If you want to know what’s really at stake in the gay marriage battle, read Cardinal George’s latest column.

With his typical candor, the Chicago archbishop cuts through the clutter and identifies at least five key concerns that the gay marriage issue raises for Catholics:

1.  On the prospect of legal gay marriage:

“[Gay marriage]  is not inevitable. Cultural change can be redirected so that the long road to obtain respect that has been traveled by many homosexually oriented persons can be maintained without destroying the institution of natural marriage. Since the difference between men and women is different from racial difference, same-sex marriage is not a civil rights issue. A newly invented civil right cannot be used to destroy a moral good, lest society itself go into decline.”

2.  On the decline of fatherhood and its tragic consequences:

“The upcoming celebration of Fathers’ Day might serve as the occasion to appreciate anew the distinctive role of men in family and society. We all know that parents are not interchangeable. Fatherless families contribute to the violence that plagues us. An honest discussion of violence would take us beyond laws on gun control, important though that discussion is, to the disappearance of men from the institutions that develop their sense of responsibility and their desire to protect rather than destroy women and children.”

3.  On the State overreaching its proper authority:

“We should be concerned as well about the State overreaching its proper authority, which is limited to the civil order. Neither the church nor the state “own” the institution of marriage. The state has a right to supervise but not to redefine an institution it did not create. This tendency for the government to claim for itself authority over all areas of human experience flows from the secularization of our culture. If God cannot be part of public life, then the state itself plays God. There are many paths to total state control of life — fascism, totalitarianism, communism. In the United States, the path is labeled ‘protection of individual rights.’ “

4.  On the role of Catholic politicians and the future plight of Catholics in society:

“Are we to have a religious test for public office that excludes Catholics serious about their faith from appointment to federal judgeships? Are Catholics who will not perform abortions to be excluded from medical school? Are Catholics to be unwelcome in the editorial offices of major newspapers, in the entertainment world, or on university faculties unless they put their faith aside? In short, what began as a political device to get elected to office in a Protestant society can be used more broadly to exclude Catholics from any position of influence in public life. If Catholics are to be closeted and marginalized in a secularized society, Catholic parents should prepare their children to be farmers, carpenters and craftsmen, small business people and workers in service industries, honorable occupations that do not, however, immediately impact public opinion. Is this the future? That’s a concern.”

5.  On the lessons we can learn from history:

“We are now remembering Pope John XXIII 50 years after his death. Pope John was a good man who experienced a conversion of mind and heart because he talked to a rabbi from France. The rabbi explained to the pope the consequences of “the teaching of contempt” for the Jewish people. While official doctrine condemned overt persecution, Jews had suffered terribly from a contempt embedded for many generations in much of European culture. Its full consequence was the exclusion of Jews from public life in Germany and then their extermination in the Holocaust. The pope understood what the rabbi told him, and the relation between Catholics and Jews was given a new start. Today, listening to the public discussion on talk shows, watching television series and movies, overhearing influential conversations in offices and universities, which groups are most often discussed with open contempt? That, too, is a concern.”

Read the entire piece by Cardinal George here.

Birk, who retired at the end of the season and describes himself as a pro-life Catholic, didn’t hold back about why he decided to skip the visit with Obama.  From the story at the Washington Examiner:

“I have great respect for the office of the presidency but about five or six weeks ago, our president made a comment in a speech and he said, ‘God bless Planned Parenthood,’” Birk, a former Minnesota Viking, told a local Minnesota sports blog.   “I’m very confused by [Obama's] statement,” he explained. “”For God to bless a place where they’re ending 330,000 lives a year? I just chose not to attend.”

Amen, brother.  Turns out God wasn’t the only one who found the irony in Obama’s command that he bless Planned Parenthood.

Good for Matt Birk for his public defense of life.

Wow.

If you want to know what an apostle looks like, his picture is to the right.

That’s Bishop Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois.  Among other things, he’s a former hockey goalie, which probably gave him pretty good training for what he went through at a church gathering in Phoenix over the weekend.

Bishop Paprocki took part in the event, billed as “Two Catholic Views of Gay Marriage,” along with renowned feminist nun and Catholic dissenter Sr. Jeannine Gramick.

It was clear from the outset that the vast majority of the audience had come looking for a fight, eager to launch every weapon in their arsenal straight at this lone Catholic bishop and the truth he stood up for.  They came ready for battle.

But so did he.

Facing what can only be described as an all out attack, Bishop Paprocki stood strong and defended the Church and her teaching against the fiercest blows the crowd could hurl at him.  The enemies of marriage were rabid and relentless, assaulting the bishop with rude interruptions, sneering sarcasm, and hostile questions clearly designed to trip him up or catch him in a contradiction.

They failed, miserably.

I haven’t seen a video of the event, and don’t even know if there is one, but I’ve excerpted an article by Michael Clancy of the Arizona Republic for some of the better quotes by Bishop Paprocki:

“This event was billed as ‘Two Catholic Views of Gay Marriage,’ ” he said. “But there is only one view that is authentically Catholic. The other view is dissenting.”

…

He said if same-sex marriage is allowed, sadomasochism or other practices should be, too.  “If there is no moral truth, only alternatives, then everything should be OK,” he said.

…

He said those who oppose the church on the issue should become Protestants. “They do a lot of good things too,” he said.

Lord, send us more bishops like Bishop Paprocki!

Bishops are called successors of the apostles.  When we consider the Church’s teaching on apostolic succession, we think not only of the first bishops, the apostles themselves, but also of the continuous line of bishops from then until now – that unbroken line of holy men that have stood tall and protected the Church through the ages, from Peter and Paul to Augustine and Athanasius, from James and Andrew to John Fisher and Thomas Becket.

But perhaps, sadly, the last half century has left us with a sense of longing when it comes to this leadership we seek and  depend on among our bishops.  Not to say there haven’t been a number of worthy, even great bishops in this time, maybe more even than we were willing to acknowledge.  But we’ve also seen the tragic consequences of an episcopacy seemingly made up more of comfortable clerics concerned with administration and management than men of action who take seriously their charge of defending the Faith with ready and steadfast courage when she comes under fire, and shepherding the Church with clear voices of conviction and authority as she carries out her mission on earth.

But now, that’s changing.

As the next couple decades unfold, it will become increasingly clear that among the greatest legacies of John Paul and Benedict is the group of bishops they appointed, especially in the United States.  And as the Church is besieged more and more by an increasingly hostile culture that seeks to demoralize and discourage those who would stand up for the truth, we’re going to start seeing more instances of bishops being specifically targeted for attack.  Sheep without shepherds are the wolves’ easiest prey.

This is why Bishop Paprocki’s brave stand in Phoenix is so important.  It sends a message, not only to the faithful who have so eagerly awaited it, but to the enemies of the Church as well:

The bishops are back.

This week at Arlington National Cemetery, in keeping with an annual tradition that takes place on the Thursday before Memorial Day, soldiers of the 3rd U.S. Infantry placed American flags at over a quarter million graves of fallen American servicemen and women.  The soldiers will keep a continuous watch through the weekend to ensure the flags remain standing.

Nearby, other members of the 3rd Infantry will continue their solemn vigil at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.  They guard the memorial 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.  Under the marble tomb lies the body of an unknown American soldier killed in World War I.  On the face of the monument are the words:

HERE RESTS IN

HONORED GLORY

AN AMERICAN

SOLDIER

KNOWN BUT TO GOD

This Memorial Day weekend, we remember all the American soldiers who have died for this country.

It will be a busy holiday weekend for most of us.  But at some point between the backyard barbecues, the parades, and the sparklers, take a moment to look at one of the many American flags that will be flying.  Let it remind you of the little flags on the graves at Arlington, and say a prayer for those Americans who paid the ultimate price for freedom on battlefields both near and far, at places with names like Ticonderoga, Antietam, Meuse-Argonne, Tarawa, and Fallujah.

As we remember those who have fallen in the line of duty, we can also recognize that Memorial Day is about more than just remembering these honored dead.  It is also about remembering what they died for, and about re-dedicating ourselves to those principles for which they made the ultimate sacrifice.

Abraham Lincoln recognized this important truth, and expressed it in the Gettysburg Address.  He recognized that we, the living, bestow the greatest honor on those who died for our country not only by remembering them on a designated holiday, but by committing ourselves anew to live our own lives defending and promoting the great ideas upon which this country was founded and for which those men and women laid down their lives.

This November will mark the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address.  We shouldn’t wait until then to re-acquaint ourselves with the words that Lincoln uttered a century and a half ago at the site of the bloodiest battle in American history.  The speech Lincoln gave that day is the most poignant and moving tribute to a nation’s fallen warriors that has ever been delivered in the history of mankind.  It rightly belongs as much to Memorial Day as to any other day.

So this weekend, as we remember the dead, we can also go a step further in honoring them and heed the exhortation of Abraham Lincoln to increase our devotion to the cause for freedom, the cause for which they died.

We can resolve to remember that the defense of liberty  is an ongoing battle, and to recommit ourselves to that struggle in our everyday lives.

We can acknowledge, as Lincoln did, that Divine Providence played a role in the founding of this country and that the ideas of self-government, freedom, and equality aren’t just American things, but that they are good things – God’s things.

We can teach our children that those who have given their lives for this country have not done so in vain, that we ought never to take our freedom for granted, and that if something is worth dying for, it’s worth living for.

Maybe it’s been a while since you last read the Gettysburg Address, or maybe all you ever knew of it was the famous first line, “Four score and seven years ago…”  Maybe you even had it committed to memory once.  Maybe you still do.  Whatever the case, read it again this weekend – for the first time or the five hundredth.  It’s short, and only takes a moment.

The Gettysburg Address

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Archbishop Fisichella told Catholic News Service that testimony from priests and bishops from Europe to Latin America has confirmed that this is potentially a worldwide phenomenon.

[A] lot of people have been going to confession and many have said that while they hadn’t gone in a long time, they felt touched by the words of Pope Francis.

Amazing.  More here.

]]> http://www.catholicvote.org/vatican-archbishop-people-returning-to-confession-because-of-pope-francis/feed/ 2 http://www.catholicvote.org/god-to-obama-no-i-wont-bless-planned-parenthood/ http://www.catholicvote.org/god-to-obama-no-i-wont-bless-planned-parenthood/#comments Thu, 16 May 2013 15:34:47 +0000 John White http://www.catholicvote.org/?p=49299 Disclaimer:  All of the angels and saints quoted below agreed to be interviewed only on the condition of anonymity.  We have honored that request.  To the extent they reveal their own identity by what they say, we consider that not our problem.

Wow, talk about a rough week for the president.

First, the whole Benghazi cover-up is being dragged more and more into the light each day.  Then the news breaks that the IRS is targeting conservative groups.  Then, to round out the hat trick of scandals, the Justice Department is secretly listening in on the Associated Press.

Benghazi-gate, IRS-gate, AP-gate.  And it’s all hitting at once.  It’s like one big Gate-gate.

Welcome to the summer of hell, Mr. President.

Sensing that something pretty powerful must be behind such a perfect storm of presidential scandal, we bypassed our usual informants within the beltway and went straight to our sources in Heaven.

Sure enough, one high-level saint confirmed immediately what the source of President Obama’s troubles was:

“It all started last week.  We were in a board meeting at the time [yes, there are board meetings even in Heaven - ed.].  It was God, me, James, and John – you know, the usual suspects.  We were going over the purgatory numbers for last quarter and all of a sudden the door bursts open and in flies one of the seraphim.  Or maybe cherubim, I don’t know, hard to tell sometimes.  Anyway, he’s all out of breath and he’s got a look on his face like Nancy Pelosi just tried to quote Aquinas again.  Sheer horror.  So God looks at him like, WHAT?  The angel tells us:

President Obama just said ‘God Bless You’ to Planned Parenthood.

“At first we were all just dumbstruck.  James starts turning a lovely shade of pomegranate as he stares at the terrified messenger like he’s about to tear his wings off.  John is at a loss for words, just muttering, ‘Holy…holy…holy, holy, holy.’  I don’t even remember what was going through my head.  I don’t recall seeing God leave the room, but he was gone.  He does that.  You’ll have to ask someone else what happened next.”

So we caught up with another resident of Heaven who told us he may or may not have had a small role in what happened next.

“Yeah, as you know, we angels are messengers of God.  Sometimes because of the Annunciation people assume I always bring good news.  But that’s not always the case.  Right now, for example, I’m about to go tell the President of the United States that his summer is about to get really interesting, and not in a good way.  No, I’m not going to appear to him, but I’m gonna make it real clear that he shouldn’t be throwing around “God bless you’s” like that.  I mean seriously, to Planned Parenthood?!  The biggest abortion provider in the United States?  Does he honestly think God would be okay with that?  What does he expect?  It’s like standing up at a KKK gathering and saying, ‘Hey, great job, the Lord gets a real kick when you put those hoods on!,’ or it’s like addressing an SS rally and saying, ‘That’s fantastic, load more of God’s children into the cattle cars - he loves that!’

“So yeah, now I get to be the messenger who delivers God’s R.S.V.P. to Obama’s little invitation to bless Planned Parenthood.  In short, it’s ‘thanks, but no thanks,’ but it’s … going to hurt a little more than that.  We figured we would start with a few scandals to expose the depth of Obama’s corruption and insatiable will to power.  Just look at history – we do it all the time.  Do I enjoy it?  I’d be lying if I said I didn’t.  And categorically I can’t lie, so…yup, I love the smell of the Righteous Fury of God in the morning!”

So there you have it.  Maybe the president will learn a lesson:  Next time you address an institution of mass murder and ask God to show up, be careful.

He just might.

What a monster.

Quite different has been the reaction to Jason Collins, who recently made a splash as the first active player within the “big four” professional sports to come out as gay.  The same media types who succeeded in stigmatizing Tim Tebow to the point that his career may well be over were practically tripping over themselves to declare Jason Collins a hero.

It’s just another bellwether of the decline of Western civilization, and I won’t belabor the point.  In fact, what prompted me to even think of the comparison was this cartoon by Scott Stantis of the Chicago Tribune, which pretty much sums it up:

You can see more of Scott Stantis’ work here.

Cardinal O’Malley’s decision came after Boston College refused to rescind an invitation to Enda Kenny, the pro-choice Prime Minister of Ireland.  Kenny is slated to be the commencement speaker and to receive an honorary Doctor of Laws degree.

As reported by The Cardinal Newman Society:

“Since the university has not withdrawn the invitation and because the Taoiseach (prime minister) has not seen fit to decline, I shall not attend the graduation,’’ O’Malley said in a statement released this afternoon. “It is my ardent hope that Boston College will work to redress the confusion, disappointment and harm caused by not adhering to the Bishops’ directives,” he added, referencing the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops instruction that Catholic institutions not honor those whose views are inconsistent with the Church’s teachings.

For the full story, go here.

Yes, they are making a movie.  Sounds like a good group of people doing it too – they even want Pope Francis’ approval of the script before they start production.   The movie will be called Friend of the Poor: The Pope Francis Story.  According to producer Christian Peschken, he hopes to debut the movie at a special screening in the Vatican on December 17, 2014.  Habemus popcorn?

Meanwhile, because I’m shallow, I started to speculate on who would be the best actor to play Pope Francis.  I’m not a filmmaker, so my idea for who should portray a person is basically just whoever looks most like him (see shallow, above).  That got me wondering who could play some of the other pontiffs on the silver screen (I know, it’s been done  – I thought Cary Elwes was great as the young Karol Wojtyla).

Anyway, I got as far back as Pius XII and here’s what I came up with:

Pope Francis…                                                            Jonathan Pryce

Pope Benedict XVI…                                                 Anthony Hopkins

Pope John Paul II…                                              Ed Harris

Pope John Paul I…                                                Dustin Hoffman

Pope Paul VI…                                                     Jean Reno

Pope John XXIII…                                               Joe Pesci

Pope Pius XII…                                                     Hugo Weaving

Okay, like I said, this isn’t my area of expertise.

So please,  share.  Who would you like to see play your favorite pope on screen?

Being religious is not cool.  In fact, it’s downright uncool.

We learned that from a really profound (but really not) video that went viral a year or so ago, right around the same time some other things became really uncool – like asking people to pay for their own birth control, or thinking men should marry women.

“I’m spiritual, but not religious.”

That was the mantra.  If I recall correctly, it had something to do with the really deep observation that if Jesus was around he wouldn’t like organized religion.

Which is why Jesus said, “You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build…nothing, because once I’m gone I don’t want my views imposed on anyone else unfairly.  I just want people to use me as a virtual puppet with a nice beard to be the imaginary but authoritative proponent of whatever personal impulses or ideas they have.  Oh, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail or even exist because that’s mean and rigid.”  Matthew, chapter Let’s See, verse No.

So fast-forward about 2,000 years to March 13, 2013 and we have Pope Francis – Successor of Peter and Vicar of Christ.  Turns out Jesus is still around, and the religion he organized on that rock is still (let me check…yup) the oldest institution on the planet and not showing any signs of going away.  On top of that, it’s even managed to stay pretty organized – no small feat for an institution made up of incompetent sinners.  Impossible, really, unless a certain Someone wanted it that way.

So maybe Jesus likes his religion organized after all.  In fact, I bet the other religions sometimes look at Catholicism and say, “Gosh Catholicism, how do you do it?  How do you maintain that hierarchy?  And that code of canon law?  And the Sacraments, always in the right order?  And you still find time for liturgical rubrics?  You’re just so…organized!”

Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, in his weekly column, takes the notion of “spiritual, not religious” and gently turns it just like it should be turned – upside down.

People can always make claims to any kind of experience. The question is always: Who cares? Why should anyone care where someone else gets a spiritual high? Because no one really cares, the claim to be spiritual but not religious is always safe. It’s never a threat and can be dismissed quite easily. The claim to be religious is different. It is a claim that God himself has taken the initiative to reveal himself to us and tell us who he is and who we are. Religion binds us to God according to his will, not ours, in a community of faith that he has brought into existence. Being religious can therefore be threatening.

Read the rest of Cardinal George’s column here.

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