catholic Church has repeatedly refused their demands to ignore Christ and turn his Church into the world's largest group-therapy session.

Here's what I found:

from a newsletter sent to ARCC members on Friday Professor Swidler writes:

The Reform Movement of the Catholic Church in America — in the spirit of Vatican II [WARNING!!! This guy is seeing ghosts! The actual Spirit of Vatican Two is the Holy Spirit who founded the Church on the Rock of Peter and his successors, the Popes.]— is on the cusp of a "Great Leap Forward", to borrow a phrase from Mao [Yes. You read that correctly. This "Catholic" is quoting Mao, the genocidal commie dictator of China, a man who destroyed over 5,000 years of Chinese history and culture in a decade, not to mention millions of lives. . .go no further in looking for the spiritual inspiration of this conference.] ARCC has for several years been promoting the idea of all the major Catholic Reform groups in the U.S. joining together in an American Catholic Council to move our common agenda forward. That Great Leap Forward is now being launched! [Google "great leap forward" and read about how Mao's little plan for economic and political reform worked for the Chinese. . .hint: it threw China back into the middles ages, straving millions, ruining whole industries, and collapsing the nation's economy]. The largest of the American Catholic Reform organizations– Call to Action and Voice of the Faithful–are on board, along with, of course, ARCC, and others. [On board and ready to sink the Church in the U.S.!]

Professor Swidler goes on to outline four major points that have been agreed upon in the discussions that have taken place at the leadership levels of the reform organisations. They are:

1. The basic Resources of the American Catholic Council are the documents of Vatican II [interpreted according to the ghost that this guy claims to see on occasion, of course] and the processes and documents of the 1976 Call To Action led by the National Council of Bishops and involving massive numbers of laity, religious, and priests. [CTA persistent citation of the NCCB as support for its dissent is a farce. Yes, initially, the bishops did endorse the 1976 CTA meeting, but quickly withdrew and repudiated the whole thing b/c the process was hijacked by Maoist moonbats like Swindler here. Again, let a google search show you the way.]

2. The major focus will be on church governance. None of the diverse concerns of the various U.S. Catholic reform organizations will be attainable unless there are structural means to work toward their implementation. That means, minimally, striving for Catholic Church decision-making structures that are built on the democratic principles of accountability, transparency, representativeness, and due process of law. [Christ didn't found a democratic church for a reason. . .that reason? Check out the Episcopal Church in its current state and tell me if that's what you want the Catholic Church to look like. The real goal here, of course, is not democratization but the elimination of the RCC as a teacher of the objective truth of the gospel. Once the Nicene Creed is up for majority vote, the Church as Christ found it loses all authority to oppose the pelvic politics of the aging Baby Boomers.]

3. There will be the widest possible solicitation of input from all levels of Catholics around the country [Yea, right. I bet that input will not include orthodox believers. Much like the '76 CTA fiasco, the panels, podiums, polls will be stacked with dissenters and heretics.] Techniques that have already been discussed include national public hearings (as was done in 1976), approaches to parish organizations as well as organizations of laity, religious, and clergy, internet and other electronic means. Concrete suggestions in this area are especially solicited from you! [And we'll even consider them if they neatly fit into our pre-baked notion of what counts as truth from our side of the bonfire!]

4. The initial aim will be the coming together of thousands of chosen delegates and interested Catholics from around the country in an American Catholic Council in the year 2011. [Hold your nose! This one is gonna stink. Of course, I have to wonder how many of these AHD will still be with us in body come 2011.]

Fair Warning: This part is a rant. . .

Go to bed tonight giving God thanks that most of the young men in our nation's seminaries are orthodox Catholics. Give Him thanks for the thriving orders of orthodox sisters and brothers and the up and coming ranks of educated lay folks who have wised up and shown Sr. Moonbat and Fr. Rainbow to the door of their classrooms.

This dissident circus is one of many "last gasps" of a revolutionary generation in the Church that has failed to knock the Church off her Rock. Expect more these public temper tantrums before they finally hang up their felt banners, their tie-dye vestments, and douse the coals of the Spirit of Vatican Two Peace Bong.

Though they have failed to destroy the Church from the root, they have done wonders for the Enemy along the way. They have driven millions out of the Church; vandalized the Mass and the other sacraments; emptied the seminaries and convents; radicalized Catholic universities against the Church; raised at least two generations of Catholics who know next to nothing about their own faith; ushered in a sexualized spirituality that allowed, encouraged, and then covered up the molestation scandal; created a fake shortage of priests by excluding orthodox vocations on ideological grounds; gave us a Catholic electorate so confused morally that they voted in huge numbers for the most extreme supporter of baby killing ever to run for public office in this country.

Rather than gathering to celebrate their alleged "wisdom" these ego-manical clowns should be gathering to offer this country's Catholics an apology for the disaster that their narcissistic experimentation and dissent has left my generation and those younger to clean up. CTA, VOTF, etc. are little more than organized swarms of spiritual leeches, sucking the life from the Church for no other reason than that the Church will not yield to their tantrums.

There is hope, brothers and sister. I give you the Tick-Tick Solution to our Generation Narcissus problem: "ticktockticktockticktock. . . ."

(And please spare me the finger-wagging in the comboxes about how we are supposed to love one another. . .I am well aware of that. . .I am also aware that very often "being polite in matters of politics and religion" is little more than a cowardly excuse for keeping quiet so that the dinner party invitations keep coming. . .not a big concern of mine. Time to speak truth to lies.)

22 November 2008

NEW PODCASTS! (UPDATED)

I've put the last three homilies on Pod-O-Matic. . .scroll down on the right until you find the Roman Homilies player. . .

More coming. . .

AND. . .Br. Thomas, OP heard your pleas and has now finished recording Dei verbum (Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation) from the documents of the Second Vatican Council. Our Holy Father, BXVI argues that understanding Dei verbum is the key to understanding the whole Council--the intent, spirit, and all the documents!

The thesis thickens...and narrows...

As of yesterday, with the help of one of my former tutors from Blackfriars, Oxford, Dr. Bill Carroll, an expert in the theology and philosophy of creation and the religious world's conversation with science, I have narrowed the broad area of my thesis topic down a bit more.

I am pretty sure I will be focusing on how the medieval debates about the (a)temporality of creation could shed some much needed philosophical/theological light on contemporary cosmologies. The issue at hand is divine action in creation. How we understand God's interaction with creation has everything to do with how we understand time. What I may end up doing is simply showing what sort of interaction is possible given a particular view of time. . .

Fortunately, most of the primary medieval texts are in our library. Some of the secondary texts, however, will have to be bought, found, stolen, or smuggled to me! Most of the texts on contemporary cosmologies are brand new. Also, fortunately, the thesis is usually restricted in length from 50 to 75 pages. So, no worries.

Fr. Philip, OP

How should we respond?

I'm very interested to hear what HancAquam readers think about this "call to arms" video. I have a very definite opinion (imagine that!), but I would like to hear from others how they were or were not moved, persuaded, put-off, etc.




As I watched via Youtube supporters of legalized same-sex "marriage" attack supporters of traditional marriage out in California after the passage of Prop 8, I was struck by the raw hatred, violence, and near demonic intolerance of some in the gay community toward supporters of this amendment.

I'm not surprised that they were upset with the success of Prop 8; I am just shocked at how quickly and how completely the more radical elements of the community adopted the violently repressive tactics of street thugs.

I was also surprised and somewhat disappointed when conservative Catholic commentators called for these activists to be arrested for committing "hate crimes" against Christians. Now, this is a strategic question, a question about tactics: do Christians really want to use the rhetoric of "hate crimes" and then urge the state to patrol the speech of our political and spiritual enemies? It seems to me that if we do this, we concede the question of free speech to the forces of leftist politically correct fascism and admit that speech is that sort of thing that needs government regulation.

Please note here I am not talking about behavior--the assaults, the church-invasion,s the destruction of propery, the so-called "prank threats"--all need to be handled according to applicable law. I'm just not sure it is in our best interest as Christian citizens to use the brainless P.C. tactics of the Left against the Left. As satisfying as it is to watch these radical morons destroy what little credibility they had with the larger community, we risk setting a precedent for future persecution if we admit by surrender to the Left that the tactics of the Left are ours as well.

NB. Commenting: on a topic as controversial as the Church and sexual morality the passions get heated and folks write things they shouldn't. I'm going to protect you from your intemperance (yea, me!) by deleting comments that attack persons rather than arguments, that name-call, or appear to me to be "hit and run," that is, swoop in, drop a bomb, and run. And please show some intellectual integrity and avoid embarrassing yourself by dropping the 1980's canard about "you hate gays, so you must be gay." It's just dumb beyond all believing.

21 November 2008

Moving Peace? YES!

Pope pondering change to Mass liturgy

VATICAN CITY (AP) — A high-ranking Vatican official says Pope Benedict XVI is considering introducing a change to the Mass liturgy.

Cardinal Francis Arinze, who heads the Vatican office for sacraments, says the pope may move the placement of the sign of peace, where congregation members shake hands or hug.

Arinze told the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano in an interview published Friday that the pope has asked bishops to express their opinions and will then decide.

Under the change, the sign of peace, which now takes place moments before the reception of communion, would come earlier. Arinze said the change might help create a more solemn atmosphere as the faithful are preparing to receive communion.

Properly done I have no problem with the exchange of peace where it is now. However, the exchange is rarely, if ever, properly done. In my seminary days, we had a Dominican sister who came to the conventual Mass everyday. She took the exchange of peace as an opportunity to make lunch dates, ask for class notes, or just casually visit.

There was a friar--no longer with us--who went away to do his summer Clinical Pastoral Education and came back convinced that we were all body-hating celibates who needed to loosen up. He took the "kiss of peace" quite literally, laying big wet kisses right on the mouths of the nearest friars. Needless to say, he found himself without pew-neighbors very quickly.

Then we have all of the gymnastic contortionists, the Hugger-Back Slappers, the "V" for Peace throwers, and the "Party All the Time" marathon runners who sprint around the Church high-fiving everyone.

All of this jumping around, socializing, chit-chatting is disruptive to the solemnity of that moment in the Mass when we need to be most aware of both our unworthiness to receive the Lord and His grace in making us worthy to do so!

Moving the exchange of peace to either right after the rite of penance or the general intercessions makes the most sense. In the Episcopal Church, Rite II, you have the general intercessions, confession/absolution, and then the peace. The peace concludes the liturgy of the Word.

Expect a great deal of oppositon from "Spirit of Vatican Two" types. They like the peace where it is because by the end of the consecration prayer, folks are starting to get way too serious and way too focused on the Lord in the sacrament. Since they hold that the Lord is primarily (if not only) present in the assembly, they want to break up any potential lingering over the solemnity of communion and forcefully remind us that "community" is what communion is all about--thus, the need for a great deal of noise and motion and distraction right before taking communion. This is also the reason for singing during communion, standing rather than kneeling during and after communion, and rushing head-long into the closing prayer.


20 November 2008

A Parable about Booze, Pot & Condoms

Justin, a 16 year old Catholic high school junior, comes home from football practice one day and tells his dad that he finally asked Mary Kay out for a date on Saturday night. His father is very happy and gives his son $100 to spend on the date.

Saturday night comes and dad waits and waits and waits for Justin and Mary Kay to come home. Finally, around 1.00am Justin walks in the front door, drunk, smelling of pot, and his clothes in disarray.

Dad confronts Justin, "Son, what have you been doing?! You spent the $100 I gave you on booze, weed, and condoms?!" Justin, slurring his words and swaying rather dramatically said, "Not all of it. I gave $20 to a homeless man outside the liquor store. The rest went to the liquor store, my dealer, and the drug store."

Dad, a grant manager for the diocese's CCHD, responded, "Oh OK. That's good. You're off the hook then b/c you didn't spend the whole $100 on party favors. I can tell your mom that at least 20% of the money we gave you went for a good cause. Here's $200 for next time. Give the homeless guy $40."

Lesson: don't fall for the excuse: "Well, CCHD does some good with my donation so that mitigates any potential evil that might slip in."

Always remember this when dealing with questions of Doing Evil to Get Good Results: "You cannot draw a pail of pure water from a poisoned well."

17 November 2008

Curiosity is not enough

Dedication of SS. Peter and Paul: Rv 3:1-6, 14-22; Lk 19:1-10
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
Convento SS. Domenico e Sisto, Roma


There are any number of reasons that people will clamor to see the Lord as he passes by. There are the merely curious. Those who love a good crowd and the potential for entertainment that a crowd offers. There are the pitiable, those who seek the attention of the famous and infamous alike. Those who flock to celebrity hoping to become celebrities themselves. There are those who seek mystery, those who long for hidden knowledge and run after any and every teacher who comes to town. Some rush around looking for spectacular signs of prophecy, wondrous markers for the end of days, hoping to be better prepared just in case today or tomorrow is the day of judgment. And there are likely those in the crowd waiting for Jesus who are seduced by his promise of mercy, that is, like fish drawn to fresh bait, they are lured and hooked by the Word Jesus preaches. Despite their gross spiritual negligence—or perhaps because of it—because of their incessant wallowing in sin, they find themselves snatched from the disobedience of pride and begging at the feet of Christ for forgiveness. We have Zacchaeus, short in stature but hardly short on zeal. He is not clamoring to see Jesus out of a need for entertainment or out of mere curiosity. He knows his sin; he knows he needs forgiveness; and he knows that Christ is the font of the Father’s mercy. Do we? Do we know what this sinner knows?

We can easily make two simple mistakes reading this story from Luke. We can make the mistake the crowd makes and find ourselves outraged that a holy man like Jesus would defile himself by speaking and eating with a notorious sinner. The more contemporary mistake is to assume that since Jesus speaks and eats with this notorious sinner, he approves of the sinner’s sin. We think: Jesus is openly declaring that this sinner’s sins are not sins after all and that he, the sinner, is welcomed unrepentant to the Lord’s table. How many times have we heard about Jesus’ “radical hospitality,” that Jesus “never turned anyone away.” True. As far as it goes. But what makes this understanding of Christ’s radical hospitality a mistake is that it leaves unsaid the equally radical implication of accepting Christ’s hospitality. The story of the Chief Tax-collector of Jericho, Zacchaeus, is the story of what happens when we run to the opened-arms of the Lord: to run toward Christ with our sin is to run away from sin altogether.

Do we know this? Very likely. But do we climb trees, peering over the heads of our peers, hoping to catch a glimpse of the source of our forgiveness? How zealous are we in pursuing the need for repentance? Exactly how eager are we to throw our sins out there, have them examined by a judgmental crowd, and then embarrass ourselves by begging Christ for forgiveness? Have we grown luke-warm? Or do we have the zeal of a true sinner for mercy? Can we imitate this despicable tax-collector? This traitor?

Christ greets Zacchaeus with joy. Not because he rejoices in the tax-collector’s sin but because Zacchaeus comes to him despite his sin to have that sin washed away. Jesus announces to the crowd, pointing to Zacchaeus: “Today salvation has come to this house. . .For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save what was lost.” Zacchaeus was found but only because he knew that he was lost.

The pain of failure

33rd Sunday OT: Prv 31.10-13, 19-20, 30-31; 1 Thes 5.1-6; Mt 25.14-15, 19-21
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
Convento SS. Domenico e Sisto, Roma


Never having been pregnant myself, it’s difficult for me to imagine how a pregnant woman might be surprised by her labor pains. Surely after nine months of bloating, vomiting, hormonal surges, that maternal glow, and the all-too-popular weight gain, she is more or less ready for the inevitable cramping and eventual spasms of birth. Oh sure, the exact moment—day, hour, minute—might be a surprise. Who would put real money on that bet?! But that she will experience the pain of pushing out a wet, screaming human watermelon really can’t come as much of a last minute shocker. All the more unusual then is Paul’s metaphor for the surprise that Christians will experience when the Lord returns. He writes to the Thessalonians: “For you yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief at night. When people are saying, ‘Peace and security,’ then sudden disaster comes upon them, like labor pains upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape…” So, in what way will our surprise at the return of the Lord be like the suddenness of “labor pains upon a pregnant woman”? Though the pain of childbirth is dreaded, the reward of a child is anticipated with great joy. Our surprise at the return of the Lord will be both dread and joy, trepidation and elation: the long anticipated relief of our tensed waiting.

Paul tells us that our Lord will return like a thief in the night. He also tells us that our surprise will come like labor pains—hard, clenching, sweaty, but not entirely unexpected. It makes sense to say then that though the thief comes in the night, we have been expecting his arrival for some time, waiting for him to pop the lock of the backdoor, to lift the latch of the window and sneak in. We don’t know the day, the hour, the minute of his break-in, but we know that he will arrive, and we know that what he has come to steal has been his all along. At baptism we make ourselves the Lord’s debtors, owing all we are and all we have to him, everything held in trust until he returns to claim the principal with interest. What have you done with the Lord’s largesse? What have you done with all the Lord has given you? With who the Lord made you to be?

Jesus, ever the lover of a good parable, says to his disciples: “A man going on a journey called in his servants and entrusted his possessions to them. To one he gave five talents; to another, two; to a third, one—to each according to his ability. Then he went away.” The man gave talents to his servants according to their ability. Makes sense. Except that we have to ask: according to their ability to do what? This is the crux of the parable. Knowing his servants well, the man does not distribute his possessions uniformly, giving each servant the same number of talents. Rather, precisely because he knows the varying abilities of his servants, he distributes them equally; that is, he gives each the number of talents equal to the ability of each servant. The man is not foolish. He is not going to give those with little ability the chance to squander his talents on a grand scale. However, by giving them talents equal to their abilities, he is giving them the opportunity to show that they are worthy of more—an opportunity that they would not otherwise have.

Now, here’s the interesting part of the parable: by giving the servants talents equal to their abilities, the man is actually adding to their abilities. Presumably, without the responsibility of keeping the talents none of the servants would have the chance to move much beyond their given abilities. So, on top of their natural talents, the man adds some investment capital. He “invests” in each servant an excess of talents to supplement what they have received naturally. In theological terms, we can say that the man has used his grace to build on their natures, gifting them the chance and the tools necessary to grow well beyond their natural capacities.

What happens? The man returns and the servants line up for inspection. Who has taken advantage of their gift of talents? Jesus continues the parable: “The one who had received five talents came forward bringing the additional five. He said, 'Master, you gave me five talents. See, I have made five more.' His master said to him, 'Well done, my good and faithful servant.’” This servant, having received talents equal to his abilities, took his master’s principal investment and used it to double his worth. Any of the servants could have done the same. At all of them did. Why not? Out of fear that his master would simply take any interest he might accrue on the investment, one servant simply buried his talent. Out of fear that his work to improve his master’s gift would benefit his master alone, this servant refused to make good on his chance. He planted a dead seed, and not surprisingly, nothing grew. No growth, no harvest. No harvest, no feast. The fearful servant loses his talent to the more gifted servant and the master calls him wicked and lazy!

When our master returns—the night like a thief long expected—will you present him with his principal investment alone, or will you return to him his initial gift with interest? According to your ability you have been gifted with exactly those talents that you need to grow in holiness. You have been given everything you need to invest wisely and move beyond your natural abilities. But what is most important to remember is this: every step beyond your abilities, every level of increasing perfection that you reach is the result of our Lord’s initial investment in you—his gift of talents that equals your abilities. Upon his return he expects to receive a return on his investment. What will you present to him? Who will you present to him? Will you, like the “good and faithful servant,” show him double the talent? Or will you have to go dig up his gift and return it unused? How will you excuse yourself? To say that you had no idea when the master would return is true on its face. You cannot, however, claim that you did not know he was returning. Like the pregnant woman who knows the pain of childbirth is coming though not precisely when, you know the time of judgment is before us. Called to account for yourself, what will you say, “Sorry. But I knew you were just going to take it all back, so I did nothing”? Wicked and lazy, indeed!

Paul writes, “…brothers and sisters, [you] are not in darkness, for that day [of the Lord’s return] to overtake you like a thief. For all of you are children of the light and children of the day. We are not of the night or of darkness. Therefore, let us not sleep as the rest do, but let us stay alert and sober.” Because we see clearly in the light of the Lord, we must take the gifts we are given, invest to the limits of our abilities, tend the growing fruits, and harvest the abundant graces that mature. Though we do not know the day and time of the Lord’s return, as his good and faithful servants, we must be ready always to account not only for our abilities but for wisely investing his gifts as well. The pain of childbirth is nothing compared to the pain of failing in this duty.

16 November 2008

One World, One Religion (or else...)

In the news recently are two global initiatives that faithful Catholics should be watching with critical vigilance :

The Charter for Compassion and the Earth Charter.

Both of these efforts are Utopian fantasies that will directly challenge the Church's autonomy in matters of religious freedom. The Earth Charter has been embraced by a number of Catholic religious communities (including Dominican sisters' congregations) as a suitable umbrella statement of social justice priorities. Even a summary glance at the Charter will reveal that many of the stated priorities and goals conflict with Church teaching and classical liberal democracy. In effect, the Charter is a constitution for global socialism, pantheistic dogma (global warming), and the pseudo-religious practices of the Church of Environmentalism (the sacrament of recycling).

There is almost no chance that either charter will be adopted as international law. That's not the real danger. The real danger comes in the subtle influence each could have in shaping the minds and attitudes of young adults and children. Imagine the Earth Charter as it stands being used in elementary schools as a model of global ethics. Though many of the proposals are perfectly just and compatible with Church teaching, many directly conflict, advocating positions contrary to the faith. The language is very subtle in places and those not willing to take the time or make the effort to examine that language carefully will be duped.

The Charter for Compassion is in the works. The conceit of this document is that it will be drafted "by the people," i.e. those who choose to go to the website and contribute ideas. Ideally, this sounds like an egalitarian effort; however, one glance at the so-called "Council of Sages" and you see none other than professional Catholic dissident and Earth-Mother devotee Sr. Joan Chittister, OSB. Chittister is described on the Charter's website as "one of the Church's key visionary voices and spiritual leaders." The fix is in before global participation begins. No doubt the Charter will include ringing language about the integrity of human dignity and not one word about the evil of abortion.

The core problem for Catholics in both these efforts is that the uniqueness of the Church's authority to define her faith and advocate in the public square for her ideas will be labeled "exclusionary" or "narrow" or "partisan and sectarian." Enormous pressure will come to bear on the Church to submit her more "controversial" positions to the lowest common denominator of amorphous New Age gibberish that lauds diversity, difference, integrity, and global vision. Of course, all of these will be defined in practice so as to exclude any possibility of holding to objective moral norms and revealed truth. For example, a passage in the Earth Charter calls for the elimination of all discrimination based on sex and sexual orientation. There are already efforts underway in the E.U. to challenge the Church's teaching on the all-male priesthood, and non-discrimination against sexual orientation would undermine the Church's teaching on marriage.

One Catholic response to the Earth Charter. . .

Watch carefully. . .and pray!

15 November 2008

More Dominican nonsense

Tom K at Disputations posts the following disturbing piece:

According to Nunc Pro Tunc, the following appears in the minutes of a meeting last month of the peace and justice promoters for the Western Dominican Province of the United States, in response to an email request that they "would consider the issue of abortion as a vital part of the agenda for promoters":

We all recognize abortion as contrary to support for all life, and we all support the life of the unborn. Following discussion, we agreed ... that abortion is not the central issue of social justice (although it is an important issue). In the past the overemphasis by some groups on the issue of abortion to the exclusion of other life issues, has been discussed. The group assembled decided we would recommend that abortion not be included in the new North American Dominican Call to Action.

Here's a PDF of the 2005-2006 Call to Action document, to give you an idea of what's involved.

Knowing "Justice and Peace Catholics" as I do I am not particularly shocked by this. This kind of bizarre reasoning is all too common among the breed. That Dominicans are taking this tact is sickening. The document, "Dominican Call to Action," rightly admonishes Dominicans to oppose slavery, the death penalty, etc. but fails to mention abortion.

I sent the following email to the Dominican Leadership Conference:

Dear DLC,

I recently read your document, "Dominican Call to Action," and it left me just a little confused.

Among other calls for justice, the document rightly calls Dominicans to defend human dignity by opposing human trafficking and the death penalty. Yet, I read no mention of the ultimate violation of human dignity, the legalized killing of the unborn.

I am assuming that our Justice & Peace promoters in the Order understand that no other human right makes much sense if we accept that a child can be killed in the womb. Why, for example, would trafficking in human beings be a problem for Dominicans if we are OK with killing children? Why is the death penalty a problem for us if we fail to oppose the killing of children in the womb?

The failure of the DCA to mention abortion lends moral credibility to those who traffic in human lives for profit and advocate for a wider use of the death penalty? How? Our silence on abortion undermines any claim we might make that the preservation and defense of human dignity is the goal of our Dominican pursuit of justice for all.

To say that I am disappointed in this document is an understatement. The document, in its failure to oppose forcefully the taking of innocent life, argues for everything it purports to oppose.

I would ask you to withdraw the document, amend it to include our common belief in the sanctity of human life from conception to natural death, and reissue it so that those who look to us and our Dominican tradition for guidance might be convinced that the human person is worth fighting for.

Your brother in Dominic,

fra. Philip Neri Powell, OP

I will keep you posted on any response I receive. Why not send your own charitable, well-reasoned email to the DLC? Email address: dlc@domlife.org

Why do I get this feeling that it is time for the DLC to be reconstituted?

Generosity works. . .

See how this works?

Because my book benefactors have been so generous lately, enough of my book budget has been freed up that I can take advantage of the great deal offered by the folks at Faith Data Base and purchase their CD of classical literary Church treasures.

There are hundreds of useful resources on this data base. . .all for about $30!

Thanks again and again!

Fr. Philip, OP

14 November 2008

God Alone is Holy

[Look! An actual homily posted on an actual homily blog. . .]

Dedication of St John Lateran: Ez 47.1-2, 8-9, 12; 1 Cor 3.9-11, 16-17; John 2.13-22
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
Convento SS. Domenico e Sisto, Roma

You can’t live in Rome and fail to appreciate the power of buildings. Going every morning for my bowl of coffee, I see the Coliseum. On the way to my daily ablutions, I see the monument to King Victor Emmanuel II. Walking around Rome is an exercise in deciphering and glorying in the human desire for permanence on a grand scale—basilicas, churches, government offices, museums, piazzas, roads. However, each time I see the Coliseum and the Victor Emmanuel, I see resting between them what is left of the ancient Roman Forum, the heart and soul of a vast Empire, toppled and of little use now to anyone but tourists, archaeology grad students, and Rome’s ubiquitous sea gulls. What we build to mark our place and time—no matter how grand, how strong, how beautiful—it all begins to fade the moment we conceive it. The inevitable push and pull of seasons and tides wears the best carved stone and wearies the mightiest body of memory. No building of brick and mortar, or mere flesh and blood, or thought and deed can hold against the inevitability of eventual failure. Yet, we press our footprints in the sand and console ourselves believing that we have marked time and space with an indelible impression. What is holy endures forever. And only God Himself is holy.

If this is true, why does Paul insist on calling God’s human creatures “holy buildings”? He writes, “You are God’s building […] Do you not know that you are the temple of God […]?” Is Paul suggesting here that as rational creatures of God, His human temples, we will never fade, never crumble? Is he suggesting that because we are somehow unique in creation, we are preserved from eventual collapse? No, not exactly. We are thinking, roving tabernacles. We are shrines to a loving, living God. But these truths do not protect us from the wear of time and the inevitability of death and decay. We crack, weaken, become unleveled; we often spring leaks, break beams, rot from within. Paul’s point seems to be that though we decline with the seasons, our creation as privileged foci of the Spirit embodied strengthens our structural integrity with the promise of a divine renovation, a godly restoration that returns our curled and muted image back to the Original, back to Him Who made us.

Only what is holy endures forever. And God alone is holy. But we can share in His holiness. Though our monuments of stone dissolve over time, we can endure forever when we place everything we are in the care and control of the Father. Stepping into His loving providence, we step into His divine life, the surest preservation and renovation of creation. When Jesus runs the moneychangers out of the temple courtyard, the Jews object and ask for a sign to explain his rebuke. He retorts, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.” Imagine the incredulity on the faces of those who hear this incredible claim. Destroy the temple!? And you, one man, will rebuild it in just three days!? Unbelievable. Impossible. It took hundreds of men over forty-six years to build the temple and he wants them to believe that one man can rebuild it in three days. Not so incredible, or at least, not incredible in the way that the Jews think. John adds, “But he was speaking about the temple of his Body.”

What is the “temple of his Body”? Paul writes to the Corinthians, “You are God’s building…Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” Christ was destroyed on the Cross. And raised in three days. The Church, the Body of Christ, will be destroyed and raised at the resurrection. You and I, temples of the Spirit, will suffer death, be destroyed, and raised again. Even though we are pulled apart by time and tide, suffer defeat in disease and decay, even though we succumb to accident and natural evil, in the end, we prevail. But we do not prevail on merit, or hard work, or by divine reward. We prevail by the gift of everlasting life freely given by God; He alone is holy. He alone defeats death. He alone brings new life from an ancient evil.

Our greatest efforts to leave behind us written monuments and chiseled temples falter and fail. Our best attempts to carve an indestructible message into the bark of the universe falter and fail. They falter and eventually fail because we ourselves are impermanent signposts, fading signs of an evolving creation. We could surrender to despair, or embrace the nihilism of our inevitable but temporary defeat. Many do. Those who do fail twice. They surrender to the impermanence of impermanence; that is, they give themselves over to the fleeting defeat of natural ends, and they neglect the gift of everlasting life freely given by the One Who is Holiness Himself. Everything we design, build, write, compose, paint, think, everything an impermanent creature creates will itself be impermanent. Political systems, grand philosophies, religious institutions, scientific knowledge—all will wane and pass away. Immaculately kept gardens, meticulously collected and maintained libraries and museums—all will find their decay. Perfectly sculpted gym bodies, surgically perfected faces and behinds, genetically altered DNA and sex-selected children—all will die. Only the temples of God will prevail in the end.

Does this mean that we are being foolish in pursuing created beauty? No, not so long as that beauty is understood as a creation of an impermanent creature. Given to the glory of God, created beauty is a form of prayer, a supplication and oblation to Beauty Himself. But it is an ordinary thing for that beauty to fail. Its ultimate passing should be celebrated as a sign of God’s singular holiness, a clue to the mystery of our life everlasting. To the degree that we participate in the Divine Life as gifted creatures, we are the most beautiful of all beings. The fact that we will pass away into natural death and rise again to a supernatural life must form us as children of God, shape our understanding of ourselves as creatures dependent on a Creator. We will be God but not without God.

God alone is holy. God alone brings us freely to His holiness. God alone builds the permanence of our lives after this life. God alone raises us up and places us at His table, our places reserved by His only Son, Jesus Christ. God alone makes all things holy.

Cringe-worthy comments from Domlife.org

I received the Domlife.org email newsletter just a few days after the election. The editors had solicited responses from OP's world-wide, asking friars, sister, nuns, and OP laity to write about their reactions to the election of Obama to the White House.

As I very reluctantly began to read the responses, I had to stop almost immediately because the evidence before me proved that even Dominicans could be taken in by The Messiah's slick rhetoric and hyponotizing charm. Even here in the Angelicum--despite B.O.'s taste for protecting manufactured "rights" against the lives of innocent children--several frairs were very public in their support of The One. They defended their choice with the predictable arguments of moral equivalence, "social justice" concern, and appeals to "historic opportunity."

Yes, it is both embarrassing and disheartening. Rather than post these responses when I first received them, I decided to ignore them and hoped they would be ignored. Unfortunately, they weren't.

Read them for yourself
. . .just don't blame me. Once upon a time readers could leave comments at Domlife.org; however, back then the site was operated by a student friar in St. Louis, but he lost his battle his keep the site when complaints from more "progressive" OP's to his provincial won the day. The site was turned over to the Dominican Leadership Conference and the first thing the new owners did--in defiance of all Dominican tradition of disputing important questions--was close down the commenting function.

Pure folly.

Sure, click over and read as many as you can. . .just remember: don't blame me.

12 November 2008

Communion and pro-abortion politicians (revised)

Another question I'm getting a lot these days: should pro-abortion Catholic politicians be excommunicated?

Should they be excommunicated? Yes, they should be. Are they excommunicated? No. And not because our bishops are being timid. . .

OK, having learned my lesson and submitted myself to the reality that I will never be a canon lawyer (thank God), I offer a quick revision of this post by quoting Prof. Robert Miller via Prof. Edward Peters (thanks to Zadok):

Canon 1398: A Clarification (First Things)


I wrote in this space yesterday about the controversy surrounding the remarks of Pope Benedict XVI concerning whether Mexican legislators who voted to legalize certain abortions were excommunicated lata sententia under canon 1398. As I stated yesterday, c. 1398 prohibits only “actually procur[ing] an abortion,” and as many of my correspondents have pointed out, it’s far from clear that this prohibition includes voting to legalize abortions.

I tacitly assumed that such was a possible interpretation of the canon, in part because one often hears this interpretation in popular discussions of canon law and in part because the statement of the Mexican bishops and Benedict’s subsequent comments (at least before the Vatican Secretariat of State rewrote them) necessarily presupposed that such an interpretation was possible. Clearly, if the canon does not prohibit certain kinds of actions taken by legislators, it would have been simply wrongheaded for the Mexican bishops to have suggested that the legislators were excommunicated for voting to legalize certain abortions and even more wrongheaded for Benedict to have agreed with them (again, subject to having his remarks corrected by Vatican officials).

It turns out, however, that c. 1398 almost certainly does not include actions taken by legislators. Dr. Edward N. Peters, who teaches canon law at Sacred Heart Seminary in Detroit, explains on his blog that, despite the persistent discussion of c. 1398 in such contexts, virtually no one learned in canon law thinks that it applies to actions taken by politicians in connection with legislation. In fact, according to Dr. Peters, it’s not even a close question. After reading his explanation, I agree, and I’m very grateful to him for calling all this to my attention.

Now that that's all cleared up, I return to the conclusion of my original post with some revisions. . .

Back to the question at hand, or a revised version of it: do Catholic politicians who lend their formal and material cooperation to the mortal sin of abortion incur excommunication? Not automatically and apparently they would not be actively excommunicated by the Church. Should they be refused communion? Generally speaking, yes, they should. Why? Two reasons. First, receiving communion is a public act that indicates that one is "in community" with the larger Body of Christ. I eat the Body of Christ and demonstrate in doing so that I am one with the Body. If I am in moral sin, I am not in the Body though I am still formally a member of the Church. To take communion after publicly formally and materially cooperating in the commission of a mortal sin, I cause scandal. To offer communion to someone you know is in this state causes scandal and might even count as material cooperation with sin. Second, when I take communion in mortal sin I condemn myself to death. None of us is worthy to receive communion; we do so only with God's grace. To receive the Lord in the sacrament requires that we be disposed to the grace that the sacrament offers to us. I am not properly disposed if I am in mortal sin. How can I be receptive to God's love if I have killed that love in my heart?

The sticky situation in individual cases for bishops and priests is that they can almost never know if the pro-abortion Catholic politician has repented of their formal and/or material cooperation with abortion at any particular Mass. It is entirely possible that Senator Bob, having read this [revised] post, has come to realize his error, gone to confession, reconciled with the Body, and come forward to receive communion as a public sign of his renewed love for God. I know, not likely but possible. The bishop or priest risks the presumption of sin in violation of the presumption of grace if he refuses Senator Bob communion. This is why bishops and pastors are obligated to speak directly and privately with those Catholics who publicly cooperate in the sin of abortion. In the absence of that conversation, it is impossible to know the heart of the pro-abortion politician. However, if the politician persists in public sin, the presumption of grace on the part of the pastor is justly weakened and the politician risks taking communion indisposed.

I do not believe that bishops and pastors are hesitating in refusing communion out of fear of bad publicity or out of a sense that Catholics are entitled to communion regardless of their spiritual condition. There is a substantial private component to receiving communion that is known objectively only to the individual. This has to be respected within fairly broad limits. This is why so many bishops have simply said to pro-abortion politicians, "If you have publicly given formal and material cooperation to the sin of abortion you should not receive communion." This is exactly correct. But when said politician comes forward to receive communion, the pastor has to make a different kind of choice for the benefit of the individual and the larger Body. So, the question for the pastor is, "what do you know right this second about this person?" Since it is almost impossible to know the internal disposition of any individual at any given moment, the pastor must presume grace and give the politician communion.

Two quick points. First, the pastor's concern must be spiritual and not political; that is, the pastor's proper worry needs to be for the spiritual health of his Church and the individual involved. Refusing communion as a political act, some kind of protest against the person is reprehensible. Second, NO ONE other than the bishop or pastor should make the decision to refuse communion (and even the pastor will need to consult with the bishop). To be very specific: if you are a lay minister of communion and you know with the certainty of the angels that Senator Bob is in mortal sin, you cannot, in the absence of an order from the pastor, refuse him communion. This is not your job as an extraordinary minister. If you have concerns, talk to your pastor, but do not take it upon yourself to decide who is properly disposed to receive and who isn't. You are endangering your own soul by presuming to know what you cannot know.

Again, my thanks to Zadok the Roman for his charitable correction of this post and for the links to the always reliable Dr. Ed Peters, Canon Lawyer, Extraordinaire! Here Dr. Peter's lays out some options for addressing Catholic pro-abortion politicians.

Blaming/Praising Men for Abortion

I've had the privilege of counseling women both pre- and post-abortion. Absent in every case was the father. Jeff Mirus at Catholic Culture offers this insight into the blame/praise that properly accrues to men in the decision women make to abort their children:

The pro-life movement also needs to make use of men who can get out the message of what it means to love. Brennan reveals this need in her own story when she notes that it was the departure of a man who actually treated her well that finally jolted her out of her self-centered, self-defeating philosophy of life. I have long argued that too many problems of contemporary women (especially the kind of problems that drive them to abortion) are caused by men who either do not know how to be men, or who refuse to be men—men who use women as toys, abandoning them when they no longer find them fun. Fathers who abuse and/or abandon their daughters; lovers and husbands who abuse and/or abandon their wives: These men are architects of insecurity and anger in women, both of which fuel feminism and a culture of death.

Read the entire article here.

11 November 2008

Is Obama the Anti-Christ?

I've been getting this question a lot lately: Is Obama the Anti-Christ foretold in the Book of Revelation?

Yes and no. Here's why. . .

The image we have of the figure of the Anti-Christ comes from Hollywood. . .creepy kid with "666" tattooed on his scalp. . .black eyes, psychic powers, talks to wolves, crows, etc. . .kills people who get in the way of his demonic plans for world domination. In more recent times, the Anti-Christ has been portrayed as an international politician with great charm, a brilliant mind, a wildly secular compassion, and a taste for creating Nanny State bureaucracies like the U.N. and the E.U.

Now, without going into the 2,000 year-old history of how Christians have conceived the Anti-Christ from scripture, it is vital that we understand one Big Truth about the idea of the Anti-Christ: his appearance is NOT some future event; that is, the Anti-Christ is not coming "some day." He has come and gone many times and will likely come and go many more.

Why do I say this? Check out this paragraph from the Catechism of the Catholic Church: "The Antichrist's deception already begins to take shape in the world every time the claim is made to realize within history that messianic hope which can only be realized beyond history through the eschatological judgment. The Church has rejected even modified forms of this falsification of the kingdom to come under the name of millenarianism, especially the "intrinsically perverse" political form of a secular messianism"(n.676). I've highlighted the key phrase here: "already begins to take shape in the world every time. . ." Since we are bound to live within history (i.e. we are subject to the passage of time), we experience God's plan of salvation for us as a progression of events--past, present, future. However, what scripture reveals to us is God's plan All At Once, that is, what we have in the Bible is the totality of our salvation history from beginning to end, each event is simultaneously past, present, and future revealed from God's vantage point of eternity.

The Second Coming of Christ has happened, is happening, and will happen. The Book of Revelation is a book of prophecy (future). But it is also a book of history (past) and a contemporary report of the world news (present). It is a mistake for Catholics to take this book to be merely historical, or as merely world news, or as merely prophetic. It must be all three at the same time because the book reveals an eternal (atemporal) plan played out within time. We can read the Book of Revelation for patterns of historical progress in the life of the Church as she lives with the world. Since our relationship with the world is always adversarial, it is fairly easy to say that there will be peaks of open conflict and persecution both of the Church by the world and from within the Church by those who given themselves to the world.

In parapgraph 675, the paragraph immediately preceding the paragraph above, we read:
"Before Christ's second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth will unveil the "mystery of iniquity" in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh." Everything in this passage has happened before; is happening now; and will happen again. The ancient church was persecuted under the Roman emperors. The church in Africa (Sudan) and Asia (India) is being persecuted right now. And the church will be persecuted again in the future--in the U.S.? Europe? Very likely. Think about the secular messiahs the Church has confronted in history--the Roman emperors were considered gods; Mao and Stalin held power through messiah-like cults of personalty; Hitler persecuted both Jews and Christian, both of God's people under a national messiahism called fascist socialism. There are many others.

Back to Obama. Given everything I have said above, can we consider Obama the Anti-Christ? No. There is no "the Anti-Christ." There have been many Anti-Christs that have given flesh to the demonic desire to replace the Kingdom of God with a secular paradise. There are many now and there will be many more. To the degree that Obama opposes the will of God for His people, cloaks his opposition in religious language and ceremony, and persecutes the Church for her resistance to his secular messianic agenda, then we can say that he is an Anti-Christ.*

But here's the kicker: we are all capable of doing what the Anti-Christ in the Book of Revelation did, is doing, and will do. We do not do so on the scale of an American president or an international organization like the U.N., but we all have found ourselves, find ourselves, and will find ourselves believing and acting "against Christ," i.e. become Anti-Christs. From the White House Obama's secular messiahism is far more effective in undermining the Church than my single sins of omission or even my accumulated sins of commission. But can any of us overestimate the damage done to the U.S. Church by the abuse scandals caused by our priests and bishops? Or the damage done by pro-abortion clergy, religious, and politicans?

So, yes, Obama is an Anti-Christ. And no, he is not The Anti-Christ.

*It is very important for me to note here that I am not comparing Obama to Mao, Stalin, and Hitler. The man is a plain ole Chicago-machine liberal Democrat with great stage presence and rhetorical skills. But to compare him to these monsters is way, way over the top and is likely counterproductive in opposing his policies.

Southern Province Vocations Video

The new vocations video from my province, the Province of St Martin de Porres, USA. . .



You can contact our vocations promoter, Fr. Charlie Latour, OP here.

Also check out the new Dominican blog created by fra. Thomas, OP at Aquinas Institute: always distinguish(ed).

09 November 2008

12 Reasons Why Faithful Citizenship Failed to Persuade

Why did the USCCB document, Faithful Citizenship, fail so miserably in persuading Catholics to vote pro-life this last election?

There are several reasons:

1). The document, like most committee monsters, is unwieldly; it is over-written, too highly nuanced to be effective. The first mention of abortion and euthanasia doesn't occur until paragraph 22 on page 8.

2). The document is loaded with technical theological terminology, e.g. "formal cooperation with evil."

3). The document provides far too many loopholes that could have been effectively closed with ordinary language, an example of an irrelevant loophole for this election: "There may be times when a Catholic who rejects a candidate’s unacceptable position may decide to vote for that candidate for other morally grave reasons. Voting in this way would be permissible only for truly grave moral reasons. . ."(n.35). There was a candidate in this last election who promised to expand abortion rights and another who promised not to. There were no "other morally grave reasons" for voting for the pro-abortion candidate.

4). Pro-abortion clergy and lay catechists took advantage of the above and strongly hinted or outright taught that is morally acceptable to vote for a pro-abortion candidate in this last election in the absence of proportinate good reasons to do so.

5). Despite the best efforts of some bishops to teach clearly that there is no proportionate good reason to vote for a pro-abortion candidate in this last election, pro-abortion clergy and lay catechists seized on the loophole, urging Catholics not to be "one issue voters."

6). Like most Americans, most Catholics are ethical utilitarians at heart; meaning, that they weighed the evil of abortion equally with all the other Church's social justice issues. The document's teaching on this point is lost in the linguistic muddle. By placing other social wrongs along side abortion, the document undercuts it own teaching against the error of "moral equivalence." Does holding racist opinions equal the moral evil of the murder of 48 million children?

7). The document does not adequately teach that without the right to life no other right makes much sense. Aborted babies don't need universal health-care, fair wages, or a clean environment.

8). The bishops tolerated clerical dissent from the document in their dioceses, giving Catholics in the pew the idea that there is division in the upper ranks.

9). There is division in the upper ranks regarding the Church's teaching on voting and the right to life.

10). Generally speaking, documents from the USCCB are presented as official teaching at the diocesan level, implying that if an individual bishop disagrees with the document, Catholics in his diocese are free to ignore his teaching in favor of the USCCB. This is not the case. USCCB documents only have the magisterial weight that individual bishops give them.

11). Though well-intentioned, alternative voting guides from pro-life groups gave Catholics the impression that "right-wing Catholics" were disagreeing with the USCCB. This set up a situation where less faithful intrepretations of the document were posed as authentic by contrast.

12). The document certainly teaches the truth of the faith on life issues; however, it failed to persuade most voting Catholics to vote pro-life because it is too long, too nuanced, too technical, full of loopholes, and easily manipulated by selective quoting, and because of all of these, prone to misinterpretation by pro-abortion ideologues among the clergy and laity.

Solution: let Archbishop Chaput write the voting guide for 2012.

[UPDATE: I've been asked to comment on the recent USCCB decision to remove discussion of abortion politics from the agenda of the bishops' meeting in Washington. I do not think that this is a move by the bishops to avoid the issue. Clearly, a vast majority of our bishops see abortion politics as an area where Catholics have a great deal to contribute. No doubt the discussion will occur in their closed meetings. With the bright lights of the Obama PR machine (i.e., "the media") shining in their eyes, the bishops want to get a few things straightened out before making any public statements. Even the most timid objections to the strong statements put out by some bishops will be used as a reason for dissent by the leftie media and her allies in the Church.]