Snippets

A few articles and issues for your consideration.

 

One of the big Catholic stories over the last couple of weeks was the document coming from the German diocese of Freiburg in which the Archbishop seems to have decided to allow divorced and remarried Catholics receive the Eucharist.  This was coupled with the off the cuff comments of Pope Francis that the Church will have to look at this pastoral issue and his calling of a Synod for next year to discuss marriage and family issues.  Now it seems that document was not official, but leaked.  Marie Meaney in Crisis magazine has an interesting article on the issue.  She asks: is a formal schism with German Catholics coming? 

 

David Quinn also an interesting piece in this week's Irish Catholic. I think we all recognise that the Church will have to tread very carefully on this issue.  Church law is one thing, but the moral law another.  At the end of the day the Church and the Pope cannot change the moral law.  As Pope Benedict XVI once said: "I'm only the Pope, there are some things I cannot change".  I'm sure Francis is aware of that too, though many in the Church are not - they think the Pope has power to change the moral law at will.  While there is reference to the position of the Orthodox Church's practice, I think it is based on a particular reading of Matthew 19 and in essence the meaning of the word porneia in 19:9.  Much controversy surrounds the meaning of this word, so the theologians will be delving into that controversy over the coming months.  That said one has to wonder why Jesus would allow for an exception when the whole thrust of his teaching is to close off the exception Moses introduced.

 

Further to the controversy of the pro-abortion Fine Gael TD no longer permitted to act as an Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion, a letter to The Irish Catholic asks if politicians should be allowed serve in such roles at all - given their position as public members of a political party.  An interesting question worth discussing.

 

Another controversial issue was the funeral of the Nazi Erich Priebke.  The Diocese of Rome announced earlier this week that he was being refused a Catholic funeral.  As the week went on we discovered that he went to Confession and, we presume, he was reconciled with the Church before he died.  Interestingly the schismatic Society of St Pius X decided to give him a funeral, however protests prevented the body being brought to the church and so the funeral is on hold.   I offer for your consideration Fr Ray Blake's interesting blog post on the issue.  What Priebke did was horrendous, and the crimes of the Nazis deserve absolute condemnation, so I understand and accept that this man should not have a public funeral nor full public Catholic rites, though I note they have been given to mass murderers and terrorists before; such an action would be a public scandal (cf, Canon 1184).  It seems from later reports that the Diocese permitted a service in a private home, reiterating that prayers for dead can never be denied. 

 

And finally it seems the Church has successfully applied to gain control of the .catholic domain and she may well allow institutions and communities with canonical recognition to use it.  I wonder....??

Time To Reassess!

Being out of the country is really good for allowing you think about what is happening in Ireland, a bit of space.  Many of our best writers had to get out of Ireland to write and think - there is something claustrophobic about Ireland.   Another good thing about getting out of Ireland, and the experience of the Church in Ireland, is that you see the Church in other countries and while there may be problems there, you can see where we are going wrong in Ireland, the areas in which we are blinkered and have cut ourselves off from the universal nature of the Church - where we have become "too local".  You can also see where we need to change.  Such an exercise is necessary in these times.  

Reflecting on the fallout of the most recent report and the government's insane plans to strike at religious freedom, you see that, as Catholics in Ireland - practicing Catholics that is, not the nominal and the lapsed, we no longer have a political party which can represent our views and can be relied upon to seek to uphold our freedom to believe and practice the Christian faith in its orthodoxy. 

At one time both mainstream parties Fine Gael and Fianna Fail were, for the most part "Catholic" parties reflecting the fact that the majority of citizens are Catholic.  However in recent years this is no longer the case.  Our last government, led by Fianna Fail, introduced legislation which forces Catholic registrars and providers of wedding services to violate their consciences with regard to solemnising gay partnerships.   Now Fine Gael are trying to force priests to break their solemn oath of preserving the Seal of the Confessional. 

These two parties can no longer be relied upon to preserve the ancient freedom of Christian citizens in Ireland.  While there may be sincere Christians among the members of parliament in both parties, for the most part they will follow the party line, few if any will oppose anti-Christian legislation if the party whip demands it, so in reality they are no good to us.  So we are now left with a question: where do we Christians go from here?

For one thing I think we Catholics need to reassess our place in Irish society.  While Catholics make up the majority of the population, in reality the faithful are now a minority.  Perhaps now the Catholic Church in Ireland needs to start thinking like a minority, and like other religious minorities start figuring out how we can work within society to safeguard our faith and practices. That may sound silly to some in the Church today and I can already hear bishops and priests saying that we are not a minority and Hogan must cop himself on.  Well, look around.  Irish society is no longer a Catholic society - our values are no longer those adhered to by the majority of people in the state.  Some of our bishops and priests may know politicians and presidents, they think they may have influence - well they don't. The failure of the Church in Ireland to persuade the last Fianna Fail government to modify the Civil Partnership Bill to include a conscience clause reveals the reality - and this is the party most bishops and priests traditionally support.  Time to stop believing we can subtly get a word in here, a wink in there and so save Catholic Ireland.  Not so anymore: the crosier has no power.  Politicians will smile and seem friendly when required, but ultimately use the Church to get a few votes.

When we realise that, we must begin to form alliances with other religious groups - something which will seem alien to the Church in Ireland - indeed something which may hurt its pride.  During the weeks in which the Civil Partnership Bill was going through parliament I asked a number of figures in the Church to contact the leaders of other Christian denominations, the Jews and Muslims, to discuss a joint submission to the government seeking a conscience clause.  Since our credibility is gone, a partnership with the leaders of other faiths may have produced results. My suggestion fell on deaf ears and all we got was a mild pastoral letter that had as much clout with the government as a soap bubble on a bull.  

In other countries the Catholic Church works with other faith groups and denominations - the Vatican does so very successfully in the UN: why can't we learn from this?  Again for this to be a reality we need to start thinking like a minority.  This does not mean we give up on the mass who consider themselves "ethnically" Catholic, but we need to lay foundations for the future, for another evangelisation and how hard that will be will depend on how we act now.   But we must also be careful not to think the majority of the lapsed will support the Church - as in Spain in the 1930's the lapsed may become our greatest persecutors.  We need to look to the lessons of history.

After that we, as Catholics, with other faith groups, may need to start looking at the political landscape and see what we can do to increase our representation in parliament.  That may mean working within one political party to turn it around, or it may mean forming a new one which could pick up support from believers.  Such a party would need to be a real party and not a one trick pony - believers must take positions in secular society in order to influence it for the good, so such a party would need to develop credible positions in all areas, but positions influenced by sound values which respect human freedom and dignity.  If members of such a party even got a dozen seats that may be enough to start a change - given that coalition governments have now become the norm in Ireland, the mainstream parties look to smaller parties to become partners in government - and so there may be opportunities.

There is, however, one glaring problem in Ireland: Irish voters, particularly conservative voters, tend to vote according to civil war politics.  Fervent Catholics do not support Christian parties but continue to vote as they always have because of tribal loyalty even if their traditional party is undermining and attacking their faith.  We have seen Christian parties and Christian candidates fail in the polls because concerned Christians decided to give their vote to the usual party candidates who do not share their voters' faith or hopes.  There needs to be a change in the way believers vote, and that means looking beyond local politics, getting this or that fixed in the local area, and looking to the bigger picture.  Politicians know that if they get a few things for voters they can distract them from the bigger picture, from the policies. 

These are just a few thoughts and I offer them to the lay faithful for their reflection.  The world and government is the area in which the laity must exercise their ministry and proclamation of the Gospel, and so it is for them to figure out how we proceed.   In the meantime Church leadership has to have a good think and look at new ways of leading the flock - and let's face it letting the liberals run riot and weeping is not the way forward.

The Tide Is Turning

This is a video I would suggest you watch, CMR drew my attention to it and it deals with the US organisation, Students for Life.

A few thoughts.  I am impressed by the many organisations represented here, it reveals that the pro-life movement is a truly ecumenical movment, exposing the lie that the only pro-lifers are old fashioned Roman Catholics.

We also see that they are more pro-life than the previous one, for a number of reasons: three being - they are the survivors of the culture of death - as they think about that they begin to lament the deaths of the  children of their generation who have perished in the ideological battle against life.  Secondly, they are further away from the naive sexual revolution of the Sixties.  Thirdly, they can see the fruits of this culture of death and the sexual revolution and it is not a pretty picture, they see a wasteland and have discerned it is the result of an assault on the most sacred of all rights - the right to life.

There is also great hope here.  As the US seems to be coming out of the darkest period of its history, its own holocaust, we in Ireland seem to be entering into ours, as I have said before on this blog, our pro-life movements can learn a great deal from them.  One of the lessons we can learn is that fringe pro-life groups rarely have success - they perpetuate the bias in a pro-abortion culture that pro-lifers are right wing lunatics who resort to illegal and murderous means to push their agenda.  

Those who are committed to the pro-life movement must come together in a mainstream movement, or alliance of movements, putting differences aside and working towards the goal of a pro-life culture.  Hearts and minds must be changed - pro-abortion groups have won the support of politicans and judges because they appear to be rational and compassionate, and seem to have the support of the people.  Pro-lifers must learn from this and begin lobbying in a rational way.

I pray we will see the day when abortion is made illegal and clinics all over the world are dismantled, and the memory of those little ones who perished be remembered with regret and prayer.  I hope one day, in those countries where abortion is legal, national shrines will be constructed with an eternal flame to the memory of children who have died and written over the door of these monuments: "We Shall Remember Them" and "Never Again".  

The Charade Begins....Again

While we in the Fraternity have been celebrating our Foundation Day, our country has been falling apart (so I was glad of the distraction to be honest).  Yesterday was probably the most chaotic day in the history of modern Irish politics: six ministers resigned from the cabinet and when our prime minister (Taoiseach) tried to appoint new ministers his coalition partner, head of the Green party, refused to allow him, no doubt threatening to pull the plug on the government which is its dying days anyway.  

I think it was Enoch Powell who said that every political career ends in failure, well looking at yesterday's events he has been proven right.  As an Irishman it was awful to see the just how farcical the whole political process can be and I am not just talking about the state of the government - the opposition parties are just as bad.  Anyway, we have been told there is a General Election on Friday 11th March, so all the posturing begins.  

That should also get us Christians ready to do a little interrogating.  Seeing as our public representatives have shunned the Christian faith and Christian morality for the past few years, now as they get set to make their house to house calls looking for votes it is time for us to make our voices heard and make them squirm (even if only just a little) for their deafness. 

With abortion on the agenda again time for us to sift the real pro-life politicians from the pro-abortion ones and ambiguous ones.  As a Christian, in principle, I cannot vote for a politician who favours the legalisation of abortion or who does not have the courage to oppose his/her party if it favours abortion, so they are out if there is a pro-life alternative.  Now I know what politicians will say: single issue - there are other things which also must be considered like the economy, so it would not be wise to judge a candidate on one issue.  True it is a single issue, but it is the most important issue: if a politician thinks it is OK to kill an unborn baby for the sake of choice or because some citizens want it, then that person cannot be trusted with anything else: their moral compass is distorted and unnatural - not a good situation for any human being never mind a public representative.  As for keeping conscience and faith out of politics: I would rather have an unbeliever who sincerely follows his/her conscience and seeks to serve the common good than a weekly Mass-going Catholic who refuses to allow conscience through the door of their office - again, they cannot be trusted. 

The passing of the Civil Partnership Bill in the most undemocratic means possible is another issue.  Apart from undermining marriage in the State, the sheer nerve of public representatives to shirk the democratic process and skip over moral issues and arguments reveals not only an ungodly arrogance, but also a streak of tyranny which seems to be growing in modern political life.  Time for Christians to deal with our TDs and senators on that one.   Most of them will claim they could do nothing about it "I'm only a back bencher", well back bench revolts have changed party policy on numerous occasions.  As orthodox Christians we may be becoming a minority in Ireland, but we can at least give our candidates a grilling on the doorstep and remind them we are citizens and taxpayers too. 

As citizens we have the right and duty to vote.  As Christians we have the duty to use that vote wisely and in a manner that does not contradict our faith.  With life issues at stake, we have a duty to do all we can to keep out those who want to destroy human life and to support those who want to protect it.  We must also look to those who sincerely want to promote the common good and the well being of all our citizens, particularly the most vulnerable.  We must also seek to promote those who act in accordance with their conscience, sincerely seeking to do what is right rather than what is easy or popular.  We must try to avoid promoting those who only want to further their career at the expense of our country.  All of this means there is a serious responsibility on our shoulders to vote for the right person.  That means we cannot fall victim to the old party system.  Many in Ireland vote for a particular party regardless of who the candidate is.  That was fine when most if not all, candidates had sound moral beliefs - that is no longer true - there are anti-Christian and anti-life candidates in every party now (many of them even call themselves Christian), now we must be careful - party loyalty must now give way to higher principles. 

Now, rant over.  Time to pray and discern who gets the vote.  And lest anyone complain about my interference in politics I remind them as a pastor I have a duty to inform my flock of the issues which affect Christians in the political climate in which we live and to remind them of Catholic social principles and their responsibilities as good citizens.  

And as one party used to say: Vote early and vote often!

Who Do You Think You Are?

That question may well be aimed at me following my last post - indeed it already has, by a minister in our present government when I publicly taught the Church's teaching on same sex marriage.  This attitude from our elected representatives is not unheard of: just a couple of years ago a few prominent politicians sought to have a Catholic newspaper shut down because it took the opposite view to the political establishment on a European Treaty.  It seems press freedom, freedom of speech and democracy is only allowed operate within certain parameters which are established by the political elite in Ireland today.  And if you're Catholic, well then, the parameters are even tighter - they range from silence to "keep your mouth shut":  the Catholic position is to have no place in Irish political life today.

I have written on this before, but I see Cardinal George Pell has reminded our secular lords that the Church does indeed have the right to free speech even when it contradicts the established view, and that priests have the right to preach the Gospel.  Responding to the attacks against him by gay lobby groups denouncing his attempts to remind his flock of the Church's teaching on marriage, he tells them that priests have the right to preach against the legalisation of same-sex "marriage" from the pulpit.  Great to hear this: we could do with him here in Ireland to support our bishops in reminding our public representatives that the Church has the right to express her view and her teaching in public and should not fear attempts by secularists to silence or persecute her.  We are either a pluralist democracy or not.

Related to this, I just bought a copy of John Frain's The Cross and the Third Reich, a historical study of the Catholic Church's response to Nazism.  The popular myth is that the Church was silent in the face of Nazi atrocities and actually facilitated the rise of Hitler and his minions.  Of course that is a myth - the Church was Hitler's enemy and countless Catholics opposed him and protected the Jewish people, foremost among them Pope Pius XII.   Ironically those who accuse the Church of being silent during the Nazi period, are those who want to silence the Church now and prevent her speaking on various moral issues in modern society (many of these same accusers also support a number of practices implemented by the Nazis - abortion, euthanasia and elimination of the handicapped). 

Now, as then, the Church refuses to be silent, and now as then, she is attacked for what she says.  Now, as then, the Church recognises that she must speak and preach the Gospel and the dignity of the human person, of all human persons.  Future generations will look back at this period of history and see if the Church, with her centuries of experience, warned the current generation of the outcome of some of its decisions and actions - if she fails to do that she will be rightly condemned, and the greatest condemnation will come from the mouth of Christ.  But, as under the Nazis, she continues to speak up and bears the brunt of those who do not like what she has to say - that cost is nothing in comparison with the souls she seeks to save, nor the love she has for her Lord who urges her to proclaim the Gospel.  So as a priest I am encouraged to preach the Gospel as given by Christ, to encourage, exhort, inspire and warn, as is my duty, as is the duty of every priest in these difficult times.   We do indeed have the right and the duty to engage in the policies and decisions of our time and weigh them according to the Gospel and the dignity of the human person, and if they are found to be wanting, or even destructive, then we have the duty to acclaim them as such and to seek moral solutions.

So when asked: who do you think you are?  I suppose the answer is: a minister of the Gospel according to the bountiful gift of God.

Sarah Palin Takes on JFK

I see Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, niece of JFK has taken offence at Sarah Palin's critique of the late president's position on public office and religion.  In an article published in the Washington Post, she tells us that Palin has got JFK wrong, and that his speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association was just what was needed.  Palin disagrees. 

I have referred to this speech, and JFK's schizophrenic division of personal life from public life before.  It seems, reading Kennedy Townsend's article that some Kennedys at least still hold to that erroneous doctrine, as do numerous Catholic politicians the world over.  Now I realise that religion cannot dominate politics - the marriage of the two has been disastrous for both.  In reality there never has been a marriage, it has been a master-slave relationship for the most part - one always seemed to have dominated the other.  In the past we have had religion dictate to politics, and also the opposite. Indeed we are now living in an age when politics seeks to control religion, as is obvious, for example, in Europe.  What is required is a healthy relationship where there is mutual respect and which allows those involved in politics remain true to their faith and conscience, and for politics to see that this benefits society because people will then have the common good at heart.  Of course, when politics has embrace the new religion of secularism, then this proposal is not so attractive.

I would have issues with Sarah Palin, but reading what she says about JFK's position I would have to agree with her when she says that he did not reconcile faith and politics, but rather "offered an equivocal divorce of the two".  She is correct here and Kennedy Townsend is wrong.  In fact I go further than Palin and say that JFK's position subjected faith to the secular and now forces believing Christian politicians to act and legislate in a way that is not only offensive to the tenets of their religion, but also demeans that religion, and places those politicians in a position where they must be censured by the authorities of their religion because of their actions against that faith.  As a result of this we have had two generations of politicians, and a budding third, either violating their conscience, or disregarding it completely as they exercise their public office. 

The effect of this is pure and utter blindness - the sort of blindness that leads Catholics who profess to believe in Christ (and who come forward to receive the Eucharist) legislating for and supporting the murder of innocent children in the womb, or sacrificing marriage and the stability of the family home for children, on the altar of equality.  But there lingers in the future a dreadful reality which will quickly pull them out of their blindness.

Contrary to what JFK and his followers believe, they will be held responsible by God for these actions.  They will not be able to plead a "healthy separation of faith and public life" when they stand before God at their judgement.  They have acted against the teachings of Christ, they have violated or disregarded their conscience, they were "personally opposed" but fully supportive of inhuman crimes, they have desecrated the Sacred Eucharist and lead people into error by their actions and words.  I will not judge individuals, it is not my place - and in saying what I am about to say I say so in the most general terms, not applying it to any individual; but as a priest I must warn those who live by such a false creed as JFK's, that such actions as these put them in danger of hell - and it will not be a case where they will be in hell for their public actions, but enjoy heaven for the private - the greater treachery will reveal how false the schizophrenic distinction actually is. 

We must pray for our politicians and public figures who labour under the JFK delusion.  We must also pray for our bishops that they will fulfil their duty to remind the members of their flock who live according to this delusion that their position is untenable and wrong, we must also pray that these bishops will not be afraid to speak and to do what is necessary to call their erring children back to their senses.