What's Wrong With the Health Care Bill From a Catholic Perspective

Pilgrims visit the Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes - Patroness of the Sick

What’s wrong with the health care bill from a Catholic perspective? In short, it funds abortion. It does not sufficiently protect the conscience rights of health care workers who refuse to have anything to do with abortion, euthanasia, human cloning or destructive embryonic stem cell research. It rations health care to the sick and the elderly, and the massive government takeover is a violation of a basic principle of Catholic social teaching - the principle of subsidiarity.

Catholics Should Support Real Health Care Reform

One out of every six patients is cared for in a Catholic hospital. There are 624 Catholic hospitals in the United States and 499 Long-Term Care Nursing Facilities as well as numerous home health agencies and hospice organizations. As Catholics who are concerned about the common good we should support health care reform. No one should die because they cannot afford health care, and no one should go broke because they become sick. The American Bishops agree that providing universal access to health care is the right thing to do.

According to a Census Bureau report published in August of 2008, 35.92 million Americans are uninsured. This number includes 9.1 million people who earn more than $75,000 a year and simply choose not to buy insurance.

1. Those who do not want any health care but would rather have whatever the employer spends on health care given to them in wages;

2. Those who because of changes of employment or medical condition are disqualified from the coverage they formerly had; and

3. Those who have no hope of getting adequate health care (children whose parents do not or cannot provide it for them).

We especially need to help those like children who don’t have coverage because their parents can’t afford it, or those who lose coverage because they lose their job. However, we have a problem and not a crisis. Currently, the vast majority of Americans are happy with their health care coverage. We need to fix what’s not working, but not by completely overhauling the system that is working for overwhelming majority of Americans. Real reform is necessary, but as Bishop Robert Vasa of Baker, Oregon and an authority on this subject says this health care bill is fatally flawed and the equivalent of giving poisoned water to the thirsty.

The Legislative Process

The current health care reform bill is a work in progress and subject to further negotiation before the Senate votes on it. The majority of Democrats support the bill. The majority of Republicans oppose it. The Republicans can use numerous parliamentary maneuvers to delay the passage of the bill. Sixty votes are necessary for cloture. This means the debate would end and the Senate would then vote on the bill. A simple majority would be enough to pass the bill.

Delegations are then chosen from the Senate and the House of Representatives to draft a compromise bill that both houses of Congress can accept. The bill then goes back to both houses for a vote. If both houses pass the bill, the bill then goes to the President to either sign or veto.

President Obama doesn’t have his own bill. The President has indicated that he is willing to sign practically any bill labeled health care reform that reaches his desk.

The Sunshine Foundation is working to get a proposal passed that would ensure that a bill is posted on the internet at least 72 hours before it is voted on, but this is unlikely to happen despite the fact that President Obama promised this would happen during his campaign.

Goal Posts For True Reform

How to provide universal access to health care is a matter of prudential judgment on which people of good will can disagree, but certain basic values must be protected, especially by those who consider themselves to be serious Catholics.

The Bishops have set out some goal posts as to what is and what is not acceptable reform. Genuine reform must move toward health care that respects the life and dignity of every human being, born and unborn until natural death with a special concern for the poor and inclusion of legal immigrants.

First and most important, the Church will not accept any legislation that mandates public or private coverage and thus makes us complicit in practices that contradict what authentic health care consists of. Abortion, euthanasia, or embryonic stem-cell research are not health care since they all involve the deliberate destruction human life. The Bishops refuse to allow any Catholic parish, school, and diocesan health insurance plans to be forced to include these evils.

We also insist on adequate individual rights of conscience rights of patients and health care providers must be protected. They have a right not to be made complicit in these evils. A so-called reform that imposes these evils on us would be far worse than keeping the health care system we now have.

The Bishops also insist that a variety of options should be preserved. It is also important to restrain costs and apply them equitably across a spectrum of payers.

Abortion IS NOT Health Care

Abortion does not belong in any bill concerning health care. Cardinal Rigali, the Chairman of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Committee for Pro-Life Activities, says “Abortion – the direct, intentional killing of an unborn girl or boy – is not health care. Abortion robs an innocent child of his or her life, and robs mothers of their peace and happiness…Abortion funding can only increase the number of dead and grieving.”

A recent CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey showed that 61 percent of Americans oppose using public money for abortions. Only 37 percent support allowing federal funding of abortion.

But the Senate is ignoring the will of the American people. On December 8, 2009, the Senate defeated an amendment would have excluded funding of abortion from the health care bill. Most Democrats voted to include abortion funding in the bill. The majority of Republicans voted against federal funding of abortion.

The courts have ruled that abortion is basic health care Unless an amendment is passed that specifically excludes abortion from the health care bills, the courts will impose an abortion mandate just as they did with Medicaid.

The abortion lobby is using health care reform to try to end-run around the Hyde Amendment which restricts Medicaid funds for being used to pay for abortions, except for a few hard cases.
If President Obama and the pro-abortion members of Congress want to assure us that the health care reform bills won’t cover abortion, why didn’t they support the numerous amendments that were offered which would have specifically excluded abortion funding and coverage from the bills?


As Cardinal Justin Rigali has written for the USCCB Secretariat of Pro-life Activities, "this bill circumvents the Hyde amendment (which prohibits federal funds from being used to pay for abortions) by drawing funding from new sources not covered by the Hyde amendment, and by creatively manipulating how federal funds covered by the Hyde amendment are accounted. It also provides a “public insurance option” without adequate limits, so that smaller employers especially will have a financial incentive to push all their employees into this public insurance. This will effectively prevent those employees from choosing any private insurance plans. This will saddle the working classes with additional taxes for inefficient and immoral entitlements. The Senate bill, HELP, is better than the House bill, as I understand it. It subsidizes care for the poor, rather than tending to monopolize care. But, it designates the limit of four times federal poverty level for the public insurance option, which still includes more than half of all workers. This would impinge on the vitality of the private sector. It also does not meet the first standard of explicitly excluding mandatory abortion coverage."

Health Care Rationing

The Senate also defeated an amendment that would have removed a provision that establishes that, for at least five years, Medicare physicians who authorize treatments for their patients that wind up in the top 10% of per capita cost for a year will lose 5% of their total Medicare reimbursements for that year. Pro-life advocates say the provision means that all doctors treating older people will feel pressured to order the least expensive tests and treatments for fear that they will be caught in that top 10%.

When the government is the source of funding for health care, rationing is inevitable. Some say rationing is already happening under Medicare, but Medicare should not be the standard that we aim for. Limited government funding should not be the reason that life-sustaining or life-saving care is denied. Do we really want the government to decide what is or is not “futile care” and what lives are and are not worthy of treatment.

Government-run health care means that politicians will direct doctors’ decisions and even override their medical judgment. It will lead to an attitude that “hard choices” have to be made and arguments that some lives are not cost effective to treat. Government-run healthcare will inevitably lead to rationed health care affecting the young, the old, the disabled, and the vulnerable. It is the wrong choice for Americans.

Bishop R. Walter Nickless of the Diocese of Sioux City has emphasized that the Church "does not teach that government should directly provide health care," and warned "While a government monopoly would not be motivated by profit, it would be motivated by such bureaucratic standards as quotas and defined 'best procedures,' which are equally beyond the influence of most citizens."

The Principle of Subsidiarity

All of us have a responsibility to work to support the common good of all, but we should avoid thinking that the national government is the sole instrument of the common good. Many different communities within society share this responsibility to work toward the common good


One of the key principles of Catholic social thought is known as the principle of subsidiarity. This tenet holds that nothing should be done by a larger and more complex organization which can be done as well by a smaller and simpler organization. In other words, any activity which can be performed by a more decentralized entity should be.


The concept of limited government brilliantly articulated by Founding Fathers of the United States and written into our Constitution is very consistent with the principle of subsidiarity. The Tenth Amendment of the United States Constitution states "Powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited to it by the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

The principle of subsidiarity conflicts with the tendency toward the centralization of government power and the Welfare State.

Catholics believe that government should play a role in regulating the private sector to foster healthy competition and curtail abuses. Government has an essential supplementary role in providing a safety net for those who can’t care for themselves, but government’s role is a limited one. In his 1991 encyclical, Centesimus Annus, Pope John Paul II said that the Welfare State was contradicting the principle of subsidiarity: "By intervening directly and depriving society of its responsibility, the Social Assistance State leads to a loss of human energies and an inordinate increase of public agencies, which are dominated more by bureaucratic ways of thinking than by concern for serving their clients, and which are accompanied by an enormous increase in spending."

When the government fails to respect the role of private initiative in economic matters this also violates the principle of subsidiarity. States, towns, fraternal organizations, businesses, cooperatives, parishes and especially the family have not only legitimate freedom to provide the goods they are rightly capable of supplying, but often times do so with far greater efficiency, less bureaucracy and, most importantly, with personalized care and love. Whenever the federal government takes on tasks that should be limited to families, churches, and other local or state institutions, it usually does a poor job with greater cost.


As Pope Benedict XVI explained so well in his first encyclical Deus Caritas Est:


The State which would provide everything, absorbing everything into itself,would ultimately become a mere bureaucracy incapable of guaranteeing the very thing which the suffering person—every person—needs: namely, loving personal concern. We do not need a State which regulates and controls everything, but a State which, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, generously acknowledges and supports initiatives arising from the different social forces and combines spontaneity with closeness to those in need. The Church is one of those living forces: she is alive with the love enkindled by the Spirit of Christ. This love does not simply offer people material help, but refreshment and care for their souls, something which often is even more necessary than material support. In the end, the claim that just social structures would make works of charity superfluous masks a materialist conception of man: the mistaken notion that man can live “by bread alone” (Mt 4:4; cf. Dt 8:3)—a conviction that demeans man and ultimately disregards all that is specifically human. (par 28)

Conclusion

The Catholic Church has been advocating for decades that health care should be made more accessible to all, especially to the poor, but current health care bill does not respect human life. Nor does it offer more health care to patients, it simply expands government control of the private sector, tramples on the rights of the individual. It violates the principle of subsidiarity, a sense of solidarity, and does not contribute to the common good. It is fatally flawed and Catholics, other Christians and all people of good will should oppose the current health care bill.

I encourage all of you to make your voice heard to our representatives in Congress. Tell your Senators and Congressperson that no health care reform is better than the wrong sort of health care reform. Powerful forces are pushing our representatives to ignore the will of the American people. We need to insist that our leaders not permit themselves to be railroaded into supporting a bill that does not respect human life, is too costly and centralizes government control. Insist they support proposals that respects the life and dignity of every human person, especially the unborn, elderly and disabled. And above all, pray for our government leaders and for our country.

For more information see:

http://www.realhealthcarerespectslife.com/

http://www.priestsforlife.org/legislation/health-care-alert.htm

Prophets For Our Time: Pope Paul VI vs. Paul Ehrlich

In 1968, two prophets prophesied about the future. Pope Paul VI prophecies in Humanae Vitae have proven true. Paul Ehrlich the author of The Population Bomb has proved to be false prophet.

1) Pope Paul VI was prophetic in Humanae Vitae predicting that widespread use of contraception would lead to "conjugal infidelity and the general lowering of morality." Since the birth control Pill began to be sold in 1960, divorces have tripled, births to unwed jumped from 224,000 to 1.7 million in 2007. Nearly 40 percent of babies born in the United States in 2007 were delivered by unwed mothers. The number of abortions doubled. Cohabitation has increased from 430,000 to 4.85 million couples in 2005.

2) The Pope predicted man would lose respect for woman, considering her "as a mere instrument of selfish enjoyment, and no longer as his respected and beloved companion." The Playboy philosophy prevails today. Men often pressure their girlfriends or wives into abortions so they can remain sexually available to them. Today 40 percent of children in the United States live in homes without their fathers.

3) Pope Paul VI also prophesied that contraception would mislead human beings into thinking they had unlimited control over their own bodies. He was right. The most common form of contraception today is sterilization. People mutilate their bodies to control their fertility. In vitro fertilization which involves the production, freezing and experimenting of ‘spare embryos’ is commonplace. Human clones are created and then destroyed for spare parts. In December 2008, Montana became the third State to legalize physician assisted suicide.

4) Finally, Pope Paul VI predicted that the widespread acceptance of contraception would place a "dangerous weapon... in the hands of those public authorities who take no heed of moral exigencies." This has also proven true as governments like China have engaged in campaigns in programs of forced sterilization and abortion.

Pope Paul VI’s predictions have proved to be true, yet contraception is still proposed for the same problems that it was supposed to reduce. Every year the Federal Government spends hundreds of millions of dollars on contraception supposedly to reduce abortion and illegitimacy. Yet births to unwed mothers have risen from 4 to 40 percent. Hasn’t a generation of failure taught us a lesson?

The Pill today prevents even fewer pregnancies than it prevented 40 years ago." The Pill suppresses ovulation through a heavy dose of a synthetic estrogen, but that often causes nausea and weight gain. So drug companies reduced the amount of estrogen and added progesterone. This made it less effective.

Half of all pregnancies are still unintended. Family Planning Perspectives reports that "18 percent of couples who use condoms and 12 percent who take the Pill become pregnant within two years. " Most women seeking abortions do so because of failed contraception.

While Pope Paul VI’s predictions have proven true, Paul Ehrlich’s dire predictions in The Population Bomb have proven unfounded. Ehrlich predicted a demographic catastrophe with population growth quickly outstripping growth in the supply of food and other resources. Ehrlich predicted that the world would undergo famines and that millions of people would starve to death. There were occasional famines, but not nearly as horrific as Ehrlich predicted.

In his 1990 sequel The Population Explosion Ehrlich predicted that world grain production had already reached its peak in 1986. He was dead wrong. In 1986, about 1.8 million metric tons of cereals were produced, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. Cereal production increased to 20.7 million metric tons in 2001.

In his 1974 book The End of Affluence, Ehrlich stated that, "Before 1985 mankind will enter a genuine age of scarcity ... in which the accessible supplies of many key minerals will be facing depletion."

In the journal Social Science Quarterly, Ehrlich wrote "If I were a gambler, I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000."

In 1980, Julian Simon, an economist and population expert challenged Paul Erlich to a famous wager. Simon asked Ehrlich choose five raw materials. Simon bet that the price of the resources would fall. Erlich predicted they would go up. Erlich chose the metals copper, chromium, nickel, tin and tungsten. By 1990, the prices of all five metals had gone down. Ehrlich lost the bet.

Dr. Paul Ehrlich has received many prestigious awards in science and is chief advisor to former Vice President Algore.

Ehrlich is one of a long line of false prophets who have gained fame by dire predictions of doom for the world. Long before Paul Ehrlich there was Thomas Malthus, an eighteenth century Anglican clergyman, who argued that while population increases exponentially, food production only increases arithmetically. Therefore he wrongly predicted that it would be impossible for food production to keep up with the demands of an increasing population.

It didn’t take long for Malthus to be proven wrong. He made his prediction before one of the largest expansions of farming in the history of the world in the 19th century. He didn’t count on the ingenuity of people to come up with new technologies. This ‘man of God’ did not trust in Divine Providence.

The current population of the world is approximately 6.8 billion people, but this population is not booming. It is aging and in decline. Fertility rates have fallen and people are living longer. Experts at the United Nations estimate that the population will peak between 2050 and 2075. Nicholas Eberstadt, a demographer and scholar at the American Enterprise Institute thinks it's likely to come on the earlier. He says that due to declining fertility rates "I think it's perfectly plausible that world population could peak by 2050 or even sooner and perhaps at a level below 8 billion." In 2000, the US Census Bureau reported that 83 countries and territories are now thought to be experiencing below-replacement fertility. Russia, Japan and Western Europe face the danger of population implosion. If it wasn’t for immigration, the population of the United States would also be declining.

Overpopulation is not the cause of poverty. As world population has risen, so also has the standard of living. Cities are sometimes overcrowded because people prefer living in urban centers rather than in rural areas. They cluster together in cities to trade goods and services. Bangkok, Seoul, Singapore, Tokyo and Hong Kong are overpopulated, but prosperous. Taiwan is far more densely populated than China but also far richer. New Jersey is the most densely populated State in the United States. It also has the second highest per capita income.

97 percent of the land surface of the world is empty. The entire population of the world could live comfortably in an area the size of the State of Texas.

Densely populated areas are not necessarily more polluted. Germany has more than 600 persons per square mile. The Netherlands has almost 1200 persons per square mile. Yet China with 330 persons per square mile has far more environmental problems.

All of Paul Ehrlich’s prophecies in 1968 have proved false. Yet he is still revered by elitist, radical environmental snobs on the Left. Pope Paul VI’s prophecies proved true. Yet he still despised and his words are still unheeded. The same prophets of gloom and doom now predict a global catastrophe due to global warming.

Overpopulation zealots fooled us in 1968 with their dire predictions of doom that never came to pass. Let’s not be fooled again by these misanthropic elitists who push us toward contraception, sterilization and abortion supposedly to save the planet. Killing people is not the solution to whatever problems the world faces. More human beings are not the problem. They are the solution.

Sheep, Without a Shepherd Homily for the Sixteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B, July 19, 2009 Mark 30-34

Jesus Teaching by the Seashore 1899 James Tissot (1836-1902)

Jesus takes his disciples apart for a time of rest, prayer and recreation. However, we see that Jesus is flexible when it comes to meeting a pastoral need. Pastor means shepherd. A true shepherd of souls feeds his flock with true teaching. He keeps his flock from the poisonous streams of false teaching, moral relativism and religious indifferentism. He leads by example in living a life of holiness and integrity. He also seeks out the lost and brings them safely home.

Jesus is moved because of the people’s ignorance. In the book of Hosea, God says “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge” (Hosea 4:6). Ignorance is not the same as stupidity. Will Rogers once said “Everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects.” Someone may know a lot about computers and very little about cars and vice versa. Most brain surgeons know little about rocket science and you wouldn’t ask a rocket scientist to perform brain surgery.

The greatest ignorance is ignorance of the things of God. What the old Baltimore Catechism taught is still true today. God made us to know him, love him and serve him in this life and to be happy with him in the next life.Each of us should strive to know God better each day and strive to be faithful to his will. We can start by getting to know God better by reading the Bible. St. Jerome said “Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.”

The more we read the Bible, the more we see how are Catholic faith is solidly supported by the Word of God. For example, in the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John, Jesus clearly teaches us about his Real Presence in the Holy Eucharist. John 21 shows Jesus instituting the Sacrament of Penance by breathing the Holy Spirit on his apostles and saying “Whose sins you forgive are forgiven, whose sins you retain are retained. ” The first words of the Hail Mary are taken from Luke 1. “Hail Mary, full of grace. The Our Lord is with you. Blessed art you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb."

The Bible also teaches us respect for human life. In the book of Jeremiah, God says to Jeremiah "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I have appointed you a prophet to the nations." (Jeremiah 1, 5) Psalm 8 says “When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor” (Psalm 8:3-5)

1. The Bible teaches that human life is made in the image and likeness of God.

2. The Bible teaches that children are a blessing.

3. The Bible teaches that the child in the womb is truly a human child, who has a relationship with the Lord.

4. Scripture condemns the killing of the innocent. God gives us the commandment “Thou shall not kill.” (Exodus 20, 13)

5. The Bible teaches that God is a God of justice. Justice is an act of intervention for the helpless, to defend those who are too weak to defend themselves.

6. Jesus Christ paid special attention to the poor, the despised, and those whom the rest of society considered insignificant. Jesus said ‘Whatever you do to the least of my brothers and sisters you do to me.” (Matthew 25, 40)

7. Scripture teaches us to love. We are to love our neighbor as ourselves. Jesus always expanded the definition of who our neighbor is.

8. The Scripture also teaches that eventually goodness will triumph over evil and that life will be victorious over death.Today we face a great conflict between a ‘culture of death’ and a ‘culture of life’.

In his Encyclical Letter Evangelium Vitae, Pope John Paul II said “it is possible to speak in a certain sense of a war of the powerful against the weak: a life which would require greater acceptance, love and care is considered useless, or held to be an intolerable burden, and is therefore rejected in one way or another. A person who, because of illness, handicap or, more simply, just by existing, compromises the well-being or life-style of those who are more favored tends to be looked upon as an enemy to be resisted or eliminated. In this way a kind of "conspiracy against life" is unleashed.”

The culture of death thrives on ignorance. If you rely on CBS, NBC, ABC or your local newspaper for your news, you are most likely unaware of some important facts related to the abortion debate and are likely to have a negative impression of the pro-life movement. Most people are unaware that in 1973 the Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision legalized abortion in all nine months of pregnancy and for practically any reason. They are unaware that one out every five pregnancies ends in the violence of abortion. The violence is hidden from the public through clever euphemisms like 'termination of pregnancy'. Birth terminates a pregnancy. Abortion terminates a pregnancy through an act of violence that kills a living, innocent, unborn child.

Many people are ignorant of the scientific fact that at the moment of fertilization, a separate, unique human being is present with a different genetic structure than either their father or mother. The sex, eye color, shoe size, intelligence is determined in the genetic code at the moment of fertilization in the 46 human chromosomes.

Many people mistakenly believe that more contraception will lead to fewer abortions. But the contraceptive mentality, that sees the child as an enemy to be avoided at all costs, has actually led to more, not fewer abortions. Most people have never heard of the newer methods of natural family planning that are just as effective as the birth control pill without the physical side effects and without the moral consequences.

Many people mistakenly believe that in vitro fertilization is pro-life and don’t know that Church teaches it is gravely immoral. In vitro fertilization is wrong not only because ‘spare’ embryos are produced that are unjustly frozen, experimented on or discarded or experimented on, but because it breaks the inseparable bond between love and life that God has designed for the marital act.

A friend of mine recently revealed that before he came back to the Church he and his future wife regularly had pre-marital sex, until he came to understand that what they were doing is condemned in the New Testament as fornication and that those who did not repent of this sin could not enter the Kingdom of God. From that point, but they decided to live chastely and reserve the gift of sex for marriage.

How many people are aware of the fact that the former Jane Roe of the Roe v. Wade decision is now a pro-life Catholic? Most people have never heard of the post-abortion healing ministries of the Catholic Church such as Project Rachel and Rachel’s Vineyard Retreats. Rachel’s Vineyard involves spiritual exercises based on Scripture that help both men and women begin the process of healing and finding peace after an abortion.

You probably haven’t heard about how abortion hurts women or that, as of 2003, 29 out 39 studies done on the subject show a link between abortion and breast cancer.

You might not know that, in 1997, Oregon became the first state to legalize physician assisted-suicide or that Oregon will pay to help a person to commit suicide they won’t pay for adequate pain management, living assistance or some life-saving treatments. Montana recently became the third state to legalize physician assisted-suicide.

Most people are unaware that rationed health care is already a reality in countries with socialized medicine such as Canada and Great Britain where and seriously ill people have to wait months for surgeries and treatments they need to survive and terminally ill patients are denied treatment altogether.

Pope Benedict XVI has help up St. John Vianney as a model for parish priests in this Year of the Priest. St. John Vianney said "If a parish priest doesn't want to be damned, and if there is any loose living in his parish, he must spurn the very thought of public opinion and the fear of being despised or hated by his parishioners. Even if he were certain of being lynched when he came down from the pulpit, that must not stop him from speaking out against it." Still, in many seminaries, future priests and deacons are told not to address controversial subjects or to make anyone feel uncomfortable.

I think if St. John Vianney lived in the United States in the twenty-first century he would be speak out clearly against abortion and other threats to innocent human life. He would challenge young people to live chastely. He would clearly explain why contraception, sterilization and in vitro fertilization are wrong. He would denounce pornography. He would defend marriage as a lifelong union between a man and a woman who are committed for life and open to the transmission of human life. At the same time, he would preach a message of mercy to sinners and generously make himself available to hear their confessions. He often spent up to 18 hours a day in the confessional as people came from all over France and other parts of Europe to go to confession to this holy man.

In this Year of the Priest, let’s especially pray for priests that they will imitate Christ, the Good Shepherd in speak the truth courageously with love; that they will live lives of integrity and lead by example and that they will diligently seek out the lost with a message of God’s mercy.

Homily for the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel July 16, 2009

Pietro Novelli, Our Lady of Mount Carmel and Saints (Simon Stock, Angelus of Jerusalem (kneeling), Mary Magdalene de'Pazzi, Teresa of Avila), 1641 (Museo Diocesano, Palermo.)

IIn the 9th Century B.C., Israel was divided into the Northern Kingdom and the Southern Kingdom of Judah. The Northern Kingdom was threatened by constant war with the Philistines. King Omri arranged a marriage between his son Ahab and Jezebel. Jezebel was the daughter of the king of Sidon in Phonecia and a priestess of Baal. She introduced worship of Baal and Asherah into Israel and brought with her an entourage of false prophets. The worship of these false gods involved sexual immorality and human sacrifice. Ahab and Jezebel also sought to move the center of worship away from Jerusalem. Jezebel also had the prophets of Israel murdered.

Ahab’s reign thus far had been a time of peace and prosperity in Israel. Ahab established peace with Judah. Elijah warns Ahab that God plan to punish Israel for their sins of idolatry with a drought so severe that not even dew will fall.

There was a terrible drought for three years. Elijah approaches King Ahab who was seeking to arrest him. King Ahab calls Elijah “a disturber of Israel”. Elijah answers that Ahab is responsible for what has befallen Israel because of his idolatry. Elijah promises him that the Lord will provide rain if Ahab he turned away the worship of false gods.

To prove that the Lord is the true God Elijah challenged Ahab to assemble the 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of Asherah to a contest on Mount Carmel.

Elijah implored the people of Israel "How long will you straddle the issue? If the LORD is God, follow him; if Baal, follow him." The people, however, did not answer him. (1 King 18, 21)

Elijah then challenged the false prophets to a contest. Two altars were prepared with wood and two young bulls. Elijah challenged them to call on their gods and Elijah would call on the name of the Lord. The God who answered with fire was God. Everyone agreed

The false prophets called on their god for hours, hopped around the altar, cut themselves, but Baal was silent. Elijah mocked them: "Call louder, for he is a god and may be meditating, or may have retired, or may be on a journey. Perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened."

Before Elijah began his prayer he told the people to drench his sacrifice three times with water. Elijah then called on the name of the Lord and the holocaust was consumed. Seeing this, all the people fell prostrate and said, "The LORD is God! The LORD is God!"

Elijah then had the prophets of Baal executed and rain began to fall. The miracle failed to inspire the people of Israel to overthrow Jezebel who wants revenge. Jezebel vows to have Elijah killed, but Elijah was able to escape.

Hermits lived on Mount Carmel since the 12th century near the Cave of Elijah. They dedicated a chapel to the Blessed Virgin Mary and became known as the “Brothers of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.” Pope Honorius approved the rule given by Saint Albert Patriarch of Jerusalem for this new order. The Carmelite Constitution of 1281 claimed that both Jewish and Christian hermits had lived holy and penitent lives there since the time of Elijah.

A Carmelite branch for women began in 1492 by the General of the Order Blessed John Soreth. In 1562, St. Theresa of Avila founded a monastery in Avila Spain from which she led a reform of the order aided by St. John of the Cross.

In 1254, St. Simon Stock was elected Superior-General of the Carmelite Order in London. As a young man he took a pilgrimage to the Holy Land where he joined the hermits on Mount Carmel. He then returned to Europe and founded Carmelite communities in University towns such as Cambridge, Oxford, Paris, and Bologna. St. Simon helped to change the Carmelites from a hermit order to one of mendicant friars.

Like the other mendicant orders, the Franciscans and Dominicans, the Carmelites were under attack as being too radical. The Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to St. Simon on July 16, 1251. As he gave him a brown scapular she said "Receive, my beloved son, this scapular of thy Order; it is the special sign of my favor, which I have obtained for thee and for thy children of Mount Carmel. He who dies clothed with this habit shall be preserved from eternal fire. It is the badge of salvation, a shield in time of danger, and a pledge of special peace and protection."

A scapular consists of two pieces of cloth, one worn on the chest, and the other on the back, which were connected by straps or strings passing over the shoulders. Over the years the Church has encouraged all Catholics to wear a scapular that is usually worn under one’s clothing. Pope John Paul II revealed that he wore one. There is an investiture ceremony that should be done by a priest.

One of the conditions of Our Lady for the fulfillment of the promises associated the scapular (the Sabbatine privilege) is to observe chastity according to one’s state of life. That will be different for a married person than someone who is single.

Our Lady of Mount Carmel is an antidote for the culture of death today. On Mount Carmel Elijah called the people of Israel to abandon the worship of false gods and the associated sexual immorality and human sacrifice associated with it.

In many ways the United States and Europe are like Israel in the times of Elijah. Compared to former times we live in an age of peace and prosperity, but many abandoned the worship of the true God and follow false gods of materialism, pleasure, absolute personal autonomy.

Our Lady of Mount Carmel calls us to stop straddling the issue of who is the real God. We cannot have one foot in the culture of death that tolerates the killing of unborn children by abortion and other attacks on life, chastity and the family and be a true Christian.

Please join me in praying the following to Our Lady of Mount Carmel for an end to the culture of death in the United States and throughout the world:

O most beautiful flower of Mount Carmel, fruitful vine, splendor of Heaven, blessed Mother of the Son of God, Immaculate Virgin, assist me in this my necessity. Oh, Star of the Sea, help me and show me herein that you are my Mother. O Holy Mary, Mother of God, Queen of Heaven and Earth, I humbly beseech you from the bottom of my heart to succor me in this necessity; there are none that can withstand your power. O show me herein that you are my Mother. Our Lady, Queen and beauty of Carmel, pray for me and obtain my requests. Sweet Mother, I place this cause into your hands.

Homily for the Feast of St. Bonaventure July 15, 2009 Gospel of Matthew 11, 25-27

The painting is The Cure of St. Bonaventure as a Child by St. Francis from the Year 1628 by Francisco de Herrera, the Elder (1585-c. 1655) Louvre Museum in Paris

St. Bonaventure, is known as "the seraphic doctor" because of his burning love for God. As a priest, St. Bonaventure was a great preacher who inspired people to share his love for God. He was also great scholar with a subtle mind who wrote extensively and was able to use reason to expose sophistry and refute erroneous opinions.
St. Bonaventure had a brilliant mind which was refined by a superb education. But he understood the message of our Gospel today that a simple child could be closer to God than the most learned theologian.

Unlike the Gnostics of yesterday and today, who believe that you can only find enlightenment by gaining access to some secret knowledge, Christ revealed his teaching to all. It is the humble who accept it. St. Bonaventure taught that the key to unlocking the treasure of the grace Christ offers is self-surrender. Whereas, worldly wisdom, pride and supposed cleverness get in the way of a relationship with God.
In the Broadway musical South Pacific one of the characters sings the following song:

You've got to be taught to hate and fear,
you've got to be taught from year to year,
it's got to be drummed in your dear little ear---
you've got to be carefully taught!

A child who looks at an ultrasound sees a baby. He must be taught that what he is seeing is not a person like himself, but a blob of tissue, something sub-human, a fetus, a threat.

A child, an uneducated but loving grandmother with a simple faith can often have greater spiritual wisdom than a learned Professor.
A person could have an IQ of 200. He could have several doctorates, but lack common sense and the wisdom that comes from faith in God. St. Bonaventure said “If there is anyone who is not enlightened by this sublime magnificence of created things, he is blind. If there is anyone who, seeing all these works of God, does not praise Him, he is dumb; if there is anyone who, from so many signs, cannot perceive God, that man is foolish.” He also said “In everything, whether it is a thing sensed or a thing known, God Himself is hidden within.”

Bonaventure was born in Tuscany circa 1221 and given the name Giovanni. According to legend, when he was about four years old he had a severe illness. The doctors who treated him couldn’t do anything for him and he was dying. In desperation his mother brought him to St. Francis of Assisi who was preaching in the area. St. Francis prayed over him and he was immediately healed. St. Francis also sensed his future greatness and prophesied "O Buona ventura" Oh blessed things to come! So when he entered the Franciscan Order, he was given the name Bonaventure. We do know for certain that St. Bonaventure claimed to have been preserved from death as a child through the intercession of St. Francis.

The University of Paris was the greatest institution of higher learning in the world at that time. Bonaventure’s parents sent him there to study under an Alexander of Hales, an Englishman and founder of the Franciscan School. When Alexander died he continued to study under John of Rochelle. He received his licentiate in 1248 which gave him the right to teach publicly at the University. He became a colleague and close friend of St. Thomas Aquinas who also taught at the University. Both saints were also friends with St. King Louis IX. Bonaventure taught there until 1256. St. Bonaventure’s days at the University were far from peaceful. Throughout his years there a controversy had been brewing which would eventually erupt into full force against the mendicant orders.

The Franciscan and Dominican Orders were new and revolutionary. They sought to imitate Christ in a radical form of poverty. They preached and begged for their living. The success of the mendicant orders was a reproof to the worldliness around them. Secular clergy previously had a monopoly of teaching posts, but now the mendicant orders had gained some prominent lecturing positions and secular clergy wanted the mendicants to be suspended. The controversy brought the University to the point of near-collapse.

Guillaume de Saint- Amour led the attack by the secular clergy. In 1254, he and five other masters petitioned Pope Innocent IV to have the mendicants suspended. The Pope intervened to limit the power of the friars and reduce the number of lecturing posts that they could occupy at the university. However, their victory was short-lived. Innocent IV died in December of that year and was replaced by Pope Alexander I who had been the cardinal protector of the Franciscans. Alexander promptly overturned the restrictions imposed by his predecessor.

Saint- Amour attacks became even more vitriolic. Pope Alexander responded by ordering an inquiry into his orthodoxy. This resulted in Saint- Amour being suspended from all teaching and administrative duties. In 1256, Saint- Amour produced De periculis novissimorum temporum (On the Dangers of the Final Days), his most vicious tirade against the friars. In it he ridiculed the more extreme speculations on the last days by of some friars who predicted that the fraternal orders would usher in the third and final age of the world, a glorious era of the Holy Spirit. De Periculis implied that the friars would help precipitate the end of the world, but only because they would facilitate the coming of the Antichrist. St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Albert the Great, both Dominican friars, answered the treatise. St. Bonaventure also responded with De Pauertate Christ (Of the Poverty of Christ).

A curial committee examined De Periculis. In 1257, Pope Alexander ordered it to be burned. He also excommunicated William, and exiled him from France. The Friars were reinstated. In the following year, St. Bonaventure and St. Thomas Aquinas received their Doctorates of Theology together.

Perhaps he was thinking about some of the proud men he met at the University of Paris when he wrote in his Itinerarium Mentis in Deum (The Journey of the Mind to God) invites the reader to recognize the inadequacy of 'reading without repentance, knowledge without devotion, research without the impulse of wonder, prudence without the ability to surrender to joy, action divorced from religion, learning sundered from love, intelligence without humility, study unsustained by divine grace, thought without the wisdom inspired by God'"

At the age of thirty-five, he became the General of the Franciscan Order and helped to resolve some internal dissension and composed a biography of St. Francis. He took a middle path by strengthening discipline, but not going to the extremes that some of the rigorists had demanded. He’s considered the second founder of the Franciscan Order.

St. Bonaventure was known for his cheerfulness. This was a fruit of his inner peace. He himself said “A spiritual joy is the greatest sign of the divine grace dwelling in a soul.”

In 1257, Pope Clement IV asked him to become the Archbishop of York, but after St. Bonaventure begged permission not to accept this great honor and responsibility and another man was chosen. But eight years later he was chosen to be Bishop of Albano by Pope Gregory X. Castel Gandolfo, the Pope’s summer residence is currently in this area. When the papal envoys found him to give him the cardinal’s hat, St. Bonaventure was at a monastery washing dishes. Since his hands were full of grease, he asked them to leave it hanging on a tree until his hands were free to take it.
It was through his efforts that the Greeks were briefly reconciled with the Church of Rome, but they split again after his death.

He died suddenly during the night of July 14-15, 1274, during the Council of Lyons. His secretary believed he had been poisoned. He was canonized and declared a Doctor of the Church in 1482.

The key to understanding the spirituality of St. Bonaventure is surrendering your will to Christ who he called “both the way and the door” and “the staircase and the vehicle”.

When one does make this act of self-surrender you can experience, as much as possible even here on earth a taste of paradise. But he says “It cannot be comprehended by anyone unless he surrenders himself to it; nor can he surrender himself to it unless he longs for it; nor can he long for it unless the Holy Spirit, whom Christ sent into the world, should come and inflame his innermost soul.”

To do this he says we need to “seek the answer in God’s grace, not in doctrine; in the longing of the will, not in the understanding; in the sighs of prayer, not in research; seek the bridegroom not the teacher; God and not man; darkness not daylight; and look not to the light but rather to the raging fire that carries the soul to God with intense fervor and glowing love.”

“Let us die, then, and enter into the darkness, silencing our anxieties, our passions and all the fantasies of our imagination. Let us pass over with the crucified Christ from this world to the Father, so that, when the Father has shown himself to us, we can say with Philip: It is enough.” (John 14,8)

(Based on a homily given at a Mass for the Staff of Priests For Life in Staten Island, NY July 15, 2009. After Communion Jim Pinto recited the following prayer composed by St. Bonaventure.)

Pierce, O my sweet Lord Jesus, my inmost soul with the most joyous and healthful wound of your love, with true serene and most holy apostolic charity, that my soul may ever languish and melt with love and longing for you, that it may yearn for you and faint for your courts, and long to be dissolved and to be with you. Grant that my soul may hunger after you, the bread of angels, the refreshment of holy souls, our daily and supernatural bread, having all sweetness and savor and every delight of taste; let my heart hunger after and feed upon you, upon whom the angels desire to look, and may my inmost soul be filled with the sweetness of your savor; may it ever thirst after you, the fountain of life, the fountain of wisdom and knowledge, the fountain of eternal light, the torrent of pleasure, the richness of the house of God; may it ever compass you, seek you, find you, run to you, attain you, meditate upon you, speak of you and do all things to the praise and glory of your name, with humility and discretion, with love and delight, with ease and affection, and with perseverance unto the end; may you alone be ever my hope, my entire assistance, my riches, my delight, my pleasure, my joy, my rest and tranquility, my peace, my sweetness, my fragrance, my sweet savor, my food, my refreshment, my refuge, my help, my wisdom, my portion, my possession and my treasure, in whom may my mind and my heart be fixed and firm and rooted immovably, henceforth and forever. Amen.

Sheep, Without a Shepherd Homily for the Sixteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B, Mark 30-34

Jesus Teaching by the Seashore 1899 James Tissot (1836-1902)

Jesus takes his disciples apart for a time of rest, prayer and recreation. However, we see that Jesus is flexible when it comes to meeting a pastoral need. Pastor means shepherd. A true shepherd of souls feeds his flock with true teaching. He keeps his flock from the poisonous streams of false teaching, moral relativism and religious indifferentism. He leads by example in living a life of holiness and integrity. He also seeks out the lost and brings them safely home.

Jesus is moved because of the people’s ignorance. In the book of Hosea, God says “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge” (Hosea 4:6). Ignorance is not the same as stupidity. Will Rogers once said “Everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects.” Someone may know a lot about computers and very little about cars and vice versa. Most brain surgeons know little about rocket science and you wouldn’t ask a rocket scientist to perform brain surgery.

The greatest ignorance is ignorance of the things of God. What the old Baltimore Catechism taught is still true today. God made us to know him, love him and serve him in this life and to be happy with him in the next life.

Each of us should strive to know God better each day and strive to be faithful to his will. We can start by getting to know God better by reading the Bible. St. Jerome said “Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.”

The more we read the Bible, the more we see how are Catholic faith is solidly supported by the Word of God. For example, in the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John, Jesus clearly teaches us about his Real Presence in the Holy Eucharist. John 21 shows Jesus instituting the Sacrament of Penance by breathing the Holy Spirit on his apostles and saying “Whose sins you forgive are forgiven, whose sins you retain are retained. ” The first words of the Hail Mary are taken from Luke 1. “Hail Mary, full of grace. The Our Lord is with you. Blessed art you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb."

The Bible also teaches us respect for human life. In the book of Jeremiah, God says to Jeremiah "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I have appointed you a prophet to the nations." (Jeremiah 1, 5) Psalm 8 says “When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor” (Psalm 8:3-5)

1. The Bible teaches that human life is made in the image and likeness of God.

2. The Bible teaches that children are a blessing.

3. The Bible teaches that the child in the womb is truly a human child, who has a relationship with the Lord.

4. Scripture condemns the killing of the innocent. God gives us the commandment “Thou shall not kill.” (Exodus 20, 13)

5. The Bible teaches that God is a God of justice. Justice is an act of intervention for the helpless, to defend those who are too weak to defend themselves.

6. Jesus Christ paid special attention to the poor, the despised, and those whom the rest of society considered insignificant. Jesus said ‘Whatever you do to the least of my brothers and sisters you do to me.” (Matthew 25, 40)

7. Scripture teaches us to love. We are to love our neighbor as ourselves. Jesus always expanded the definition of who our neighbor is.

8. The Scripture also teaches that eventually goodness will triumph over evil and that life will be victorious over death.

Today we face a great conflict between a ‘culture of death’ and a ‘culture of life’. In his Encyclical Letter Evangelium Vitae, Pope John Paul II said “it is possible to speak in a certain sense of a war of the powerful against the weak: a life which would require greater acceptance, love and care is considered useless, or held to be an intolerable burden, and is therefore rejected in one way or another. A person who, because of illness, handicap or, more simply, just by existing, compromises the well-being or life-style of those who are more favored tends to be looked upon as an enemy to be resisted or eliminated. In this way a kind of "conspiracy against life" is unleashed.”

The culture of death thrives on ignorance. If you rely on CBS, NBC, ABC or your local newspaper for your news, you are most likely unaware of some important facts related to the abortion debate and are likely to have a negative impression of the pro-life movement. Most people are unaware that in 1973 the Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision legalized abortion in all nine months of pregnancy and for practically any reason. They are unaware that one out every five pregnancies ends in the violence of abortion. Many people are ignorant of the scientific fact that at the moment of fertilization, a separate, unique human being is present with a different genetic structure than either their father or mother. The sex, eye color, shoe size, intelligence is determined in the genetic code at the moment of fertilization in the 46 human chromosomes.

Many people mistakenly believe that more contraception will lead to fewer abortions. But the contraceptive mentality, that sees the child as an enemy to be avoided at all costs, has actually led to more, not fewer abortions. Most people have never heard of the newer methods of natural family planning that are just as effective as the birth control pill without the physical side effects and without the moral consequences.

Many people mistakenly believe that in vitro fertilization is pro-life and don’t know that Church teaches it is gravely immoral. In vitro fertilization is wrong not only because ‘spare’ embryos are produced that are unjustly frozen, experimented on or discarded or experimented on, but because it breaks the inseparable bond between love and life that God has designed for the marital act.

A friend of mine recently revealed that before he came back to the Church he and his future wife regularly had pre-marital sex, until he came to understand that what they were doing is condemned in the New Testament as fornication and that those who did not repent of this sin could not enter the Kingdom of God. From that point, but they decided to live chastely and reserve the gift of sex for marriage.

How many people are aware of the fact that the former Jane Roe of the Roe v. Wade decision is now a pro-life Catholic? Most people have never heard of the post-abortion healing ministries of the Catholic Church such as Project Rachel and Rachel’s Vineyard Retreats. Rachel’s Vineyard involves spiritual exercises based on Scripture that help both men and women find healing and peace. You probably haven’t heard that, as of 2003, 29 out 39 studies done on the subject show a link between abortion and breast cancer.

You might not know that in 1997 Oregon became the first state to legalize physician assisted-suicide or that Oregon will pay to help a person to commit suicide they won’t pay for adequate pain management, living assistance or some life-saving treatments. Montana recently became the third state to legalize physician assisted-suicide. Most people are unaware that rationed health care is already a reality in countries with socialized medicine such as Canada and Great Britain where and seriously ill people have to wait months for surgeries and treatments they need to survive and terminally ill patients are denied treatment altogether.

Pope Benedict XVI has help up St. John Vianney as a model for parish priests in this Year of the Priest. St. John Vianney said "If a parish priest doesn't want to be damned, and if there is any loose living in his parish, he must spurn the very thought of public opinion and the fear of being despised or hated by his parishioners. Even if he were certain of being lynched when he came down from the pulpit, that must not stop him from speaking out against it." Still, in many seminaries, future priests and deacons are told not to address controversial subjects or to make anyone feel uncomfortable.

I think if St. John Vianney lived in the United States in the twenty-first century he would be speak out clearly against abortion and other threats to innocent human life. He would challenge young people to live chastely. He would clearly explain why contraception, sterilization and in vitro fertilization are wrong. He would denounce pornography. He would defend marriage as a lifelong union between a man and a woman who are committed for life and open to the transmission of human life. At the same time, he would preach a message of mercy to sinners and generously make himself available to hear their confessions. He often spent up to 18 hours a day in the confessional as people came from all over France and other parts of Europe to go to confession to this holy man.

In this Year of the Priest, let’s especially pray for priests that they will imitate Christ, the Good Shepherd in speak the truth courageously with love; that they will live lives of integrity and lead by example and that they will diligently seek out the lost with a message of God’s mercy.

Jesus Sends His Apostles Homily for the Fifteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Cycle B, Gospel of Mark 6, 7-13

On the left is a Byzantine fresco from Cappadocia, in modern day Turkey, of Christ sending the twelve Apostles (ca 12th century).

In the Nicene Creed we say we believe in the one, holy, Catholic and apostolic Church. The Church is apostolic because Christ founded it on the Twelve Apostles. Apostoloi is a Greek word meaning “those who have been sent’. The Apostles were chosen and sent forth by Christ himself.

In today’s Gospel he gives them special instructions for a specific mission. He calls them to be detached from worldly things by telling them not to bring a second tunic. However, he tells them to graciously accept hospitality when offered. He works miracles through them so that both they and the people to whom they are sent will know that they have power from God.

It is not the Apostles who chose Jesus, but he who called them (cf. John 15,16). In our first reading Amos is annoying wealthy and powerful people in Israel with his prophesying. Unlike other prophets who belonged to a guild and chose it as a career, Amos was a simple shepherd and dresser of sycamores when God called him to prophesy. He challenged Israel to moral reform and was hated for it. The guild prophets preferred no to rock the boat. They lived a comfortable life serving the King and avoided controversy.

Amos prophesied against the King of Israel at a time of unprecedented prosperity. He warns that God will punish Israel if she doesn’t mend her ways. Amaziah, a priest loyal to Jeroboam, accuses Amos of stirring up trouble and plotting against the King. He commands him to stop prophesying and to leave Israel.

Like in the times of Amos, today many want the Church to be silent about moral issues. They try to push Christians out of the public square. They unfairly accuse us of imposing our morality on people. They falsely accuse us of trying to establish a theocracy. But the Church can never be silent in the face of injustice and attacks on human life and the family. The Church maintains her right to speak on political matters, since her right and duty to speak about faith and morality often intersect with politics.

Catechism of the Catholic Church, quoting the Vatican II document Gaudium et Spes says:

The Church makes a moral judgment about economic and social matters, 'when the fundamental rights of the person or the salvation of souls requires it.'[GS 76 #5.] In the moral order she bears a mission distinct from that of political authorities: the Church is concerned with the temporal aspects of the common good because they are ordered to the sovereign Good, our ultimate end. She strives to inspire right attitudes with respect to earthly goods and in socioeconomic relationships.” (#2420)

Jesus chooses twelve apostles, because twelve is symbolic of the twelve tribes of Israel who derive from the twelve sons of Jacob who is also called Israel.

Even though one of the twelve that Jesus chose was Judas who betrayed him, his office was not abolished. In the Acts of the Apostles, we see the remaining eleven Apostles met to choose Matthias as a successor to Judas (Acts 1, 15-26). The eleven decided that whoever was chosen had to have seen Jesus risen from the dead, but the Christ wanted the Office of the Apostle to last beyond the first generation of Christians. So the Bible shows the Apostles laying hands on other men were chosen and sent out to preach, teach, sanctify and lead the Church. In 1 Timothy 4:14:
We read "Do not neglect the gift you have, which was conferred on you through the prophetic word with the imposition of hands of the presbyterate."

Men were chosen to physically represent himself as the Bridegroom, not because Christ viewed women to be inferior. Every human being has equal dignity, although we are called to exercise different roles. The priesthood is not a path to power, but a call to self-emptying.

Today the Pope and the Bishops in communion with him are the successors of the Apostles. Episkopos is a Greek word for bishop. It literally means overseer. The Bishops choose priests to represent them and help them to carry out their role as overseers. In The Acts of the Apostles, St. Paul summons the presbyters of the Church in Ephesus. Presbyter was used to distinguish the priesthood of the New Covenant from the Jewish priesthood.

St. Paul warns them that after he leaves “savage wolves will come among you, and they will not spare the flock. And from your own group, men will come forward perverting the truth to draw the disciples away after them.“ (Acts 20, 29-30) So he implores them to “Keep watch over yourselves and over the whole flock of which the Holy Spirit has appointed you overseers in which you tend the church of God that he acquired with his own blood.” (Acts 20, 28)

The ministry of the Apostles and their successors is a continuation of the ministry of Christ. Jesus says to his Apostles "He who receives you receives Me, and he who receives Me receives Him who sent Me.’ (Matthew 10, 40)

In his Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Pastores Gregis (Shepherds of the Flock) Pope John Paul II taught:

At his episcopal ordination, each Bishop received the fundamental mission of authoritatively proclaiming the word of God. Indeed, every Bishop, by virtue of sacred ordination, is an authentic teacher who preaches to the people entrusted to his care the faith to be believed and to be put into practice in the moral life. This means that Bishops are endowed with the authority of Christ himself, and for this fundamental reason when they ''teach in communion with the Roman Pontiff they are to be revered by all as witnesses of divine and catholic truth; the faithful, for their part, are obliged to submit to their Bishop's decision, made in the name of Christ, in matters of faith and morals, and to adhere to it with a religious assent of the mind''. In this service of the truth, every Bishop is placed before the community, inasmuch as he is for the community, which is the object of his proper pastoral concern and for which he insistently lifts up his prayer to God.

Pope Benedict XVI has dedicated this year to be Year For Priests to emphasize the importance of priestly ministry. We must pray as Christ taught us that he would send us more shepherds to guide us and provide us with the sacraments (cf. Mat. 9, 38). The priesthood is not a career. It is a vocation. Pray for those who have been called by God that they will be faithful to their high vocation. Pray also for the wisdom and humility to accept the teaching of these shepherds as the teaching of Christ and to listen to the prophets in our time who call us to repent of our sins and believe in the Gospel.

Every Christian is called to share in their work of evangelization. Like St. Paul in the Letter to the Ephesians, we are to proclaim to others what God has done for us by bestowing on us in Christ every spiritual blessing in the heavens! (Ephesians 1, 3-14)

Why Does the Left Hate Sarah Palin?

Why does the Left hate Sarah Palin? The answer is very simple. She lives out her pro-life convictions. Many on the Left have unresolved guilt from their past involvement in abortions. The Palin Trig-ger: A Look Behind the Hostility makes the case for this argument

What else can explain the vitriol directed at her and her children that we see coming from many of her critics on the Left?

Jesus' Rejection at Nazareth - Homily for the Fourteenth Week of Ordinary Time, Cycle B, Mark 6, 1-6

Above is a picture of modern day Nazareth.

Before Jesus was rejected by the people of his own home town of Nazareth he had worked a series of miracles: 1) over nature in stilling the sea 2) over evil spirits by exorcising demons 3) disease by curing a woman with a hemmorhage 4) over death by raising the daughter of Jairus. By doing so he clearly demonstrated his power as God.

Now Jesus returns to Nazareth and his fellow townspeople reject him. They were so familiar with him in his humanity that they couldn't conceive of his Divinity. They fail to perceive that Jesus is the Christ. He is Emmanuel - God with us, the fulfillment of the prophesy of Isaiah (Matthew 1, 23). He is the Divine Word who took flesh and dwelt among us (John 1,14). He is the Lamb of God, the one who was promised who would take away the sins of the world.

Jesus is more than a prophet, but part of his mission was prophetic. He proclaimed a message of moral reform, mercy and salvation. When we were baptized into Christ we were called to share in Christ's prophetic mission.

To be a prophet is difficult because the message of the Gospel is challenging and sometimes controversial, but it's a message that people need to hear whether they want to hear it or not. The prophet's message will always be countercultural. The spirit of the age is often at odds with the values of the Gospel. A minister once said "If you marry the spirit of the age, you'll be a widow in the next generation."

It is especially difficult to be a prophet in one's own hometown, in our family and among other people who know us well, yet that is what we're called to do. I don't consider myself a natural public speaker. I'm often nervous before I speak and I'm most anxious before people who know me well.

As I was discerning my call to the priesthood, I like many who eventually follow God's call resisted. I thought "No God. I'm not holy enough. I'm not eloquent enough. Send someone else." But God's call was persistent. I eventually came to believe that God could use me despite my weaknesses.

In our second reading from 2 Corinthians 12, we see St. Paul asking God to take away his weakness. But Paul comes to understand that God wants to use him, not despite his weakness, but BECAUSE of his weakness. Because of his weakness God's power can more clearly shine through him ithout being obscured by Paul's natural talents and gifts.

Another reason it is difficult to be a prophet is that noone wants to be seen as self-righteous. But the wisdom of the Gospel is not our own. We don't claim that it is the product of our own brilliant minds or vast life experience. We proclaim what we have received ourselves. Not to proclaim it would be unfaithful and ungrateful to God who revealed it to us. We need to pass on the heritage that has been passed down to us. Without a heritage, every generation has to start over.

It is difficult to be prophets because sometimes we fail to live up to the high standards of the Gospel. How many of us, for example, struggle with forgiving our enemies. But there are two ways to avoid hypocrisy. One is to lower your standards. The other is to change your behavior.

In January 2007, I preached in Juneau, Alaska. One afternoon I had lunch at the Red Dog Saloon. On the wall of the Saloon was a sign which read "If our food, drinks and service are not up to your standards, please lower your standards." Lowering our standards is not the right way to avoid hypocrisy. Instead, Jesus tells us "Repent and believe the Good News." (Mark 1, 15).

It is also difficult to be a prophet is because we're afraid of appearing to be judgmental. Anyone who wants to live an authentic Christian life will struggle against temptation and sin. We know we're not perfect people and so we must avoid casting moral judgments on persons, but we must clearly speak out against injustice. We must clearly speak up for what is right and denounce what is wrong.

This is especially so in our time when there are so many threats to human life from abortion, destructive embryonic stem cell research, human cloning, in vitro fertilization, and at the end of life physician assisted suicide and euthanasia which is really a perversion of mercy. Also related is the modern attack on chastity and God's plan for sex, marriage and family life through pornography, pre-marital sex, homosexual behavior, cohabitation, contraception and sterilization, adultery and divorce.

When a truth is denied or ignored the more people need to hear it. In our first reading from Ezekiel 2. God warns Ezekiel he is ending him to a rebellious people who probably who probably won't heed his message, nevertheless God sends him anyway an and tells him that whether they listen or not, they'll know a prophet has been among them. The prophet is not responsible for converting hardened hearts. That's the work of the Holy Spirit. The prophet's job is to be faithful in proclaiming the message God sends him to deliver.

Prophets are sometimes accused of being hateful. Again, we must always avoid judgments on persons. We must always be motivated by love and concern for a person's true welfare and salvation. We must never act out a sense of pride or superiority over others. We must always speak the truth in love, as Jesus did when he spoke to the woman who was caught in adultery. He didn't condemn her, neither did he condone her sin. Instead he said "Go and sin no more." (John 8, 11) He also spoke the truth in love to the Samaritan woman at the well as he called her to repentance. She had been married five times and was living with a man who was not her husband. (John 4, 18)

When Jesus was asked a controversial question about divorce and why Moses permitted it, Jesus responded that Moses permitted it because of the hardness of the people's hearts. He pointed to God's plan for marriage from the Book of Genesis. He pointed out that a man was called to leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two become one flesh. Therefore, he said "What God has joined, man must not divide." (Matthew 19,6)

Jesus didn't condemn the divorced, But taught clearly that divorce was not part of God's original plan. When we defend marriage as an institution between a man and a woman who are committed for life and open to the transmission of life is to hate noone. We must love and respect everyone. At the same time we must not condone immoral behavior and we must defend an institution that counless generations of people of many different faiths have seen as the best way for children to be raised with beneficial effects on society in general.

We realize that we live in a pluralistic society, but as the American Bishops say in their document Living the Gospel of Life: A Challenge to American Catholics "Real pluralism depends on people of conviction struggling to advance their beliefs by every ethical and legal means at their disposal."

If we fail to share the prophetic message of the Gospel other louder voices will be happy to impose their godless vision of society on us.

It's not easy to prophetic. It never has and it never will be, but nevertheless that's what God calls us to be and he promises a prophet's reward for fidelity to our mission. On the other hand if we prefer not to rock the boat, as Aristotle says "To avoid criticism...say nothing, do nothing, and be nothing."

Why In-Vitro Fertilization is Wrong

The case of Nadya Suleman giving birth to eight children after having already given birth previously to six children conceived through in-vitro fertilization has raised many questions surrounding the whole process of in-vitro. Some ask if so many babies should have been implanted, others wonder if some should have been “selectively reduced” – a euphemism for the violence of abortion. But few are asking the question is in-vitro fertilization ethical in the first place? This case provides us with a teachable moment in which faithful Catholics can teach others about the sacredness of human life from its very beginning and God's wonderful plan for marriage, sex and family life.

The primary reason the Catholic Church has opposed in-vitro fertilization from the beginning is that a child has a right to come into the world as a result of an act of love between his or her father and mother not as a result of a laboratory process. Thousands of embryos have been frozen and deprived of their mother's care. Many don't survive the freezing and unthawing. Others are discarded or subject to further abuse and experimentation. Often more are implanted that are intended to be brought to term, so they are "selectively reduced" - a euphemism for killing. But these reasons are secondary to the fact that a child enters the world not as a result of an act of love, but through a third party in a laboratory process.

Until the 1930's all Christian Churches were united in opposing contraception. The widespread use of contraception led to a utilitarian view of the body, increasing promiscuity and far more, not less abortion, and now euthanasia.

God is the author sex. Sex is something beautiful and good when we respect God's plan for it. God intended for sex to be an expression of total self giving love and open to the transmission of life in the context of a marriage between a husband and wife who have pledged themselves to each other for life.

Contraception and sterilization are immoral because the procreative (life-giving) dimension of the conjugal act is deliberately separated from the unitive (love-giving) dimension of the conjugal act, so that actions by which God may choose to give life are deliberately rendered infertile. In-vitro fertilization disassociates the love-giving dimension from the life-giving dimension.

In-vitro fertilization is the flip side of contraception. Contraception is sex without babies. In-vitro is babies without sex. While the Church is often accused of being anti-sex, we teach that the actions by which a new human being comes into the world are a reflection of Trinitarian love. What we oppose is the degradation of sex. Karl Marx said that sex was no more significant than drinking a glass of wine - a mere satisfaction of a bodily appetite. The Church sees sex as an act of love by which God, if he chooses, can bring forth a new human life made in his image and likeness.

But whatever way a child comes into the world, their lives must be respected and protected. Pope John Paul II asks in Evangelium Vitae "How can you have a human individual without having a human person." Science shows us that at the moment of fertilization a new human life has begun. This is not a potential human being, but a human being with great potential. As we grow from that point to adulthood, there is no change of nature or gradation of value. Life must be respected at every stage of development.

For couples who are suffering from fertility problems, there is hope. Thomas W. Hilgers, M.D. is a pro-life obstetrician and gynecologist. Dr. Hilgers is the Director of the the Pope Paul VI Institute. He has a developed a system called NaProTechnology to help couples to manage their fertility while both respecting God's moral law. NaProTechnology works with and not contrary to nature.

Dr. Hilgers has been very successful in helping many couples to have children including a couple I know personally who now have a beautiful baby daughter after many five years of infertility. Dr. Hilgers says that too many doctors today skip over the underlying problems causing infertility and immediately recommend in-vitro fertilization.

Behind every "No" is a great "Yes" to the dignity of the human person, respect for innocent human life, the sanctity of marriage and reverence for the love giving actions by which new human beings enter this world.

Homily on St. Thomas Aquinas and the Importance of a Catholic Education

The image above is called the "Triumph of St. Thomas Aquinas Over Averroes". It was painted by Benozzo Gozzoli (1420-1497) in 1471 and is on display in the Louvre Museum in Paris.

Most scholars consider St. Thomas Aquinas to be the Catholic Church’s greatest philosopher and theologian. He was born in southern Italy near Aquino in 1225 to a wealthy and aristocratic family. His father was a count. His mother was a countess.

When he was five years old, his parents sent him to be trained by the Benedictine monks at Monte Cassino. As a young student St. Thomas was known for his prayer and hard work. He had a philosophical bent early on and would ask questions like “What is God?”. His teachers realized his superior intellect and realized that he needed better instruction than they could provide. So at the age of fourteen he was sent to the University of Naples. In only a matter of months he surpassed his professors at the university in knowledge and understanding. It was at Naples that he first began to sense that God was calling him to join the Dominicans.

When he was 17 he revealed his plans to join the Dominican order to his family. His family was strongly opposed to this idea. St. Thomas’s uncle had been the Abbot at the prestigious Monte Cassino Abbey. They hoped Thomas would follow in his footsteps. The Dominicans were a new order known for their itinerant preaching and begging. His family found this unacceptable. So as Thomas was on his way to join the Dominicans in Rome, his brothers kidnapped him and imprisoned him at Roccasecca Castle. At one point his family even sent in a prostitute to his cell to try to tempt him, but he drove her out with a burning torch. His family kept him imprisoned for fifteen months until the Pope finally intervened for him. He was released and joined the Dominicans in Naples.

During his captivity, Thomas’s sister brought him a copy of the Bible, Aristotle’s Metaphysics and Peter Lombard’s Sentences to study. The Dominicans were delighted to see his intellectual progress during this time. The Dominicans sent Thomas to study with St. Albert the Great in Cologne, Germany and then the University of Paris. St. Albert the Great was a man of great learning who was interested in practically everything including science, mathematics, geometry, medicine, botany, astronomy and, of course, theology and philosophy.

St. Thomas was physically big man, but also gentle and humble. Because he was so quiet his fellow students nicknamed him the “Dumb Ox”. But when he was called upon in class to give a defense of a very difficult thesis, St. Albert the Great predicted “We call this man a ‘Dumb Ox’, but his bellowing in doctrine will resound through the whole world.” St. Albert’s prediction has been fulfilled. The writings of St. Thomas Aquinas continue to be influential in the Church and the world today, over 700 years after his death.

St. Thomas was ordained as a priest at the age of twenty-five. He preached to large crowds all over Italy, France and Germany. People would travel for many miles to hear his brilliant explanations of Holy Scripture.

As he became more well-known there were more demands on his time. He remained faithful to prayer, preaching, teaching and an arduous travel schedule. All the while, he was writing his greatest work – the Summa Theologica – a systematic presentation of philosophical and theological truths. He was offered the Archbishopric of Naples, but he turned it down to continue preaching and teaching.

When arguing against an opponent, he always presented the best version of his opponent’s argument. Then he would proceed to show how the argument fails. Many people, in order to win arguments, will misstate an opponent’s argument in order to argue against a weaker position. This is called setting up a “straw man” or “straw horse”, but St. Thomas never did this. He treated his opponents and their arguments seriously and with intellectual honesty.

St. Thomas was best known for incorporating insights from Aristotle, the great Greek philosopher, to explain the truths of Christianity. In his work On Being and Essence he explains that God is pure being, fully actualized. Everything else borrows existence from God and is in a state of becoming. In teaching how Jesus is present in his body, blood, soul and divinity in the Eucharist, he used the word transubstantiation to explain how the underlying substance of the bread and wine were changed while the appearances and other properties remain the same.

St. Thomas is also famous for his five proofs for the existence of God. The arguments involve God as the Uncaused Cause or the Unmoved Mover. He is the only necessary being, whereas everything else has existence by analogy. He is the most perfect Being one could contemplate. As we see a design in nature, so there must be a designer. This designer is God.

St. Thomas argued that the truths that we can come to know through a rigorous application of human reason and the truths that can only be known by a special revelation from God flow from the same source, and therefore, when properly understood, complement rather than contradict one another.

He taught that human beings were not simply souls using bodies, but rather are embodied souls. Our bodies are not just something we use, they are us. It is not just our souls that will live forever, but like Christ our bodies will be raised on the last day.

St. Thomas didn’t get everything right. He reminds us that theologians put themselves at the service of the magisterium (or teaching authority) of the Church. The Magisterium includes the Pope and the bishops in union with him.

Aquinas did believe in delayed ensoulment based on a faulty understanding of biology in his time. But one common misconception about Aquinas is that he believed that the souls of males and females were infused at different times. The confusion arises from a commentary he made on Aristotle's History of Animals. He cites (In 3 Sent., 3, 5, 2 co et ad 3) which says that if an embryo is aborted the articulation of the male can be perceived at 40 days and the articulation of the female after ninety days.

Neither in Aristotle's original statement, nor in Aquinas' commentary is there any reference to the infusion of the soul. Aquinas does speak specifically about the infusion of the rational soul in over fifty passages. In none of these passages does he make a distinction between males and females. [1]

At the age of 48, St. Thomas was experiencing regular ecstasies and visions. Once after offering Mass at a Church in Naples, three of his Dominican brothers heard a powerful voice praise St. Thomas saying “You have written well of me, Thomas; What reward will you have?” St. Thomas replied “Nothing other than yourself, Lord.”

After this vision, St. Thomas could write no more. He said all he had written seemed to him as straw. It’s not that what he had said before was not true, but nothing he said or wrote compared with the beauty he had seen directly. It was like the difference between talking about love and being in love.

St. Thomas died while he was on his way to the Council of Lyons called for by Pope Gregory X. He was taken in along the route by Cistercian monks and died on March 7, 1274 at the age of 49. He was canonized by Pope John XXII in 1323, and proclaimed a doctor of the Church by Pope Pius V in 1567.

St. Thomas Aquinas is the patron saint of all Catholic universities and students. We celebrate his feast on January 28, the anniversary of when his body was transferred to a shrine in Toulouse.

There is so much we can learn from the life of St. Thomas Aquinas. We can learn from his courage and perseverance in pursuing his true calling in life. He was always patient when arguing against an opponent. He won many of them over to his position through his personality and great learning. He could have enjoyed a life of great wealth and privilege, but his tastes were simple and he lived his vow of poverty.

He had a great memory which he nurtured through study. Sometimes he would forget his surroundings when he absorbed in thought. But when he did speak, he expressed his thoughts calmly and systematically in a clear and simple manner. He valued his education as a way to learn about the God who he loved and the world he created. He taught others to love God too by passing on his learning to others.

St. Thomas was a genius, but more importantly he was wise. Wisdom comes from God. Not everyone who is smart is necessarily good or wise. St. Thomas was also strong and good. Some people believe that living a life of virtue makes you weak, but it’s the exact opposite. St. Thomas taught that virtue is a power to do good. Sin is the abuse of a power God has given us to do good that instead we use for evil. It’s sin that weakens and virtue that makes a person strong.

St. Thomas Aquinas reminds us of the importance and value of a good Catholic education. The knowledge and love of God should come first and then everything else flows from that. All of us are called to love God and serve him in different ways according to the unique gifts and talents he has given to each of us. A Catholic education should help us to be a well-rounded, knowledgeable, cultured person who loves God and loves their neighbor as himself.

A Catholic education is more than just job training. It seeks to develop the whole person, recognizing the human person as created in the image and likeness of God and destined to share everlasting happiness with Him in heaven.

Theology is the “Queen of all Sciences”, but a Catholic education should include not just the study of religion, but also of philosophy, science, mathematics, history, literature, music, art, poetry, theater, languages and participation in sports. A Catholic education should help form a person who loves God and their neighbor; a person who is always seeking to grow in knowledge, holiness and fidelity to the truth. It should instill a love for learning in the student and help them to understand that education is a lifelong process.

We ask St. Thomas Aquinas to help us to follow his example, to grow in wisdom and lead us to Jesus who is the Way, the Truth and the Life. (cf John 14, 6 )

Footnote

[1] "What Aquinas Never Said About Women" by Michael Nolan, First Things, November 1998

St. John Neumann: An American Saint

St. John Neumann was born on March 28, 1811 in Bohemia, now part of the Czech Republic. At age 20, he still wasn’t sure what to do with his life. His father wanted him to be a doctor, but he followed the advice of his mother who encouraged him to enter the seminary.

His bishop declined to ordain him when his studies were completed, because of a large number of priests who were ordained that year. Neumann decided to become a missionary to the United States after reading writings of the American Bishop Frederic Baraga about the missions there. Neumann was an excellent student. He especially excelled at languages. In addition to his native German and Bohemian languages, he learned Italian, Spanish, Greek, Latin, English and French. Later in life, he learned enough Gaelic in order to hear the confessions of Irish–American immigrants.

John Neumann arrived in New York on June 6, 1836 with one suit of clothes and a dollar in his pocket. He was ordained by Bishop John DuBois of New York at the age of 25. He was assigned to mission Churches around Niagra Falls, New York which he found both difficult and rewarding. He ministered to the German-speaking immigrants that had settled in the area. The area was a wilderness that included swamps, dense forests and few roads. Once he was so exhausted he collapsed in the woods. Indians recognized him as a “Black Robe” who had visited their people and carried him on a blanket to the safety of the nearest homestead.

He felt he needed the companionship of other priests for the sake of his own soul. He was lonely and suffered from health problems. So he joined the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, commonly known as the Redemptorists, in Pittsburgh. He quickly rose to the position of provincial superior and came to the attention of Archbishop Kenrick of Baltimore who suggested to Rome that Neumann be appointed as the Bishop of Philadelphia. Neumann feared this awesome responsibility and felt he was not the right choice for the cultured world of Philadelphia. He wrote a letter to the Vatican requesting that another man be chosen.

However, Pope Pius IX decided he was, by far, the best person for the job and declared him a Bishop in 1852. The poor people affectionately called him “Our Little Bishop” because of his short stature. He was five feet and two inches tall. Wealthy and influential Catholics looked down upon him. They didn’t like his mannerisms and his German accent. They wanted a person who could speak English well and make a good impression. They wrote to Rome to try to have him replaced, but the poor, especially the new immigrants loved him.

One Sunday a priest was embarrassed by him and scolded him for his shabby appearance. He asked him to change into a better coat. “What shall I do?” the bishop answered. “I do not have another.” He had just given his best coat to a beggar.

Among Bishop Neumann’s accomplishments were the administration of the largest diocese in the country and organization of a Catholic diocesan school system. He had many new schools and churches built in his diocese. He founded the diocesan school systems in America and originated the Forty Hours Devotion. Neumann also founded a new religious community, the Sisters of The Third Order of St. Francis of Philadelphia, and saved the Oblate Sisters of Providence from dissolution. Every year he visited each parish and mission. He also had to deal with the anti-Catholic Know Nothings who burned down Catholic schools and churches.

He published two catechisms and a Bible history in German. He wrote many articles for Catholic newspapers and magazines for the German immigrants.

Bishop Neumann died of a sudden stroke as was doing errands on January 5, 1860. On the day of his death he told Father Urban, the visiting Redemptorist Superior, that he had a strange feeling about today and then added "One must always be ready - Death comes when and where God wills it.”

His body is kept under the altar at St. Peter the Apostle Church in Philadelphia which has become a popular place for pilgrims to visit. He was beatified 1963 and canonized in 1977.

Among the miraculous cures attributed to St. John Neumann’s intercession were:

Eva Benassi, an eleven year old Italian girl, who was in danger of death due to acute diffused peritonitis was completely cured after her father applied a picture of St. John Neumann to her.

James Kent Lenahan, a nineteen year old boy suffered severe injuries when he was crushed between a car and a telephone pole in an automobile accident. He was in danger of death when His parents applied a portion of the cassock of Bishop Neumann to their apparently dying son. That night he began to make a full recovery.

Michael Flanigan, a young boy, was diagnosed with bone cancer, which was rapidly spreading to his lungs, and with several unsuccessful operations, was soon to be fully recovered with no cancer ever to be found again. Michael’s parents took him to St. Peter’s Church to pray for him a relic of St. John Neumann was applied to his cancer and the symptoms miraculously disappeared.

For more information on the life of St. John Neumann see:

John Nepomucene Neumann, Saint by By Reverend F.X. Murphy C.SS.R.

Bishop John Nepomucene Neumann: An American Saint by Br. John Neumann, M.I.C.M., Tert.