MONDAY DIARY: If you CAN make it here, you can make it ANYWHERE

What SNOPES has to say on the new bill in New York
What the New York State CATHOLIC CONFERENCE says.

WHERE YOUR TREASURE IS, THERE IS YOUR HEART

A friend of mine lives on a farm about a forty minute drive from the parish.  He is having a rough go of it lately and it is not because of the snow and cold.  It is because of woodpeckers.  He has a wood house and the woodpeckers have targeted it for their pecking of wood.  He has tried everything.  He put up fake owls, he started blasting “woodpeckers in distress” calls over loudspeakers, freshly painted his house (as was recommended by experts) but nothing works.  Every day there is a couple of more holes, about half an inch across, many of which are clean through the siding.  So he has to go out and fill in the holes almost every day.  He is not happy.

He can’t do anything to kill the woodpeckers.  They are federally protected and he could get into a hole basket full of trouble if he resorted to that.  Yet if he and his wife should conceive their child, they have a federally protected right to do to that child what it is illegal to do to that woodpecker.  With the woodpecker we say, “Well, it may greatly upset your life but you going to have to find a way to cope with it.  That’s life.”  When it comes to their child we say, “Well, if he is going to greatly upset your life, you can get rid of him.  That’s life.”

I am not for the overturning of the protection of woodpeckers.  Maybe we could extend the rights to humans in the womb (and extend to the parents more assistance than we do to woodpecker sufferers - which I know many of you do!)

Today is the national day of prayer for the legal protection of human life in the womb.  Please consider offering a prayer and engaging in some action, exercising the rights, privileges, dignity and power that you have on behalf of one who currently, legally has none of these in our country.

POPE FRANCIS, THE DEATH PENALTY & HERESY

When there was such a thing as institutional slavery, the Church recognized this as a fact of the world and gave teachings based on those given in Scripture on how those who “owned” slaves should treat their servants.  Over the course of time, the Church recognized that, because each human person has an inalienable dignity, nobody could possibly be “owned” by anybody and to be a person who “owned” slaves was inherently evil.  This happened at a time when the Christian world was sufficiently awakening to the evil of this practice it was possible to bring this abomination to an end.  

This was not a change in the teachings of the Church.  It was a development in the understanding of the inherent worth of each individual human soul.  It was a slow and painful path.  But the moment there was any recognition that the oppressed person was in fact a person with a soul, with dignity and worth, who was saved by the Passion of Jesus Christ, it was inevitable that slavery would be done away with.  The very idea of a “slave owner” was poisoned with the first drop of Christ’s blood and every subsequent teaching and recognition of the value of life brought it closer and closer to death.

In my opinion, the recent teaching of Pope Francis on the death penalty can be seen in the same light.  What he now says (though I understand the difficulty in the way he said it) does not negate the realities and teachings of the past.  By the time we get to St. John Paul II, because of the advancement of culture and our ability to detain and isolate persons who are a serious threat to society, he had difficulty imagining any scenario in which the death penalty could be used.  He stood at the precipice of the seamless garment of the respect of human life, unable to imagine the need for civilized Christians to resort to killing an otherwise detained person for the sake of the salvation of the world.

As there was a point in which slavery was no longer a tenable option for Christians, Pope Francis says such has the time come for the death penalty.  

Many will disagree.  Many will disagree with the way he said it.  Many will disagree with the format in which he said it.  Indeed, the reader of his article may think the pope was either premature in this declaration or a bit of a Pollyanna in his worldview or that he took one step too far, but, in my opinion, the one wagon that no one should jump on is that he has been speaking heresy.  It is not only unhelpful to the conversation it does not display an understanding of how the Church has operated for 2,000 years.  

AM I NEXT? MAYBE

Persons with Downs Syndrome can rest easy.  They will no longer be discriminated against in the termination of their lives.  A Columbus judge has determined that it is unconstitutional to limit abortion for the reason that parents don’t want their child because that child has Down Syndrome.  Planned Parenthood has lauded the ruling that “A woman should be able to trust her physician and have confidential conversations without worrying about government interference.”  What is left off of the end of that sentence is “concerning the death of their child that doesn’t meet up with their standards.”

What I just wrote is very divisive.  It would be difficult for a person who feels that such a child is not a human being to have a civil conversation with me I would imagine.  But A) such persons tend not to read my blog and B) it truly is a horrific path we are on and so many people are terribly blind to it.

Yesterday students from across the country walked out of their schools to protest guns and the death of students due to mass shootings.  “Are we next?” was one of the signs in the Akron Beacon Journal this morning.  The last time I encountered a sign that asked that question was from a person in a wheelchair in Washington D.C. protesting abortions.  What if that person could have been diagnosed in the womb of having some condition that would land her in a wheelchair?  Who could face her and say, “I would have protected the right for your parents to terminate your life for the simple reason that you would end up in a wheelchair”?

Is the problem really guns?  Maybe in part.  But could the bigger problem be that we keep chipping away at a general respect for life?  As we sanitize our culture of the dignity of the human person, cultural laws, turning inwardly as a humanity, thinking that there is no meaning beyond what men invent and falling deeper into nihilism, could it be that we are simply just losing the idea that life is inviolable?  Once one determines Jack can be done away with, is it much of a step to say that Jill could be also?  It is a slippery slope.

It is the difference between the commandment, “Thou shalt not kill” and “Love they neighbor.”  Not killing is controlling outward behavior.  Loving is changing hearts and minds.  Go ahead and ban every last gun, but if you are not going to change hearts and minds toward the dignity of all human life, then you also better ban knives, nail clippers, razors, any liquids over 3 oz. . .

Oh wait.  We already do that.

GET RID OF "THEM"

A few years ago it was obvious that the Catholic Church should get rid of celibacy because it led to sexual abuse.  With the latest round of sexual abuse in news, sports, entertainment, and politics (and there are some other major areas that have yet to be tapped,) to what should we attribute it now?  Should we get rid of politics and entertainment?  Should we get rid of men?  Most of these people are married, should we rid ourselves of the obvious scourge of marriage?  Maybe we should level the playing field so that nobody has power.  (But of course, then who would have the power to enforce that?)  On to what bandwagon should we all jump this time?

May I suggest one?  How about the bandwagon that says all humans have inherent dignity, endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.  It is when we start chipping away at the eternal worth of any human soul that all people’s worth is damaged.  If I am willing to put the child in the womb, the criminal, the sick and elderly to death, then I too have decreased in value as the bar for the worthy has been raised against me - I come closer to being the person to be used by others for their own end.

We need heroes and role models; saints and stars.  But we cannot place them on so high a pedestal (and the rest of us so low to the ground) that they can use that glory to dazzle the eyes of those who gaze up that them, blinding them of their own dignity and allowing themselves to be mistreated.

There is no lifestyle (married, single, divorced, celibate, etc) that causes someone to be an abuser.  There are people with power who are abusers regardless of their lifestyle.  These abuse scandals are an alarm that we all need help in becoming a healthier culture, not a bunch of irate and blind finger pointers.  It is the sin we will not tolerate from anyone.

GUEST BLOGGER: CAPITOL ERRER

1. Guest blogger:  Bernard A. Smith, of St. Sebastian Parish, Akron, recently retired after serving over  three decades as a federal prosecutor handling organized crime, public corruption, labor racketeering and appellate cases. He obtained a bachelor’s degree from the University of Dayton in 1979 and a law degree from the University of Michigan in 1982.   

When Pope Francis spoke before a joint session of Congress in September 2015, he urged that the death penalty be abolished throughout America, a request with which one might presume a career prosecutor would disagree. Such an assumption would be incorrect, however, for Pope Francis’ request of Congress did not merely express a personal policy preference but was firmly grounded in Church teaching. As the State of Ohio contemplates executing condemned criminals for the first time since 2014, understanding why capital punishment cannot be morally justified is of paramount importance. Indeed, rather than tolerating executions, the citizens of the State of Ohio should demand that the death penalty be abolished. 

American criminal law traditionally has recognized a necessity exception to the prohibition against intentionally killing another person, taking several forms: (1) self-defense when faced with imminent threat of deadly force, (2) defense of a third person faced with a similar threat, and (3) soldiers in combat facing an armed enemy. To this list during the colonial period of our nation’s history might be added capital punishment, because secure prison systems had not yet been invented.² As secure facilities to imprison the most dangerous offenders did not exist, public executions were thought necessary both to incapacitate dangerous criminals and to deter others.³ 

Today, any issue concerning lack of adequate prisons has disappeared, as both federal and State prison systems contain maximum security facilities to incapacitate murderers and other violent offenders. This fact makes a definitive moral difference, as articulated by Pope St. John Paul II in his encyclical letter Evangelium Vitae, which defended the inviolability of human life. Discussing capital punishment, Pope John Paul stated:  “It is clear that…the nature and extent of the punishment must be carefully evaluated and decided upon, and ought not go to the extreme of executing the offender except in cases of absolute necessity:  in other words, when it would not be possible otherwise to defend society. Today, however, as a result of steady improvements in the organization of the penal system, such cases are very rare, if not practically non-existent” (emphasis supplied).⁴ The Pope then declared that “if bloodless means are sufficient to defend human lives against an aggressor and to protect public order and the safety of persons, public authority must limit itself to such means….” (emphasis supplied).⁵ The mandatory character of the latter statement is unmistakable. 

In short, according to Pope St. John Paul II, the moral test of strict necessity governs when even a murderer may be executed and, because of security enhancements in modern prison systems, the set of offenders who must be executed in order to protect society is functionally a null set. Under modern conditions, therefore, capital punishment cannot morally be justified under the strict necessity test, a standard which helps to protect the bedrock principle that a person’s right to life is inviolable.

After the publication of Evangelium Vitae, the discussion of capital punishment in the Catechism of the Catholic Church was revised. Now, paragraph 2267 of the Catechism says that the death penalty may be imposed, “if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.”⁶  It incorporates Pope St. John Paul II’s teaching that if “non-lethal means” suffice to protect society, then “authority will limit itself to such means” (emphasis supplied).⁷ Paragraph 2267 then concludes:  “…the cases in which the execution of the offender is absolutely necessary are very rare, if not practically non-existent” (emphasis supplied).⁸ In light of the Catechism’s teaching that, as a matter of practical reality,  circumstances in which capital punishment could be permissible do not exist, imposing the death penalty cannot morally be justified. To the extent that our legal system permits capital punishment, it is morally flawed. 

Other considerations also undercut any moral basis for capital punishment. In the Supreme Court’s 1972 splintered decision in Furman v. Georgia,⁹ which temporarily invalidated the death penalty nationwide, the controlling three-Justice plurality variously found that capital punishment as then administered was being imposed in an arbitrary, capricious or discriminatory manner largely because a jury’s discretion to impose it was unfettered. The death penalty was revived, however, only four years later in Gregg v. Georgia,¹⁰ where the Court approved a capital sentencing scheme requiring a trial bifurcated between guilt and penalty phases, lesser included offense instructions where applicable, a jury’s finding of at least one aggravating factor beyond a reasonable doubt, the weighing of mitigating factors against any aggravating factor(s) and  appellate proportionality review in relation to similar cases. In sum, a jury’s discretion concerning the death penalty would be guided by legal standards. The implied premise underlying Gregg is that the courts are capable of ensuring that a capital sentencing system will function fairly.¹¹ 

Forty years later, however, the data demonstrates otherwise. A 2005 study conducted by the Associated Press found that, in Ohio, a defendant who kills a white person is twice as likely to receive the death penalty as a defendant who kills a black person.¹² The organization known as Ohioans To Stop Executions has reached the same conclusion.¹³ Even more sobering, the final report of the 2014 Joint Task Force to Review the Administration of Ohio’s Death Penalty cited an ABA Ohio Assessment Team study indicating that offenders who killed white persons were 3.8 times more likely to be sentenced to death in Ohio than those who killed black persons.¹⁴ Racial disparity in capital sentencing based upon the race of the victim has been found in numerous studies conducted in other death penalty states as well.¹⁵ And, Ohioans to Stop Executions has found that “two-thirds of all Ohio murder victims are people of color, yet in 2013 three out of four new death sentences were for the murder of white people.”¹⁶

Imposing the ultimate penalty—death—based upon the race of the victim is inconsistent with the concept of equality before the law. Nor can this practice be squared with the basic principle that all human beings are of equal, infinite value before God. When the death penalty is imposed far more often against killers of white persons than against killers of minority persons, then our society has concluded that it values the lives of white persons more than the lives of minority persons because it systematically imposes a harsher penalty when the right to life of a white person is transgressed. The statistics show that murdering a white person effectively is regarded as a more serious offense than murdering a minority person because the consequences of killing one versus the other systematically differ. Such systemic racial discrimination inherent in the capital sentencing system must be condemned as morally bankrupt. 

Adding further moral weight against using capital punishment is the reality that the death penalty is sometimes imposed upon innocent persons. According to criteria established by the Death Penalty Information Center, since 1976 there have been nine exonerations of defendants who were sentenced to death in Ohio alone.¹⁷ “Exoneration” means that all charges against the defendant ultimately were dismissed, that the defendant was acquitted at a re-trial or that the defendant was pardoned based upon substantial evidence of innocence. No system of justice worthy of the name can tolerate not only the possibility that innocent persons might be sentenced to death, but also the established fact that innocent defendants have actually been sentenced to die, including in Ohio. 

In sum, the death penalty does not satisfy the moral test of strict necessity and is imposed in discriminatory fashion despite four decades of judicial effort to render the system fair. The citizens of the State of Ohio should conclude that capital punishment can no longer be tolerated because it is fundamentally indefensible and should demand its abolition. 

1. added above
2. Banner, The Death Penalty:  An American History, p. 23 (Harvard University Press, 2002). 
3. Ibid., pp. 10-13.
4. Evangelium Vitae, para. 56. 
5. Ibid.
6. Catechism of the Catholic Church, para. 2267.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. 408 U.S. 238 (1972).
10. 428 U.S. 153 (1976).
11. Lazarus, Closed Chambers:  The Rise, Fall, and Future of the Modern Supreme Court, p. 117 (Penquin Books, 1999).
12. Akron Beacon Journal (May 7, 2005)(reporting the Associated Press study). 
13. www.otse.org.
14. Joint Task Force to Review the Administration of Ohio’s Death Penalty, Final Report and Recommendations, April 2014, Commentary to Recommendation 29.
15. Lazarus, Closed Chambers, p. 168 (summarizing the results of the famous Baldus study in Georgia); see generally, Bedau, The Death Penalty in America:  Current Controversies, pp. 29, 271 (Oxford University Press, 1997).
16. www.otse.org.
17. Details about Ohio’s exonerations are reported at www.otse.org.

TOLLERANCE - BUT ONLY A CERTAIN AMOUNT AND ONLY ON THE TOPICS THAT I CHOOSE

Here’s an interesting statistic for you:  Approximately 300 persons per year are killed in the state of California in hit and run accidents.  That means most days a Californian will kill another Californian with his car and then drive away to avoid responsibility.  Yesterday on NPR an official of the state said (and this is an approximate quote since I was driving and unable to write down what I heard) that this is a horrible situation – near four times the national average – and that “a cultural change must take place.”  His concern is California’s lack of concern for accidents in which human lives are effected.  You cannot simply hit a human being with your car and then drive away.

 

But I thought, “Why not?”  Is change what California really wants?  Are they prepared to do what would be required in order to effect a “cultural change?”  Or do they have exactly what they want?

 

Consider this about the Golden State:  They are on the verge of allowing physician assisted suicide.  They are a death penalty state.  Abortion rights are vigorously upheld.  The state self-funded embryonic stem cell research.  And these are just some of the issues that over a period of time teach a people that when life inconveniences you, you may do away with it. 

 

If you teach a rectory dog to bark whenever someone rings the doorbell, you can’t expect him not to do so on the occasion that this time it is the bishop that is ringing the bell.  In a similar way, when you teach a body of people that when your life might be change in a way that you don’t like you have a right to ask for death, you can’t expect that people to keep such a belief in tight little boxes.  Why is it Okay to kill a child in the womb that will take away my college career or Okay to allow grandma to do away with herself before she eats up my time or inheritance, but it is not Okay from me walk away from an accident (after all, it was only an accident right?) since it will simply eat up my time, attention, and resources and not really solve anything?

 

So California, are you really ready for a “cultural change?”  My prayers are with you.

"PERSON"AL

I wrote a letter to the editor recently and it hasn't appeared so I thought I would share it with you.

 

 

Dear Editor,

 

In her letter, Maria Miranda (Resist Campaign to Restrict Abortion) states that “the decision to terminate a pregnancy is intensely personal and private. . .”  Unfortunately she does not tell us why this is so.  This statement is the same that has been used throughout history to shut down interference and conversation concerning the way husbands have treated their wives, how parents disciplined their children, and how persons have treated their slaves.  The only way Maria’s statement could make sense at all is if the being within the mother’s womb, that has all of the chromosomes and DNA of a unique human individual, is not a person at all.  That such a large percentage of citizens of the United States do recognize the humanity of the person within her womb makes the argument that this is a private matter as untenable in this case as it had at one time in those others mentioned above.

 

To quote Elizabeth Cady Stanton, a pioneer of the American Women’s Rights Movement, on her views on abortion, “When we consider that woman are treated as property, it is degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we see fit."

 

Rev. John A. Valencheck

UPDATE:  I spoke about this letter in my homily this past weekend at it started some interesting philosophical debates after Mass.  One of the most interesting was a distinction between a personal and private belief and that of action.  Our government has always been involved when actions start effecting other people, but personally held beliefs and thoughts of the individual we hold sacrosanct.  So that a person believes that abortion is a good that should be available to anyone at anytime is a right in our nation, but what we focus on is when that belief is put into action (and in this case, an unique human person's rights are destroyed.)  To have it any other way would have our nation act as thought police.  Nice distinction. 

GET SMART

When I was in college I was eligible for Social Security benefits because the government felt that my father did not make enough money.  But, don’t you know, just as I was entering college they raised the threshold just enough that I would not receive any benefits.  Go figure.

 

But that was Okay, for the very next year my father was retired for half of the year and his income was less and therefore I was once again eligible for benefits!  Except that they had changed the standards again and I was out of the group.

 

But that was Okay, because the next year my father would have been retired the entire year, making substantially less than he did just two year ago and once again I was eligible.  Except, of course, that they changed the requirements once again and once again I was left out of the group.

 

This is not about a social security check.  The fact is that I didn’t need it although it might have been fun.  But it is an example on how slight changes in law can leave you out in the cold if you are on the margin.  One slight change and you can go from favored status to non-favored status.

 

That is what the pro-life movement is about.  When any person is considered Okay to put to death, the pool of what it is to be human with dignity and rights grows smaller and those not at the center of the pool see the edge move closer toward them. 

 

The scary thing is that it doesn’t take much to be moved from the center of the pool to the edge.  An accident, a false accusation, a disease, old age, loss of a job, an incident that can take place in the twinkling of an eye can move you from the center of the pool to the edge.  (Look at the minister from Hudson in jail in a foreign country accused of human trafficking.  Though seemingly innocent, things could go terribly wrong very quickly.)  I remember being shocked at a Pro-Life march in Washington D. C. seeing people in wheel chairs holding signs that asked the question, “Am I next?”  That they could even think that a possibility says something about where we are going as a people.

 

Today, in particular, we are encouraged to pray for the legal protection of unborn children.  Masses for Peace and Justice are being celebrated.  Thousands of people are weathering the bitter, bitter cold on the Life March in Washington today.  You are encouraged to pray and fast.  It doesn’t even have to be a full fast.  Give up the last cup of coffee.  Leave the last cookie on the plate.  Don’t grab that handful of nuts.  And every time you have the urge and wish that the beautiful, steaming, yummy mug of coffee was at your hand, offer it up with a prayer for those whose lives are not held as dear and worthy as yours.

RANT - COUNTER RANT: PROs VS ANTIs AND ABORTION

Well . . . today I had planned on patting our local newspapers on the back.  (We only really write about them when we are disappointed in them don’t we?  When was the last time you heard someone say, “Did you read that article?  Not only was it fair and balanced, it was in proper form, with no grammatical errors and I feel a better person having read it?”)  Anyway, I was going to pat them on the back for finally (backhanded compliment there I realize) writing something about the pro-life rally in Washington D.C. where hundreds and hundreds of local residents go each year for 40 years and nary a peep is made of it.  Yes, I would have complimented them even though they persist in labeling the movement anti-abortion, said that thousands were in attendance, (while technically true, the actual number was close to half a million) and that the Plain Dealer thought the article needed to be buried because a front page above-the-fold article on women taking a taxidermy class was more important.  That aside, it was a decent article and I thank them for it.

 

Then the Beacon Journal printed a letter to the editor on Tuesday, January 29^th written by Corey Raleigh which the editorial staff entitled, “A Woman’s Decision.”  Seeing it, I pulled my cup of coffee over closer to me, hunkered down, and hoped to find something worth engaging.  Actually I was quite intrigued at the writer’s second paragraph in which (I know both men and women named Corey so I’ll go with the grammatical “he”) he wrote, “Forty years is a long time, and we are still using the tired label of “pro-choice” and “pro-life.”  These labels cannot fully describe the complexity of this issue.”  Intriguing no?  It is true that labels such as these carry 40 years of baggage with them and cloud any conversation with great presuppositions.  (Glimmer of hope in my heart that something of interest might be said.)

 

Unfortunately the writer then goes on to say that abortion is a complex and emotional issue and therefore nobody can really have a say in it except the woman.  “. . . you should realize that while you may not feel you could support abortion, you could support a woman’s decision.”

 

So . . . the argument boils down to this: abortion is a complex and emotional issue so only the woman involved can have anything to say about it.

 

There is no argument here.  What about this issue being complex and emotional has anything to do with nobody being allowed to have a say in it?  (You may have reasons – but according to the writer that alone is enough.)  People face all kinds of complex and emotional situations all of the time.  In fact, I would say that it is exactly at these times that we engage the community, pull in other people who will be affected (in the case the father, the other children, the grandparents . . .) and that we look toward societal norms, and seek advice from those who have gone through similar situations.  Even in a country that holds up the Lone Ranger as the ideal American figure (a sad thing that) we tend toward this notion which for Catholics (and others) is very essential and part of the building blocks of civilization.

 

Although suicide is a very complex and emotional issue, it is illegal (at least mostly.)  Alcoholism is a complex and emotional issue.  Cutting is a complex and emotional issue.  But do we say, “No interventions!  This decision has to be up to the individual!  We cannot possibly understand!”  No.  We see that something is clearly wrong here and that the person is not only doing grave damage to himself but to others.  Sometimes in a deadly way.

 

The point:  Be wary of arguments that are not really arguments.  Taken quickly, one might be moved to silence with a position such as Corey Raleigh’s.  But in truth, there is no real argument here.  It is smoke and mirrors not really addressing anything and not advancing the conversation.

PUTTING YOURSELF OUT THERE

If you are looking to get married you don’t hide things about yourself in order to lure someone into marrying you.  One of two things might happen as a result: 1) You will be somewhat unhappy hiding something for the rest of your life or 2) Your spouse will be feel angry and betrayed when whatever it is you are concealing becomes exposed.

 

For some reason (and I occasionally fall for it myself) preachers do the same thing in trying to “keep the numbers up.”  Dicey and controversial topics are not brought up in homilies, prayer services, or classes because we might lose people.  So leading up to the last election much of the Catholic Church was caught with its pants down trying to proclaim a message but unfortunately for much of the Church it was too late: Catholics did not need to be reminded about what our faith says about many of these touchy topics, they needed introduced to a mindset that produces these beliefs.  A pamphlet or a homily one week before the election aint gonna cut it.

 

There is a gentleman who works at St. Sebastian who happens to not be Catholic.  One day he stopped me and presents me with a list of topics ranging from abortion to health care.  “When was the last time you preached on any of these topics?” he asked me for he was greatly saddened that he had not heard any of this talked about at all at his church ever.  “Our faith is supposed to help us understand these things.  If we don’t hear about them at church there are plenty of other people out there working hard to have us think the way they want us to think about them.”

 

Now I admit that I am intimidated to speak on some of these matters.  But they are what they are – they are who we are.  It is not matter of politics – it is Catholic 101.  That some of these topics happen to line up with hot button issues going on in politics is just happenstance.  And we must be honest about who we are for we are in covenant together and that means full disclosure as one would hope a future spouse would offer.

 

Just one last note: I know there is some amount of wiggle room in some of these topics.  I am just saying we must talk about them as Church.  Only then can someone make a clear, full, and free decision if they want to be part of (or leave) this intimate Communion of people.

RANT: COUNTER RANT - SORT OF

Lori Thorat wrote a letter to the editor in the Plain Dealer stating, “I can’t stop thinking about the infuriating logic behind the idea that a pregnancy resulting from a rape is God’s will as espoused by Republican U.S. Senate candidate Richard Mourdock.”  In a horribly misguided statement recently Mourdock is reported to have said, “. . . I think, even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen."  Taken by many, including Thorat, that he means that God wills for children to be conceived by rape, this statement is not one that even the most ardent prolife person can stand by.  It is certainly not the teachings of the Catholic Church.

 

Does God will the conception of a child from rape?  Clearly not.  That is not the plan.  Even a rudimentary understanding of Scripture would reveal that this is not the way God intended for human beings to live and procreate.  “For this reason a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife . . . they are no longer two but one flesh.”  That is the plan that God wills.

 

But there is still the difficult question of the person that was conceived under horrific conditions, the effects of which will not be completely erased even if that person is removed from the situation by abortion.  The question might be phrased this way, “Would God will that another innocent person be harmed in order to help mitigate the horrendous damage done to another human being by such an evil abuse of God’s gift of sex?”  I believe that is the question that Mourdock really wished to address (and indeed tried to clarify later but it was too late.)  And an answer must go further than a simple “yes” or “no” but must also deal with the further consequences of the “yes” or “no” answer.  Either is a theological answer (including whether a conceived person has any rights and can be afforded the social justice teachings of the Church) and requires a response.

WAKING FROM A DREAM

This post is risky.
I’m going to tell you about a book I am ready BEFORE I finish it. I did this once before (not on this blog) and it was a disaster. The end of the book took a horrible turn and I was mightily embarrassed after telling others about dit.

Just the same – This book is called, “In the Garden of Beasts” by Erik Larson. It concerns the state of world perception, particularly of that of the United States, during the rise of Hitler. Everything on the surface seemed so normal and people wanted to believe in a world run by sane people, the United States desired to stay out of another European wasp’s nest, not to mention we wanted to be on good terms with Germany because they owed us an incredible amount of money. Bearing that in mind I find this paragraph chilling:

“Nice days were still nice. ‘The sun shines,’ wrote Christopher Isherwood in his Berlin Stories, ‘and Hitler is the master of this city. The sun shines, and dozens of my friends . . . are in prison, possibly dead.’ The prevailing normalcy was seductive. ‘I catch sight of my face in the mirror of a shop, and am shocked to see that I am smiling,’ Isherwood wrote. ‘You can’t help smiling, in such beautiful weather.’ The trams moved as usual, as did the pedestrians passing on the street; everything around him had ‘an air of curious familiarity, of striking resemblance to something one remembers as normal and pleasant in the past – like a very good photograph.’”

I wonder if we will wake from a similar dream. Life for citizens of the United States is good. Never have so many people lived so well. We have so much and can do so much. Never have so many people lived with such freedom and power. Life is enjoyable. We run in the park, grab a cup of coffee at the local coffee shop, speak our mind without fear, worship on Sunday as we will. True, we are at war but day to day life as most of us experience it is frightfully normal if not good.

Will we wake one day to fully realize that behind cheery billboards, smart buildings, immaculate lobbies, we have done away with thousands of human beings in the womb? One day, will we look back and wonder how it could have happened in such drastic numbers? Will others ask why we as individuals didn’t say something? Will we be embarrassed as we are about the treatment of Jews, or slaves, or Native Americans, or the whole list of people it was at one time or another Okay to treat as sub-human?

Or is this the new normal?

NEVER STOP THINKING IT THROUGH

A little bit of marketing goes a long way. Putting the right spin on a topic may sway public opinion in any direction on any particular topic. Just for example, in many circles the Church is labeled as being more restrictive in rights of human beings such as in the case of abortion. Some ways in which this is done is by portraying the teachings of the Church in this matter as being the whim of white haired old men in Rome forcing their morality on women and the rights that they should have over their own bodies; rights that those cranky old men retain while taking them away from women. “Keep your rosaries off my ovaries” is a common slogan.

It is proposed that pro-abortionists are more compassionate because they care about women and extending such rights to them; rights which “the Church” wishes to curtail. The two sides can then be separated into “pro-women” and “anti-rights” camps. If nobody bothers to think beyond these first salvos of the argument it seems to be pretty clear who cares more about women, rights, and freedom.

But is this the case? The Church puts forth that far from being more limited in extending rights that individuals should have over their bodies than the pro-abortionists, the Church casts a far greater net, includes more people, grants more freedoms and protects more rights. Human dignity, the right to life, the right to integrity of one’s body is preserved not just for those who can speak for themselves, not just for those with power, money, or influence, not just for those who can be seen, not just for those who have developed enough skills, not just those protected by law, not just those who are seen as productive to society, but all human beings, men and women alike, old and young, capable and challenged. No, the Church, the teaching of Christ are not more restrictive than Pro-Choicers, it is far more generous. And of course it will not seem so to those who wish not to recognize human life as human life and who feel restricted in their choice to end a human life that is not desired by them for one reason or another, but it cannot be argued (at least I think) that their net of human life to which they extend protection and integrity of life is far smaller than the Church – interestingly enough this is so even with those who are aborted who are female.

SOMETIMES IT IS ABOUT ME

This guy asked me for money and I didn’t want to give it to him. I went to talk to my spiritual director. We had some discussion about giving versus not giving to every Tom, Dick, and Harriet that asks you for a few dollars. “Sometimes it isn’t always about money going to the right person,” he told me, “Sometimes it is that you need to be the type of person who can give it freely away.”

I think of that every now and then. It is not much different from our stand on life. We as Catholics defend life even to opposing the death penalty in, if not all, most situations. (John Paul allowed for the possibility that it might be employed in some unusual situation I believe.) Everybody knows of some seemingly unredeemable person that makes being anti-death penalty a very difficult position to hold. We have one in Cleveland at the moment. A man lured women to his home, had his way with them and then murdered them one after the other and buried them around his property.

How could one defend the life of such a person who snuffed the life out of so many other people? Does he appear redeemable? Will he ever be able to be set free again? Does he have any use to society? Is there any chance that he will have a major conversion and save his soul? It is quite possible that the answer to all of these questions is no. Even if he should live for a hundred more years. And the amount of money and time that he will use up – my money and yours – as he drones through the years is astronomical. Is it worth the off change that something – anything good might come from this?

Yes. Because it isn’t always about the “bad guy” earning redemption. Sometimes it is about us being the type of people who offer a chance for it.

MONDAY DIARY: DEER IN HEADLIGHTS

Occasionally priests are called upon to attend events to be a presence of the Church and to give benedictions or talks or whatnot. That was the case for me this past weekend. It was worthwhile event and I was seated with a number of very interesting people including a friend who was in the next chair. The program consisted of speeches and performances from various people. Then a person was called forward to speak that we were unaware was there at a second head table. When this person’s name was called my friend and I locked glances. We sat closest to the microphone and were in full view of everybody. The person is somewhat hostile to the Church in general and is, in particular, a radically devoted pro-abortion proponent with whom I have exchanged letters.

I am somewhat sure that nobody was as sensitive to the situation as my friend and I were. To us, every action meant something. To others it most likely was a pleasant evening of dinner and a program. Thoughts ran along these lines, “Would polite applause show tacit approval of this person’s position or would the refusal to clap during this completely unrelated and worthwhile event give fodder to those who are pro-abortion or who are on the borderline to say, ‘See? Do you want to be like those rude and radical people?’”

She, of course, had no idea that I was the person with whom she had exchanged letters but the sight of my collar would be a dead giveaway that we were at odds philosophically, morally, and religiously. That being said she was completely gracious it must be noted and there was no pushing of any controversial agendas.

It is interesting that we had grown up almost at the same time in the same neighborhood and had spent our youth hanging out in the same places doing the same things. Much of the memory portion of her talk could have been written by me. But now we could not be more different in our defense of life. Her focus is on a grown woman that she can see and talk to (and who can vote), my focus is also on that woman but also on the person in her womb that we cannot see, that we cannot touch, that we cannot talk to, that cannot vote, and has very little in the way of protection under our laws; a place that many persons in the history of man has held.

So we were polite; neither showing enthusiasm nor disdain. But through it I think that I am coming to a new insight into the pro-life movement. I think of all the times in history when being a churchman was unpopular such as in England during Henry the VIII or that a Church teaching caused a person to be in such direct conflict with the state such as in Communism, Nazism, or even during the Dioclesian persecution of our own St. Sebastian. Did it start with political correctness and politeness or was it flared by stubbornness and confrontation?

In any event the waters are troubled and it is difficult to navigate in these nebulous times. I would like to hear what you think you might have done given this situation.

IN UNRELATED NEWS:

I was asked the other day by a kind individual to stop referring to this parish as St. Sebastian and to refer to it as St. Sebastian’s; the argument being that St. Sebastian is a person who lived hundreds of years ago and that this is a place put in his care. So the parochial vicar and I went through some of the paperwork from the founding of the parish and looked at the Latin which side stepped the matter entirely by stating that this is the Parish of Saint Sebastian which we think could be translated either way.

Upon further reflection we came up with the idea that this parish while being placed into his intercession is not his, but named after him. If it is indeed possessive, would not also have to call a parish that is named, for example, Sacred Heart, Sacred Heart’s? or Assumption Assumption’s? or Divine Word Divine Word’s?

I am open to your input once again!