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.

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!

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

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.

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.

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).

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.]

Four Top Ten Lists

Top Ten Most Irritating English Phrases compiled by Oxford University, including one I've used just recently: "with all due respect"!

My Top Ten List Catholic Weasel Phrases:

1). one-issue Catholic voter (of the course this only applies to pro-life advocates)
2). complex moral problem (as cover for dissenting from Church teaching)
3). in good conscience (voodoo incantation that magically turns Evil into Good)
4). social justice issue (left-liberal social engineering meddling)
5). creative fidelity (imaginative dissent that on issues settled in the 4th century)
6). democratic ecclesiology (Protestantism by any other name)
7). missioned/missioning (Nun-word, means "to commission")
8). in the proper context (the context here always seems to trump the truth)
9). pro-choice Catholic (have no idea what this is supposed to mean)
10). preferential option for the poor (see #4)

My Top Ten Liturgical Acts That Should Be Punished by Public Beating:

1). holding hands during the Our Father (not a real liturgical gesture)
2). improvised Eucharistic prayers ("Say the black, do the red, Father!")
3). omitting the Gloria on Sundays and other solemnities (pure laziness)
4). pronoun shuffle to avoid using male pronouns (forced participation in a political experiment)
5). editing the Creed to make it politically correct, theologically dodgy (ditto)
6). using the homily to ask for money (throw hymnals at pastors who do this)
7). saying "Good morning, everyone!" after the "Lord be with you" (doesn't trust the liturgy)
8). making imperatives into statements: "The Lord IS with you" (pretentious theology)
9). universalizing prayers, e.g. as in "Blessed are WE who are called to THIS supper"
10). funky priestly gestures, e.g. waving the host around at the consecration (stop that!)

My Top Ten Bad Excuses for Missing Sunday Mass

1). "I went to a wedding on Saturday."
2). "I couldn't find a convenient time to go."
3). "The family Mass is annoying."
4). "My pastor is a heretic."
5). "The vestments are ugly, the music is bad, and the deacon can't preach."
6). "Sr. Moonbat always gets up and tells us about her eco-retreat center."
7). "Father is always begging for money."
8). "I went for a walk in the park. . .that's the same as Mass!"
9). "Father said it was OK to miss Mass once in a while as a treat to myself."
10). "I had out of town guests who aren't Catholic."

Dominican economics, or why I beg for books

Right on schedule, I have received my quarterly admonishment from an anonymous commenter on my persistent and annoying habit of pointing at my WISH LIST and hinting that books are a great gift for Dominican friars year 'round!

For the most part the usual objections for my "book begging" are made: annoying, unseemly, selfish, etc. Though this time around there's a twist I need to address. This time there's an accusation that my Amazon.com mendicancy violates my vow of poverty. . .ah, a wrinkle. The objection is not elaborated so I'm unsure how begging is a violation of poverty unless I am begging simply to be acquisitive, which I'm not. . .a Dominican student/professor without books is like a farmer without his tractor: no tools, no harvest.

I realize that most people in the world have no idea how religious live. So, I want to give you a down and dirty picture of the economic side of my life. Please keep in mind: I have chosen this life of my own free will and struggle to live it faithfully with God's mercy and the help of my brothers. The following description CANNOT be read as a complaint or whine about my life in the Order. IOW, this description is meant simply to show you how the brothers live. Nothing more.

The theory

First, we need to understand how Dominicans understand poverty. There is a long history here that I can't get into outside a semester long lecture. Here's the essential point: Dominican poverty is not the same as traditional Franciscan destitution. Meaning, historically, Franciscans have seen poverty as an end in itself, an achieveable goal to be pursued as a spiritual good. in imitation of Christ and the apostles. For Dominicans, poverty is merely a means to an end: to be freed up as much as possible to contemplate God's wisdom and share the fruits of that contemplation through preaching. In other words, Dominicans do not pursue poverty as a good thing simply to be poor. We are poor in order to be free to preach. We achieve a practical poverty by owning nothing personally and everything in common. Simplicity is not the goal either. Simplicity is also a means. Austerity is not a goal. Frugality is not a goal. Both are means. Dominicans are geared to be preachers. Our study, prayer, community life, our vows, our begging are all directed toward one thing: preaching.

The mechanics:

A friar is assigned to a house or a priory by the provincial. There is usually a ministry of some sort assigned as well: pastor, campus minister, professor, etc.

If he is working for a Catholic entity, his salary is usually given directly to the priory; i.e., the check is made out to the priory not the friar. This was the case with me in Texas b/c I worked for a Catholic university. My base salary at U.D. as a full-time campus minister was $17,000/yr. I received additional allowances (health insurance, etc.) from the university that raised that amount to not quite $30,000/yr. I also received stipends for Masses and confessions--all went to the priory common account (the basis for Dominican poverty).

Monetary gifts to individual friars are given to the community depending on the amount given (anything more than $25, usually). The quick "Irish handshake" of a $10 bill after Mass is usually spent that day for lunch. Stipends for retreats, conferences, etc. are turned in.

Usually, in any given house/priory each friar has an approved budget which governs his spending for the fiscal year. Included in this budget are common items like clothing, books, gas for the car, repairs, etc.

Friars are also given a monthly stipend as "pocket money." This amount varies from house to house, but it runs from $75-$120/month. This is money we use for Starbuck's, movies, lunch at Wendy's, etc.

Almost all friars have credit cards for large purchases such as airfare, on-line purchases, etc. The credit card bill is paid by the friar's house/priory and is accounted for on his budget. While in Irving, I frequently used my card to make purchases for my campus ministry activities, so it was not uncommon for my monthly bills to be upwards of $1,800. These costs were reimbursed, of course. My monthly bill now is well-under $250--no car (thank God!), no ministry. . .

As a student I am not permitted to work, so I am not directly contributing to my priory. This will change next year if I am taken on as a professor. All of my expenses are paid by my province.

Needless to say, we rely heavily on mendicancy (begging) for our livelihood!

Living conditions:

Living conditions for friars vary a great deal. We have a brand new priory in Houston, TX that is quite nice. Others live in regular houses in regular neighborhoods. Some live in large, European priories built hundreds of years ago. Others live alone or with one or two other friars, depending on ministry needs and personal circumstances. The priory in Irving is something of an exception to the rule in that it is a large community living in a newer building with relatively "nice things." Generally speaking, the older the building, the more austere the conditions.

Though this varies somewhat, friars get their personal items like shampoo, toothpaste, OTC meds, etc. from a common closet or room called a procurator's shop (or "proc shop")--usually procurred by the priory procurator in bulk at Sam's or some where equivalent. If friars want to purchase different brands or additional items, they pay with their monthly stipends. Haircuts are also paid out of the friar's stipend, thus the common do-it-yourself "high-tight" style of most friars who turn themselves over to the clippers of the house barber!

In Europe and in U.S. formation houses individual friars do not have cars assigned to each friar. Most friars in regular U.S. priories have a commonly owned car assigned to them. When a friar moves to a new assignment, "his car" usually stays behind.

My personal living conditions:

The priory here used to be the seminary for the Italian Dominican provinces, meaning the living conditions are akin to a university dormitory. It was built in the middle of the 16th century and served as a monastery for Dominican nuns for years.

Each friar has his own room (or "cell"). My cell is approx. 10'x16'. Each room has a cold water sink. No A/C. Radiator heat. Each is furnished modestly with the basics. No closets or dressers.

Bathrooms and showers are "down the hall." We have 12 bathrooms/showers for about 85 friars. Four washers, three dryers. There is a laundry service that most of the guys take advantage of. . .I don't.

We eat our meals in common. Lunch and dinner are prepared by a two person kitchen staff. Meals are very modest. This is not common in the U.S. except for our formation communities (the novice houses and seminary houses, which tend to have 15+ friars). For the most part, American OP's take turns cooking for the community. Housekeeping chores are also divided and assigned. We have one employee here who sweeps, mops common areas and keeps the bathrooms clean.

I have very few "street clothes," preferring to wear my habit as much as possible. In the U.S. among an older generation, the habit has become a liturgical garments worn only for common prayer and Mass. Generally, in this generation the habit is seen as a symbol of ecclesial power and avoided in order to foster a sense of "we're with the regular folks not above them." Undoubtedly, that phase in our history was necessary to undo some of the abuses of authority that plagued the American church. A younger generation has rejected that reasoning, pointing to the lose of identity in the community and has chosen to revive the symbol of the habit as a sign of consecration and dedication. "Habit Wars" in religious communities are coming to a close as it is becoming more and more evident that orders who eschew the habit are dying on the vine from lack of vocations. No doubt, at some future moment, the habit will again come to represent authority and power and its use will need to be reassessed. For now, I wear mine and don't spend money on clothes.

Now, books. Most priories in the U.S. have small libraries devoted to basic texts in theology, philosophy, scripture, etc. Irving has one of the best libraries in my province simply b/c the friars there were professors at the University of Dallas for more than 50 years. The library here is also an excellent basic library for historical study in the areas we generally work in.

If the priory is associated with a university, the library is usually very good. The formation houses in Washington, St Louis, and Oakland have excellent. libraries. The student brothers in St Louis have access to one of the best divinity libraries in the country at St Louis University Pius XII Library.

The library here at the Angelicum has an excellent collection of primary and secondary books on Aquinas, medieval theology/philosophy, and ancient philosophy. Most are in Italian or Latin. Books on more contemporary topics like philosophy of science, modern epistemology, metaphysics, contemporary theology are not available. So, I have to buy them or ask you to.

My book budget for this academic year is $900 or 700 Euro. Academic books are more expensive than non-academic books like paperback novels, non-fiction works. The least expensive academic book I've purchased in Rome costs me 28 Euro. Do the math. Not pretty, is it?

I do not buy books willy-nilly nor do I waste my budget on books that are available in the library. So far, I have begged and borrowed needed books. I haven't resorted to stealing. . .yet?

I usually buy used books on-line, but this means paying shipping, which can be anywhere from $4 to $12 depending on the currency used. Also, if the total amount of the books exceeds around $70, I have to pay customs. So far, I've paid about $30 in customs.

Now, I repeat: I am NOT complaining or whining about this situation! I am simply trying to lay out a picture for you of how things work economically for Dominicans. Frequently, I get emails or combox comments about how easy my life is from people who nothing about how I actually live. Yes, some components of my life are easy compared to others. Certainly easier than the homeless, the truly destitute, and probably easier than the lay students here who have to commute from outside b/c living in Rome is outrageously expensive. But this relative ease in some areas of my living conditions comes with a trade-off in austerity, an austerity that I have freely chosen and accept gratefully as part of my vocation.

Now, why should anyone reading this blog on a regular basis help me by buying books? The Dominican spiritual tradition is summed up in the neat phrase "to share the fruits of our contemplation." For Dominicans, contemplation is not about sitting cross-legged on the floor thinking about the universe. Contemplation for us is an active ministry, that is, it is the intellectual activity of pondering the "multi-form wisdoms of God" and then sharing any insights we have with others.

An essential part of our contemplation is an engagement with the world of ideas through the work of others--scholars, mystics, scientists, etc. Dominicans believe that God's grace builds on the given nature of the individual, forming, changing, growing that person into the perfect version of who that person is made to be. So, each of us is graced in exactly the way that his or her nature demands for perfection. This means that I am directed by my gifted nature and God's grace to contemplate the wisdom of God found in philosophy, theology, literature, and science; more specifically, to think about and write about how these multiple wisdoms work together as a coherent whole. In light of scripture and the magisterial ministry of the Church ,I preach a gospel message that is both "traditional" and "contemporary," or, at least I try to!

That preaching ends up here (yes, along with a lot of other cranky stuff too) for your benefit (I hope). So, when readers buy books for me they do several things at once:

1). They give me pieces of God's multiple wisdoms for contemplation.
2). They help me to improve my own nature by helping me better understand God's revelation.
3). That improved understanding is conveyed in my thinking and my preaching.
4). Insofar as these homilies help them grow in holiness, they contribute to their own growth.
5). They relieve me and my budget of the burden of buying one book so I can get another.
6). My book benefactors are at the top of my daily prayer list!

Therefore (finally!), if you read these homilies; if these homilies help you grow in holiness or just make you think; if I what I think and say here does anything at all to make your relationship to God better, then buy me a book! :-)

Only So Much Room

St Charles Borromeo: Phil 2.5-11; Luke 14.15-24
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
Convento SS Domenico e Sisto, Roma

[NB. I tried to record this homily this morning at Mass, but my recorder was dead. Died from neglect, I guess…]

In a small elevator there is room for only two or three. Only so much water may fill a bucket. How many books can fit in a backpack? How many students does it take to make a class? Going about our day we are constantly observing and assessing the quantities we must work with: how many Euro do I have for lunch? How much time for reading the texts for one course or another? In my case, how many mini-packets of Nutella will fit in my habit pocket? The constant work of assessment and the judgments we make on our assessments is mostly unconscious. We do it almost automatically. Without much deliberation or worry. Fill up. Count out. Measure. Act accordingly. So, what does it mean then for us to “empty ourselves”? To “pour ourselves out”? If we must empty ourselves, then we must consider what it is that we are full of. And if we manage to pour ourselves out, what will fill us up, occupying the vacuum left behind? Here’s a hint: “Blessed is the one who will dine in the Kingdom of God.”

Paul admonishes the Philippians to “have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus…” The same attitude as Christ Jesus. Just before this admonition Paul writes: “If there is any encouragement in Christ […] complete my joy by being of the same mind, [the same heart,] thinking one thing. Do nothing out of selfishness or out of vainglory; rather, humbly regard others as more important than yourselves, each looking out not for his own interests, but (also) everyone for those of others.” This is the attitude of Christ who “though he was in the form of God […] emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; […] he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.” Christ emptied himself to become man. We must empty ourselves to become Christ.

But what is it that we must pour out? What fills us up, leaving no room for God? We could say Ego. Pride. We could say Vanity. What do those invited to the table of the Lord say when they hear his invitation? Nothing so abstract or grand as “I am too proud.” Or, “I am filled with selfish need.” They say what we are all likely to say, “I’m busy.” Work to do. People to see. Family waiting for me at home. So, work is bad? We can ignore appointments? Family is unimportant? No. But when our reasons for declining the Lord’s invitation to eat at his table become excuses for ignoring his invitation to pour ourselves out, we fail to take on the attitude of Christ. And filled with excuses, there is no room in us for God.

Only so many can fill a classroom. Only so much water can fit in a bucket. That backpack will only hold so many books. We can be filled with excuses for declining the Lord’s invitation; or, we can empty ourselves as he did for us, becoming more now than we were ever made to be. If the poor, the blind, the lame, and the crippled—all those usually left outside the banquet hall—if they can be invited to the table, pouring themselves out and being filled with divine food and drink, so can we. Like them, we too can become Christ…but only if we say yes when invited and make enough room for the guest of honor.

Sr. Gaia, Fr. Moonbat (Now With Comments!)

This article is a book review, but it is also an excellent insight into why some of our religious women's congregations are dying. The bottomline: they are either no longer Catholic or no longer Christian. I will have interlinear comments later. . .gotta finish my Italian homework!

Our Pantheistic Sisters

February 2008By Anne Barbeau Gardiner

Anne Barbeau Gardiner, a Contributing Editor of the NOR, is Professor Emerita of English at John Jay College of the City University of New York. She has published on Dryden, Milton, and Swift, as well as on Catholics of the 17th century.

Green Sisters: A Spiritual Ecology. By Sarah McFarland Taylor. Harvard University Press. 363 pages. $29.95.

Sarah McFarland Taylor, an Episcopalian and historian of women's religious history, started her research on the Catholic green sisters in 1994. She spent two summers at Genesis Farm in New Jersey, then visited more than a dozen similar centers, attended four conferences of the Sisters of Earth, conducted over a hundred interviews, and examined their newsletters, poetry, artwork, cookbooks, correspondence, prayers, and rituals. She sent a draft of her book to some leading green sisters for their approval and documented her findings in 60 pages of endnotes. [My fellow novices and I attended a conference on the vows sponsored by a large Texas-based women's religious congregation. Expecting to hear about chastity, poverty, and obedience, imagine our surprise when we discovered that the whole day was devoted to one sister ponitifcating on her adobe hut in the New Mexico desert and her struggles to learn how to recycle and use her urine. The high point came when we were told by a frightening angry sister in a tie-dye moo-moo to "dance our vows." She proceeded to twirl about ponderously. Shudder.]

Throughout the book, Taylor is in total sympathy with the green sisters, whom she regards as "some of the best-educated women in Amer­ica." [Not educated iin the Catholic faith, apparently.] She says their network includes sisters from these religious orders: Sisters of St. Joseph, of Loretto, of Charity, of Notre Dame, and of the Humility of Mary, as well as some Franciscan and Dominican Sisters [blushing with embarrassment], Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and Medical Mission Sisters. In 1995 there were a dozen earth ministries; in 2006 there were at least 50, which Taylor lists in an appendix.

Green sisters complain that "right-wing Catholic critics" -- among them Michael S. Rose of the NEW OXFORD REVIEW-- have unjustly charged them with pantheism, but on the basis of this book, the charge seems justified. Pope Pius IX defined the "error" of "pantheism" thus: "No supreme, all wise, and all provident divine Godhead exists, distinct from this world of things," and "all things are God and they have the same substance of God" (Syllabus of Errors, Denzinger, #1701). As Taylor reveals, this is the green sisters' core principle, that God and the cosmos are fused [For the most part religious women were not required in the late 60's and 70's to complete a regimen of philosophy studies before taking on higher degrees in theology. Most opted for study in psychology and sociology. It shows].

At the Sisters of Earth conference in 2002, the 150 participants chanted, with regard to the earth, "All is holy, so holy. All is sacred, so sacred. All is one" [and then they passed the Spirit of Vatican Two Peace Bong]. Then, at the 2003 assembly of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), with 76,000 members in the U.S., 900 sisters chanted, with regard to the earth, "Sacred is the call, awesome indeed the entrustment [entrustment?!]. Tending the Holy, Tending the Holy." The LCWR invitation featured an image of the planet with the caption: "Tending the Holy." In her presidential address, Sr. Mary Ann Zollmann declared, "we women religious are living out of and growing more deeply into an eco­feminism that is a communion of companionship, responsibility, and accountability to the whole web of life" [except that part that includes reproducing yourselves in novices].

Thomas Berry, Spiritual Guide

Thomas Berry, a 90-year-old Passionist priest and disciple of Teilhard de Chardin, is "indispensable" for understanding the green sisters, writes Taylor. He is the "prophet" who played a "pivotal role" in creating this movement. Taylor notes that Fr. Berry, unlike Matthew Fox [a former Dominican friar whose WHOLE story--not just the parts he has chosen to tell--should be told as a warning to the young], has not been disciplined by the Church and can administer the Sacraments. He proposes as the "Great Work" for our age to "midwife humanity into an Ecozoic era" [sounds sticky], where our species and the earth will be "mutually beneficial." Green sisters have taken up this "sacred mission," which they see as larger than the Church or Christianity itself. The natural world, Fr. Berry teaches, is God's "primary revelation [apparently Jesus had it all wrong], from which every other revelation derives. This was also the teaching of the pantheist philosopher Spinoza. Fr. Berry wants the Bible put "on the shelf for at least twenty years" so people can read "the primary scripture of the world about us [like most heresies this one has some truth to it. Creation is one means of God's Self -revelation. However, creation is not the final and unique revelation. That prize goes to Christ.] Following this guide, green sisters work to create a shift of consciousness from human-centeredness to a "biocentric norm." That is to say, they have exchanged a "primary preoccupation with humans" for "a primary concern" with the "total Earth" [thus ignoring Christ's Great Commission for one of their own chooseing, "Go out to all the world and recycle, teaching all humans to clip coupons and buy locally"]. For green sisters, as for Fr. Berry, the world is a community of "subjects" all divinely related to one another.

Fr. Berry considers the biblical "creation story" meaningless because it fails to give humanity a sense of "communion" with "a universe that is alive, sacred, intelligent, and still being created." (To regard matter as alive and thinking, of course, is the foundation of pantheism.) Since Western science cannot convey the "sacredness of the cosmic evolutionary process" either, Fr. Berry proposes a "New Story" to give us a sense of the "cosmic communion" of "all things" [this "new story" nonsense is from Brian Swimme's book, The Universe Story, a hodge-podge of pseudo-science, wishful thinking, heretical theology, and New Age babble].

Greening Their Vows

Green sisters have reinterpreted their vows in light of Fr. Berry's "new evolutionary cosmological consciousness." Sr. Gail Wor­celo, who studied under Fr. Berry and took her final vows in his presence in 1991, declares that when he gave her the ring of final profession, she felt wedded "to a passionate love affair with the Divine as revealed in the universe story." This is not quite the same as becoming the bride of Christ.

As for the vow of chastity, Sr. Elaine Prevallet says it means a "moral commitment to ease ecosystem stresses caused by a burgeoning human population [um, that 's"support abortion and contraception," btw]. Other green sisters likewise speak of this vow as a "lifetime commitment" not to give birth and as a "gift that sisters have given the earth community throughout the history of religious orders." Tellingly, at the 1998 Sisters of Earth conference, Stephanie Mills was the keynote speaker: she is notorious for harping on the connection between "unchecked human population growth and ecological crisis" and, though not a sister, for having vowed herself to a "nonpro­creative life" [well, we can be glad there won't be any little Stephanies running around playing the oxygen thieves and filling Holy Mother Earth with poopy diapers].

Green sisters do not accept a dichotomy between temporal creation and eternal Creator. They see their vows in relation to a divine creation. Sr. Cathy Mueller sees them as "natural choices that enhance Earth" [watch this rhetorical clue: these moonbat sisters almost never refer to "the Earth" but to "Earth," as if the designation were a proper name for a person] and Sr. Mary Southard, as choices made in the context of "an evolutionary universe." Sr. Janet Fraser remarks that "since the earth [obviously sister has not been properly brainwashed] and the cosmos are the Body of God" [this is a religion called "hinduism," folks]. her vows make the natural world "primary"; and Sr. Barbara O'Donnell believes they make "Earth's story our story." Thus, their vows do not refer to the Kingdom, which is "not of this world."

When Taylor asks about the "spiritual dimension" of these vows, Sr. Maureen Wild replies that for them there is no dichotomy between "matter" and "spirit." (In Pius IX's definition of "pantheism," we find this very phrase: that "God is one and the same as the world, and therefore, also, spirit is one and the same with matter.") With this principle, is it any wonder that some green sisters are "certified in massage therapy and various forms of bodywork" to help "nurture" the bodies and spirits of the sisters? In one of their centers, there is a hot tub with a view of Texas hill country, in which "we all soaked our muscles and restored our bodies" after a day's work [a day's work? Doing what? Dancing a New Church into being?]. Taylor comments, "This hot tub, which clearly soothes the flesh instead of mortifying it, is a far cry from sisters' wearing hairshirts and doing daily penance."

Praying to the 'Cosmic Mother'

Green sisters protest that they have not departed from Catholic Tradition, but are "caretakers" of its deepest "essence as it has evolved over time" [Hooey. Pure unadultered hooey]. Not so. At the Green Mountain Monastery in Vermont, Sr. Gail Worcelo prays to Mary as "Holy Matrix" [does Kenau about this!? Maybe sister should lay off the little green pills] who reveals the "sacredness in all matter" and holds the universe in her womb, instead of the child Jesus. This is depicted in the image "Mary of the Cosmos," inspired by Fr. Berry. The sisters pray to Mary as "Matter impregnated with Spirit" -- a far cry from Catholic Tradition!

Just how dangerous it is to invoke a false goddess became clear at the 2002 Sisters of Earth conference, where Charlene Spretnak, a radical feminist, gave the keynote talk on "Mary as Premodern and Post­modern Cosmology." Spretnak was in the middle of her paper when a woman in the audience began to moan and shriek and fight off something invisible. Then she grew quiet and started talking in a voice much "larger" than her size, declaring, "I am Mary. I am pleased. I am very pleased. You all are my daughters. You understand. You are in the presence of Grace" [Um. . .ooooookay. . .cross myself and say a quick "Hail Mary"]. Taylor was "frightened and unsettled," sadness filled the room, yet no one suspected that this might be a sign that they were opening a door to the abyss and attracting the demonic [Exactly. . .'cause that's very likely what they did. . .what's that about demons coming to us as angels of light?].

For where is Jesus Christ in their worship? In the "Liturgy of the Cosmos," Sr. Worcelo explains, there is a fusion of "the story of Jesus, the story of the earth, and the story of the cosmos" into "one vast intertwined evolutionary epic." Here Jesus is "embodied in cosmos and thus never separate from it" [thus undermining the uniqueness of his incarnation; thus giving lie to the previous declaration that these women are still Catholics] and He suffers another "Passion" in the "wasting of the planet." What an absurdity! Jesus Christ cannot be fused with His creation: He has ascended into Heaven and cannot be "embodied" in the material cosmos so as to be inseparable from it. Such a gross error in a Christian puts one's salvation at risk.

Greening the Eucharist

Green sisters not only grow food as "priestly practice," but cook it as a "daily Eucharistic ritual" to affirm the human body as an "extension" of earth's body. Ordinary food, they claim, is a "blessed sacrament" uniting them to "the more-than-human world" and nourishing them "by the Divine directly." One sister declares, "We are the earth nourishing itself." [This is a really, really bad Walt Whitman parody. Whitman's excuse was that he lived in the 19th century and spent too much time sniffing the "scented herbage of his breasts"].

With few exceptions the sisters are vegetarians. Why? Let Sr. Jeannine Gramick explain: "I no longer believe in the old cosmology I had been taught -- the hierarchical pyramid of creation in which human animals, near the top of the pyramid, are assigned more worth than non-human animals and other beings toward the bottom." After studying with the Trappist monk Colman McCarthy, she became a vegetarian because she stopped seeing "non-humans" as "inferior to humans" [but she's depriving those poor steaks. . .I mean, cows of joining with her sacred flesh! So selfish]. Taylor notes that such "biocentrism," common among the green sisters, is "identified" with deep ecology. What Taylor does not point out is that deep ecology is a neo-pagan movement [I doubt that sister would much care that her views are neo-pagan. . .just another label for her to wear proudly in defiance of Evil Penis Centered Power Structures]. No one can reasonably deny that we should be good stewards of the natural world, but biocentrism and deep ecology are wrong to put human beings on a par with other animals and as inferior to the ecosystem. This view is a pillar of population control and so part of the Culture of Death.

Green sisters eat organic food because they think it still has the divine life-force in it. Sr. Wild explains that the important thing is the "spirit of the food" we eat: "I go for quality of Spirit in my food." Eating dinner for her is a daily "eucharist" with the "body of the earth and sun." Similarly, Sr. Miriam MacGillis remarks, "If we truly saw the Divine in a potato," we would not commit the "sacrilege" of "turning it into Pringles" [I do see the divine in a potato! They are especially divine with real butter, bacon bits, and lots of black pepper. . .wait, is saying "black pepper racist?]. Since they consider it already blessed and a "manifestation of the Divine," green sisters do not bless their food. Hard to believe, but some actually "ask the food to bless them" [That's funny. I had a Snicker's bar ask to bless me once. . .admittedly, it was well after my third bourbon].

They regard cooking as a source of "resistance and even power." Since the Church will not let them celebrate Mass, Taylor says, they bring "the essence of that ritual into a daily mindful practice available to all" [Sister, you're bringing some sort of essence into your meal, but it ain't the essence of the Eucharist]. Sr. MacGillis explains that Transubstantiation "is a very sacred word referring to Jesus Christ speaking over the bread in which the outer form didn't change but the bread itself transformed on the inner plane where God was present. This has been going on all along. This is not an act confined to specially designated human beings…." In short, Sr. MacGillis sees the Catholic mystery of the Eucharist as nothing special: the same thing has been happening all along with ordinary food [I wonder if the Jews know about this. 'Cause they were pretty insistent back in Jesus' day about blessing their food. I think sister is being religiously intolerant here]. She once had a mystical experience in which she recognized "eucharist" in a bowl of organic vegetarian chili: "It was gospel and eucharist in a sacrament so simple, so holy, my heart brimmed with gratitude" [OMG! That happened to me once too! Of course, my chili was con carne and the onions weren't well-done, so maybe it was a mystical experience of the methane kind]. Despite all their protests to the contrary, the green sisters are surely departing from Catholic Tradition in their view of the Real Presence.

Taylor observes that the green sisters retain many traditional words of Catholicism -- vows, Mary, Transubstantiation, Gospel -- but they mean radically different things to these sisters.

Greening the Stations of the Cross

Doubtless the most egregious departure from Catholic Tradition is the Earth Meditation Trail at Genesis Farm, which has been imitated across the land. The Trail is made of "stations" to evoke, in Taylor's words, "the Catholic paraliturgical activity of walking the 'stations of the cross.'" It is a "series of prayer stations" that depicts not Christ's Passion, but "the earth's Passion" [yea, like having these acolytes tread about yammering on about how sacred She is].

The "pilgrim" who walks the Trail first comes upon a "womb opening" called the "Station of Life/Death/Transformation" [again, sounds sticky]. The guidebook instructs "her" (apparently only women go there) to pass through it, touch some stones, beat a drum, and repeat three times: "Behold I come. My name is _____. Accept me here. Accept me now. " Further on, she is told to pick up a "prayer stone" that will hold the "spirit" of her "life journey" and to listen to that stone "just as the stone will listen to and absorb the prayers, thoughts, and questions" she will have on the Trail [stone, stoned. . .same thing]. Then she arrives at the "Council of All Beings," a circle of stones and trees where she assumes the role of a non-human creature to discuss "what is wrong on earth" ["she assumes the role of a non-human creature". . .yea, I bet she does. . .this is called "voodoo"]. She then walks along the "Path of the Great Elders," a line of old maple trees, and comes to the "Place of At-One-Ment," where a stone seat faces a scarred cherry tree that survived being surrounded with barbed wire. Here she is told to reflect on "human sins" against the natural world and ask forgiveness from "this community" [I think I threw up a little in my mouth. . .].

Taylor remarks that the "At-One-Ment station" [oy, we were nattering on about "at-one-ment" way back in 1983 in the Episcopal Church. . .I thought these were supposed to be trendy sisters. . .no one is honest anymore. . .sad] evokes the Catholic Sacrament of Confession. Perhaps, but forgiveness here is purely imaginary. There are many more stations until the Trail loops back to the "womb opening," now approached from the other side, and the guidebook instructs the "pilgrim" to reflect on her "last moments of life in this body." This body? Is this a reference to reincarnation? [yes, this time sister comes back as a real moonbat. . .but one with wings but with the same craving for juicy insects]

Taylor notes that the Trail is labyrinthine (perhaps a better word would be serpentine) and that both "indoor and outdoor labyrinths" are now "wildly popular among green sisters, Catholic religious sisters and brothers in general, and the Catholic and Protestant laity." Have they forgotten that the original labyrinth was a deathtrap with the bestial Minotaur at its center? [yea, but they will soon be reminded. . .]. At Genesis Farm, the labyrinth is designed to bring the "pilgrim" into deeper union with the earth as "Divine," for, as the guidebook says, "When the interconnectedness of all things is felt, then it is clear that the Earth is the source of our survival." To believe that the earth is the source of "our survival" is indeed a deathtrap.

Taylor thinks the Trail is effective precisely because it uses the Catholic "stations format" and works "from within the system" [exactly like the serpent in the Garden did when he first tempted man to believe that he could be divine without God]. When components of a tradition are "deployed," she says, new rituals quickly become "traditional." Indeed, in the last decade, Earth Meditation Trails have become popular. Sr. Theresa Jackson, who installed one at the Monastery of St. Gertrude in Idaho, explains that "The 'Passion of the Earth' is designed to be a spiritual exercise that enables people to see the earth and the cosmos not only as God's creation, but as the most basic expression of God's very self." Note well, the earth and the cosmos, not Jesus Christ, are the most basic expression of God's very self. If this isn't pantheism, what is? Yes, God is omnipresent, but He is also transcendent and is never to be identified with matter. Again, this is an error that comes from not distinguishing the temporal from the eternal, and matter from spirit [no, it comes from rebelliousness and a desire to lead others into damnation. . .just like the first rational creature who rebelled out of a sense of undeserved neglect and petulant anger].

Another abuse of the Stations of the Cross is the "Cosmic Walk," a meditation sequence on what Fr. Berry calls "the universe story." In Winslow, Maine, green sisters have 25 stations in a pine grove where people can "walk the story of the universe" and come to know that story "in their own bodies." The Cosmic Walk is also popular in a portable version created by Sr. MacGillis. This involves a long rope placed in a spiral, with 30 index cards representing the stages of evolution. Standing at the place of the first "Flaring Forth," the "pilgrim" is to reflect that she too is 15 billion years old, and at the end of the Walk, she is to declare, "Today I know the story of myself." Thus, the "pilgrims" of the Cosmic Walk become "the story participating in its own telling," and experience their being as "the cosmos 'made flesh.'" More, they learn that "there is no finite created world, only an ever-expanding universe constantly changing, and of which humanity is inseparably a part."

Well, for a person to become the "cosmos made flesh" is to sink far below the level of common humanity, far below the great gift of being made in the "image of God." Besides, for a Christian to become the "cosmos made flesh" is to lose the even loftier status accorded by our Baptism of being made a son or a daughter of God through Jesus Christ [yup, but the loss of a sense of one's baptism is probably the point. . .let's not forget the demonic origins of this gibberish]. In fact, to become an "inseparable" part of the temporal universe is to give up hope of eternal life. It is to embrace the temporal as if it were the eternal, the penul­timate as if it were the ultimate reality.

In 1993, Taylor notes, Pope John Paul II issued a "condemnation of 'nature worship' by feminist Catholic groups in America, highlighting tensions in the relationship of faith to nature." The Pope warned the U.S. bishops during their July 1993 ad limina visit: "Sometimes forms of nature worship and the celebration of myths and symbols take the place of the worship of the God revealed in Jesus Christ." But he took no disciplinary action. Taylor believes that a "major punitive action" at this point from the bishops would only "unify" the green sisters [and deprive them of the revenues they collect from Catholic dupes who believe that these retreat centers are still Catholic because they are listed in the diocesan directory]. It is doubtful they would ask to be released from their vows, she says; they would more likely ignore the bishops or team up with other nuns to appeal the decision. While they do not openly show "disrespect" toward the "institutional Church," she adds, they are not "pushovers," for they are "intensely networked" and thus have a great "resistance to outside interference" [i.e., obedience to the legit authority of the Church they claim to serve. . .my experience though tells me that these sisters go to bed every night praying to Mother Gaia for a bishop to confront them or ban them from his diocese. . .they thrive on opposition and conflict, so what better way to solidify their rebellion than to have The Man come down on them with his "laws and stuff" and try to control them. They would love it]. They compare themselves to the rhizome, vegetation that cannot be easily eradicated because it is "diffuse and horizontal rather than central and vertical."

Green sisters are propagating their errors as fast and as far as they can by books, lectures, retreats, icons, and workshops. One can only wonder: Where are our shepherds? [Maybe they got lost in the labrynith somewhere. . .did Bishop forget his string. . .again?!]

Follow Hanc Aquam. . .Talk Back!

Become a Follower of Hanc Aquam!

On the right-side bar you can click the "Follow Hanc Aquam" button and receive updates as I post them.

I'm always open for suggestions about future posts. . .and especially feedback on homilies.

Here's what I TRY to do in my homiles:

*Stay close the readings and preach on the text while going beyond the text where possible.
*Preach a contemporary Word without using modernist academic theories or methods.
*Preach using a patristic model advocated by the Holy Father, e.g. literary not historical-critical.
*Always preach WITH the mind of the Church never against it; preach only orthodox RC theology
*Preach the homily I myself need to hear: "The preacher preaches to himself first."
*Preach homilies you would not likely hear on Sunday morning, i.e. something different!
*Ask hard questions, give answers based in the Tradition, challenge your thinking.
*Keep you engaged with lively examples, a little humor, and some "red-meat" language.
*I'm a little bit Baptist, a little bit Benedictine, a little bit redneck and 100% Dominican!

Questions I am most interested in hearing your responses to:

1). Does the homily help you better understand the Mass readings of the day?

2). Is the homily understandable? Overly complex? Too simplistic?

3). Does the homily address your spiritual struggles/triumphs?

4). Does the homily help you grow in holiness?

5). What would you like to see more of/less of in these homilies?

6). If you use these homilies beyond reading them or listening to them, how so?

7). What else would you like to tell me about these homilies. . .?

If you enjoy the site, please help me out with my current assignment as a philosophy student in Rome by browsing my philosophy/theology WISH LIST and sending me a book or two (or three or four. . .)! Books are very expense in Rome and our university library has a very limited selection of books in my area of study. USED books are just fine by me.

God bless, Fr. Philip, OP