Queen Esther and Our Lady of Fatima - Homily for Thursday of the First Week of Lent

Queen Esther had been chosen Queen after King Ahasuerus (Xerxes) dismissed his wife Queen Vashti for not coming to him when she was summoned.

Now Queen Esther is in anguish because Haman, the wicked aide to has convinced the King to issue an order to kill all the Jews in his Empire. Haman did this because Mordecai, Esther’s cousin who raised her as a daughter, would not bow down and prostrate himself as Haman passed as the King had ordered. The King is unaware that Esther his wife is Jewish.

The date set for destruction was the 13^th of the month of Adar which corresponds to either our month of February. It is also the very day that the Maccabees liberated Israel after a four-year battle with the Seleucid Empire.

Sister Lucia to whom Our Lady of Fatima appeared died on this date. Our Lady of Fatima’s first appearance to the three shepherd children was May 13, 1917.  Her last appearance was October 13,1917. On May 13, 1981, Pope John Paul II survived an assassination attempt. He credits Our Lady of Fatima with saving his life.
 

Queen Esther clothed herself in sackcloth and ashes.  She fasted from food and water for three days and asks the Jews to do the same.  After the three days, she approached the King without being summoned.  She did this even though she was aware that the King could have sentenced her to death for doing so.

When the Queen enters into the King’s presence he extends his scepter thus sparing her life. He was so impressed by her courage and beauty that he promised her up to half of his kingdom. Instead, she invites him to two banquets and invites Haman – the man responsible for the order of the genocide of her people. At the second banquet she pleads for her life and the life of her people.  The King is horrified by what Haman has done and orders him to be hung on the same gallows he had prepared for Mordecai.  Persian law did not permit the King to reverse his decree, but he issued another decree that the Jews could defend themselves.  Instead of being destroyed, the Jewish people were saved and defeated their enemies in battle. The Jews celebrate this triumph each year as their Feast of Purim.  It doesn’t always fall on the same day.  In 2013, the Feast falls on February 24th.

Many see Queen Esther as a type of Mary and the Book of Esther as a type of the Apocalypse. A figure type is a person, place, thing or event foreshadowing a New Testament archetype (a perfect model or type). The New Testament archetype is always greater than its Old Testament figure type. For example, Jonah’s time in the belly of the great fish is a type of Jesus in the tomb. Moses is a type of Jesus.

The Jewish people were saved through the intercession of Queen Esther, so Mary intercedes for her people today.  The Apocalypse foretells a great persecution of Christians at the end of time, but the Book of Revelation speak about the Ark of the Covenant appearing in the sky and the Woman crushing the head of the dragon. (Revelation 12)

When the Blessed Mother appeared at Fatima she wore the Star of Esther. In the Old Testament of the Hebrew text, her name was Hádássah - meaning myrtle, a white, five-pointed, star-shaped flower. In the Hebrew text, her name was Hádássah - meaning myrtle, a white, five-pointed, star-shaped flower.

Like Esther, Mary came at Fatima to spare her children from destruction. She asked people to repent of sin, pray the rosary, go to confession, and receive the Eucharist worthily. On July 13, 1917, Our Lady said to the child Lucia: “…I shall come to ask for the consecration of Russia to My Immaculate Heart, and the Communion of Reparation on the First Saturdays. If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted and there will be peace; if not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer, and various nations will be annihilated. ... In the end, My Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me, and she will be converted, and an era of peace will be granted to the world.”

Had her requests been heeded the world would have been spared the horrors of World War II in which over 50 million people died and countless other wars and persecutions provoked by Communists throughout the world. In 1920, Russia was also the first country to legalize abortion. In 1913, Communist leader Vladimir Lenin demanded “the unconditional annulment of all laws against abortions or against the distribution of medical literature on contraceptive measures.”

Great evils threaten our world. Sin increases. So many hearts are hardened. We need to call on Our Lady in prayer.  Heed her requests at Fatima and Lourdes. Do penance, do the Five First Saturday devotion by going to confession, receiving the Eucharist, praying the rosary and meditating 15 minutes on the mysteries for five first Saturdays of the month in a row.  

Queen Esther asked her people to do pray and do penance with her. We must listen to the Blessed Mother today and ask her to intercede with her Son that he might spare us, our nation and our world. 

The Sign of Jonah and the Year of Faith - Homily on Luke 11, 29-32

The Gospel today reminds us of our need to live by faith and not to depend on signs and wonders.  The crowd demanded a sign from Jesus before they would believe in him. He tells them no sign will be given them except the sign of Jonah. He is referring to the fact that Jonah was three days in the belly of a great fish. So Jesus would be spend three days in the earth after his death, but on the third day rise.

In the meantime, the people should have repented and believed because of the truth he spoke, just as the Ninevites repented at the preaching of Jonah.

Jonah was a reluctant prophet. He didn’t want to preach to the Ninevites, not because he was afraid he would be rejected, but because he was afraid his enemies would repent.  Jesus is far greater than Jonah, because he is God himself.  If the Ninevites repented at the preaching of Jonah, the crowd should have been moved to repentance even more by the Word made flesh.

Let’s not be like the crowd who demands signs before we believe.  Let’s not be like Jonah who feared sinners would repent and be saved.  We need to strongly denounce sin.  At the same time we must love sinners.  Especially during Lent we should pray, do penance and work for their conversion. St. Paul tells us that God ‘wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.’ (1 Timothy 2, 4) We should want the same.

This is a special year to grow in faith.  On October 11, 2012, Pope Benedict XVI issued an Apostolic Letter entitled Porta Fidei or Door of Faith to begin a Year of Faith which will last until November 24, 2013, the Solemnity of Christ the King.

He chose to begin the Year of Faith on October 11^th because it was the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council (October 11, 1962 - December 8, 1965) and also the 20th anniversary of the publication of the Catechism of the Catholic Church by Blessed John Paul II.  Pope Benedict believes that the Second Vatican Council was a  ‘the great grace bestowed on the Church in the twentieth century’ that is ‘ a sure compass by which to take our bearings in the century now beginning.’

While many appeal to a "spirit of Vatican II" which has little or no relevance to the council documents, the Holy Father is convinced that the Second Vatican Council, if interpreted and implemented according to the mind of the Church, can be a powerful guide for the renewal of the Church.

Pope Benedict XVI says that The Catechism of the Catholic Church is a systematic presentation of the Catholic Faith that enables the faithful to know the full symphony of Faith. In the Catechism ‘ we see the wealth of teaching that the Church has received, safeguarded and proposed in her two thousand years of history. From Sacred Scripture to the Fathers of the Church, from theological masters to the saints across the centuries, the Catechism provides a permanent record of the many ways in which the Church has meditated on the faith and made progress in doctrine so as to offer certitude to believers in their lives of faith.’

Blessed John Paul II declared that the Catechism of the Catholic Church is ‘a sure norm for teaching the faith’.  It was his hope that it would ‘serve the renewal to which the Holy Spirit ceaselessly calls the Church of God, the Body of Christ, on her pilgrimage to the undiminished light of the Kingdom!’ 

Every Catholic home should have a Bible and the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

The Pope wants us to know and to treasure our faith, and to be fully converted to the Lord. The more we know and live our faith the easier we can share it with others with deep conviction.

Faith is deepened through prayer.  The summit towards which the activity of the Church is directed, and also the source from which all its power flows, is the Eucharist.  He hopes the Year of faith will deepen our love and appreciation for Jesus in the Eucharist.

The Pope also wants us to trace the history of our faith.  He wants us to see how the history of the Church has been marked by the interweaving of holiness and sin.  He wants s to know and love the great figures of our faith - Mary and the Apostles, to the saints, martyrs, confessors and virgins.  

He says it’s also a time to intensify our witness to charity, which is faith in action.  The Pope says “What the world is in particular need of today is the credible witness of people enlightened in mind and heart by the word of the Lord, and capable of opening the hearts and minds of many to the desire for God and for true life, life without end.”

In the conclusion of Porta Fidei, Pope Benedict XVI acknowledges the suffering that many Christians experience each day. He says  “How many believers, even in our own day, are tested by God’s silence when they would rather hear his consoling voice! The trials of life, while helping us to understand the mystery of the Cross and to participate in the sufferings of Christ (cf. Col 1:24), are a prelude to the joy and hope to which faith leads: “when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor 12:10). We believe with firm certitude that the Lord Jesus has conquered evil and death. With this sure confidence we entrust ourselves to him: he, present in our midst, overcomes the power of the evil one (cf. Lk 11:20); and the Church, the visible community of his mercy, abides in him as a sign of definitive reconciliation with the Father.

Let us entrust this time of grace to the Mother of God, proclaimed “blessed because she believed” (Lk 1:45)."

What is Freedom and Can We Keep it?

On this Independence Day I would like to reflect on the nature of freedom.  Freedom is a gift from Almighty God.  Thomas Jefferson said “The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time."

What is the purpose of freedom? God gave us freedom so that we could choose to do what is right and good. We say human beings are made in the image and likeness of God precisely because we have the capacity to know and to love God.  God created us with an ability to choose good or evil.  Without freedom to choose wrongly, there could be no such thing as love because love involves a free choice. If we were forced to love God, it would not be love. God is not a master puppeteer who forces us to do what is right.  St. John Chrysostom said "God draws, but He draws the willing one."

God makes it clear to anyone who seeks the truth the way they should follow. He founded the Church to teach us. He gave the Ten Commandments to God on Mount Sinai and a discerning mind can know the natural law.  We can choose to reject God, but if we do it only brings us misery in the end. If we choose to reject God on earth, we can't expect to enter His Kingdom in heaven. If we choose the wrong course, it's impossible to determine the end of that choice. Some choices are irrevocable.

It is we who choose our destiny. We have one life. We can foolishly choose the path of rebellion against God, as did the fallen angels and be lost. To choose sin is to abuse the very reason God gave us freedom to begin with. Sinful choices bring misery upon us and others. Free will makes it possible for us to love, but the same free will makes us capable of moral evil. God could have chosen to create a world without evil, but it would also be world without love, since love always involves a free choice.

God will never force his love on us, though he continually offers it to us while we are alive and able to accept it. St. Augustine said "He who created us without our help will not save us without our consent.”   If we choose wisely to love him and serve him on earth and be happy with Him in heaven forever.

We are made in the image and likeness of God, but we need his grace to be able to live as we ought. We were born as sinners in need of salvation. The Savior is Jesus Christ.  Jesus said “If you remain in my word, you will truly be my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." (John 8, 31-32).  Jesus also said "Amen, amen, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin. (John 8, 34) By our choice for or against Jesus we decide whether we will be truly free.

In Evangelium Vitae, Pope John Paul II wrote: "[F]reedom negates and destroys itself, and becomes a factor leading to the destruction of others, when it no longer recognizes and respects its essential link with the truth.

This is the disease which is destroying our culture today. Too many people have embraced moral relativism, and see good and evil as nothing more than their own subjective opinion apart from any truth outside and independent of themselves.  The view of human freedom as absolute autonomy apart from God and what is true and good is destroying social bonds that make a civil society possible. Instead of neighbors, we become individuals living side by side.

When freedom is abused the rights of others are trampled upon, even the most fundamental of all rights - the right to life.  The Declaration of Independence declared that certain rights were unalienable because they were natural rights from Our Creator. Government didn't bestow them upon us, nor do governments have the authority to take them away. They precede all civil governments. The purpose of civil government is to safeguard the natural rights we have from God, in order that we might fulfill or duties to God and our neighbor.

In his book,  A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law (1765), John Adams said  "I say RIGHTS, for such they have, undoubtedly, antecedent to all earthly government, — Rights, that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws — Rights, derived from the great Legislator of the universe."

The slogans "pro-choice" or "the right to choose" resonate with many Americans because it seems to be in harmony with the freedom Americans cherish. That is until you think about it more deeply, because it's an incomplete thought. Choice always has an object for that choice.  Those who use the slogan "the right to choose" don't like to finish the thought by saying what it is they're actually choosing. If they do, they'll use euphemisms to cover up the ugly reality of the choice. Innocuous phrases like "termination of pregnancy" are used to hide the violent nature of abortion and the humanity of the victim.

Choosing an abortion always involves a choice to kill another living human being, another person through an act of violence.  A child in the womb is not a potential human being, but a human being with great potential. The choice of abortion deprives the other person of all their other potential choices.

Pope John Paul II said "To claim the right to abortion, infanticide and euthanasia, and to recognize that right in law, means to attribute to human freedom a perverse and evil significance: that of an absolute power over others and against others. This is the death of true freedom…" 

While in some nations the law seems to support these "rights" Pope John Paul said that what you really have here is only the tragic caricature of legality.  It is hypocritical to speak about the dignity of every human person when the killing of the weakest and most innocent is permitted. In the name of justice the most unjust of discriminations is practiced. Pre-born children and other who are considered not useful are deprived of their right to life and dignity. This ultimately leads to the disintegration of the State

Shortly after Poland was freed from Communist domination in 1990, Pope John Paul II began to fight for the right to life of unborn babies in his beloved Poland. In his General Audience he addressed a prayer to Our Lady of Jasna Gora which said “I am here before you today with the key issue in the entire moral order…This right is the first and most basic one. The law which strikes at life in the mother’s womb carries with it the marks of the totalitarian system.  These words carry enormous weight since they come from a man who knew what it was like to live under a totalitarian system.

In the 19th Century, African-Americans were also dehumanized and deprived of their rights. People also defended "slavery rights" in the same way others defend "abortion rights" today. They would argue that if the abolitionists didn't want slaves, fine, but don't interfere with my right to choose to own a slave. The right to choose depends on what is being chosen. No one has a right own another human being, nor does anyone have a right to take the life of an innocent human being.

In the 1960's Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. called the Declaration of Independence a promissory note for African-Americans that had yet to be fulfilled.  He praised the noble sentiments in the Declaration, but called America to live up to those principles and apply them to all Americans. Today the Declaration of Independence remains but a promissory note for children living and growing in their mothers wombs. May we work and pray for that day when that promise will be extended to them too.

Both the right to life and religious freedom are under attack in America today.  Since 1973 and the Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision, at least 53 million human lives have been taken by the violence of abortion. Now, even worse, there are those who would have those who find this abhorrent to be complicit in these crimes by forcing us to pay for them through our insurance companies.

The passage of the ObamaCare bill gave Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius the power to interpret which drugs would and would not be covered under the law.  I guess that why then Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi infamously said of ObamaCare "We have to pass the health care bill so that you can find out what is in it."

Sebelius has used the power granted to her to declare a broad range of "women's preventive services" must be covered by insurers, without any deductible or co-pay. That includes all contraceptive methods approved by the Food and Drug Administration including the so-called "morning-after pill" that would prevent the implantation of a human embryo and thus sometimes act as an abortifacient.

The only religious exemption that would be offered would be to those institutions which employ and primarily serve their own members. Catholic hospitals and other charitable organizations that serve everyone who comes to them without regard to religion would not be exempt. In fact, Jesus Himself would not be exempt under the HHS mandate.

Freedom is a principle that most Americans hold dear, yet, in many ways, that freedom is slipping away from us.  President Abraham Lincoln famously once predicted “America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.”

Religious freedom and other personal freedoms are under attack in America today in a way that is unprecedented in modern times. Freedom has flourished in America because of our Judeao-Christian heritage. The farther we depart from that heritage, the more danger there is that we will lose more of our freedoms.

In 1943, H.W. Prentis, Jr. described a recurring cycle of history. He said "The historical cycle seems to be: From bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to apathy; from apathy to dependency; and from dependency back to bondage once more."

I am still hopeful that it's not too late. There are still enough faith-filled Americans who love God and revere the principles which made our nation great. We need to recapture the spirit of the original patriots who depending upon Divine Providence, pledged to each other to each other their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor that they, and we, could live in freedom.  If we do, I believe God will bless our nation once again with liberty and prosperity that we will be, as both John Winthrop and Ronald Reagan envisioned - a “shining city on a hill”.

Religious Freedom and the Contraceptive Mandate

Speech on Religious Liberty and the Contraceptive Mandate by Father Peter West, Vice President For Missions, Human Life International, in front of the Warren County Court House in Front Royal, Virginia on March 23, 2012.

The most precious freedom we enjoy in the United States is the freedom to practice our religion, according to the dictates of our conscience. It can be called our first freedom. This freedom, which continues to be denied in many parts of the world today, is what drew the first settlers from Europe to America.

The First Amendment of the United States Constitution guarantees this right. It states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

The right to free exercise of religion is more than the much narrower freedom to worship. It includes the right to practice one’s religion within undue interference from the state and to make arguments about public policy based on our religious convictions.

When I visited Turkey in 2010, I could offer Mass in Church, but I was illegal for me wear clerical clothing. Christians have been arrested in Turkey for handing out religious literature. Guest workers from the Philippines are free to attend Mass behind closed doors in Saudi Arabia, but not to openly speak or display their faith publicly.

Of course, things are much better here, but there are clouds on the horizon. Last year a couple from California was fined $300 dollars by the City of San Juan Capistranofor holding Christian Bible study sessions in their home. They were threatened with another $500 fine for each additional gathering.

Many secularists in the United States are willing to grant religious people the privilege of worshipping privately in our churches, but are trying to use the courts to drive religion out of the public square.

In January, the usually sharply ideologically divided Supreme Court repudiated the Obama Administration’s Justice Department when the Court sided with the Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical LutheranChurch and School against the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in a unanimous 9-0 decision. The Court decided that Churches had the right to decide which ministers they could hire and fire. Many considered this a tremendous victory for religious liberty. However, what should be alarming is that the Obama Administration thought this case had merit and brought it all the way to the Supreme Court.

In 1808, Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to Samuel Miller in which he said "I consider the government of the United Statesas interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling in religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises."

Can anyone imagine that Thomas Jefferson would approve of the Obama Administration trying to force Catholic institutions or any faithful Catholic or any person of good will who holds that contraception, sterilization and abortifacient drugs are immoral to pay for them through the health care plans they offer to their employees?

Before leaving Baltimore on October 8, 1995, Pope John Paul II warned us “Democracy stands or falls with the truths and values which it embodies and promotes.” He warned that if we that a democracy must safeguard objective values. Otherwise, democracy can become the tyranny of the majority or of the loudest voices. The Pope said” If an attitude of skepticism were to succeed in calling into question even the fundamental principles of the moral law, the democratic system itself would be shaken in its foundations.”But he said “The United States possesses a safeguard, a great bulwark, against this happening. I speak of your founding documents: the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights.”

Our Founding Documents recognize that our rights come from God. They are not concessions granted by the government. They recognize the natural law written on each human heart.

In a letter to New London Methodist, in 1809, Thomas Jefferson wrote "No provision in our Constitution ought to be dearer to man than that which protects the rights of conscience against the enterprises of the civil authority."

I think Thomas Jefferson would be appalled that today in America Christians are fined for having a Bible study in their home; that the Justice Department thinks it has a right to say who the Hosanna-Tabor EvangelicalLutheran Church should hire as a minister. Thomas Jefferson would be appalled that today the Obama Administration is attacking the freedom of conscience of Catholics. In the Virginia Act for Establishing Religious Freedom Jefferson wrote: "To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical."

The Health and Human Services Mandate, which compels Catholics to pay for the coverage of services which we hold to be morally abhorrent, is an affront to the religious liberty of Catholics. But it should offend every American who believes in the principle of religious freedom and freedom of conscience guaranteed by the Constitution. It goes against the promises made by President Obama when he spoke at the Commencement Ceremony at the University of Notre Dame before his health care bill was passed. This injustice cannot stand.

What The Catholic Church Teaches About Sex

The sexual revolution of the 1960’s brought about sweeping changes in attitudes toward sex and family life and the sanctity of human life. The prevailing social standard was that sex was removed from the context of a lifelong marriage between a man and a woman.

The media and general culture reduce sex to the commonplace and present us with a depersonalized view of sex. Often it is portrayed as no more meaningful than a recreational activity. It is often presented as normal for two people who are attracted to one another to go to bed with one another without any discussion of commitment to one another or the possibility of pregnancy.

The teachings of the Catholic Church were ridiculed and disregarded as antiquated and repressive. Contraception, once denounced by Martin Luther and practically all Christian denominations, was no longer taught to be sinful. Rather it was seen as socially responsible. Large families which were previously looked upon as a blessing were frowned on by the majority. Divorce, sexually transmitted diseases and abortion rates skyrocketed. After the carnage wrought by these changes, it’s time to take a second look at what the Church actually has to say about human sexuality.

There are some obvious negative consequences of premature sexual activity, such as the possibility of contracting a sexually transmitted disease, an unintended pregnancy and the difficult choices that incurs or the emotional trauma associated with premature sexual activity, but my focus will be on the dignity of sex and God’s plan for human sexuality.

Contrary to the distortions we often here in the media, the Catholic Church teaches that sex is a beautiful gift created by God. He designed it to be an expression of love between a husband and a wife that is open to the transmission of human life.

At the root of the current cultural divide is how we view the human person. There are two basic competing philosophies in the world today. One sees man as the result of a blind process of evolutionary development. The other, while not discounting the possibility that God made use of the process of evolution, says that man is made in the image and likeness of God. He has a supernatural origin and destiny. One philosophy sees man simply as little better than a barnyard animal, incapable of controlling his impulses. The other sees man as being capable of discipline and love.

How we view man will obviously affect the way we view the nature and purpose of human sexuality. A person who sees man as simply a material being, will view sex as purely biological. Is sex simply an appetite like the need for food, water, emptying waste products, etc? Or does it have a spiritual dimension?

Those of us who believe in God believe that God is the designer of our human body including our sexual organs. There is a certain design to the human body. It follows that where there is a design, there is a designer. We believe that God is all good and everything he made was good. Sex is something beautiful and good when we follow God’s plan for sex.

Sex is part of the original creation that God found to be very good. (cf. Genesis 1, 31) The purpose God has for sex has been taught through revelation, but it can also be discerned by reflecting on the natural law. It has tremendous significance because it involves the transmission of a human soul. The main purpose of human sexuality is first for the procreation of children and the continuation of the human race. Secondly, for the mutual benefit of the spouses. Sex is meant by God to be an expression of total self-giving love between a husband and a wife.

We are not completely material, nor are we completely spiritual, as if only our souls are our true self. Our bodies are not just machines that our souls are using. Catholics believe in the resurrection of the body. This means we’ll have bodies in heaven, but they’ll be remade – perfect, immortal and indestructible.

The body must be treated with reverence and respect, even in death. Because human beings are a composite of body and soul, we can express ourselves spiritually through the body. Because of this sex can never be purely biological. There is a language expressed in sex, even if our words say something different. The language says I love you; I give myself to you without holding anything back; I commit myself to you for life; I open myself to the possibility of having children with you. Sex before marriage is really a lie. The couple’s body language says I give myself to you completely, but they are unwilling to make the commitment to each other that true love requires.

Far from denigrating sex, the Catholic Church teaches that sex within marriage is actually holy. The marriage of Christians is a sacrament. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says “The matrimonial covenant by which man and woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole life is by its nature ordered to the procreation and education of offspring. This covenant between baptized persons has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament.” Through Christian love given and received God gives the marriage partners a sharing in his life and helps them grow in grace and spiritual maturity. Physical intimacy becomes a sign and pledge of spiritual communion.

A sacrament is a physical sign instituted by God to give grace. Every sacrament has a physical element. In the sacrament of matrimony the physical element is the husband and wife themselves who pledge their mutual love to one another before God.

God says it is not good for man to be alone. We find fulfillment by existing “with someone” and even more “for someone”. Married love is fulfilled in openness to the other person and in self-giving. Love in marriage surpasses friendship. In marriage, man and woman make a total donation of themselves to each other under God.

It is within marriage that God wills that human life be conceived, grow and develop. This does not mean that children conceived outside marriage are any less valuable in the eyes of God. Yet they begin life with a handicap. They have been done an injustice. Of course, it would be a far graver injustice for them to be deprived of life for this reason.

Love is expressed by man in a self-giving unity of body and spirit. Masculinity and femininity are complementary gifts. The human body with the person’s masculinity and femininity is not only the source of fruitfulness and procreation, but includes the “nuptial’ attribute that is the capacity of expressing love; that love precisely in which the person becomes a gift and by means of this gift fulfills the very meaning of his being and existence.

Each of us was created in the image of God with a capacity to love and be loved. God created us male and female with the intention that man would form families which also reflect the image of God as a Trinity of persons. In the Trinity the Father makes a gift of himself to the Son. The Son gives a gift of himself to the Father. The Holy Spirit is the personification of the Father and the Son.

In the family, the husband is called to make a total gift of his self to the wife. The wife is called to make a total gift of herself to the husband. The children are intended to be a personification of love between a husband and a wife.

All love flows from God. Christ reveals man to himself. Christ shows man his dignity and teaches him to love. The basic message of Christianity is: Humanity is loved by God. God calls us to share his love with others. Love is the vocation of every human being. Every human person is called to love as friendship and self-giving. By loving others we become free of our tendency to selfishness.

Love involves desiring the good of another because they are worthy of love. In a healthy loving relationship each considers the good of the other as his or her own good.

We first learn about love through our parents who in a sense take the place of God. Love involves giving ourselves to another. Love helps us grow and mature as persons. True love builds up the good of persons and communities. A good healthy, loving family will have an effect not only on the family members, but the whole community.

True love is demanding. The source of the beauty of this love is its demanding nature. That is why true love builds up the true good of man and allows it to radiate to others. St. Paul gives us the definition of love in 1 Corinthians 13.

True love in marriage as designed by God must be:

1.) Complementary –between a male and female

2.) Exclusive and faithful - no other sexual partners, not even by mutual consent

3.) Enduring, lasting until death

4.) Total – without holding anything back from the other

5.) Open to the transmission of new life

True love must imitate the love of God. God’s love is forever, so too the love of husband and wife must involve a permanent commitment that lasts until death; a bond that remains despite the passing of feelings over time.

In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus teaches:

It was also said, 'Whoever divorces his wife must give her a bill of divorce.' But I say to you, whoever divorces his wife (unless the marriage is unlawful) causes her to commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery. (Matthew 5, 31-32)

Later, Jesus is asked by the Pharisees whether it was permissible to divorce their wives. Jesus replied by saying:

"Have you not read that from the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female' and said, 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, no human being must separate."

They said to him, "Then why did Moses command that the man give the woman a bill of divorce and dismiss (her)?" He said to them, "Because of the hardness of your hearts Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. I say to you, whoever divorces his wife (unless the marriage is unlawful) and marries another commits adultery." (Matthew 19, 4-9)

God’s love is generous and open to life. So also the love of husband and wife must be open to the transmission of life. Otherwise, sex is no longer what it was intended to be – an expression of total self-giving.

True love will be open to the transmission of life. Married couples are called by God to be generous in the planning of their family size. Methods of family planning must be in accord with God’s law and his plan for marriage and human sexuality.

Contraception is wrong because it deliberately impedes the procreative power of actions that God designed to assist him in bringing forth a new human life.

Contraception is also immoral because the conjugal act was designed by God to be symbolic of a total, mutual self-giving of one partner to the other, but when they contracept, the couple holds back the gift of their fertility.

Pope Paul VI’s Predictions about widespread contraception would lead to:

1.) Conjugal infidelity and a general lowering of standards of morality. The young especially would be tempted.

2.) Man would lose respect for woman and treat her as a mere object of pleasure

3.) It would be a dangerous weapon in the hands of public authorities with no heed for a moral life.

4.) Man believing he had absolute dominance over human life and to genetic engineering.

Some mistakenly refer to NFP as the rhythm method. They charge that it doesn’t work for women with irregular cycles. Now there are newer more sophisticated methods such as the Billings ovulation method and the sympto-thermal method which are very accurate and just as effective as the birth control pill without the harmful side effects or moral consequences.

What’s the difference? It takes self-control on the part of the husband and wife. Both share the responsibility for regulating their fertility, not just the woman. Communication is improved and the woman doesn’t feel used. With NFP couples regulate their fertility in accord with the natural moral law. Here they are not acting against God’s plan, but simply taking advantage of the natural cycles that God has planned for the human body. Sometimes God shuts the door naturally. Human beings have no right to shut it.

Compare difference between NFP and contraception to getting a decent job and robbing a bank.

The love the couple gives and receives doesn’t end with them, but make it possible for them to cooperate with God in bringing forth a new human life into existence. The children are a living reflection of their love for one another.

They form a communion of love from which are able to draw spiritual riches that give a positive atmosphere for offering their children the support of education in the faith, for love and for chastity.

The virtue of chastity protects the ability to express true love and to give oneself to another person fully and in an unselfish way. Chastity is the spiritual energy needed to defend love from selfishness, aggressiveness and lust. Chastity is a difficult to practice especially during adolescence and young adulthood, but it is possible with the grace of God, especially as is available to us in the sacraments.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church describes chastity as “the successful integration of sexuality within the person and thus the inner unity of man in his bodily and spiritual being.” Sexuality is a beautiful gift from God and is truly human when it is integrated into the relationship of one person to another in a complete, mutual and life-long gift of a man and a woman.

Chastity involves the virtue of temperance by which we regulate our bodily appetites. Chastity is not simply the repression of our bodily appetites. Rather as it is the purity and temporary stewardship of a precious and rich gift of love realized in everyone’s specific vocation.

St. Peter taught:

Therefore, gird up the loins of your mind, live soberly, and set your hopes completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Like obedient children, do not act in compliance with the desires of your former ignorance but, as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in every aspect of your conduct, for it is written, "Be holy because I (am) holy." (1 Peter 1, 13-16)

Love is only possible when we master ourselves. We can only give of ourselves if we are freed from self-centered slavery. If we fail to govern our passions, we will be ruled by them. Love is only possible when we discipline our feelings, passions and emotions. Otherwise we can be attracted to someone else and abandon the one we love. When chastity is weakened, love becomes more selfish. Instead of self-giving, we look at the other as a means of satisfying our desire for pleasure. We can hurt the person we love by anger, infidelity, selfishness or lust – using them as an object for our own selfish pleasure.

Jesus says when we sin, we become slaves of sin. Jesus came to free us from this slavery to sin and make it possible to live holy, devout, chaste lives in this world and share eternal happiness with him in the next.

Chastity makes the personality harmonious. It matures it and fills it with inner peace. Purity of mind and body make it possible to develop true self respect and to respect others. It sees in them persons to reverence, created in the image and likeness of God.

Chastity is a virtue for everyone, but the virtue is exercised in different ways according to one’s vocation. In marriage, chastity means treating one’s spouse with dignity and respect, not as an object of lust. It also means obeying the natural moral law.

Sins against chastity include: adultery, fornication, contraception, homosexual acts, masturbation, lustful thoughts, sexually suggestive language and jokes.

In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus teaches authoritatively:

You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery.' But I say to you, everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one of your members than to have your whole body thrown into Gehenna. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one of your members than to have your whole body go into Gehenna. (Matthew 5, 27-30)

In his Letter to the Ephesians, St. Paul writes:

Immorality or any impurity or greed must not even be mentioned among you, as is fitting among holy ones, no obscenity or silly or suggestive talk, which is out of place, but instead, thanksgiving. Be sure of this, that no immoral or impure or greedy person, that is, an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. (Ephesians 5, 3-5)

In his First Letter to the Corinthians St. Paul says:

Do you not know that the unjust will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor boy prostitutes nor sodomites nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God. That is what some of you used to be; but now you have had yourselves washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God. (1 Cor. 6, 9-11)

Avoid immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the immoral person sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been purchased at a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body. (1 Cor. 6, 18-20)

Adultery is wrong because God designed marriage to be a faithful and exclusive covenant between one husband and one wife until death.

Fornication or pre-marital sex and living together before marriage are wrong because the couple has not pledged themselves to one another for life. They have not formed a partnership for life and therefore are not ready to bring children into the world. Children deserve to have a mother and a father who live together and will care for them. But a child never loses their dignity as a result of the manner of their conception.

Contraception is wrong because it denies God an opportunity to perform his creative action in the act that he designed for the transmission of new human life and it fails to represent total self-giving since the gift of fertility is deliberately held back.

Abortion is not a sin against chastity. Abortion is a sin against justice, because it kills a life that has already begun.

Pope John Paul II wrote in his encyclical The Gospel of Life,

It is frequently asserted that contraception, if made safe and available to all, is the most effective remedy against abortion. The Catholic Church is then accused of actually promoting abortion, because she obstinately continues to teach the moral unlawfulness of contraception. When looked at carefully, this objection is clearly unfounded. It may be that many people use contraception with a view to excluding the subsequent temptation of abortion. But the negative values inherent in the "contraceptive mentality"—which is very different from responsible parenthood, lived in respect for the full truth of the conjugal act—are such that they in fact strengthen this temptation when an unwanted life is conceived. Indeed, the pro- abortion culture is especially strong precisely where the Church's teaching on contraception is rejected (n. 13).

Certainly, from the moral point of view contraception and abortion are specifically different evils: the former contradicts the full truth of the sexual act as the proper expression of conjugal love, while the latter destroys the life of a human being; the former is opposed to the virtue of chastity in marriage, the latter is opposed to the virtue of justice and directly violates the divine commandment "You shall not kill". But despite their differences of nature and moral gravity, contraception and abortion are often closely connected, as fruits of the same tree. Such practices are rooted in a hedonistic mentality unwilling to accept responsibility in matters of sexuality, and they imply a self-centered concept of freedom, which regards procreation as an obstacle to personal fulfillment (n. 13).

In vitro fertilization is wrong because God willed that children would come into the world as the result of the fruit of the conjugal act by a husband and wife.

Masturbation is wrong because God designed sex to be an act of love between a husband and a wife. Masturbation is neither an act of love, nor is it open to life.

Pornography objectifies both men and women and treats the human body as mere object to satisfy lust.

Homosexual acts are contrary to the natural law. God designed the human body so that male and female would be complementary and capable of transmitting life. Homosexual acts are not complementary and incapable of transmitting life.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches the following about homosexuality:

2358 The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.

2359 Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection.

Jesus taught that unchastity defiles a person:

“… the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile. For from the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, unchastity, theft, false witness, blasphemy. These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile." (Matthew 15, 18-20)

Some people think the Church’s teaching contains too many prohibitions

Behind every “no” in the Church’s teaching shines a great ‘yes” to the recognition of the dignity and inalienable value of every single and unique human being called into existence.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches the following about chastity:

2342 Self-mastery is a long and exacting work. One can never consider it acquired once and for all. It presupposes renewed effort at all stages of life.¹²⁸ The effort required can be more intense in certain periods, such as when the personality is being formed during childhood and adolescence.

2343 Chastity has laws of growth which progress through stages marked by imperfection and too often by sin. "Man . . . day by day builds himself up through his many free decisions; and so he knows, loves, and accomplishes moral good by stages of growth."¹²⁹

Chastity is a difficult virtue to acquire. If you’ve failed, have your sins absolved in the Sacrament of Penance and begin again, but know that God calls you to holiness and that chastity is possible.

Some people think young people should be told to delay sexual activity, but if you don’t use birth control. We say people are not animals. Human beings are persons and who can control our impulses.

Chastity is possible for a person who is willing to puts aside selfishness, make sacrifices and delay sexual gratification. Men are often portrayed as animals in constant need of sexual satisfaction. But man is capable of a higher love than the mere satisfaction of appetites. He is capable of friendship and self-giving with a capacity to love persons for who they are as persons, not what he can get from them.

If sex is very good and God says it is not good for men to be alone, what about priests and religious who forsake the gift of marriage? How do they find fulfillment? The vocation of consecrated life finds fulfillment in making a total donation of one’s self to God alone (1 Cor. 7) to give one’s self to God alone with an undivided heart.

Jesus was celibate and recommended this way of life to his followers:

Some are incapable of marriage because they were born so; some, because they were made so by others; some, because they have renounced marriage for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Whoever can accept this ought to accept it." (Matthew 19, 10-12)

Faithful priests and religious are sexual beings, but don’t have sex. They give and love in a different way by making of themselves a total gift to God and his people. They also receive love in a pure way from God and the people they serve. Sexuality is a fundamental component of one’s personality. It is the way we communicate, express feelings and express human love. Sexuality characterizes man and woman not only on the physical level, but also on the psychological and spiritual. This will have an influence on the vocation to which each person is called. The priest is an icon of Christ. He is an image of Jesus who called himself the Son of the Father. A woman is an icon of the Church whose first member is the Blessed Virgin Mary. Mary was open and receptive to the Word of God. All Christians are called to imitate Mary’s “yes” to God.

All vocations – marriage, single life, priesthood and religious life involve spiritual motherhood or fatherhood.

A religious sister in her care for others, prayer, wise counsel, and example becomes a spiritual mother to many children. A priest is called father since through him God gives new life in Baptism, he nourishes and sustains that life through the other sacraments. He also exercises spiritual fatherhood through his prayer, example and wise counsel. St. Paul says in his letter to the Corinthians:

I am writing you this not to shame you, but to admonish you as my beloved children. Even if you should have countless guides to Christ, yet you do not have many fathers, for I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel. (1 Corinthians 4, 14-15)

Jesus promises rewards to his followers who live a celibate life for the sake of the Kingdom of God.

And everyone who has given up houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands for the sake of my name will receive a hundred times more, and will inherit eternal life.” (Matthew 19, 29)

The world needs to hear what the Catholic Church really teaches about sex. Those of us who believe this have a duty to pass this truth on to others, especially in our own families, since there are so many other contrary messages being disseminated throughout our culture that are contrary to the truth about the dignity of the human person, the sanctity of human life and the beauty and dignity of human sexuality as part of God’s plan.

In the past, even when the family didn’t provide specific sex education, the general culture supported fundamental values and made it easier to protect and maintain them. That is obviously not the case anymore. Society distorts the truth about man and woman as persons created in the image and likeness of God; God’s plan for marriage; the grandeur of the procreation and education of children; material, cultural and spiritual needs to educate in the truths of the faith, love of God and neighbor.

Addtess to March For Life in Reading, Pennsylvania June 12, 2011

The City of Reading is situated between Philadelphia, the cradle of liberty, and the town of Gettysburg, where a great battle for the meaning of that liberty and who was entitled to that liberty was fought. Gettysburg is approximately 87 miles from Reading. In fact, it is four score and seven miles from here.

Some of my Irish ancestors from Pennsylvania fought for the Union in the Civil War, perhaps even in the Battle of Gettysburg. A book written in 1865, entitled Memorial of the Patriotism of Schuylkill County in the American Slaveholder's Rebellion, gives me the impression that fighting for the liberty of people who were enslaved was an important reason that many of them volunteered to serve their country in its greatest moment of crisis.

Over 8000 men died in three days at the Battle of Gettysburg. Tens of thousands more were wounded. The ravages of war were still evident when President Lincoln visited that battlefield to commemorate those who had fallen. President Lincoln recalled the vision our Founding Fathers had of our nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the notion that all men were created equal.

At Gettysburg, President Lincoln reminded America of who she was. His intent was to bring to the forefront of the minds of his listeners the original vision our Founding Fathers had for our nation when they or their ancestors came to this continent from Europe.

Less than 60 miles from here the following words were written and adopted by our Founding Fathers:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…

We meet in Reading today to march for life. In doing so we are not trying to impose anything alien on the American people. We respect the legitimate secularity of government. We are not seeking to impose a religious doctrine on others. We are not seeking to establish a theocracy on this nation. What we are doing is standing up for a basic human and civil right. Indeed, it is the most fundamental right that we have – the right to life.

Today America is sharply divided over very basic issues of life, marriage and the nature and purpose of government. Among the issues that divide us are:

1) Whether one person has a right to chose to take the life of another human being through an act of violence called abortion.

2) Whether the elderly sick and handicapped will be respected and protected. Are people disposable? Can they be dehumanized, ignored and done away when they are expensive or inconvenient to take care of?

3) The definition of marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

4) Whether a nation whose founding documents acknowledge that we have unalienable rights by which we were endowed by our Creator, can acknowledge the existence of that Creator in our public life.

On the 10th Anniversary of the adoption of the Constitution of the United States of America, on September 17, 1796 President George Washington delivered his farewell address to the nation. In it he said:

Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great Pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of Men and citizens. The mere Politician, equally with the pious man ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths, which are the instruments of investigation in Courts of Justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that National morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.

George Washington and many of the other Founding Fathers were influenced by the Great Awakening – a spiritual revival that swept this nation between the years 1740 and 1780. Before the ideas that led to the American Revolution were spread through newspapers, pamphlets and finally recorded in our founding documents, they were proclaimed from the pulpits of America, because those principles have their roots in the Bible.

The Founders believed that our rights were not granted by any king or government, but by God. They believed that the purpose of government is to secure the rights we have from God; that governments derive their just power from the consent of the governed; that the first and foremost right that we have is the right to life. They believed that people have a right to follow their conscience as long as they don’t trample on the rights of another person. God gave us liberty not simply to do what we want, but to do what we ought. Our Founders gave us a nation in which we would be able to express our ideas freely and practice our faith publicly. They established a government that guaranteed freedom of religion, not freedom from religion.

The Founders left us a great heritage. It is up to us to preserve it and call America to live up to the noble principles expressed in our founding documents. As President Abraham Lincoln called for a rebirth of America at Gettysburg based on the Declaration of Independence and Constitution, so also we work for the protection of human life call America to live up those same principles.

In the 1960’s, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. also challenged America to live up to these principles. He called the Declaration of Independence a promissory note for African-Americans , that is, a promise that had yet to be fulfilled for them. I am privileged to work with Dr. Alveda King, who is one of the pastoral associates at Priests For life who is helping especially to raise awareness about the threat of the culture of death among the African-American community.

Like President Lincoln and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Pope John Paul II called America to live up to her founding documents. Before leaving the United States on a visit to Baltimore in 1995, Pope John Paul II said this about our system of government:

Democracy needs wisdom. Democracy needs virtue, if it is not to turn against everything that it is meant to defend and encourage. Democracy stands or falls with the truths and values which it embodies and promotes.

Democracy serves what is true and right when it safeguards the dignity of every human person, when it respects inviolable and inalienable human rights, when it makes the common good the end and criterion regulating all public and social life. But these values themselves must have an objective content. Otherwise they correspond only to the power of the majority, or the wishes of the most vocal. If an attitude of skepticism were to succeed in calling into question even the fundamental principles of the moral law, the democratic system itself would be shaken in its foundations (cf. Evangelium Vitae, 70).

But after giving us this warning the Pope also gave these words of encouragement:

The United States possesses a safeguard, a great bulwark, against this happening. I speak of your founding documents: the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights. These documents are grounded in and embody unchanging principles of the natural law whose permanent truth and validity can be known by reason, for it is the law written by God in human hearts (cf. Rom 2:25).

At the center of the moral vision of your founding documents is the recognition of the rights of the human person, and especially respect for the dignity and sanctity of human life in all conditions and at all stages of development. I say to you again, America, in the light of your own tradition: love life, cherish life, defend life, from conception to natural death.

Today as we celebrate the great outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the Blessed Virgin Mary and the disciples gathered in the Upper Room at Pentecost let us pray for another great awakening in our nation. Pray to the Holy Spirit to grant our leaders and all of our citizens wisdom. Pray to the Holy Spirit, who transformed weak and timid men into courageous evangelizers, that we will speak up for and act on what we know in our hearts is right. The Holy Spirit is our Advocate. He calls us to be advocates too.

We march today to send a message that human life is sacred and to call back America to the noble principles expressed in our founding documents, especially as we advocate for legal protection for unborn babies who cannot speak for themselves.

Decision on Marriage Threatens Religious Liberty

On February 23, 2011, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that President Obama had directed him not to defend the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). DOMA protected the definition of marriage as a relationship between a man and a woman. Because of DOMA, States that do not recognize same-sex unions are not obliged to recognize same-sex “marriages” contracted in other States that do.

DOMA protected States from one State Supreme Court imposing its views on marriage on the rest of the country. The Obama Administration has decided not to defend DOMA because, in their opinion, it is unconstitutional. By failing to uphold the laws of the United States, President Obama himself has violated the Constitution. This decision also threatens the religious liberty and conscience rights of those who believe in traditional marriage.

In recent years, 31 States have passed initiatives to reaffirm the definition of marriage as a union between a man and a woman. Attorney General Holder suggests that the majority of Americans who hold this view are bigots. Holder treats opposition to “gay marriage” as a form of unjust discrimination. But upholding true marriage between a man and a woman is not bigotry. Many people of different cultures and religions believe that marriage is the foundational institution of society. This belief has informed the civil law throughout history.

Gay activists compare opposition to same-sex “marriage” to opposition to interracial marriage in the past. This is ludicrous. Opposition to interracial marriage is a form of racism. Racism is unjust discrimination. African-Americans and others in the United States fought for the same rights as everyone else. But gay activists seek to change the very definition of marriage.

Most Americans are quite tolerant, but gay activists want more than simply to live and let live. Many religious institutions fear that the Justice Department will abuse its authority to suppress the religious liberty of people who dissent. The government may now treat believing Christians, Jews, Mormons, Muslims and others as though they are the equivalent of racists. Racists face civil disabilities in licensing and accreditation for fields like teaching and psychology. Universities with racist policies are refused tax-exempt status.

Gay activists are not simply content to live and let live. They seek to change the definition of marriage, impose their view on the rest of society and punish dissenters who don’t approve of the new definition.

Here are some examples:

In Great Britain, Dale McAlpine, a Baptist street preacher, was recently arrested and charged with using abusive language for preaching that homosexual behavior is a sin. He will be tried in September. McAlpine was charged under the 1986 Public Order Act, which was originally written to deal with abusive soccer fans.

In 2008, the Human Rights Commission of Alberta, Canada convicted Stephen Boisson of hate speech, fined him $7000 and ordered him never again to speak disparagingly of homosexuality. Boisson had denounced homosexuality as immoral and dangerous. He had also criticized the gay rights curricula which permeated the province’s educational system.

After the Massachusetts Supreme Court imposed same-sex unions on the State in 2004, Catholic Charities in Boston was forced either to place children with same-sex couples or to stop doing adoptions. An adoption agency must be licensed by the State to operate in Massachusetts. To get a license, an agency must pledge to obey state laws barring discrimination—including same-sex discrimination. The State refused to grant Catholic Charities a religious exemption. In 2006, Catholic Charities chose to stop doing adoptions rather than being forced to violate their principles.

Many other examples of attacks on religious liberty could be cited in the United States and elsewhere. We must vigorously reject the false charge that defending marriage between a man and a woman is a form of bigotry. If Americans are not vocal in defending our rights, we must be prepared to lose them.

The Obama Administration will no longer defend DOMA, but Congress can still retain its own counsel and defend the law which was passed by a wide, bi-partisan majority in both the House and the Senate. We must urge Congress to act. Failure to defend DOMA threatens the religious liberty, free-speech and conscience rights of millions of Americans.

Homily for Thirty-Third Sunday of Ordinary Time, the Destruction of the Temple, the End of the World, Luke 21, 5-19

Destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem (1867) by Francesco Hayez displayed in the Galleria d'Arte Moderna, Venice, Italy

As we come to the end of the liturgical year, the Church focuses our attention on the last things. The readings are more ominous with more apocalyptic language. They give us a warning of events that are yet to come.

The Gospel of Luke speaks to us of the Second Temple which was built in 515 BC. This Temple was a magnificent architectural achievement. The Jews were in awe of it. For them, it seemed to represent the enduring nature of the world. They could hardly believe such a place could ever be destroyed.

Jesus used the opportunity of preaching in the Temple to speak about the end of time. Jesus predicts “As for these things which you see, the days will come when there shall not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down." (Luke 21, 6)

Christ’s prophecy was literally fulfilled forty years later.  In 70 AD,  the Roman military commander and future Roman Emperor, Titus Flavius Vespasianus, attacked Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple.  The Arch of Titus, in Rome, commemorates his victory over Jerusalem to this day.

The Jewish historian, Flavius Josephus, was present in Jerusalem when the Temple was destroyed. After describing the destruction of the countryside for ten miles surrounding the city, he recounted:

These Romans put the Jews to flight, and proceeded as far as the holy house itself. At which time one of the soldiers, without staying for any orders, and without any concern or dread upon him at so great an undertaking, and being hurried on by a certain divine fury, snatched some what out of the materials that were on fire, and being lifted up by another soldier, he set fire to a golden window, through which there wion, passage to the rooms that were round about the holy house, on the north side of it. As the flames went upward, the Jews made a great clamor, such as so mighty an affliction required, and ran together to prevent it; and now they spared not their lives any longer, nor suffered anything to restrain their force, since that holy house was perishing...thus it was the holy house burnt down...Nor can one imagine anything greater or more terrible than this noise; for there was at once a shout of the Roman Legions, who were marching all together, and a sad clamor of the seditious, who were now surrounded with fire and sword... the people under a great consternation, made sad moans at the calamity they were under...Yet was the misery itself more terrible than the disorder; for one would have thoughtthat the hill itself, on which the Temple stood, was seething hot, as full of fire on every part of it. (Josephus, Antiquities xi. 1.2)

To give a detailed account of their outrageous conduct is impossible, but we may sum it up by saying that no other city has ever endured such horrors, and no generation in history has fathered such wickedness. In the end they brought the whole Hebrew race into contempt in order to make their own impiety seem less outrageous in foreign eyes, and confessed the painful truth that they were slaves, the dregs of humanity, bastards, and outcasts of their nation. ...It is certain that when from the upper city they watched the Temple burning they did not turn a hair, though many Romans were moved to tears. (Josephus, The Jewish War, p. 292)

Christ’s purpose in foretelling this event is not to satisfy the people’s curiosity, but to help them to keep faith when he is betrayed and turned over to evil men. After he rises and sends the Holy Spirit on his disciples, he will send them into the world. They will need to be strong to endure their own betrayals and persecution. God never wills evil to occur, but his power is so great that he can bring good out of evil.

Pope St. Leo the Great (ca. 400-461 AD) spoke of this when he said “Virtue is nothing without the trial of temptation, for there is no conflict without an enemy, no victory without strife.” The enemies of Christ and his Church may seem to triumph for a time, but Christ by his death and Resurrection has won the ultimate victory for life. We will experience that ultimate victory at the end of time.

The prophecy of the destruction of the Temple has a double meaning. It applies to the destruction of the Temple that occurred in 70 AD. It also applies to the destruction of the world at the end of time. While we will probably not live to see the end of time, everyone on this earth will eventually experience death. We need to prepare ourselves for eternity. Pope St. Leo the Great reminded us of the fleeting nature of the world:

Short and fleeting are the joys of this world's pleasures which endeavorsto turn aside from the path of life those who are called to eternity. The faithful and religious spirit, therefore, must desire the things which are heavenly, and being eager for the Divine promises, lift itself to the love of the incorruptible Good and the hope of the true Light.

In one of his letters St. John the Apostle says “Do not love the world or the things of the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, sensual lust, enticement for the eyes, and a pretentious life, is not from the Father but is from the world. Yet the world and its enticement are passing away. But whoever does the will of God remains forever.” (1 John 2, 15-17)

Given the fleeting nature of the world, some may be tempted to flee from the world and wait for the end to come, but the Church reminds us that we are not a sect fleeing the world, but a community of faith called to renew the world.

The Second Vatican Council document Gaudium et Spes reminds us of this when it says:

We have been warned, of course, that it profits us nothing if we gain the whole world and lose or forfeit ourselves. Far from diminishing our concern to develop this earth, the expectation of a new earth should spur us on, for it is here that the body of a new human family grows, foreshadowing in some way the age which is to come. That is why, although we must be careful to distinguish earthly progress dearly from the increase of the kingdom of Christ, such progress is of vital concern to the kingdom of God, insofar as it can contribute to the better ordering of human society.

When we have spread on earth the fruits of our nature and our enterprise - human dignity, sisterly and brotherly communion, and freedom - according to the command of the Lord and in his Spirit, we will find them once again, cleansed this time from the stain of sin, illuminated and transfigured, when Christ presents to his Father an eternal and universal kingdom "of truth and life, a kingdom of holiness and grace, a kingdom of justice, love and peace." Here on earth the kingdom is mysteriously present; when the Lord comes it will enter into its perfection. (GS#39)

Some may have a more monastic or contemplative vocation, but even contemplatives need to pray for those in the world. Most of us are called to be in the world, to be its salt and light, and transform it according to God’s plan.

In 1976, Karol Cardinal Wojtyla, the future Pope John Paul II attended a Eucharistic Congress in Philadelphia, PA. In his farewell address he said:

We are now standing in the face of the greatest historical confrontation humanity has gone through. I do not think that wide circles of American society or wide circles of Christian community realize this fully. We are now facing the final confrontation between the Church and the anti-church, the Gospel versus the anti-gospel. This confrontation lies within the plan of divine Providence; it is a trial which the whole Church must take up.

Thirteen years later in 1989, Pope John Paul II witnessed the fall of Communism in Poland and then in the rest of Eastern Europe, a fall that he helped to bring about.

Just as Communism fell in Eastern Europe, so also we can defeat the culture of death. In 2000, Pope John Paul II encouraged us not give in to

...that type of defeatist mentality which claims that laws opposed to the right to life - those which legalize abortion, euthanasia, sterilization and methods of family planning opposed to life and the dignity of marriage - are inevitable and now almost a social necessity. On the contrary, they are a seed of corruption for society and its foundations. The civil and moral conscience cannot accept this false inevitability, any more than the idea that war or interethnic extermination is inevitable.

  Therefore, the Pope reminded us

no effort should be spared to eliminate legalized crime or at least to limit the damage caused by these laws, but with the vivid awareness of theradical duty to respect every human being's right to life from conception until natural death, including the life of the lowliest and the least gifted.

The Pope urgently called for "a general mobilization of consciences and a united ethical effort to activate a great campaign in support of life.” (EV#95)

Jesus warns us that there will be opposition and persecution as we seek to fulfill our mission in the world. He says this opposition may even come from family, friends or members of the Church, but we cannot and ust not be deterred. If we’re faithful to our mission, despite this opposition, we will the win the crown of righteousness (2 Timothy 4, 8) and like Christ we will rise, on the last day.