Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Bishop Thomas Tobin Responds to Congressman Patrick Kennedy

His Excellency, Most Rev. Thomas J. Tobin, Bishop of Providence responds to Congressman Patrick Kennedy's statement that, "The fact that I disagree with the hierarchy on some issues does not make me any less of a Catholic." By respond, I mean, he lays out in a clear and powerfully direct fashion exactly what being Catholic means.

Here are a couple of excerpts:

  • Since our recent correspondence has been rather public, I hope you don’t mind if I share a few reflections about your practice of the faith in this public forum. I usually wouldn’t do that – that is speak about someone’s faith in a public setting – but in our well-documented exchange of letters about health care and abortion, it has emerged as an issue. I also share these words publicly with the thought that they might be instructive to other Catholics, including those in prominent positions of leadership.
  • “The fact that I disagree with the hierarchy on some issues does not make me any less of a Catholic.” Well, in fact, Congressman, in a way it does. Although I wouldn’t choose those particular words, when someone rejects the teachings of the Church, especially on a grave matter, a life-and-death issue like abortion, it certainly does diminish their ecclesial communion, their unity with the Church. This principle is based on the Sacred Scripture and Tradition of the Church and is made more explicit in recent documents.
  • Well, in simple terms – and here I refer only to those more visible, structural elements of Church membership – being a Catholic means that you’re part of a faith community that possesses a clearly defined authority and doctrine, obligations and expectations. It means that you believe and accept the teachings of the Church, especially on essential matters of faith and morals; that you belong to a local Catholic community, a parish; that you attend Mass on Sundays and receive the sacraments regularly; that you support the Church, personally, publicly, spiritually and financially.

    Congressman, I’m not sure whether or not you fulfill the basic requirements of being a Catholic, so let me ask: Do you accept the teachings of the Church on essential matters of faith and morals, including our stance on abortion? Do you belong to a local Catholic community, a parish? Do you attend Mass on Sundays and receive the sacraments regularly? Do you support the Church, personally, publicly, spiritually and financially?

    In your letter you say that you “embrace your faith.” Terrific. But if you don’t fulfill the basic requirements of membership, what is it exactly that makes you a Catholic? Your baptism as an infant? Your family ties? Your cultural heritage?
This is how every Bishop should approach those politicians who want to claim their Catholicism in the Public Square and yet just as publically deny their Catholicism by the legislation they support or oppose. Lay it all out there in the hopes of the person's conversion and return to Christ's Body, his holy Catholic Church.

Read the full text of His Excellency's letter here.

Monday, October 26, 2009

The Mathematical Consequences of Contraception

Let's use a mathematical argument in regards to the use of contraception.

  1. Let's use a simple equation that argues for two married people becoming one flesh: a + b = c.

  2. Let's use a simple equation that argues for two married people not becoming one flesh by contracepting so that they stay one: a + b = a. (It could also be a + b = b, but the first will be used in these examples.)

  3. Finally, let's use some different properties of math to flesh this out.
Using the Reflexive Property of Equality
We find that a = a
and that b = b
and that c = c

Using the Symmetrical Property of Equality
We find that if a = me then me = a
and that if b = you then you = b
and that if c = me + you then me + you = c

Using the Substitution Property
We find that if a = me, then me can replace a in any equation
and that if b = you, then you can replace b in any equation
and that if c = me + you, then me + you can replace c in any equation

Using our new values the original equations come out to the following:
(a + b = c) is me + you = me + you
(a + b = a) is me + you = me

As you can see the first equation mathematically makes sense no matter what the values of a/me or b/you are. The second equation is a little trickier. Let’s try some more math to see if we can have it work out.

In order for the second equation to be true, we must use another property.

Using the Additive Identity Property
We find that a + 0 = a

Applying this property to the original equation (a + b = a) we find that b = 0.

Using the Transitive Property of Equality
We find that if you = b and b = 0, then you = 0

So we find that in order for contraception to be added into the mix and for the original equation to be mathematically true, either a or b must become zero. Either me or you must become nothing. The only way that I can have sex with you and use contraception (i.e. not join myself to you) is for you to be nothing to me.

Further Reading

Friday, October 16, 2009

Ecclesia Semper Reformanda

The Bishop of Sioux City, the Most Reverend R. Walker Nickless has written his first pastoral letter to his diocese, called Ecclesia Semper Reformanda (The Church is Always in Need of Renewal).

It is an excellent letter explaining where we have been for the last four decades and why the so-called "spirit" of Vatican II is not a correct intepretation of the council. He closes with very concrete ways we can change what we as Catholics have become in our witness to the world. I have included some of the many relevant passages (with my emphases in bold):

  • "We now find ourselves forty-four years since the close of the Council. Many questions still need to be asked and answered. Have we understood the Council within the context of the entire history of the Church? Have we understood the documents well? Have we truly appropriated and implemented them? Is the current state of the Church what the Council intended? What went right? What went wrong? Where is the promised “New Pentecost”?"


  • Quoting Pope Benedict XVI who says,
    On the one hand, there is an interpretation that I would call “a hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture,” it has frequently availed itself of the sympathies of the mass media, and also one trend of modern theology. On the other, there is the “hermeneutic of reform,” of renewal in the continuity of the one subject – Church – which the Lord has given to us. She is a subject which increases in time and develops, yet always remaining the same, the one subject of the journeying People of God.
    Bishop Nickless reflects, "It is crucial that we all grasp that the hermeneutic or interpretation of discontinuity or rupture, which many think is the settled and even official position, is not the true meaning of the Council. This interpretation sees the pre-conciliar and post-conciliar Church almost as two different churches. It sees the Second Vatican Council as a radical break with the past. There can be no split, however, between the Church and her faith before and after the Council. We must stop speaking of the “Pre-Vatican II” and “Post-Vatican II” Church, and stop seeing various characteristics of the Church as “pre” and “post” Vatican II. Instead, we must evaluate them according to their intrinsic value and pastoral effectiveness in this day and age.

    Therefore, we must heed the Holy Father’s point that one interpretation, the “hermeneutic of reform,” is valid, and has borne and is bearing fruit. This hermeneutic of reform, as described above, takes seriously and keeps together the two poles of identity (the ancient deposit of faith and life) and engagement with the world (teaching it more efficaciously).

    Lastly, the Holy Father, going into greater detail later in the address, explains that the “spirit of Vatican II” must be found only in the letter of the documents themselves. The so-called “spirit” of the Council has no authoritative interpretation. It is a ghost or demon that must be exorcised if we are to proceed with the Lord’s work."


  • "My brothers and sisters, let me say this clearly: The “hermeneutic of discontinuity” is a false interpretation and implementation of the Council and the Catholic Faith. It emphasizes the “engagement with the world” to the exclusion of the deposit of faith. This has wreaked havoc on the Church, systematically dismantling the Catholic Faith to please the world, watering down what is distinctively Catholic, and ironically becoming completely irrelevant and impotent for the mission of the Church in the world. The Church that seeks simply what works or is “useful” in the end becomes useless.

    Our urgent need at this time is to reclaim and strengthen our understanding of the deposit of faith. We must have a distinctive identity and culture as Catholics, if we would effectively communicate the Gospel to the people of this day and Diocese. This is our mission...We cannot give what we do not have; we cannot fulfill our mission to evangelize, if we ourselves are not evangelized."


  • His plan to implement this “hermeneutic of reform" is five-fold:

    1. We must renew our reverence, love, adoration and devotion to the Most Blessed Sacrament, within and outside of Mass. A renewal of Eucharistic Spirituality necessarily entails an ongoing implementation of the Second Vatican Council’s reform of the liturgy as authoritatively taught by the Church’s Magisterium, the promotion of Eucharistic Adoration outside of Mass, regular reception of the Sacrament of Reconciliation and devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of the Eucharist and our Mother.

    2. We must strengthen catechesis on every level, beginning with and focusing on adults. If we, who are supposed to be mature in faith, do not know the Catholic Faith well, how can we live it and impart it to our children and future generations of Catholics?

    3. The first two pastoral priorities, renewal in Eucharistic Spirituality and Catechesis, will foster faithful families that are the foundation of the Church and the society. We are called to protect, build up and foster holy families in our midst, without whom the Church and the world perish.

    4. If we renew the Eucharistic, catechetical, and family life of our diocese, we will simultaneously foster a culture where young people can more readily respond to the radical calls of ministerial priesthood and the consecrated life.

    5. We must acknowledge and embrace the missionary character of the Catholic Faith and the vocation of all Catholics to be, not only disciples, but also apostles.

  • In closing his excellency says, "We truly need today those “great acts of renunciation” for the sake of Christ: not so much renunciation of our material things, as of our false attachments to both material and spiritual things. In order to strengthen our devotion to Christ in the Holy Eucharist and worship God rightly, we need to renounce any attachment to how we worship currently. To improve the spiritual depth of how we perform the Church’s liturgy, we will need to renounce attachment to worldly expectations and long-standing habits. To spend more time adoring Christ in the Blessed Sacrament, we need to renounce attachment to how we currently use our time. To deepen our intimate love for God in our hearts and heads, we need to renounce attachment to whatever is not God that is filling our hearts and heads. To live in more intentional and holy Catholic families, we need to renounce attachment to distractions, sins, and imperfections that harm our domestic churches. To accept the divine plan God has for each of us, we need to renounce attachment to our own plans. To change the world for Christ, we need to renounce attachment to how we want the world to be for ourselves."
Please, if you have time, read it in its entirety here.

Wednesday, October 07, 2009

Indulgences

Out of all the things that the Catholic Church teaches, indulgences are possibly the most misunderstood. I think it is safe to say that statement would include most Catholics. If you are one of those Catholics, it doesn't have to be that way. First things first...definitions.

Indulgences
An indulgence is a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven, which the faithful Christian who is duly disposed gains under certain prescribed conditions through the action of the Church which, as the minister of redemption, dispenses and applies with authority the treasury of the satisfactions of Christ and the saints.1
What an Indulgence Is Not
To facilitate explanation, it may be well to state what an indulgence is not. It is not a permission to commit sin, nor a pardon of future sin; neither could be granted by any power. It is not the forgiveness of the guilt of sin; it supposes that the sin has already been forgiven. It is not an exemption from any law or duty, and much less from the obligation consequent on certain kinds of sin, e.g., restitution; on the contrary, it means a more complete payment of the debt which the sinner owes to God. It does not confer immunity from temptation or remove the possibility of subsequent lapses into sin. Least of all is an indulgence the purchase of a pardon which secures the buyer's salvation or releases the soul of another from Purgatory. The absurdity of such notions must be obvious to any one who forms a correct idea of what the Catholic Church really teaches on this subject...2
So where is the definition of the definitions? If there are some words in there that you are not very familiar with, do not worry, we will get to them. To properly understand what the Church teaches about indulgences we only need to understand a few simple concepts.
(Read More)

Friday, August 07, 2009

Archbishop Chaput - "St. Paul in the Public Square"

In the June/July 2009 issue of First Things Archbishop Chaput of Denver lays out the state of Catholicism in the U.S. and then uses Saint Paul as an example of how we should be engaging the culture. As always Archbishop Chaput does not mince any words. Here are four examples:

  • The November election showed us that forty years of American Catholic complacency and poor formation are bearing fruit.
  • If 65 million Catholics really cared about their faith and cared about what it teaches, neither political party could ignore what we believe about justice for the poor, or the homeless, or immigrants, or the unborn. If 65 million American Catholics really understood their faith, we wouldn't need to waste one another's time arguing whether the legalized killing of an unborn child is somehow balanced out or excused by other social policies.
  • If we learn nothing else from last November, it should be this: We need to stop overcounting our numbers, our influence, our institutions, and our resources, because they are not real. We cannot talk about following St. Paul and converting our culture until we sober up and admit what we've allowed ourselves to become. We need to stop lying to each other, to ourselves, and to God by claiming to oppose personally some homicidal evil - and allowing it to be legal at the same time.
  • We've forgotten how to think, especially how to think as Catholics. We have to make ourselves stupid to believe some of the things American Catholics are now expected to accept. There is nothing more empty-headed in a pluralist democracy than telling citizens to keep quiet about their beliefs. A healthy democracy requires exactly the opposite. Democracy requires a vigorous public struggle of convictions and ideas. And the convictions of some people always get imposed on everybody else. That's the nature of a democracy. So why should faithful Catholics play by different rules and a misguided sense of good manners?
God bless Archbishop Chaput. See the full piece here.

Saturday, May 09, 2009

Archbishop Burke's Keynote Address at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast

Please pray for the good Archbishop Burke. They will be coming after him full throttle now...They know that now that he is the Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura that what he says has wider implications then when he was 'just' the Archbishop of Saint Louis.

Be warned this is very long, but well worth your time.

(Read More)

Friday, July 18, 2008

Twelve Tribes of Israel

A co-worker of mine brought this to my attention and I have since spent way too much time looking it over.

The question is this...Who exactly are the twelve tribes of Israel. Jacob (aka Israel) has 12 sons. Each son is listed as he is born in Genesis chapters 29, 30, 35. Also in chapter 35 we have a listing of the sons grouped according to their mother. The list is as follows:

Leah
Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun

Rachel
Joseph and Benjamin

Bilhah (Rachel's Maid)
Dan and Naphtali

Zilpah (Leah's Maid)
Gad and Asher

Now we have 12 sons listed which makes 12 tribes. Seems simple enough. However, Jacob (Israel) complicates things in Genesis 48:5 by claiming Joseph's two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh as his own sons. In Genesis 49:28 we get the statement, "All these are the twelve tribes of Israel". This after Jacob (Israel) has finished blessing each of the twelve sons listed in chapter 35.

Fast forward to the New Testament in the book of Revelation. In chapter 7, verses 4-8, the twelve tribes are listed as the following: Judah, Reuben, Gad, Asher, Naphtali, Manasseh, Simeon, Levi, Issachar, Zebulun, Joseph, and Benjamin. We are missing Dan and Manasseh has been added in. Recalling that Jacob (Israel) claimed Ephraim and Manasseh as his own we might expect them to both be listed, but instead Ephraim has been replaced by his father Joseph.

If we look in Numbers chapter 1 we see a census listing of the 'sons of Israel'. Broken into tribes Levi is left out because they were to be 'over the tabernacle of the covenant' and later would not be apportioned any specific area in the Promised Land. Manasseh is listed as a tribe and so is Ephraim, but curiously Ephraim is listed as 'of the people of Joseph, namely, of the people of Ephraim'. Since Ephraim was given the blessing of the first-born, this could explain why Joseph is listed in the listing of the tribes in Revelation instead of Ephraim. Since Ephraim's people were considered Joseph's people.

Now there are many other lists of the 'twelve' tribes of Israel throughout Scripture and strangely they are almost all different in content or order, but what I want to know is why Dan is missing in the Revelation list. Anybody...