WRITE THE RIGHT STUFF

It is going to become more challenging to be Catholic I believe.  BUT I also think it is going to be a lot more fun - at least as long as you keep in mind that the Holy Spirit will do what needs to be done as long as we cooperate and don't think we will do it with our own clever selves.

There have been a couple of things lately.  One was the Gillette commercial and another was an article in the Akron Beacon Journal recently concerning the "Problem with Christian Schools" that on first blush seem to make some modicum of sense but something leaves the viewer/reader unsettled. If you feel that way, don't shake it off - delve into it.  Really find out what is nagging at the back of your mind.  Most often it is a subtle but vital bit of ill-logic.  It may not pop out at you at first.  But a bit of digging and prayer will help make it pop.  

Once that makes its presence known to you - write down as if trying to assist someone else to understand.  Then be prepared to use it (with friends over coffee, on your blog, in a letter to an editor . . . )

The article in the ABJ, for example, sighted what the Associated Press writer described as intolerance, Christian schools teaching things that are not tolerant of other people's ideas.  A person who began a hashtag movement thinks that because of this, Christians schools might need to be censored in some way (my words, not his.)  The oddity of this is that he wants to be intolerant of people he deems intolerant (not to mention he singles out Christian schools as the problem, not schools of other faiths - Jewish, Muslim & so forth, not private schools, not home schools, etc. . .) which gives the appearance that there is more going on here than just a discussion about tolerance.

So I wrote a terrible letter to the editor of the ABJ, let it sit for a while, went back and wrote a better one and sent it in and they were kind enough to print it.  Thank you ABJ.  Here is the letter:

Dear Editor,

Sunday’s article, “Hashtag stirs debate over Christian schools” brought up a very important point.  The author is concerned about those who would, “breed intolerance toward people with a different outlook.”  Oddly enough the solution seems to be to do away with those who have a different point of view than he.  There also seems to be a particular bias against Christian schools as there was no mention of other faith based schools or even the difficulties occurring in our public schools.  Does this not go against the very tolerance the author desires?

Perhaps it is that there are certain aspects of non-governmental schools over which he would like ever more government control.  This is a fine thing as long as you have a benevolent, efficient and intelligent government that happens to agree with you.  But what about when that ruling body turns against you and what you believe?  Then where do you turn?

Thank goodness we have a variety of educational institutions in these United States from public schools, to private schools, religious schools, to home schooling.  They keep us diverse and allow us to tackle problems creatively from multiple paradigms.  Though there are troubles with each of these ways of learning from time to time, doing away with one or the other of them or forcing them to bend to the will of a government is not the answer in a free nation.   We should celebrate tolerance and diversity.  We do not accept lack of choice for our political candidates, in our news sources or for a brand of aspirin.  We should not accept it in our educational choices either.

The Rev. John A. Valencheck

pastor

St. Sebastian Parish, Akron

GROUND RULES FOR DISCUSSION

From the most faithful, faithful Catholic, to the vaguely nominal Catholic to the anti-Catholic it seems most people want to weigh in on the abuse scandal in the Catholic Church.  If and when you are pulled in to one of these conversations, here some things to avoid:

Don’t equate (or allow others to) the faith with the sins of some (or all!) of its members.  There are two different things going on here.  The problem here is what happens when a person or group of persons DON’T follow the faith.  It is a failure of persons - not a failure of faith.  Whether you are a pope or student in 2nd grade at your local parish school, you still have free will, and concupiscence still effects you and from time to time we fail.  Sometimes spectacularly.  It is why we have the sacrament of confession for one.

Don’t defend the actions of those who did wrong.  It was a horrible thing and we should all be appalled.  “Well it’s worse in . . .” doesn’t help.  It was wrong and by our faith those who participated need to face the consequences of their actions.  One does not hate the United States because somebody abused their freedom. We still believe in the United States and in freedom, we know we just need to deal with the abuse.

Don’t deny that the Church has sinners in it.  There are 1.2 billion Catholics - more than half of all the Christians in the world.  We are Church of sinners.  Some are terribly rotten.  It is embarrassing that some of them call themselves Catholic.  But seriously - 1.2 billion people.  Yeah  - some of mess up big time.

Don’t let someone tell you that this is RESULT of the faith.  (“Just look at the Crusades!”)  I bet you can name more saints than another sinners, more great institutions than another wars.  And those things that they are able to name - how many were a result of persons running contradictory actions to the faith?

Don’t let someone tell you something that sounds fishy without backing it up.  An editorial recently (it may be blog fodder next week) stated that this is a sign that we need to get rid of priestly celibacy, as if that somehow caused it.  There was no citation, no reasoning why this move would solve all or even some of the crisis problems.  If it did, there would be none of these problems in marriages.

Don’t clump broad swaths of people into a group, “Those bishops!  Those priests!” as if they were all the same - it perpetuates what we would call in other circles prejudice or guilt by association.  It ruins the reputations of good people.

Don’t take on the sins as if they belong to the whole Catholic Church.  They belong to those who sinned.

Don’t make those who sin “the others.”  In exactly the opposite of the last point, when part of the Body of Christ is effected, the whole body is effected.  The Church needs to examine herself, make amends, do penance.  We are not islands unto ourselves.  We are one.  We take on each others victories and faults and work together as a body to both build up and purify the Church.

HAVING FUN WITH HERESY

I received an interesting letter from a man named Ron Sutter yesterday.  He is a former Catholic that is afraid that all Catholics are going to hell and he wrote to me hoping that I will have a change of heart and start leading Catholics according to his way of seeing the Gospel and Jesus’ mission.  It is a form a letter so I wonder how many of you may have received it.

I rarely have a problem with anybody who accurately presents Catholic teaching and then respectfully disagrees.  I will still think them incorrect, but I can respect that.  But when someone misrepresents the Church and then violently rips the false teaching apart in a slight of hand to prove how wicked (or in this case extremely cruel) the Church is, then I get my liturgical underwear in a bunch.  

The letter is three pages long and I have only a short time to write today.  But if you receive such a letter, it might be a good exercise to read it and then get the catechism out see if you can discern the flaws in the reasoning, find the straw men, and weigh the theology.  

In this letter, he states that he grew up Catholic but that he did hear the Gospel until age 19.  It was the first time that he heard that Jesus was the way to heaven.  I have a difficult time believing that he went to PSR, was baptized, received Communion, and was confirmed, went to Mass every weekend, and did not hear that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.

Another major theme in the letter is that Catholics believe that they earn their way into heaven.  “Ask any Catholic,” he asserts, “and they will tell you they are going to get into heaven because they do good works.”  We know, however, that we not only cannot, but we have no need to earn heaven.  If we could earn heaven, one of us would have pulled it off before 2,000 years ago and we wouldn’t have needed Jesus.  Jimmy Akins puts it succinctly: “To come to God and be saved, you need to repent, have faith, and be baptized. If you commit mortal sin, you need to repent, have faith, and go to confession.”  In all of this it is Jesus Who will save you.  Read more of his article HERE.

Here are two more sentences and then I will call it quits.  1) “The Catholic Church is clearly false because you preach another Gospel.  God is Holy.  He cannot tolerate even one sin and demands moral perfection: something we don’t have to offer.” 

Here is straw man case,  Does the Church teach that you must be morally perfect in this life in order to get into heaven?  Let us take the case of St. John Paul II.  When he was canonized there was a flurry of activity online and in the news about how he was not perfect.  (If he were perfect, he would’t have needed Jesus.)  We don’t claim that he was perfect, just a great model of true Christianity, and example of Christian living in our day and age.  No-one who knows and understands the teachings of the Church (which are the teachings of Christ) thinks for a moment that the saints had reached moral perfection in this life.  In fact, that is heresy.  “Anyone who says he is without sin calls God a liar.” 1 John 1 :8

Finally, “He justifies, he sanctifies, and He glorifies.  In the end, God gets one hundred percent of the glory for our salvation.  No one in Heaven is boasting in themselves about being there because everyone there knows i was all Him.”  

Well . . . yes.

But this is a clever ploy to make it sound as though this is something that the Church does not teach.  We actually agree but it is an attempt to make the Church look bad.  It is a clever but dishonest, underhanded letter with a fraudulent presentation of Catholic teaching.

And a fun way to build you knowledge of your own faith.

FRIDAY POTPOURRI: THE TRUTH, THE WHOLE TRUTH, AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH

Dei Verbum Chapter III paragraph 11

 

Have you ever been in a situation to give someone advice and in the middle of it came up with some brilliant insight after which you thought, “Where the get out did THAT come from?”  Maybe it was what God wanted that person to hear and you were the instrument.

 

In a somewhat similar way (only much more dramatically so) we affirm that, although humans put hand to pen and paper and went through the action of doing the actual writing, it was the inspiration of the Holy Spirit that caused to be written what was written as Scripture.  Not so much that they were simply enlightened but that the Holy Spirit flowed through them and on to the paper so to speak far beyond simply being a muse.  Therefore we emphatically state that the author of the Scriptures was ultimately God Who caused to be written what is needed, no more and no less.

 

As such we recognize the entire canon of Scripture which was brought together (ironically for Protestants) by the Catholic Church using Sacred Tradition.  There was no single canon of the Old Testament at the time of Jesus.  The Christian Old Testament canon came to form in the fourth century and the New Testament canon after that.  It remains unchanged in the Catholic Church to this day though 500 years ago certain books were removed from the Old Testament by Martin Luther for Protestant Catholics.  It should also be noted that he wished to remove some of the New Testament books also (such as James) but was persuaded against such action.

 

Interestingly there are some things in your Bible that are NOT considered inspired.  Some of the more obvious ones are the verse numbers and such.  There are other things, however, that are less obvious.  For example, the titles of the books are not necessarily inspired.  Who the authors are of the Gospels or the Acts of the Apostles is not inspired and in some circles debated.  In another twist of irony, it is Catholic Tradition that states the actual authors of the Gospels to be Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

 

To be steeped in history is to cease being Protestant.

YOU MEANT WHAT I KNEW

Someone was telling the story the other day on how they are being asked to talk to a group of artists on behalf of the sponsoring organization.  “They refuse to listen to us,” the organizers said.

 

“Are you speaking Musician?” asked the person telling the story.

 

It is true, we may all use the same language but we don’t necessarily speak the same language.  For example, I was using a quote from an article in a homily recently.  One of the sentences in the article, in talking about the Mass, said something along the lines of, “Sometimes Mass is said in Latin, sometimes in the vulgar tongue.”  Now I know what they meant by that.  You know what they meant by that.  But there was a good chance some people would hear the world vulgar and interpret it negatively and so I changed the word to “vernacular.”  The point is to get someone to understand what I am trying to say instead of hearing something else.

 

Early in my time here at this parish there was some misunderstandings between the diocese and what was happening at the parish.  It was largely due to using two different English sets of words to describe the same thing; one was ecclesial, one was business – both meant the same thing and after that was cleared up, progress could be made.

 

SO . . . when presenting the faith to someone, bear in mind the person to whom you are speaking, where they are, from where they are coming, and try to discern their language.  Presbyter, priest, minister, pastor, parochial vicar, associate pastor, elder, persona Christi, clergy, reverend, father, preacher, righteous dude may all refer more or less to the same person in someone’s understanding.  (Silly example, I know.)  But speaking to someone in their own language may help understanding go more quickly and so give the Holy Spirit a running start in converting hearts.

FRIDAY POTPOURRI: ITS COLD OUTSIDE. COME CLOSER TO THE FIRE

Lumen Gentium paragraphs 61 & 62

 

I have a friend who became a Universalist Unitarian Minister.  For a long spell we would write letters back and forth asking each other questions of faith and compare answers.  He had the idea that some day we would compile all of the letters and put them in book form but the project kind of fizzled out. 

 

Around this time the title Mediatrix for Mary was being bandied about more than usual (though it is a title afforded her in Vatican II) and it was causing consternation in certain circles that were concerned that too much power was being given to this human.  One of the questions received from my friend expressed a certain amount of uneasiness with the Catholic Church seemingly to be granting Mary a godly status, as if becoming a part of the Trinity, which of course would now be a Quadernity.  Anyone the least steeped in true Catholic theology would know this is impossible to do and remain a Catholic, but there were concerns none-the-less.  I find this understandable.

 

But God always works in concert with His people.  For example He does not baptize us in secret without our knowledge, consent, and cooperation.  In fact, it requires the community to do this.  (You can’t baptize yourself.)  So God (Who is so powerful He can work outside of His sacramental system) awaits our cooperation and man (Who is so weak he can do nothing without God’s power) must say yes to God.  This is why we have a priesthood.  Yet (almost) nobody thinks that having priests acting in God name, celebrating the sacraments, and speaking in His Name is taking away from God’s power or majesty.  The case is the same for Mary.

 

Mary, for her part, said yes to God’s requests.  She gave her body to house the God child.  She presented Him in the temple to the Father.  She raised him and stood by Him in His ministry, Passion, and death.  In a “wholly singular way she cooperated by her obedience, faith, hope, and burning charity in the work of the Savior restoring supernatural life to souls.”  In this way she is called our Mother, not to compete with God, but to show His power breaking into the world just as we are all called to do.  Christ remains our one true Mediator, but Mary, in her singular role (as similarly any minister who baptizes brings life to a soul) plays a significant role.  Her role has universal significance and continues to this day and so we call her “Advocate, Helper, Benefactress, and Mediatrix.”  Her role is clearly subordinate to that of her Son, but by becoming closer to her who is so close to God, we come closer to her Son just as coming closer to the heat brings you closer to the fire.

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.

WHY I HATE RELIGION BUT LOVE JESUS

Okay Adam's Alers - time to put your thinking caps on. This first video is eating up the Internet. As of this writing it has had over sixteen million views! Quite incredible.  This young gentleman is making the argument that Jesus came to destroy religion.  Listen to it with a critical mind.  Many of us will be confronted with one of points or another that he makes here.  How would you respond?


Before you read (or view) on, think about what he said.  Bearing in mind what you know about the faith how would you respond?  Where might you find flaws in his commentary?  Do you know enough about your faith to make comment?

Below is one response from Fr. Robert Barron from Word on Fire.  Of course it is not as slick or entertaining and unfortunately he seems rather annoyed (maybe exasperated) with the young man.  But here is a beginning of a good response.



Responses are coming in spades from all over the place and you can see them on Youtube.  Here is another young man making a different tact from the one above.



I like his style, his respect, and his sincerity.  But how would you go even further?  Was there anything in that first video that struck you as not quite right?  It is a great exersize to watch it and respond if to nobody else to yourself so that when you are thusly confronted you will have had the advantage of thinking it over already.

I will try tomorrow (time willing) to give just some responses that I have to the video.

OF FISH AND PONDS

 

Yesterday I was driving through some old stomping grounds that I had not seen in a few years and there was a new mega-church building. It was modern, clean, and mostly just BIG! I knew that the area was still growing with new homes being built even in the current economy but wondered from where all of the people to populate such a church came.

It is a complaint heard a bit as of late that all of the quaint little Catholic Churches are closing; the small structured buildings with just a couple hundred families. We are moving toward the mega-mentality – huge congregations with families more or less hovering around 1,000 to 4,000 or more. But still – even that does not seem all that impressive compared to these mega churches.

That is – until you consider that we are comparing apples and oranges.

Consider that new mega-church. Often it is one of a kind – a rare flower in the field. And even when this is not entirely the case it is a one of a kind experience in its denomination. Therefore it attracts people from all over. It may be the case that even the vast majority of the people that it serves do not live in the neighborhood of the church. It may be that it will grow to have an “east campus” or a “west campus” or some such thing to serve its people better, but in the end, even for its great size, compared to the world it is really quite a small thing.

Your local Catholic parish is dedicated to a geographical area. The whole world is divided up into dioceses and a diocese into parishes. Granted some of them by necessity are larger than others, but if you live in an area as we do here in Ohio, to go for a short walk can take you into another parish. The parish is dedicated to the people who live around it (whether they be Catholic or practicing or not.) Whereas the impressive mega-church may attract people from as many as a dozen or so parishes, each parish (for the most part) attracts only those interested in the Catholic faith from its immediate area. Therefore there will never be a St. Sebastian North Campus in Highland Square – that would be St. Vincent’s territory. And when a parish starts gaining a mega-church size, we often subdivide the parish into two and establish a new parish. Therefore we more rarely take on gigantic proportions remaining little fish in a huge pond rather than a huge fish in a tiny pond.

DON'T FORGET EVERY BODY EVERYBODY

So last week I was walking Sebastian (me looking like a priest) and we came across another dog and master and for some reason the conversation turned to abortion. You can probably guess my opinion and my friend’s stance (he is non-Catholic) was that he was opposed to it, but did not feel it his place to tell a woman what to do with her body.

My response was that I do not want to tell a woman what to do with her body either. That is none of my business. I do want to say what she can do with another person’s body. Of course that is where the debate fell apart for my friend did not see the other body in the womb as a person until it is fully born and viable: a topic for another day.

That being said I think I want to recant part of my argument. Yes, I do want to be able to tell people what to do with their bodies – men and women. And I bet you do too. We do it all the time. It is built in to certain aspects of our laws. For example the most obvious is restricting drinking to minors. You may not put that in your body or not only you, but the person who sold it to you or gave it to you and possibly your parents will be held responsible under the law. You may not commit suicide. We know it is your body and your pain but it is actually illegal to do it though it you are successful there is little worldly anyone is able to do.

Women who are pregnant should not drink alcohol or smoke heroine and I have no problem enforcing that. Ten minutes after they have their baby if they freely choose to go back to it I will be sad, but at that point “I don’t want to tell a woman what to do with her body.” But anybody with two brain cells firing will say that it is not only immoral but should be illegal to engage in an activity that will seriously harm a human being for life. And what is more harmful than ending that life all together?

This is just another example of a phrase that gets thrown out to cower people in an argument which is not given much analyzation. (Is that a word?) “Of course you don’t want to interfere with another’s freedom do you?” Well perhaps in certain incidences you do when it involves another human life.

Of course the next question will be (and the objections are a lining up for a mile) can we force someone to recognize a baby in the womb as a person? Again I say yes. Our human history is replete with examples of the law forcing others to recognize other humans as persons equal under the law. It is sad that (some) women who had to fight to be recognized as equal under the law in our own country may wish to make it law that they may treat their children as objects to be done away with at will.

GUEST BLOGGER: CHESTERETTA

The staff of Adam's Ale has just returned from their concert tour in Italy but thanks to CK, a regular contributor to this blog we (I) can have one more day to get over jet lag because CK had graciously provided today's blog for just such an event.  If you enjoy her writing I highly recommend that you check out the links to more of her writing.  Or of you REALY dissagree with what she says, I highly recommend that you check out the links to more of her writing.

A few months ago I asked a friend to read something I wrote defending the teachings of the Catholic Church. An argument ensued that was more about my snotty attitude than the subject at hand, and my friend blew his stack and accused me of being closed-minded and orthodox. He explained (with no sense of irony) that he was open-minded and that is why I was to never again present him with ideas he didn’t like.

I was being a bit of a jerk that day, and I don’t mind if he’s mad at me, but I do mind if my bad example has soured him on the faith. I have no intention of broaching church-y subjects with him unless he invites me, but if I had a chance to defend orthodoxy I would use a story he once told me as a sort of parable:

My friend was vacationing on a Caribbean island. One afternoon, while walking on the beach, he saw an older man in the water far from shore calling for help, clearly on the verge of drowning. My friend is a poor swimmer, so he punched the nearest young man on the beach in the arm and snarled, “Do something!” Fortunately, someone came by on a jet ski and saved the poor old man’s life.

I would ask my friend if he remembered the man he punched on the beach. Perhaps that young man looked out at the old man who was drowning and said to himself, “Eh, is life worth living?” Or perhaps he asked himself, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Perhaps he thought the world is overpopulated and that it is good that a “useless eater” die. Or maybe he was a Darwinian who believed that natural selection was just weeding out a weak man and preventing him from passing on his inferior “bad swimmer” genes that are so detrimental to survival.

With one punch in the arm, my friend wordlessly declared, “Life is worth living! You are your brother’s keeper! Even if the world is overpopulated, murder by neglect is not the answer!  Forget Darwin! The lives of old men and bad swimmers are just as sacred as anyone else’s!” My friend is not as ambivalent on these subjects as he supposes. Not only did he demand that this young man accept his orthodoxy, he demanded it on the threat of violence!

My friend and I are both machine designers. He would never dream of building a machine out of butter and telling a customer that it would impose no load on the ground because we designed it to hover. This would be quite an unorthodox, open-minded engineering design, but it would also defy the laws of strength of materials, thermodynamics, and gravity. We know from basic human experience that such a design is doomed to failure.

Just as engineering demands “orthodoxy” to succeed, I have discovered by studying history, science, medicine, and many other subjects, that there is such a thing as truth – that reality demands orthodoxy. There really is a difference between right and wrong and it changes neither between individuals nor with the times, and when we stand by debating open-mindedly as to what that truth is, in the meantime people die (as in the drowning man example).

I have discovered that the Catholic Church just happens to have always been right when it has closed-mindedly warned us against ideas that oppose truth and goodness, as with its opposition to communism (and its ensuing millions of deaths), euthanasia (employed by the Nazis and now getting out of control in the Netherlands), and contraception (and its necessary backup plan, abortion). The Church throughout history has warned us in advance when an “unorthodox” idea is going to lead us down the path of misery and death. This has been the case too consistently for me to call it coincidence. I suppose someone could argue that the Church has just been lucky in her predictions – that sometimes even a blind squirrel finds a nut – but if that is the case, the Church is a magic squirrel.

I think my friend’s real beef is that he thinks orthodoxy is restrictive – that it limits the expanse of logic, inquiry, and creativity and that it leads to a life devoid of pleasure. I, to the contrary, have discovered from experience what Chesterton said so well: "People have fallen into a foolish habit of speaking of orthodoxy as something heavy, humdrum, and safe. There never was anything so perilous or so exciting as orthodoxy."

OF COURSE YOU KNOW THIS MEANS WAR from BUGS BUNNY

Politics have been the cause of so many wars in history. It is obvious that politics are bad for human beings. Therefore it is my recommendation that we should get rid of all politics.

While we are at it we should get rid of all land ownership, ethnic differences, wealth, power, natural resources, national pride, and national memories. All of these have caused numerous wars over the centuries. We cannot live with it any longer! It is time we rid ourselves of all these things!

I hope you get my point. I made the mistake of listening to the radio concerning the Pope’s visit to England (to which he was invited by the way.) The ranting about how evil he and the Catholic Church are was at fever pitch. I will give kudos to the program for bringing some non-disgruntled Catholics on to give other views of the visit – quite an unusual event in and of itself. But to the rest of it I just kept telling myself, “Just listen so that you can speak intelligently about this,” but it was just one unsubstantiated, illogical diatribe after another. I have absolutely no problem with someone who wants to engage in a conversation about any topic calmly and intelligently, but this reached to point of ridiculousness.

I can’t even go into everything that was said but one guest on the show – not a call in – went on at length about how religion should be wiped off the face of the earth because it has been the cause of death and war for centuries. He was so worked up that the host had to turn off his microphone and move on. Has God and religion been cited as reasons to go to war and/or to rally troops? Yes. Absolutely. Even by popes and leaders of other religions. But does that mean that religion leads to war? Hardly.

There are two things to consider here. One is similar to reasons people give for leaving the Church. There is usually the presenting problem. For example; “I think the Church is unfair and uncaring about (blank),” and there is usually the real problem, “I was divorced, remarried without a decree of nullity, my new spouse wants nothing to do with it, we already have a kid, the Church won’t make it all go magically away and my parents are on my back.” Much easier to point at the evil Church than to take responsibility for one’s actions.

In war it may be that someone is saying, “This is a holy war! Fight on for God and for the Right!” That is the presenting reason whereas the real reason is, “They have oil!” or “We want that land” or “I want to be richer and more powerful!” I mean, let’s be serious. Let’s take the case of a radical Christian (not a person who simply does as he wills yet claims to be a Christian and acting for Christ.) If you are a radical follower of Christ you embrace poverty, you glory in your weaknesses, you fail to see but Christ in another, you are moved to forgiveness and reconciliation and love of your enemy, and turning the other cheek. So does it sound remotely like someone who goes to war can truly declare they do so on behalf of Christianity alone? Only a simpleton would think so.

Of course we could make reference to even wars sanctioned or declared by the Church. It is always dangerous and completely unfair to judge anybody of past generations by the morays of the present. If you want to judge a war one cannot sit comfortably in their armchair with their cup of mocha and expound upon the horribleness of past epochs going to war over things they do not approve of without experiencing at least through the lens of historian the fear of, let’s say, a barbarian invasion in a time of little to no communication that, at least to their minds, seems to threaten the very existence of civilization itself.

Or say that Rome is sacked (yet again) and the Vatican is taken over and used for some other reason. Radically I don’t think Jesus would care one jot. But many people not on the level of Jesus would. We might think it Okay to go in and relieve Rome from her distress (which is actually at least partly our distress) but generations from now (especially if we should fail in our mission) might say, “See how they invaded our nation! Killed our people! Tried to suppress us!” and no doubt there would multitudes listening to their car radios nodding their heads and saying, “Yes! See! We should get rid of religion!”

Let us suppose for a moment that we could wave wand and get rid of all religious beliefs. Say I could wave it over the Middle East and like that – ZAP – all religious fervor is gone. Does anybody really think that all of the war would stop? Do they really think that it is really just about religion? And without those who really practice what their religion says do they really think we would do better without those who would say, “But if you are serious about religion we are really going too far!”

Well, anyway, that is what was rushing through my mind as I listened to the radio and since the only one who could hear me was Sebastian I thought that I would let at least part of it out here.

Believe me . . . Sebastian heard a lot more.

WEATHERVANES

It is a curious thing how people have such strong emotional attachments concerning what they believe about global warming. There are very angry debates about it. Yet I have not met one person who has ever done any personal research. The most research I have ever done was sticking my head out the window and seeing what the weather is like. In a very hot August I completely buy global warming. In this cold winter with more snow than average not so much.

But you have to believe somebody if we do not do the research ourselves right? So who has researched the scientist they choose to stand by? Do we let the newspapers or a blog or a man in a suit research them for us and tell us who to believe more? How does one decide?

I remember my dad stopping smoking when I was very young. “There is no conclusive proof that there is a direct link between smoking and cancer” was the slogan at the time. But people knew. We did our own experiments then by way of seeing relatives and friends die terrible deaths. Some chose to live the fantasy because they wanted to keep smoking. Now everybody knows that smoking is bad for everyone. Except that it is not. Well, it is for most people. There are those, a very, very small percentage, who can smoke like chimneys and never know cancer. But who wants to risk it? But some people want to believe.

This is not an article on whether global warming is true or not or if I should be able to enjoy my once a week pipe, just interesting how we come to throw our hats into certain, “I believe THIS” rings.

Last week I met with a young lady who was thinking about leaving the Church. (BTW – Good for her for doing some research and taking the bold step of going to see a priest.) When asked why she said that she had problems with certain teachings. “Which ones?” I of course asked. At the top of the list was confession. “What about it?”

“I don’t believe that you should go to a man (priest) and tell him your sins so that God can forgive you.”

For once I kept my big mouth shut. I was too curious to see why she believed as she did. So rather than beginning with a defense of Church teaching I simply asked, “Why?” It was more of an emotional response than anything; a vague notion of it not “seeming right. So we explored some passages in Scripture upon which the Catholic teaching is based. I asked her to interpret them in a way that would support her belief which was unfair somewhat since she was not presented with enough time in advance to work things out.

But such is the case with so many people who disagree with the Church. A lone preacher, a friend with a Bible, an anti-Catholic blog, a television show, or even a feeling will trump 2000+ years of consistent Catholic teaching from Christ to the Apostles, to your local Catholic pulpit with little in depth analysis. This is why it is so important for you to be well versed in your faith. If someone comes to you and says, “I don’t believe that you should go to a priest to confess your sins,” so you have a response? Do you have at least a vague understanding about where it comes from in Scripture? Will you be able to say how that is a break with the first 1,500 years of Christianity or even a break with the pattern going back to Genesis? Do you know that Luther himself practiced confession? Can you say that both Freud and Jung have said that Catholics do not need their services because they have the sacrament of confession? If we do not know our stuff, people will throw their hat into anyone’s ring that sounds plausible and that is better suited to the way in which they wish to live their lives rather than search for truth.

There are a couple of opportunities for us here in the Cleveland Diocese to equip ourselves with knowledge. On March 22nd at 7PM in Zwisler Hall here at St. Sebastian the Emmaus Round Table will be presenting a “Reasons for Belief” study. If it is successful we will have more so please come.

The Diocese of Cleveland Right to Life will be hosting a fantastic conference to help us in matters of the dignity of all life. The lineup of speakers is tremendous. Consider coming – even if from out of state!

“BRINGING AMERICA BACK TO LIFE”
March 8th & 9th 2010. Renaissance Hotel, Cleveland.
Tickets: 216 661 3000 x24
See The Full Program : http://www.clevelandrighttolife.org/
25% Ticket Discounts for Church & School groups
Bring Your Friends & Parish Groups! Our Speakers include…

Archbishop Chaput: Inspiring words on Faith, Life Issues & Speaking Catholic Truth in the Public Square.( Introduced by Bishop Richard Lennon.)



Raymond Arroyo: EWTN News Director & Author. How the media promotes the Catholic Faith, from the author of Mother Angelica’s biography.



Immaculee Ilibagiza: A Catholic Woman’s life and faith survive genocide in Africa. How she came to forgive those who killed her family in Rwanda.



Dinesh D’Souza: Former White House Policy Adviser and author of ‘What’s so Great about Christianity’ is heralded as ‘ the CS Lewis of the 21st Century.’ He talks on Faith ,Public Policy and American Values.



Paul Wright, MD: An Ohio cardiologist worked with Mother Teresa for many years. He tells how her ‘prescription’ of faith, love and service can add extra strength and meaning to our daily lives, and reinforce our Catholic Faith.



Call 216 661 3000 x.24. Be involved in‘Bringing America Back to Life’

ABSURDITY IS IN THE EYES OF THE BEHOLDER

Here is part two of “Atlas Said,” a commentary on common objections to the faith:

ATLAS SAID:

“Secondly, It matters not if I'm wrong, 'cause the "All-Loving" God will toss me to eternal wrath pain and suffering (which to me is a bit excessive, but hey, u gotta kill non-believers somehow I guess). The thing is what if YOU'RE wrong and you devoted your life to faith in that which is not their. I don't mean to be a (censored), but I mean, WHY do u irrationally believe their is a God and WHY do people not see that Evolution is a Fact?”

It is often the case that a person has some erroneous idea that if God is all loving then there will be absolutely no consequences for one’s actions. “God’s wrath and God’s mercy are two sides of the same coin,” one spiritual guide once said. At heart here are two questions: What is love and what does God want from us.

There are many definitions of love but in this case only one that matters and that is how God defines love. We have many commandments to love: Love the Lord your God, Love you neighbor, love your enemies. I do not have warm and fuzzy feeling about my enemies. But is that what God is calling us to? “I demand that you have warm fuzzy feelings about everybody!” If this is the case, then we have a mighty cruel God Who demands that we have feelings since we cannot summon them up at will. So God must be talking about something else.

While not denying that emotions play a role in our love life at its core God is talking about decisions; primarily the decision for the betterment of the other person – and that is first and foremost their salvation. That means if my enemy is standing in the middle of the road and a bus is bearing down on them and I grab them and pull them out of the street I have acted in love toward them. If my best friend is doing something that places his salvation in danger it might mean I must risk losing our friendship to help him or even allowing him to deal with the consequences of his behavior in order for him to find truth.

So why is not everything perfect on earth? Why does God allow us to suffer war and hunger and anger? Does He cause it? No. We do. We could end war and starvation easily enough. But we choose not to. And He allows us to live with consequences (or we would never do anything that does not suit us directly would we?) Hell is much the same thing. Hell is our doing, not God’s. And on His part it is actually an act of mercy. “Nothing unclean shall enter before God” Scripture tells us. God condemns nobody to Hell. By our lives we tell God where we want to be. Could you imagine choosing “not God” with your life and then be forced to sit before His thrown for all of eternity? Rather in His mercy He allows souls their own limited realm so that they can have that which they have chosen. “Better to reign in Hell than serve in heaven,” says the devil. Indeed. And so God allows it.

The next part is an interesting (and in my estimation more dangerous) twist on Paschal’s wager which offers the proposition that if one chooses to believe in God and there is a God one in a sense “wins.” If one chooses to believe in God and there is no God, one would never know – but they would have had a life full of hope and purpose. Atlas, I think, is worried about being duped. What if we are wrong? Paschal answered that for us. But what if one chooses not to believe and they are wrong? There is a place for that.

If He does exists (and I believe wholeheartedly that He does) what does God ultimately want from us? There is a reason He is named Father. He is looking for a relationship. That is why God’s connection to His Church in Scripture is most often referred to as a marriage. This marriage is calling all in the Church toward community and unity – toward charity – toward peace. This is completely irrational! Yes it is! It makes much more sense to go after pleasure when and where I want it – to look after me and mine! It is irrational but it is what we choose as given to us by our Creator.

Now I am going to say something that will disturb some people out there. Darwinism is not fact. Not even science says so. It is a theory and, unfortunately one that is suffering at the moment – at least the way Darwin put it forth – no matter what your eighth grade science book says. This is not my or the Church’s view – this is modern science’s view. So they are on the search for another way to explain life.

In his book, “The Case for a Creator” by Lee Strobel which I recommend just because it is interesting (it will give you a different perspective even if you do not completely buy it) it makes the following point: “If Darwinism is true,” he reports the prominent evolutionary biologist and historian William Provine of Cornell University as saying, “there are five inescapable conclusions:
1 there’s no evidence for God.
2 there’s no life after death.
3 there’s no absolute foundation for right and wrong.
4 there’s no ultimate meaning of life.
5 people don’t really have free will.

Given the choice then of being wrong about a having a Creator or not – I err on the side of having one for life is just too bleak and senseless without him.

Lastly, for Darwinism to be true, he further reports, we must also believe the following:

1 Nothing produces everything.
2 Non-life produces life.
3 Randomness produces fine tuning.
4 Chaos produces organized information.
5 Unconsciousness produces consciousness.
6 Non-reason produces reason.

In the end then I guess I believe because as irrational as faith is, I find accepting this as far more irrational.

PAGAN SKELETONS - CHRISTIAN CLOSETS

Today we get to the series promised two weeks ago! A cyberfriend of Adam’s Ale by the name Atlas has been proposing some very interesting and thought provoking statements as of late in the comments section. They are classic statements of persons who do not have a particular belief in the Church and have many reasons for it.

Atlas, I appreciate your comments and hope you will continue. This is not an effort to convert you primarily. But your comments reflect what a Christian often faces in the world and you have provided me with a wonderful opportunity to reflect on them.

There are other sites that deal more specifically with apologetics and do a fantastic job so this not going to become a solely apologetic blog. For now a will limit myself to Atlas’ comments and a note of thanks to him because it has been fun thinking about it! So, here’s part one:

Atlas said...
To start off, Linda, Easter evolved from a Pagan ritual that celebrated the return of the Sun at the winter solstice. On December 22nd, the days stop getting shorter, it remains in the same spot in the sky for three days (the Sun is Dead), then on December 25th, the Winter Solstice, the Sun Rises and brings with it the coming of Spring and New Life. Christianity overtly stole this ritual from the Sol Invictus and Mithraism. In fact, Constantine the Great was an official member of Sol Invictus and is believed to have spliced the Early Christian cult, Mithraism and the Sol Invictus Cult.

This is not an uncommon claim presented to Christians and if one were truly not well versed in matters of faith and history it might give one pause for concern. Subtle though it is the implication is on one hand that the Christian celebrations lose credence because they are just modified pagan rituals or worse, on the other hand, the Christian story is false, being just a Christianized continuation of the pagan story.

But in a concisely worded response the Catholic Answers website responds:

“The fact that when it was first celebrated the feast of the Resurrection coincided with pagan celebrations doesn’t mean it was derived from them. The Jewish Passover (on which Christ was crucified) also coincided with such celebrations, yet this didn’t mean it was pagan.”

There are some other false implied assertions in such statements also. One would be that everything pagan is bad or evil and that any similarities are thus likewise tainted. C. K. Chesterton wrote on this:

“Let me set about making the matter clear. There is one broad fact about the relations of Christianity and Paganism which is so simple that many will smile at it, but which is so important that all moderns forget it. The primary fact about Christianity and Paganism is that one came after the other. Mr. Lowes Dickinson speaks of them as if they were parallel ideals --even speaks as if Paganism were the newer of the two, and the more fitted for a new age. He suggests that the Pagan ideal will be the ultimate good of man; but if that is so, we must at least ask with more curiosity than he allows for, why it was that man actually found his ultimate good on earth under the stars, and threw it away again. It is this extraordinary enigma to which I propose to attempt an answer.

“There is only one thing in the modern world that has been face to face with Paganism; there is only one thing in the modern world which in that sense knows anything about Paganism: and that is Christianity. That fact is really the weak point in the whole of that hedonistic neo-Paganism of which I have spoken. All that genuinely remains of the ancient hymns or the ancient dances of Europe, all that has honestly come to us from the festivals of Phoebus or Pan, is to be found in the festivals of the Christian Church. If any one wants to hold the end of a chain which really goes back to the heathen mysteries, he had better take hold of a festoon of flowers at Easter or a string of sausages at Christmas. Everything else in the modern world is of Christian origin, even everything that seems most anti-Christian. The French Revolution is of Christian origin. The newspaper is of Christian origin. The anarchists are of Christian origin. Physical science is of Christian origin. The attack on Christianity is of Christian origin. There is one thing, and one thing only, in existence at the present day which can in any sense accurately be said to be of pagan origin, and that is Christianity.”

If you wish to read more of his grand thoughts on this go here.

Another problem is that for the assertion to be entirely true the entire Christian story must be false or the allegation makes no sense. To make that case one would have to first throw out all evidence of the contrary. This too is done a regular basis. Often only extra ecclesial evidence is accepted as untainted and even that which is secularly archived video tape (there were not many videos being made in Jesus’ day) is explained away.

In short, this statement designed to disturb the weak Christian only “works” by smoke and mirrors – winks and nods – innuendo and insinuation. But it is as insubstantial as a Fourth of July firework which may dazzle one for a moment and then becomes nothing more than some burnt pieces of cardboard on the ground.