Browsing articles tagged with " Bishops"
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Pelosi says her faith ‘compels’ support for same-sex marriage
CWN – May 11, 2012
From Our Store: Essays in Apologetics, Volume II (eBook)
US House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi says that her Catholic faith “compels me” to favor same-sex marriage.
“My religion has, compels me–and I love it for it–to be against discrimination of any kind in our country, and I consider this a form of discrimination,” Pelosi told reporters on May 10.
The former Speaker of the House welcomed the announcement by President Barack Obama that he would support legal recognition of same-sex marriages. She said that the presidential announcement showed a recognition that the time is right for the move, adding, “what is inevitable to some of us is inconceivable to others.”
Last year Pelosi identified herself as a “devout Catholic” in a speech in which she opposed “conscience clause” protection for health-care workers who are morally opposed to participation in abortion procedures.
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A week after Ryan’s boast, the bishops sent letters to Congress saying the Ryan budget, passed by the House, “fails to meet” the moral criteria of the Church, namely its view that any budget should help “the least of these” as the Christian Bible requires: the poor, the hungry, the homeless, the jobless. “A just spending bill cannot rely on disproportionate cuts in essential services to poor and vulnerable persons,” the bishops wrote.
In fact, Ryan would cut spending on the least of these by about $5 trillion over 10 years — from Medicaid, food stamps, welfare and the like — and then turn around and award some $4 trillion in tax cuts to the most of these. To their credit, Catholic leaders were not about to let Ryan claim to be serving God when in fact he was serving mammon.
“Your budget,” a group of Jesuit scholars and other Georgetown University faculty members wrote to Ryan last week, “appears to reflect the values of your favorite philosopher, Ayn Rand, rather than the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Her call to selfishness and her antagonism toward religion are antithetical to the Gospel values of compassion and love.”
Ryan didn’t turn the other cheek. He showed up at Georgetown on Thursday to deliver a previously scheduled lecture, and lecture he did. He said the faculty members would benefit from a “fact-based conversation” on the issue. “I suppose that there are some Catholics who for a long time thought they had a monopoly … on the social teaching of our church,” he said, but no more. “The work I do as a Catholic holding office conforms to the social doctrine as best I can make of it.”
From the balcony, a group of young demonstrators answered Ryan by holding up a banner with the message “Stop the War on the Poor: No Social Justice in Ryan’s Budget.” On the plaza outside, more protesters held a banner asking: “Were you there when they crucified the poor?” A man wearing a bedsheet, sash and sandals, with a name tag identifying him as “GOP Je$us,” read out a new version of the Beatitudes: “Blessed are the rich: The reign of the world is ours. … “
For the young chairman of the House Budget Committee, it was a timely lesson: However much Ryan may wish it, God does not take sides in politics. Ryan, transparently positioning himself to be Romney’s running mate, may well believe that he is on a mission from God. But in a democracy, such fanaticism makes people such as Ryan unable to make necessary compromises.
The rebuke of Ryan is a credit to the Catholic leadership, because they are displaying their doctrinal consistency even as politicians embrace church teachings selectively. Republicans hailed the Catholic bishops when they were opposing the Obama administration’s policy to expand contraceptive coverage; likewise, they cite the church’s opposition to abortion. But these same lawmakers have little interest in the church’s position against the death penalty, or its opposition to the Arizona immigration law.
BELLEVILLE • A priest in the Belleville diocese at odds with his bishop over the wording of the Catholic Mass said the former Archbishop of St. Louis – now head of the Vatican’s highest court – said he should have been removed from his parish long ago.
The Rev. William Rowe said Belleville Bishop Edward Braxton told him in a meeting Tuesday that if he refused to resign as pastor of St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Mount Carmel, Ill., the bishop would use canon – or church – law to remove him. Rowe said he asked Braxton if he could appeal a removal, if it came to that.
Rowe said Braxton told him that he could appeal an eventual removal to the Vatican’s version of the supreme court, called the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura. But, Braxton said, he had already spoken to the head of that court – former St. Louis archbishop, Cardinal Raymond Burke – in February, and that Burke told Braxton that Rowe should have been removed “a long time ago,” according to the priest.
“The understanding there is that I’m done,” Rowe said.
Messages left with the offices of Braxton in Belleville and Burke in Rome were not returned Wednesday morning.
Rowe said Braxton told him that on two recent trips to Rome several bishops asked him about Rowe’s case, and encouraged him to remove the priest. The bishop told him the bishops had heard about two civil weddings outside the church Rowe had performed for couples whose previous marriages had not yet been annulled. Braxton “said Rome was aware of those weddings and upset about that before the liturgy thing,” Rowe said.
For decades, Rowe has deviated from the language of the Roman Catholic Mass, a highly prescribed liturgical rite, parts of which are as old as Christianity itself. In December, the Vatican introduced a new English-language translation of the Roman Missal – the book of prayers, chants and responses used during Mass. The new translation rendered some of the language in the Missal closer in spirit to the original Latin. Critics of the new translation have said the English is clunky and awkward for priests and laity.
Most of the prayers read by priests from the Missal during Mass cannot be changed. But there has never been an established penalty for improvising non-alterable prayers, and bishops have traditionally looked past an individual priest’s extemporizing. Last June, Braxton had sent a letter to all the priests in the Belleville Diocese warning that “it will not be acceptable for any priest or any parish to refrain from using the new prayers due to their personal preference.”
Rowe offered Braxton his resignation October 12, 2011, after a meeting during which the bishop barred the priest from improvising prayers during Mass. Braxton didn’t accept Rowe’s resignation until Jan. 30, 2012. Canon law says a bishop must accept a priest’s resignation within three months of the original offer. Rowe has since retracted his resignation offer.
A week after Ryan’s boast, the bishops sent letters to Congress saying the Ryan budget, passed by the House, “fails to meet” the moral criteria of the Church, namely its view that any budget should help “the least of these” as the Christian Bible requires: the poor, the hungry, the homeless, the jobless. “A just spending bill cannot rely on disproportionate cuts in essential services to poor and vulnerable persons,” the bishops wrote.
In fact, Ryan would cut spending on the least of these by about $5 trillion over 10 years — from Medicaid, food stamps, welfare and the like — and then turn around and award some $4 trillion in tax cuts to the most of these. To their credit, Catholic leaders were not about to let Ryan claim to be serving God when in fact he was serving mammon.
“Your budget,” a group of Jesuit scholars and other Georgetown University faculty members wrote to Ryan last week, “appears to reflect the values of your favorite philosopher, Ayn Rand, rather than the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Her call to selfishness and her antagonism toward religion are antithetical to the Gospel values of compassion and love.”
Ryan didn’t turn the other cheek. He showed up at Georgetown on Thursday to deliver a previously scheduled lecture, and lecture he did. He said the faculty members would benefit from a “fact-based conversation” on the issue. “I suppose that there are some Catholics who for a long time thought they had a monopoly … on the social teaching of our church,” he said, but no more. “The work I do as a Catholic holding office conforms to the social doctrine as best I can make of it.”
From the balcony, a group of young demonstrators answered Ryan by holding up a banner with the message “Stop the War on the Poor: No Social Justice in Ryan’s Budget.” On the plaza outside, more protesters held a banner asking: “Were you there when they crucified the poor?” A man wearing a bedsheet, sash and sandals, with a name tag identifying him as “GOP Je$us,” read out a new version of the Beatitudes: “Blessed are the rich: The reign of the world is ours. … “
For the young chairman of the House Budget Committee, it was a timely lesson: However much Ryan may wish it, God does not take sides in politics. Ryan, transparently positioning himself to be Romney’s running mate, may well believe that he is on a mission from God. But in a democracy, such fanaticism makes people such as Ryan unable to make necessary compromises.
The rebuke of Ryan is a credit to the Catholic leadership, because they are displaying their doctrinal consistency even as politicians embrace church teachings selectively. Republicans hailed the Catholic bishops when they were opposing the Obama administration’s policy to expand contraceptive coverage; likewise, they cite the church’s opposition to abortion. But these same lawmakers have little interest in the church’s position against the death penalty or its opposition to the Arizona immigration law.
The bishops, in opposing Ryan’s budget, called for “shared sacrifice by all, including raising adequate revenues.” But Ryan challenged the theologians’ theology. “The holy father himself, Pope Benedict, has charged that governments, communities and individuals running up high debt levels are, quote, ‘living at the expense of future generations,’ ” he said from the pulpit in Georgetown’s ornate Gaston Hall.
Ryan argued that government welfare “dissolves the common good of society, and it dishonors the dignity of the human person.” He would restore human dignity by removing anti-poverty programs. The moderator asked the chairman about “the moral dimension” of a budget that gives tax cuts to the wealthy and cuts spending for the poor. Ryan’s answer included the phrase “subchapter S corporations.”
Spending on programs such as food stamps and college Pell Grants is “unsustainable,” he said. If government does too much for the poor, “you make it harder” for churches and charities to do that work.
It was a bold economic — and theological — proposition. Even Jesus said to render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s. Ryan would rather give the rich a tax cut.
danamilbank@washpost.com
BELLEVILLE • A priest in the Belleville diocese at odds with his bishop over the wording of the Catholic Mass said the former Archbishop of St. Louis – now head of the Vatican’s highest court – said he should have been removed from his parish long ago.
The Rev. William Rowe said Belleville Bishop Edward Braxton told him in a meeting Tuesday that if he refused to resign as pastor of St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Mount Carmel, Ill., the bishop would use canon – or church – law to remove him. Rowe said he asked Braxton if he could appeal a removal, if it came to that.
Rowe said Braxton told him that he could appeal an eventual removal to the Vatican’s version of the supreme court, called the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura. But, Braxton said, he had already spoken to the head of that court – former St. Louis archbishop, Cardinal Raymond Burke – in February, and that Burke told Braxton that Rowe should have been removed “a long time ago,” according to the priest.
“The understanding there is that I’m done,” Rowe said.
Messages left with the offices of Braxton in Belleville and Burke in Rome were not returned Wednesday morning.
Rowe said Braxton told him that on two recent trips to Rome several bishops asked him about Rowe’s case, and encouraged him to remove the priest. The bishop told him the bishops had heard about two civil weddings outside the church Rowe had performed for couples whose previous marriages had not yet been annulled. Braxton “said Rome was aware of those weddings and upset about that before the liturgy thing,” Rowe said.
For decades, Rowe has deviated from the language of the Roman Catholic Mass, a highly prescribed liturgical rite, parts of which are as old as Christianity itself. In December, the Vatican introduced a new English-language translation of the Roman Missal – the book of prayers, chants and responses used during Mass. The new translation rendered some of the language in the Missal closer in spirit to the original Latin. Critics of the new translation have said the English is clunky and awkward for priests and laity.
Most of the prayers read by priests from the Missal during Mass cannot be changed. But there has never been an established penalty for improvising non-alterable prayers, and bishops have traditionally looked past an individual priest’s extemporizing. Last June, Braxton had sent a letter to all the priests in the Belleville Diocese warning that “it will not be acceptable for any priest or any parish to refrain from using the new prayers due to their personal preference.”
Rowe offered Braxton his resignation October 12, 2011, after a meeting during which the bishop barred the priest from improvising prayers during Mass. Braxton didn’t accept Rowe’s resignation until Jan. 30, 2012. Canon law says a bishop must accept a priest’s resignation within three months of the original offer. Rowe has since retracted his resignation offer.
Published: 22 April 2012
By: Elizabeth Harrington
DURING this season of Easter, many children will complete their initiation into the Church through the sacraments of Confirmation and Eucharist.
Celebrating Confirmation together with, or just prior to, first Communion – in accordance with the official Rite of Confirmation – has been the practice in the Archdiocese of Brisbane since 1989 and is the pattern followed in most Australian dioceses and elsewhere around the world.
Despite this, some people still do not understand why the Baptism-First Communion-Confirmation order of their own childhood has changed.
In the early Church, initiation was one continuous rite consisting of immersion in water, laying on of hands and anointing with chrism by the bishop, and finally joining the community for the first time at the Lord’s table.
When large numbers of people became Christians after the Peace of Constantine in 313, there simply weren’t enough bishops to be present at all initiation ceremonies.
In the western Church, presbyters (priests) were given permission to baptise, but the laying on of hands and final anointing with chrism – later known as Confirmation – were reserved for the bishop.
So it became usual for Baptism and Confirmation to be separated, especially when infant baptism became the norm.
Over the centuries this “gap” became longer, but the order of the sacrament of initiation remained the same – Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist.
Confirmation was the renewal of one’s baptismal promises before admission to the Eucharistic table.
It was only in the first part of the 20th century that this pattern of initiation altered in the Catholic Church.
Pope Pius X’s efforts to encourage more frequent reception of Communion included lowering the age for first Communion.
However Confirmation got left where it was and the traditional order of the sacraments of initiation was disrupted.
Because Confirmation had lost its purpose as the sacrament linking Baptism and Eucharist, new meanings such as becoming a soldier of Christ and even signing the pledge were assigned to it.
The Second Vatican Council called for the Sacrament of Confirmation to be revised so that its connection with the whole of the Christian initiation would be stronger.
In the new Rite of Confirmation issued in 1971, initiation is described as “reaching its culmination in the Communion of the body and blood of Christ” (RC13).
I often receive calls asking why children no longer take a Confirmation name. It surprises people to learn that the Church has never required a person to take on the name of a saint at Confirmation and that it is not mentioned in either the current or former Rite. The practice is not “banned”; it is just not mentioned.
Of course it is still appropriate for young people preparing for Confirmation to research a saint who will serve as a model for Christian living.
If a Confirmation name is chosen, it should be used in addition to the baptismal name, not in place of it.
Putting too much emphasis on peripheral matters like a Confirmation name, or on dress, photos, certificates, and so on, can detract from the focus of the celebration which is the laying on of hands and anointing with chrism before sharing in the Body and Blood of Christ for the first time.
Elizabeth Harrington is the education officer with The Liturgical Commission in the Archdiocese of Brisbane. All of the more than 600 past columns are available on The Liturgical Commission website www.litcom.net.au
From the National Catholic Register yesterday, details of a March 29 memorandum addressing the problems with the HHS Mandate.
The U.S. bishops said that the government’s latest recommendations on its federal contraception mandate fail to address religious-freedom concerns.
In a March 29 memo, they said the mandate “still forces us to act against our conscience and teaching” and that the only real solution is to allow individuals and institutions to offer insurance plans that align with their moral convictions.
No matter what mechanisms are chosen to fund and administrate the mandate, religious individuals and institutions will be prohibited from providing health coverage that is “consistent with their values,” the bishops explained.
In the memo, the bishops commented on the latest development in an ongoing controversy surrounding a federal mandate that will require employers to provide health insurance plans that cover contraception, sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs, even if doing so violates their conscience.
The mandate, announced on Jan. 20, has come under fire from numerous groups and individuals for infringing upon the religious freedom of those who object to such coverage.
A new advance notice of proposed rulemaking published by the Obama administration on March 21 outlines various recommendations for different ways to implement the mandate as it will apply to religious organizations that oppose the required coverage.
The administration has requested public comment on the proposals until June 19.
The bishops acknowledged that the “tentative and complex” proposals are very detailed and “demand further study.”
However, they said that their initial analysis suggests that they “are still faced with the same fundamental issues” identified in their previous statement, “United for Religious Freedom.”
Go read the rest.
Have you given the Administration your own personal feedback on the HHS Mandate yet? You have until mid-June. Go here to find the link, and see what Joe Six-Pack wrote.
In my comment, I referenced Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae. Joan Frawley Desmond writes in another NC Register piece today that the battle against the HHS Mandate is a call to dust the cobwebs off of Pope Paul VI’s message, and proclaim the truth on artificial contraception unabashedly.
WASHINGTON — Could there possibly be a silver lining in the federal contraception-mandate controversy?
For all the institutional disruption, political spin and vitriol generated by the mandate’s supporters, who have mischaracterized the bishops’ stance as a “war on women,” the crisis has yielded some unexpected fruits. Not only has it aroused the “sleeping giant” of Catholicism in the United States, prompting an energetic defense of the free exercise of cherished institutions, it has provoked a fresh assessment of Church teaching on contraception.
“The main issue remains that of religious liberty. But this whole episode has provided a catechetical opportunity to speak about the Church’s teaching on the sanctity of life in its origins,” observed Archbishop-designate William Lori of Baltimore, the chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee on Religious Liberty for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
“Contraception has been touted as the best possible thing for women and society, while our experience over the past 40-plus years suggests the opposite.”
“There is a new opening,” noted the outgoing bishop of Bridgeport, Conn. And while an increasingly toxic sexual culture has helped provoke a broader reassessment, young Catholics also have been inspired by Blessed John Paul II’s theology of the body, which offers a deeply hopeful vision of human life and love amid a culture that has witnessed declining rates of marriage and a rise in non-marital births.
Not only are priests, in their Sunday homilies, offering a defense of Humanae Vitae, but the controversy has forced the media to provide a forum for Church teaching that has been ridiculed throughout the globe.
This week, Politico posted commentary by Lila Rose, the founder of the pro-life group Live Action. Rose affirmed the First Amendment rights of religious institutions to resist a federal mandate that forces them to cover health services that violate their moral teachings.
Then she countered partisan efforts to frame Catholic teaching as an attack on women’s fundamental rights, rejecting the suggestion that American women uniformly sought increased access to contraception.
Speaking for a new generation that has adopted a more skeptical view of feminist ideology, she stated, “We are women for whom the idea of artificial birth control as ‘preventive care’ is deeply insulting.”
“We don’t wish to take the country back in time; rather, we aspire to move it forward, beyond a time when women are treated as objects and pitted against their children and their religious institutions — and toward a time when truly emancipated women embrace their intrinsic dignity and, with it, their authentic womanhood,” said Rose.
Amen. That’s what Gloria Purvis was saying on the video that went viral.
It’s amazing how God works his will on Earth through our weak human natures, isn’t it?
When you have a post with a title with two acronyms, a healthcare law, a bureaucratic mandate, the USCCB, and the Social Doctrine of the Church, you have to be prepared for one thing, and one thing only: not pleasing everyone.
That’s why this is an interesting time to live, see? And it’s Holy Week too? Stepping back into time with the treasure map I shared yesterday, today marks the day Our Savior cursed a fig tree, cleansed the temple, cured many who were ill, and taught a lesson on faith that can move mountains. These acts got the rapt attention of the folks who were in authority, and they were none to happy about them either. Talk about stirring up a hornets nest. Sheesh!
But that was then, and this is now, right? Fast forward back to 2012 and today we had the President of the United States answering a reporters question wherein he basically says “I hope the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) doesn’t do something crazy and overturn the Affordable Healthcare Act.” In the press conference he even alludes to the unelected group of justices, as if the fact that they are unelected is scary, or something.
Don’t forget the human element. And the opinions of a whole lot of other folks. Actually, to me anyway, the President doesn’t sound very confident. In fact, he sounded about as convincing as Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli, Jr. did when he tried to argue to the Supreme Court the merits of governments case for the Affordable Care Act. Which is to say he doesn’t sound very convincing at all.
Allah Pundit’s take on this mirrors mine, so I’ll share a taste of his commentary here,
The “strong majority” in Congress went 219-212 in the House, with 34 Democrats defecting. Not a single Republican in either chamber voted for it, and as Ace notes, the public itself has been steadfastly opposed to the law since day one. Against that backdrop, it’s an amazing show of balls by The One to dress this up as the Court somehow thwarting the people’s will. But even if O-Care really did have a “strong majority,” so what? The whole point of judicial review is to make sure that congressional majorities, strong or not, remain bound by their enumerated powers and the Bill of Rights. You know what law really did have a “strong majority” in both chambers? DOMA. Think there’ll be any tears shed on the left for majoritarianism if Anthony Kennedy cashiers that one on a 5-4 vote?
Read the rest here.
Incidentally, almost a year ago to the day, the Washington Post published an opinion about the Supreme Court that you may want to read again, just in case you were starting to fall for the Presidents line. The title alone speaks volumes: Supreme Court Justices aren’t political hacks in robes, not that they’re perfect or anything.
An analysis by Supreme Court advocate Thomas Goldstein on SCOTUSblog also chips away at the notion that justices rule in lockstep with their political preferences and are constantly at each other’s throats. In the 2010 essay “Everything you read about the Supreme Court is wrong,” Mr. Goldstein notes that 5-to-4 splits were rendered in less than 20 percent of the cases during the court’s 2009 term — the most recent term for which full statistics are available. During the ’09 term, “roughly half the decisions were nine to zero.”
Justices are not devoid of points of view, and their “judicial philosophies” help steer them to certain results. There will be cases in which the justices appear to split along ideological lines, and the Wal-Mart case may very well be one of them. Debate and disagreement over the merits of a decision are understandable; not so painting justices as mere political hacks camouflaged in judicial robes.
Which brings me to the bishops and Catholic social teaching, where everyone will be as happy as when the cursed fig tree withered and died. And during an election year too, where denizens of Extremistan aren’t just restless, but on the march? You see, the truth is that political partisans are irritated by the fact that the Catholic Church works within all systems of government wherever she happens to be. And she will carry out her mission regardless of who is in power, or how they came into office. Monarchy? The Church is fine with that. Democratically elected governments? She’s fine with that too. Dictatorships? Not so fine with it, but she will persevere, despite persecution.
No one person can fully explain how the Church interacts with, and within, any form of government. But for a pretty good primer, you could do worse than read James Baresel’s HHS Mandate: Morality and the Common Good. If anything, his essay will help you understand why the Church can, on the one hand, support “government provided healthcare for all,” while on the other hand, cry foul when a government overreaches, and threatens the common good. But first, a history lesson. Have a look,
In the 14th century William of Ockham proposed a theory which constituted a complete reversal of the Catholic understanding of morality. According to Catholic theology and philosophy good and evil are determined by God’s nature, not by God’s free will. God can command us which goods to choose (for example he could command marriage or celibacy) and some of these goods are mutually exclusive. But it is not God’s willing and commanding us to choose something which makes that thing good. It is God’s nature which first determines what is good and then it is God’s will which chooses, or commands us to choose, among those things which God’s nature has determined to be good. Because of this there are some things which God must command and some things which God cannot command—though both necessities are determined by God’s nature. An example would be that God must command us to love him and cannot command us to hate him since the goodness of the love of God and the evil of hatred of God are absolutely determined by God’s nature. According to this theory truth and goodness (the truth and goodness of God’s nature) are more fundamental than freedom of will.
Ockham reversed this. According to Ockham God’s nature does not determine what is good and evil. Good and evil are, for Ockham, merely choices made by God’s will. God could command the exact reverse of everything which he has commanded. So, for Ockham, God could command us to hate him (God). Put in different terms, Catholic theology and philosophy considers the basis of law to be nature, Ockham considers the basis of law to be free will. Catholic theology and philosophy is, more broadly, a theory of the good while the positions of Ockham, more broadly, are a theory of freedom.
This has important implications for government. For those adhering to Catholic thought, for the government to have the authority to control a certain aspect of human life (health care) is specifically the authority to control that aspect of human life on the basis and for the purpose of what God and the natural law, which can be known by human reason (but which was created by God), tell us is good. It is not an authority for the government to control that aspect of life however it wants, commanding whatever it wants. Those who follow the tradition of Ockham claim that if the government has the authority to control a certain aspect of human life (health care) then the government has the authority to command whatever it wills in that regard. The voluntarist, therefore, holds that either the government must be denied the authority to control a certain aspect of life (health care) or else the government must be allowed to control that aspect of life in whatever way it (the government) wants.
The Catholic sees no such dichotomy. Since the Catholic holds that the authority of the government is specifically authority to do good, the Catholic holds that the government should have the ability to control certain aspects of life (such as health care) for the good, but not for evil. For the Catholic the important question is not the question of whether the government is controlling something but how the government is controlling something. For the voluntarist the question is not how the government is controlling but whether the government is controlling. The Catholic asks whether the government is controlling for good or for evil. The voluntarist asks whether the government is controlling or not. The thinking of the voluntarist is, in fact, morally obtuse. By not asking the question of whether the government is controlling for good or for evil and by asking only whether or not the government is controlling, the voluntarist draws a moral equivalent between good and evil.
Read the rest over at The Distributist Review, or Catholic Lane. Just prepare yourself for a more nuanced view than “all government run healthcare leads to tyranny and death panels” or “the bishops should stick to their areas of expertise only,” like this post over at Crisis Magazine tries to argue, and you’ll probably do just fine.
That the Church will always have a tough row to hoe whenever she interacts with the state, both now and until the end of time, should come as no surprise to anyone. The tip of the iceberg is right there in the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church. Such are the trials and tribulations of the city on a hill, which the Body of Christ is called to be.
After all, it is Holy Week. Time to pick up our crosses and follow the Lord. He never promised us a rose garden.
*Image Credit: weaselzippers.us
Rep. Mary Fritz, the mother of six and grandmother of 14, is a Roman Catholic who backs the church’s teachings on abortion, euthanasia and most other matters of conscience.
But the Democrat from Wallingford breaks from the “culture of life” teachings of the U.S. bishops on one fundamental point: She adamantly supports the death penalty. “I believe it’s a deterrent and a matter of justice and I think it’s the right policy for the state of Connecticut,” she said.
Fritz recognizes the inconsistency of her stance in the eyes of church leaders, but that, she said, is “between me and God.”
Connecticut is one of the most Catholic states in the nation yet some Catholic lawmakers are openly dissenting with the church over a bill that would abolish capital punishment and replace it with life in prison with no possibility of release.
The measure, Senate Bill 280, cleared the judiciary committee last week on 24-19 vote, and supporters hold out hope it could finally win passage after several years of false starts and failed outcomes. Gov.Dannel P. Malloy, who is Catholic, has said he would sign the repeal bill should it reach his desk, although his spokesman said he is not sure whether the governor’s faith shaped his opposition to capital punishment.
Several Catholic legislators were reluctant to talk about the gap between their beliefs and the teachings of the church. The vote, particularly in the Senate, is expected to be extremely close, and the church has mounted a vigorous lobbying effort in support of the bill.
Sen. Michael McLachlan, a Republican from Danbury and an active Catholic, said he has wrestled with the issue in the past. But after meeting with Dr. William Petit, a death penalty advocate whose wife and two daughters were killed in a home invasion in Cheshire in 2007, McLachlan said he came to believe that capital punishment is appropriate for those who commit the most heinous of crimes.
“It’s a tough call because I’m clearly pro-life,” said McLachlan, who is a trustee of St. Peter Church in Danbury and a member of the Knights of Columbus. He has received numerous accolades, including the Diocese of Bridgeport’s Saint Augustine Medal of Service Award; in 2010, he was named a Knight of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem by then-Archbishop of New York Timothy Dolan.
McLachlan said he has been “lobbied pretty hard” on the death penalty by close friends, including his bishop, William Lori, the head of the Bridgeport diocese. “I do honor what my faith tells me is appropriate,” McLachlan said. “In this case, I have to agree to disagree.”
Rep. Jeffrey Berger, a communicant of Blessed Sacrament Roman Catholic Parish in Waterbury, said he doubts that even a majority of his fellow parishioners back repeal. “I don’t think they want the church to go in that direction,” Berger asserted. The Waterbury Democrat is a retired police officer whose former colleague, Walter Williams, was shot to death in 1992; Williams’ killer is one of 11 men on Connecticut’s death row.
TheU.S. Conference of Catholic Bishopsgenerally rejects the idea that the death penalty is a just punishment, even for those who guilty of the most horrific crimes.
“The test of whether the death penalty can be used is not the gravity of the offense, but whether it is absolutely necessary to protect society,” the USCCB states on its website. And “the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity, are very rare, if not practically nonexistent.”
Several Catholic supporters of the death penalty say the bishops’ position is nuanced on the topic.
A 2005 publication of the USCCB, citing the church catechism, says in part: “the Church affirms the right and duty of legitimate public authority ‘to inflict punishment proportionate to the gravity of the offense.’ … Recourse to the death penalty is not absolutely excluded … the death penalty is not intrinsically evil, as is the intentional taking of innocent life through abortion or euthanasia. … Nevertheless, the Church teaches that in contemporary society where the state has other nonlethal means to protect its citizens, the state should not use the death penalty.”
On the other hand, Pope John Paul II’s influential 1995 encyclical, the Gospel of Life, holds that “the dignity of human life must never be taken away, even in the case of someone who has done great evil.”
And Cardinal Joseph Bernadin of Chicago advocated a “consistent ethic of life” that directs Catholics to work against abortion, euthanasia, nuclear war — and the death penalty. Bernadin died 15 years ago, but his words were invoked by Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn when he signed a bill abolishing capitol punishment in that state last year.
Rep. Patricia Dillon read from the pope’s encyclical on the floor of the House during one death penalty debate several years ago. The New Haven Democrat, who opposes the death penalty, said her life has been profoundly shaped by her Catholic faith, although she says she’s careful to never say she’s speaking “as a Catholic.”
Every lawmaker ultimately has to balance the teachings of their religion with the will of their constituents — and their own conscience. “All of these things work out in different ways for different lawmakers,” Dillon said.
A “consistent ethic of life” means that human life is sacred and deserves the utmost respect, from conception until natural death, Auxiliary Bishop Emeritus Peter Rosazza of the Archdiocese of Hartford told Connecticut lawmakers during a hearing on Connecticut’s death penalty bill earlier this month.
“People do not lose that sacredness, even though they have taken the life of another,” Rosazza said.
As a rule, opinion polls are not as important to bishops as they are to politicians.
Nevertheless, CNN anchor Kyra Phillips recently asked Bishop Joseph Malone of Maine if he realized just how out of step he is with current doctrinal trends in his own flock.
“So, bishop, times are changing,” she said. “Views are changing. … So, why not get on board with the 43 percent of Catholics?”
The puzzled bishop replied: “The 43 percent who?”
“Who have no problem with gay marriage,” said Phillips.
“Well, their thinking is outside the realm of Catholic teaching for 2,000 years,” the bishop responded.
The bishop, of course, was talking about how traditional Catholics wrestle with moral issues, while the CNN anchor was describing views now common with a completely different kind of Catholic.
But in the polls, these days, a Catholic is a Catholic.
“I don’t know of anyone who thinks religious identity should be based on polling,” said theologian Tom Beaudoin, who teaches at the Jesuit-run Fordham University in New York City.
Nevertheless, he said, it’s time to note what researchers are learning about the lives and beliefs of what he called “secular Catholics.” For starters, bishops need to admit that they exist and that some of them want to stay in the church — while practicing their own personalized approaches to faith.
“Secular Catholics are people who were baptized as Catholics, but they find it impossible to make Catholicism the center of lives, by which I mean Catholicism as defined by the official teachings of the church,” said Beaudoin. For these believers, there are things that they learned about faith from Catholicism.
Then there are things they learned from their jobs, from school experiences, from their music and from their favorite movies.
“They are hybrid believers and their faith comes from all over the place,” he said.
This is precisely the audience of “liberal” and “nominal” Catholics who were targeted recently with a blunt New York Times advertisement that urged them to quit the Catholic church altogether.
“If you imagine you can change the church from within — get it to lighten up on birth control, gay rights, marriage equality, embryonic stem-cell research — you’re deluding yourself,” argued leaders of the Freedom From Religion Foundation. “By remaining a ‘good Catholic,’ you are doing ‘bad’ to women’s rights. … Apparently, you’re like the battered woman who, after being beaten down every Sunday, feels she has no place else to go.”
This advertisement probably says more about critics of Catholicism than it does about Catholic life, noted Beaudoin. Still, it could inspire constructive conversations about how “deconversions” are affecting church life. After all, a 2009 survey from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found that one in 10 American adults have left the Catholic faith. Four Americans exit Catholicism for every one that converts into the faith.
These numbers matter, said Beaudoin, but it’s more important to see the larger picture, which is the growing number of Catholics who are living their spiritual lives in a kind of tense Catholic limbo. Some never go to Mass, while others do so occasionally. The vast majority of them have no idea what they would confess, if they ever went to confession, because they disagree with church authorities on what constitutes sin in the modern world.
In the end, it’s impossible to ignore this mass of “secular Catholics” because it’s such a large chunk of today’s church, he said. In some parts of America, various kinds of “secular Catholics” now constitute a clear majority, while those who affirm traditional dogmas and doctrines are a minority.
Some of these “secular Catholics” eventually leave the church. Others choose to remain on membership rolls, on their own terms, because they find it hard to walk away, said Beaudoin. After all, there are parts of Catholicism that they affirm and they know they can ignore the parts that they reject. They have changed the church for themselves.
From his perspective, Beaudoin said it’s important to believe that this trend is “not the result of lethargy, laziness, relativism, heresy or apostasy. … There will be Catholics who insist on saying that these secular Catholics are falling away from traditional Catholic norms. But I think it would be more helpful to talk about them not as having fallen away from the Catholic faith, but as having created new, evolving spiritual lives for themselves.”
Terry Mattingly is the director of the Washington Journalism Center at the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities and leads the GetReligion.org project to study religion and the news.
Opinions expressed on the Faith page are the author’s and are not necessarily those of the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman, its staff or its parent company, Wick Communications Co. To submit a column or other news for the Faith page, send email to news@frontiersman.com, or call 352-2268.
