Catholics encouraged to participate in Year of Faith through sacraments, prayer

This is a syndicated post from CNA Daily News. [Read the original article...]

Washington D.C., Sep 24, 2012 / 02:53 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The leader of the U.S. bishops’ evangelization committee has offered suggestions on ways for the faithful to take part in the upcoming Year of Faith through sacramental participation, prayer and action.

The Year of Faith offers an opportunity for “a renewal of faith and evangelization for the whole Church,” said Bishop David L. Ricken of Green Bay, Wis., who chairs the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Evangelization and Catechesis.
 
On Sept. 24, Bishop Ricken issued recommendations on ways for Catholics to live the Year of Faith, which begins on Oct. 11 and runs through Nov. 24, 2013.

Announced by Pope Benedict XVI in honor of the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council and the 20th anniversary of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the upcoming year is intended to “strengthen the faith of Catholics and draw the world to faith by their example.”

Among Bishop Ricken’s suggestions – which were founded upon the guidelines issued by Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith – was regular participation in the Mass.

“The Year of Faith is meant to promote the personal encounter with Jesus,” he said. “This occurs most immediately in the Eucharist.”

He explained that regular Mass attendance can strengthen one’s faith “through the Scriptures, the Creed, other prayers, sacred music, the homily, receiving Communion and being part of a faith community.”

In addition to simply attending Mass themselves, the faithful can also invite their friends to Mass, the bishop added, explaining that although the Year of Faith has a global focus, “real change occurs at the local level.”

“A personal invitation can make all the difference to someone who has drifted from the faith or feels alienated from the Church,” he said.

Furthermore, the Sacrament of Reconciliation can play an important role in spiritual growth, Bishop Ricken added.

“Confession urges people to turn back to God, express sorrow for falling short and open their lives to the power of God’s healing grace,” he said. “It forgives the injuries of the past and provides strength for the future.”

The bishop also encouraged Catholics to learn about the saints, whose witness offers us hope and teaches us how to live as Christians. These holy men and women were sinners who continually strove to grow in their relationship with God, he said, and they give us an example of service through ministry, charity, prayer and everyday life.

Bishop Ricken encouraged Catholics to read the Bible every day during the Year of Faith in order to “become more attuned to the Word of God” and to study the Catechism to deepen their understanding of the Church’s “beliefs, moral teachings, prayer and sacraments.”

He also recommended reading the documents of the Second Vatican Council, which “ushered in a great renewal of the Church.”

The council affected the celebration of the Mass, the laity’s role and the Church’s understanding of itself and those of other faiths, he said, adding that Catholics must understand the council in order to “continue this renewal.”

In addition to prayer and study, the bishop emphasized, the foundational Church teachings “must translate into action.”

He suggested participation at the parish level, in roles such as lector, liturgical musician or catechist, to contribute to the community. He also recommended donations to charity and volunteering to aid those in need.

“This means to personally encounter Christ in the poor, marginalized and vulnerable,” he explained. “Helping others brings Catholics face-to-face with Christ and creates an example for the rest of the world.”

Finally, Bishop Ricken encouraged Catholics to work in their daily lives to adhere to the Beatitudes, which offer an example of virtue and “a rich blueprint for Christian living.”

“It’s precisely the example of lived faith needed to draw people to the Church in the year ahead,” he said.

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Vatican II teachings not optional, ex-Vatican official tells conference

VATII-LEVADA Sep-27-2012 (640 words) With photos. xxxn

Vatican II teachings not optional, ex-Vatican official tells conference

By Nancy Frazier O’Brien
Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON (CNS) — The teachings of the Second Vatican Council are neither optional nor second-class, but must be seen in the proper context, the former prefect of the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith said Sept. 26 as he opened a conference at The Catholic University of America in Washington.

The talk by Cardinal William J. Levada focused on three events that share an Oct. 11 date — the opening of Vatican II 50 years ago, the promulgation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church 20 years ago and the upcoming opening of the Year of Faith proclaimed by Pope Benedict XVI.

The cardinal, who retired in July after serving as prefect for seven years, was the first speaker at a Sept. 26-29 conference on “Reform and Renewal: Vatican II After Fifty Years.”

He began his talk by recounting a conversation in which a colleague recalled asking high school students if they knew what Vatican II was. “The pope’s summer residence?” one student suggested.

Cardinal Levada credited his audience at Catholic University with a much greater understanding of the 1962-65 council but said some confusion and misunderstandings remain, such as whether the council was doctrinal or pastoral in nature and whether its legacy should be seen in the letter of the council — the documents it produced — or in its spirit.

“Vatican II was by intention a pastoral council — it did not develop new dogmas to correct errors of the faith,” he said, describing the council as “doctrinal in principle, but pastoral in its presentation.”

On the letter-versus-spirit question, Cardinal Levada said it is “not legitimate to separate the spirit and letter of the council.”

He talked about two responses to the council — one that reflected a flawed understanding of the continuity of church teaching and another that reflected a correct understanding.

In the former case, a Dominican provincial in the Netherland wrote to his colleagues urging the ordination of women and married men and lay-led eucharistic celebrations as a response to the priest shortage. That proposal, the cardinal said, was “contrary to church teaching and even heretical.”

On the other hand, Pope Benedict’s establishment of ordinariates that allow Anglicans to become Roman Catholics while retaining some of their Anglican heritage and traditions, including liturgical traditions, is a logical follow-up to the council, he said.

The cardinal said the ordinariates, made up of former Anglicans who “fully accept the Catholic faith,” serve as a “concrete witness to help overcome fears that diverse expressions of faith are not allowed” in the Catholic Church. He said the new structure marks “a new relationship between the church and the modern era.”

He said the situation remains murky for another group that may or may not unite with the Catholic Church in the near future — the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X, which rejects most of the reforms of the Second Vatican Council.

Pope Benedict launched a new series of doctrinal discussions with the society in 2009, lifting excommunications imposed on its four bishops and expressing his hopes they would return to full communion with the church. The talks are taking place under the guidance of the Vatican doctrinal congregation.

Asked during the question-and-answer period to disclose the contents of a “doctrinal preamble” that society leaders have been asked to sign, Cardinal Levada said he could not discuss “an ongoing dialogue that is private.”

“But I can say this, there is division in that house about whether the council should be rejected or not,” he said.

The Vatican has said the preamble, which has not been published, outlines principles and criteria necessary to guarantee fidelity to the church and its teaching.

“I pray for the successful conclusion of that dialogue,” the cardinal said. “But it is not my responsibility anymore. I leave it to my successor.”

END

---

Copyright (c) 2012 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed.
CNS · 3211 Fourth St NE · Washington DC 20017 · 202.541.3250

Full church must heal abuse’s ‘most tragic wound’

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September 11th, 2012
By Cindy Wooden

VATICAN CITY – The “most tragic wound” of clerical sexual abuse will not heal without a response from the entire Catholic Church – hierarchy and laity together – said the chief Vatican investigator of abuse cases.

“I think that slowly, slowly, slowly we are getting toward a response that is truly ecclesial – it’s not hierarchical, it’s the church. We are in this together, in suffering (from) the wound and trying to respond to it,” Msgr. Charles Scicluna told Vatican Radio.

The monsignor, whose formal title is promoter of justice in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, spoke to Vatican Radio during a Sept. 4-5 conference in England titled “Redeeming Power: Overcoming Abuse in Church and Society.”

The European Society of Catholic Theology sponsored the conference at St. Mary’s University College in Twickenham as part of the International Network of Societies for Catholic Theology’s three-year research project on “the power of theology to overcome power abuse in church and society.”

Msgr. Scicluna told Vatican Radio the conference was an important part of the ongoing conversation about how to empower all members of the church to prevent abuse and promote accountability.

“We are accountable not only to God, but to each other and to our peers in how we respond to difficult questions, including sin and crime,” he said.

The monsignor said Pope Benedict XVI is setting an example for the whole church when he discusses the abuse crisis, repentance and reform of church norms with bishops, priests and laity.

Marie Keenan, a social worker and psychotherapist who has worked with perpetrators and survivors of clerical sexual abuse, told Vatican Radio that the church has been slow in responding to the abuse crisis, “but I think that we’re moving in the right direction and I think this conference is part of that.”

Keenan, who lectures at University College Dublin, said she is concerned that clerical sexual abuse is sometimes seen as “a problem of individuals, either individual perpetrators who were devious and managed to get through the doors” of the seminary undetected, “or bad or erring bishops who didn’t have the right heart or spirit or intellect or knowledge or something.”

The conference is part of an effort to look at relationships and structures of power within the church and determine how they may have contributed to the crisis.

Keenan said that without addressing those broader issues, the church risks placing too much trust in the important psychological tests designed to “screen out deviants.”

Relying exclusively on the tests is dangerous, she said, because “some of these men chose an abusive road not because they were deviants to begin with, but because something happened to them in the course of their life, either in formation or priesthood or living their life that wasn’t picked up on and with which they weren’t helped adequately.”

At the same time, she said, “even with the same formation and the same lifestyle, many, many men don’t turn to abuse,” so there must be a recognition that church culture hasn’t caused everyone “to use their power position in an abusive way.”

In addition, Keenan said that in her research “I found no evidence that celibacy is a cause of sexual abuse.” While “there may be good reasons for the church to rethink the celibacy issue, it’s not because of the child sexual abuse issue,” she said.

Sister of Charity Nuala Patricia Kenny, a pediatrician and retired professor of bioethics in Canada, said recent cases of abuse and sexual scandal convinced her that “we had not finished the job” of addressing clerical sexual abuse.

“The church, in the area of policies and protocols, surely now has become a world leader,” she said. But as she told the conference, “we have been a slow learner on this one.”

Catholics, she said, need to reflect on the question: “How does power and our sense of church, how has the inactivity of the laity, our inability to have good, positive, loving experiences between priest and people in our church that would make us a healthy church – how has all of that made us continue to deny, to fail to accept the difficult challenges” posed by the abuse crisis?

Sister Kenny, who has been a religious for 50 years, said there were days “when I had to kneel, kneel, kneel at my desk and literally hold on to the New Testament because I’ve been so overwhelmed by how much harm has been done, not just to the individual victims, but to the whole body of Christ.”

“I’m not a woman who breaks down easily and cries, but I have wept about this issue,” she said. “On the other hand, I can tell you that I know in my heart that the Holy Spirit is leading us somewhere graced and I am perfectly prepared to do whatever I can with the grace and energy the Lord gives me to contribute to that.”

“Walking away is not an option because it belongs to my baptismal commitment,” Sister Kenny said. “This is my church.”

 

From September 14, 2012 issue of Catholic San Francisco.

 

More Church/Vatican   

Conference participants look at relation between power, abuse in church

POWER-ABUSE Sep-6-2012 (850 words) xxxi

Conference participants look at relation between power, abuse in church

Msgr. Scicluna (CNS/Paul Haring)

By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The “most tragic wound” of clerical sexual abuse will not heal without a response from the entire Catholic Church — hierarchy and laity together — said the chief Vatican investigator of abuse cases.

“I think that slowly, slowly, slowly we are getting toward a response that is truly ecclesial — it’s not hierarchical, it’s the church. We are in this together, in suffering (from) the wound and trying to respond to it,” Msgr. Charles Scicluna told Vatican Radio.

The monsignor, whose formal title is promoter of justice in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, spoke to Vatican Radio during a Sept. 4-5 conference in England titled “Redeeming Power: Overcoming Abuse in Church and Society.”

The European Society of Catholic Theology sponsored the conference at St. Mary’s University College in Twickenham as part of the International Network of Societies for Catholic Theology’s three-year research project on “the power of theology to overcome power abuse in church and society.”

Msgr. Scicluna told Vatican Radio the conference was an important part of the ongoing conversation about how to empower all members of the church to prevent abuse and promote accountability.

“We are accountable not only to God, but to each other and to our peers in how we respond to difficult questions, including sin and crime,” he said.

The monsignor said Pope Benedict XVI is setting an example for the whole church when he discusses the abuse crisis, repentance and reform of church norms with bishops, priests and laity.

Marie Keenan, a social worker and psychotherapist who has worked with perpetrators and survivors of clerical sexual abuse, told Vatican Radio that the church has been slow in responding to the abuse crisis, “but I think that we’re moving in the right direction and I think this conference is part of that.”

Keenan, who lectures at University College Dublin, said she is concerned that clerical sexual abuse is sometimes seen as “a problem of individuals, either individual perpetrators who were devious and managed to get through the doors” of the seminary undetected, “or bad or erring bishops who didn’t have the right heart or spirit or intellect or knowledge or something.”

The conference is part of an effort to look at relationships and structures of power within the church and determine how they may have contributed to the crisis.

Keenan said that without addressing those broader issues, the church risks placing too much trust in the important psychological tests designed to “screen out deviants.”

Relying exclusively on the tests is dangerous, she said, because “some of these men chose an abusive road not because they were deviants to begin with, but because something happened to them in the course of their life, either in formation or priesthood or living their life that wasn’t picked up on and with which they weren’t helped adequately.”

At the same time, she said, “even with the same formation and the same lifestyle, many, many men don’t turn to abuse,” so there must be a recognition that church culture hasn’t caused everyone “to use their power position in an abusive way.”

In addition, Keenan said that in her research “I found no evidence that celibacy is a cause of sexual abuse.” While “there may be good reasons for the church to rethink the celibacy issue, it’s not because of the child sexual abuse issue,” she said.

Sister of Charity Nuala Patricia Kenny, a pediatrician and retired professor of bioethics in Canada, said recent cases of abuse and sexual scandal convinced her that “we had not finished the job” of addressing clerical sexual abuse.

“The church, in the area of policies and protocols, surely now has become a world leader,” she said. But as she told the conference, “we have been a slow learner on this one.”

Catholics, she said, need to reflect on the question: “How does power and our sense of church, how has the inactivity of the laity, our inability to have good, positive, loving experiences between priest and people in our church that would make us a healthy church — how has all of that made us continue to deny, to fail to accept the difficult challenges” posed by the abuse crisis?

Sister Kenny, who has been a religious for 50 years, said there were days “when I had to kneel, kneel, kneel at my desk and literally hold on to the New Testament because I’ve been so overwhelmed by how much harm has been done, not just to the individual victims, but to the whole body of Christ.”

“I’m not a woman who breaks down easily and cries, but I have wept about this issue,” she said. “On the other hand, I can tell you that I know in my heart that the Holy Spirit is leading us somewhere graced and I am perfectly prepared to do whatever I can with the grace and energy the Lord gives me to contribute to that.”

“Walking away is not an option because it belongs to my baptismal commitment,” Sister Kenny said. “This is my church.”

END

---

Copyright (c) 2012 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed.
CNS · 3211 Fourth St NE · Washington DC 20017 · 202.541.3250

A Catholic Physician Rejects IVF and the Culture of Death

CORPUS CHRISTI, TX (Catholic Online) – One of the spiritual works of mercy is to admonish sinners.  Another is to instruct the ignorant.  These are not always the most agreeable of duties, and they are often thankless tasks.  But as the prophet Ezekiel stated, if we do not speak out and warn the wicked man, his sin may be imputed to us.  (Ezekiel 3:18) 

There is a great mercy in both confronting and in being confronted, in instructing and being instructed.  In some instances, the result is positively redemptive.  It is good news when someone accepts the good news.

If you doubt it, witness the story of Dr. Anthony James Caruso, a board-certified endocrinologist who in 2010 had a thriving practice offering assisted reproduction technology at the Chicago Area Reproductive Endocrinology Group and who also taught medicine at University of Chicago’s Pritzker School of Medicine. 

He was at the top of his game.  But he gave it all away, because he realized he was doing wrong.

Caruso became involved in vitro fertilization (IVF) when he saw life created in a petri dish.  It brought tears to his eyes, he said, and this led to him to devote his life to IVF and other reproductive technologies with great zeal.  After completing his residency in Springfield, Illinois, Caruso specialized in reproductive endocrinology at the Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.  Eventually Caruso became one of the most successful reproductive endocrinologists, perhaps bringing in more than 1,000 children through his IVF practice.

Though maintaining himself to be Catholic, Caruso had no scruples in rejecting Church teaching as it related to his medical practice.  He was much too fascinated by the perceived or apparent good he felt he was accomplishing to be open to the authentic teaching of the Church.  When the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith–then headed by Cardinal Ratzinger the future Pope Benedict XVI–came out with its instruction Donum Vitae or “The Gift of Life” in 1987, he thought it unrealistic and overly alarmist. 

As Dr. Caruso states in the web page for the St. Anne Center for Reproductive Health, “While I was helping couples conceive by any means possible, I still considered myself a practicing Catholic, with a respectful disagreement about some issues. And I thought that was ok, just like most of my friends.”

In one well-publicized instance, however, Dr. Caruso used his skills in impregnating a lesbian couple, and the Chicago Tribune published a story about it in 2002.  At the time he was quoted as saying that the lesbian couple “struck me as just as intent and caring as any heterosexual couple that I would see.” 

When the Chicago Tribune published the article, it crossed the desk of his parish priest at Christ the King Parish in Lombard, Illinois.  Caruso happened to be on the pastoral council, but, faced with this article, the parish priest asked Caruso to step down.  The priest explained the Catholic Church’s teaching that children have a right to be conceived as a result of the conjugal or marital act between husband and wife.

As Caruso put it in a recent article in the Chicago Tribune: “That might have been the first salvo,” a salvo which apparently pierced through the false notions of fertility and good that Caruso harbored.  “I wasn’t angry,” he told the Chicago Tribune.  “I really took what he had to say to heart.”

He took it to heart, but did not act on it.

That “salvo,” that admonishment by the parish priest, was just a seed, a seed which had to germinate, to set down its roots, and to grow before it reached full flower.
 
Gradually, however, some of the more erratic or distasteful side products of reproductive technology–selective reduction through abortions, requests from same-sex couples, pre-implantation genetic diagnosis–began to gnaw on him.

“Things began to change as I started to see things that I thought were not possible, or ignored,” Caruso writes.  “Multiple combinations of people trying to create a child proved confusing. Embryos were treated with little respect. We started to discard embryos that we used to transfer and create pregnancies. And preimplantation genetics started to stratify embryos (babies) into good, almost good and bad.”

After reading the instruction Dignitatis Personae …

Diocese of Springfield making plans for worldwide celebration of ‘Year of …

SPRINGFIELD–Pope Benedict XVI has proclaimed a Year of Faith to be observed by the whole Church from Oct. 11, 2012, -Nov. 24, 2013, and several events will commemorate it in Western Massachusetts.

It is to be a year of prayer, of study of the Catechism of the Catholic Church and the documents of the Second Vatican Council, of evangelization, of pilgrimages to Rome and the Holy Land, of learning about the saints and of ecumenical initiatives.

And the Vatican hopes dioceses and parishes will use modern communications as much as possible to accomplish these goals.

The Diocese of Springfield has several events planned–a collaboration of the Office of Faith Formation and the diocesan Pastoral Council—“to celebrate the beauty of the Catholic faith,” said Sister of St. Joseph Paula A. Robillard, director of faith formation for the diocese.

“I am very aware the Church is not perfect, but God is, and God loves us unconditionally and calls each of us to be the best person we can be,” she said. “It is God’s intention we work together to make the world a better place. We are inviting Catholics, those alienated from the Catholic Church and non Catholics to join us in the coming year to celebrate the beauty that is God’s.”

It is hoped that in each diocese, under the leadership of the bishop, catechetical events will be organized, “especially for the youth and those searching for a sense of life, helping them to discover the beauty of ecclesial faith, promoting encounters with meaningful witnesses to the faith,” the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith noted in its list of recommendations for the Year of Faith.

Among the events planned in the Diocese of Springfield—which encompasses the four western-most counties in Massachusetts—are an Oct. 13 Day of Enrichment and an Oct. 14 Youth Day at Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament Parish in Westfield. The parish also will be the site of monthly days of reflection.

Sister Robillard said the diocese will put a special emphasis on the Alpha Program, a 10-week non-denominational evening program for reflection on spirituality and God. The evenings include a meal, video and sharing and will take place at various sites in the diocese including St. Michael Cathedral in Springfield and Blessed Sacrament Parish in Holyoke.

There will be a two-part conference at Elms College in Chicopee in February on the Second Vatican Council. “We will re-look at the documents of Vatican II,” Sister Robillard said.

Also being planned is a “Catholics Give Back” Day in which each parish will be encouraged to do a service project, not for the parish itself but for someone or some organization in need in the neighborhood.

Through the various events, Sister Robillard said, “we want to bring people in to see what is beautiful about the Catholic faith” such as God’s unconditional love, the social gospel, the beauty of God in the Trinity and the Church as the people of God.
Separate from diocesan plans for the Year of Faith, there also will be a Catholic conference entitled Preparing for the Year of Faith and the New Evangelization on Sept. 22 at Symphony Hall.

According to Mark E. Dupont, communications director for the Diocese of Springfield, there also will be parish events, but many are still in the planning stages, among them the showing of the “Catholicism” series that features the Rev. Robert Barron, an author, theologian and podcasting priest from Chicago who founded Word on Fire Catholic Ministries.

The beginning of the Year of Faith coincides with the anniversaries of two events which have marked the life of the Church in modern times: the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council, called by Blessed Pope John XXIII on Oct. 11, 1962, and the 20th anniversary of the promulgation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, given to the Church by Blessed Pope John Paul II on Oct. 11, 1992.

The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith called on episcopal conferences to promote “the republication in paperback and economical editions of the documents of Vatican Council II, the Catechism of the Catholic Church and its Compendium and their wider distribution using modern technologies.”

Among many recommendations, the congregation also called on catechists to hold more firmly to the richness of the Catechism of the Catholic Church and guide groups of faithful toward a deeper common understanding of it. And it suggested parishes help to distribute the Catechism of the Catholic Church and other resources appropriate for families – the primary setting for the transmission of the faith – for example during the blessing of homes, the baptism of adults, confirmation and marriage.

In the Year of Faith pilgrimages of the faithful to the See of Peter—Rome– are to be encouraged, to profess faith in God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It is also important to promote pilgrimages to the Holy Land, the place that first saw the presence of Jesus, the Savior, and Mary, his Mother, the congregation said.

LCWR president says forum ‘like no other we’ve had’

As the Leadership Conference of Women Religious prepared to respond to the Vatican’s doctrinal assessment and its calls for the organisation’s reform, opening speakers at the LCWR assembly in St Louis have emphasised the enormity of the task and the need for prayerful reflection, reports the Catholic News Service.

“This is a very historic moment, a moment of grace,” Franciscan Sister Pat Farrell, LCWR’s outgoing president, said on Tuesday at the evening opening session.

Sister Farrell and the other LCWR leaders were greeted with a standing ovation from 900 women religious at the Millennium Hotel in St Louis.

She pointed out that the August 7-10 gathering would be “like no other we’ve ever had” and stressed that the sisters in attendance would gather their “wisdom in response to the doctrinal assessment” and would do it “thoughtfully and deliberately.”

LCWR’s members are the 1,500 leaders of US women’s communities representing about 80 percent of the country’s 57,000 women’s religious congregation.

Archbishop Robert Carlson of St Louis welcomed the group and spoke highly of the dedication and work of the nation’s women religious. He urged the assembly participants to have a prayerful discussion of the assessment of their organisation issued April 18 by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

The St Louis gathering is the first time the organisation has assembled since the release of the doctrinal assessment, which said reform was needed to ensure LCWR’s fidelity to Catholic teaching in areas that include abortion, euthanasia, women’s ordination and homosexuality. The organisation’s canonical status is granted by the Vatican.

“I pray that the dialogue between the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and LCWR is not politicized but worked out within a community of faith,” he said.

The archbishop, who is chairman of the USCCB Committee on Clergy, Consecrated Life and Vocations, broke away from his prepared remarks to urge the sisters to look at examples in church history of people working as they faced challenges.

FULL STORY LCWR president says assembly ‘like no other we’ve had’ (CNS)

RELATED COVERAGE

LCWR ‘seed bed’ for 21st century (NCR)

Archbishop Muller presents positive vision for Vatican’s doctrine office

Vatican City, Aug 6, 2012 / 03:08 pm (CNA/EWTN News).-
The new head of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith says he wants the department to play a positive role in the New Evangelization, rather than simply responding to doctrinal problems as they arise.
 
“The task of this congregation is not only to defend the Catholic faith but to promote it, to give the positive aspects and possibilities of the whole richness of the Catholic faith,” Archbishop Gerhard Ludwig Muller told CNA in a July 20 interview.
 
“We must speak about God the Father, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, and also about Holy Scripture, the great Tradition of the Church, our Creed and our belief. In this way our hearts will be more open and our thinking more profound,” he said.
 
The 64-year-old former Bishop of Regensburg, Germany was appointed to his new Vatican post by Pope Benedict on July 2.
 
“The Holy Father did not ask me. He nominated me without discussion,” he laughed. The Pope said, “‘you have to do it,’ and you cannot give a negative answer to the wishes of the Holy Father!”
 
The two German theologians have had a long association. Archbishop Muller hesitates to use the word “friendship,” since in German it usually refers to someone of the same age bracket, whereas Pope Benedict “is one generation older than me.”
 
However, Archbishop Muller does still consider their relationship “a friendship … but he has the role of father and I have the role of son.”
 
Archbishop Muller still recalls the intellectual impact of Father Joseph Ratzinger’s “Introduction to Christianity,” published in 1968 at the height of the campus rebellions across the western world. “He re-vindicated our faith and convinced us of the reasonableness of Catholic belief; he re-established our confidence in the Church,” the archbishop remarked.
 
He is now in charge of editing the writings or “Omnia Opera” of Pope Benedict XVI, a grand project that will stretch to 16 volumes.
 
He described Pope Benedict as “a great intellectual and an important thinker for today,” particularly when it comes to “explaining the depth and richness of our Christian faith” to contemporary society.
 
“It’s too early to speak about the legacy of this papacy, but in a certain sense we can compare our present Holy Father with the great intellectual pontiffs of history, such as Pope Leo the Great in 5th century and Benedict XIV in the 18th century.”
 
Archbishop Gerhard Muller was born in 1947 in the Mainz region of Germany into a family of four – one brother and two sisters. He is still very much a family man, and boasts of being an uncle to 22 nephews and nieces, with “number 23 coming soon.”
 
He studied philosophy and theology in the German cities of Mainz, Munich, and Freiburg, producing not one but two doctorates. The first focused on the work of the 20th-century Protestant theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, while the second explored the veneration of saints, “a very Catholic subject,” he noted.
 
After his studies, he was named a professor of dogmatic theology at the University of Munich “for 16 happy years,” he recalled with a laugh. A decade ago, Pope John Paul II appointed him the Bishop of Regensburg.
 
His trajectory in life has been almost identical to his mentor Pope Benedict – an academic career followed by an episcopal appointment, followed by a transfer to the Roman Curia. In fact, he now occupies the same Vatican job that Pope Benedict fulfilled from 1981 to 2005.
 
Archbishop Muller’s latest appointment, however, has been met with a degree of criticism from some who allege he holds unorthodox views on a range of issues – from the perpetual virginity of Our Lady, to the real presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist, to the relationship of non-Catholic Christians to the Church.
 
“These are not criticisms, they are provocations. And not very intelligent provocations at that,” he said. “Either they have not read what I have written or they have not understood it.”
 
“Our Catholic faith is very clear,” he explained,“that at the consecration during Mass a change occurs so that the whole substance of the bread and wine is changed into the whole substance body and blood of Jesus Christ, and that this change is rightly called transubstantiation. And we have refused to accept all the other interpretations, consubstantiation, transignification, transfinalisation and so on.”
 
The Church is also equally clear on the “virginity of Mary, mother of Jesus, mother of God, before, during and after the birth of Christ,” Archbishop Muller stated.
 
As for inter-Christian relations, the archbishop noted that in his 4-5th century debates with the Donatists, St. Augustine underscored that the Church recognizes“everybody who is validly baptized is incorporated into Christ,” even if they are not in full communion with the Catholic Church.
 
But on a more pressing note, Archbishop Muller has to deal with the issue of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious in the United States. In April 2012 the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith called for a reform of America’s largest female religious group, after a four-year audit or “doctrinal assessment” concluded there was a “crisis” of belief throughout its ranks.

Earlier this month group’s president, Sister Pat Farrell, suggested that the key question in their discussions with the Vatican is, “Can one be Catholic and have a questioning mind?”

Archbishop Muller’s answer is a clear: “Because faith and reason belong together, it is obviously not incompatible to be Catholic and to have a questioning mind – but we cannot have negotiations about revealed truth,” he said. “We are in communion with the Church only in so far as we accept the whole and the complete revelation of Jesus Christ, all the doctrine of the Church.”
 
He is extremely reluctant, though, to go to war with the American religious sisters. Instead, Archbishop Muller wants to “come together and not to struggle against each other or be suspicious of each other.”
 
“We are sisters and brothers of Christ and we want to work together, not like a political party or a human organization, but we are the family of God, the body of Christ,” he said.
 
Another matter that has raised questions is his long standing friendship with the Peruvian theologian Father Gustavo Gutiérrez, one of the principle founders of “Liberation Theology,” Archbishop Muller was similarly robust.

He explained that there are various schools of “Liberation Theology,” stressing that “we have to make differences between them” as some are “in the line of a Marxist and communist analysis of reality” which the Catholic Church would condemn.
 
“I think that Gustavo Gutiérrez, I know him personally, he is not of this line. He is a very good Catholic,” said Archbishop Muller, who spent 15 summers teaching and working in South America.

He sees the matter as one of not dividing or separating “the love (of) God and the love towards our neighbor.”
 
As a native of Mainz, Archbishop Muller said he takes great inspiration from the region’s 19th-century bishop, Wilhelm Emmanuel von Ketteler, a pioneer of modern Catholic social thinking. His work subsequently influenced the pontificate of Pope Leo XIII and, in particular, his 1891 social encyclical “Rerum Novarum.”
 
It is this vision of Catholic social teaching, the archbishop believes, that “helped to rebuild a democratic Germany after the war” and which has been repeatedly reflected in more recent Church documents such as the Second Vatican Council’s “Gaudium et Spes” and Pope Paul VI’s 1967 encyclical “Populorum Progressio.”

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Vatican, CDF

Bishop Leonard Blair, Appointed By Vatican To Oversee US Nuns, Says Sisters …

First reported on The National Catholic Reporter

One of the three bishops appointed to oversee the group which represents the majority of U.S. women religious took a hard line Wednesday towards the Vatican’s criticism of the organization, saying the sisters are “promoting, unilaterally…a new kind of theology that is not in accordance with the faith of the church.”

Toledo, Ohio, Bishop Leonard Blair, who was appointed with Seattle Archbishop Peter Sartain and Springfield, Ill., Bishop Thomas Paprocki in April to oversee the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) made the comments Wednesday during an extended interview on the popular public radio program “Fresh Air.”

His interview comes a week after LCWR’s president, Sr. Pat Farrell, also appeared on the program, saying that a key question facing the faithful today is “Can you be Catholic and have a questioning mind?”

At points during the interview Wednesday, National Public Radio host Terry Gross played back some of Farrell’s responses from her interview on the show July 17 [4], when the LCWR president directly addressed the Vatican’s condemnation of her organization, which represents some 80 percent of women religious in the U.S.

In a document known as a “doctrinal assessment,” first released April 18, the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith said there was a “prevalence of certain radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith” in the group’s programs and ordered it to revise and place itself under the authority of three bishops.

After hearing Farrell’s response from last week to the Vatican’s criticism that LCWR doesn’t focus enough on speaking against abortion, in which the sister said she thought the criticism was “unfair” because the group works on a range of pro-life issues, Blair said Farrell’s answer left him with “great disappointment.”

“No one is questioning the fact that many sisters” are involved in those issues, said Blair. But, quoting Blessed Pope John Paul II, the bishop said that “all other human rights are false and illusory if the right to life…is not defended with maximum determination.”

“One would expect the LCWR to stand up and be counted in upholding this right and working for its defense,” said Blair. “There’s been nothing really said by the leadership conference on this issue.”

At one point during the interview, Blair also specifically mentioned LCWR’s lack of statements regarding opposition to gay marriage, saying that “the defense of the God given institution of marriage as between one man and one woman” is a “great issue of our society today.”

First reported on The National Catholic Reporter

Bishop Explains Vatican’s Criticism Of US Nuns

Four years ago, a Vatican group called “The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith” began an assessment of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, a member organization founded in 1956 that represents 80 percent of Catholic nuns in the United States. The assessment was designed to take a careful look at whether the nuns were acting in accordance with the teachings of the church.

In the assessment, the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith said the leadership conference is undermining Roman Catholic teachings on homosexuality and birth control and promoting “radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith.” It also reprimanded the nuns for hosting speakers who “often contradict or ignore” church teachings and for making public statements that “disagree with or challenge the bishops, who are the church’s authentic teachers of faith and morals.”

Bishop Leonard Blair of Toledo, Ohio, is the bishop who assessed the Leadership Conference of Women Religious. Along with Archbishop Peter Sartain and Bishop Thomas John Paprocki, he will be working with the nuns of the LCRW to make sure the group is aligned with the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. The bishops and the nuns’ group leaders were also told to develop material “that provides a deepened understanding of the church’s doctrine of the faith.”

An American Nun Responds To Vatican Criticism

Sister Pat Farrell, the president of the LCWR, talked with Fresh Air’s Terry Gross on July 17. Farrell addressed the major criticisms of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, including the LCWR’s decision to abstain from taking a public position on abortion, contraception and women’s ordination.

Blair tells Fresh Air that the LCWR is “promoting unilaterally new understandings, a new kind of theology, that is not in accordance with the faith of the church.” He says he would like to have a dialogue with the LCWR to “educate and help the sisters appreciate and accept church teaching and to implement it in their discussions, and try to heal some of the questions or concerns they have about these issues.”

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Interview Highlights

On the LCWR not taking a hard-line stance on abortion

“I recall something that Pope John Paul II said: He said that all other human rights are false and illusory. If the right to life, the most basic and fundamental right and condition of all personal rights, is not defended with maximum determination … to relativize or say, well the right to life of an unborn child is a preoccupation with fetuses or [it is] relative in its importance, I cannot agree with that, and I don’t think that represents the church’s teaching and the focus of our energies in trying to deal with this great moral issue.”

On the sex abuse scandal in the Catholic church

“I think that the sexual abuse scandal is a great shadow over the church and over the hierarchy that we have to live with. But we also have to keep going on as a church with integrity. … We certainly have cracked down on sexual abuse and made great strides to understand it and prevent it.”

On the dialogue that the LCWR would like to have with the Vatican

“If by dialogue, they mean that the doctrines of the church are negotiable, and that the bishops represent one position and the LCWR represents another position and somehow we find a middle ground about basic church teaching on faith and morals, then no, I don’t think that’s the dialogue the Holy See would envision. But if it’s a dialogue about how to have the LCWR really educate and help the sisters appreciate and accept church teaching and to implement it in their discussions, and try to heal some of the questions or concerns they have about these issues, that would be the dialogue.”

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On contraception

“We do recognize the validity of natural family planning but not artificial contraception. And admittedly, that involves more of a personal investment as a couple or individual, but that would be based on the moral grounds of what church teaches about marriage and human sexuality.”

On the ordination of women

“The church doesn’t say that the ordination of women is not possible because somehow women are unfit to carry out functions of the priest, but because on the level of sacramental signs, it’s not the choice that our Lord made when it comes to those who act in his very person, as the church’s bridegroom. And you can say that sounds like a lot of poetry or you know, how do we know that’s true, but if you’re a Catholic, this is part of our sacraments and practice for two millennia, and it’s not just an arbitrary decision of male oppression over women.”

On the importance of women in the church

“It’s very important for me to say that the history of religious women in the United States is absolutely outstanding, and that one of the most disconcerting things about recent reports is to suggest that somehow that the bishops or the Holy See are not grateful or supportive for the work of religious women. They have done tremendous work in our country and throughout the world. If anything, part of our concern is precisely for their diminished numbers and their aging population. … We hope there would be revitalization of religious life for women.”