29 September 2017

Governor Rauner goes back on his word to provide tax dollars for abortion

Against the wishes of some 60% of their constituents, the Illinois House representatives passed HB 40 to provide public funding for abortions on 25 April 2017 and the Illinois Senate approved the legislation on 11 May 2017.

At the time, Governor Bruce Rauner promised to veto the legislation, though yesterday he showed himself to have lied when he signed HB 40 bill into law. Frankly, I'm not surprised.

Following the Governor's going back on his word to Illinoisans, the Catholic Conference of Illinois issued the following statement:
We are deeply disturbed that Governor Rauner has broken his word and firm public promise to veto HB 40. In effect, he is the first governor to enact a law for state funding of abortion. 
Governor Rauner, together with the legislators who voted for this misguided legislation, will now force Illinois taxpayers to pay for the taking of human life, in this case that of a defenseless child in the womb. 
We remain dedicated to advocating for the dignity and sanctity of human life from conception to natural death and will work to convince the public and our elected officials about the grave moral error this legislation represents.


I will soon write to the Governor to express my great disappointment at having been lied to, and hope you will do the same.

24 September 2017

Homily - 24 September 2017 - On Blessed Stanley Francis Rother



The Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time (A)
On Blessed Stanley Francis Rother

Dear brothers and sisters,

Yesterday in Oklahoma City, His Eminence Angelo Cardinal Amato, S.D.B., Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, in the name of His Holiness Pope Francis, raised the Venerable Servant of God Stanley Francis Rother, priest and martyr, to the dignity of the altars and named him Blessed. The ceremony of beatification is important for us, not only because we have another intercessor among that great “cloud of witnesses” in heaven who show us how to follow the Lord Jesus Christ, but also because Blessed Stanley is the first martyr born in these United States of America and the first American priest to be beatified (Hebrews 12:1).

A “man of noble heart” who “did not spare himself,” Blessed Stanley was born in Okarche, Oklahoma on March 27, 1935 to Franz and Gertrude Rother.[1] He had what might be called a typical American childhood. Growing up on a farm, he did his chores, went to school, played sports, and served Mass at his home parish of Holy Trinity. While in high school, he discerned a call to the priesthood.

Because of difficulties with Latin, his first attempt in the seminary was unsuccessful, but he would not let this deter him. He turned “to the Lord for mercy; to our God, who is generous in forgiving” (Isaiah 55:7). After a second go at the seminary, he was ordained a priest on May 25, 1963.

He ministered in Durant, Tulsa, and Oklahoma City for five years before he joined the missions in the remote village of Santiago Atitlan in Guatemala where he very quickly connected with the descendants of the Mayans. He had to master Spanish and the native tongue, which he did by God’s grace, and translated the New Testament into Tz’utujil, which at that time was not yet a written language.

Blessed Stanley Francis Rother, priest and martyr
He put the skills he learned growing up on the farm to work in Santiago Atitlan and won the affection of the people, but not of the government. Because of her insistence on catechizing and teaching the people, the Catholic Church was caught up in a civil war during which Catholics slept in churches for safety and catechists disappeared.

In the midst of this strife, he knew that “helping these people could very easily be considered as subversive by the local government.” His expectation proved true and, after thirteen years of minister in the poor village, a parishioner complained to the government about Father Stanley’s preaching, his name was placed on a death list. His Bishop soon ordered him to return to Oklahoma, but Father Stanley protested, saying, “The shepherd cannot run at the first sign of danger,” but his Bishop would not relent.

He obediently left Guatemala for Oklahoma in January of 1981. His heart, however, longed to be with his flock in Santiago Atitlan and he received permission to celebrate Easter with them. He returned in April of 1981 and during the early hours of July 28, 1981, three men entered his rectory and killed him. To this day, no one has been charged with his martyrdom. His body was returned to Oklahoma, but his heart was kept in Santiago Atitlan.

Pope Francis called Blessed Stanley a man “who was driven by a deeply-rooted faith and a profound union with God” and set his liturgical memorial on July 28, “the day of his heavenly birth.”[2]

In Blessed Stanley Rother we see a man who could say with Saint Paul, “Christ will be magnified in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me life is Christ, and death is gain” (Philippians 1:20-21). When he returned to Santiago Atitlan, he knew well the danger, yet he still returned. He lived a life of faith, of courage, and of love. His example shows us that a love for God and neighbor can be instilled first in the ordinary things of life; he shows us the importance of perseverance coupled with prayer; and, above all, he shows us the beauty and power of a generous and selfless love of others, no matter the cost. We are not all called to be martyrs, but that does not mean we cannot learn from the example of Blessed Stanley.

If a shepherd cannot run at the first sign of danger, it means that holiness is found by doing our duty, by attending to the daily affairs of life, by being faithful in what is ours to do. If we do not run from our duties at the first sign of danger, or difficulty, or even boredom, we, too, will have noble hearts and will not spare ourselves in the service of others. May he intercede for us and teach us to fulfill the commands of the love of God and of neighbor. Amen.


[1] Angelo Cardinal Amato, Homily, 23 September 2017. In Bill Sherman, “Former Tulsa Priest Father Stanley Rother Advances toward Sainthood,” Tulsa World, 23 September 2017.
[2] Pope Francis, in Angelo Cardinal Amato, Homily, 23 September 2017. In Bill Sherman, “Former Tulsa Priest FatherStanley Rother Advances toward Sainthood,” Tulsa World, 23 September 2017.

23 September 2017

Vocation retreat for young women

The Sisters of St. Francis of the Martyr St. George will soon host a Veni Si Amas (Come If You Love) retreat for your Catholic woman discerning a vocation to the religious life:


Please help spread the word!

10 September 2017

Activities for Hobbit Day 2017

September 22nd, being the birthday of both Bilbo and of Frodo Baggins, is rightly celebrated as Hobbit Day, a day for feasting, singing, and dancing with friends.

For those in the Midwest, the Marion E. Wade Center at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois will host a lecture and recital of the J.R.R. Tolkien/David Swann song cycle, The Road Goes Ever On that evening at 7:30 p.m. Prior to an evening of music (even if you are not in the Midwest), you can take part in the virtual Hobbit Day 5K.

I've signed up for the Hobbit Day 5K and hope to go to the lecture and recital. It'll be good to see the folks at the Wade Center, a reading and research library for the writings of the Inklings, and Tolkien's writing desk again.
 

 

Homily - 10 September 2017 - Does the dogma live loudly within you?



The Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time (A)

Dear brothers and sisters,

Living as I now do on the near outskirts of civilization, I take great pleasure in watching the sunset from within the back yard of the rectory. I have only been with you just a few weeks, but already there is a great difference in the time the sun passes below the horizon. Whereas once the daylight began to fade after 8:30 p.m., now it begins to fade before 7:30 p.m., making it sometimes difficult for me to be home in time to see the glowing orb descend. As I look at the appearance of the sky, I know the great white death of winter will soon be upon us and my heart grows a little sad; as you see the appearance of the sky, you likely know the harvest will soon be upon us and your hearts probably grow a little happy.

The ancient Anglo-Saxons also knew something about the appearance of the sky and of the natural world. While we say the autumn season will not be upon us for a couple of weeks yet, they said autumn began on the seventh of August because it coincided with their harvest; the Anglo-Saxon word for autumn is haerfest, from which we have our word harvest, a season “bright, laden with fruits.”[1] The harvest, said the Anglo-Saxons, “is a joy to men, when God, holy king of the heavens, causes the earth to give bright fruits for nobles and the needy.”[2] All of this we know simply by looking around us.

Jesus once rebuked the Pharisees and the Sadducees who “asked him to show them a sign from heaven” to prove his identity (Matthew 16:1). He said in answer, “In the evening you say, ‘Tomorrow will be stormy, for the sky is red and threatening.’ You know how to judge the appearance of the sky, but you cannot judge the signs of the times” (Matthew 16:2-3). Though nearly two thousand years have passed since he spoke those words, the truth of his words has not passed and we have sadly not grown wiser. If you do not think a persecution of faithful Christians is slowly building within these United States of America, you simply are not reading the signs of times.

As a priest of Jesus Christ, I have been appointed a watchman and I must warn you of a coming danger (cf. Ezekiel 33:7). The Senate Judiciary Committee sat this past Wednesday to consider the appointment of Amy Coney Barrett - a distinguished lawyer and professor, and faithful Catholic - to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals. During her confirmation hearing, a sitting U.S. senator said to her:

Why is it that so many of us on this side have this very uncomfortable feeling that—you know, dogma and law are two different things. And I think whatever a religion is, it has its own dogma. The law is totally different. And I think in your case, professor, when you read your speeches, the conclusion one draws is that the dogma lives loudly within you, and that’s of concern when you come to big issues that large numbers of people have fought for years in this country.[3]

Yes, a nominee for a federal court was told by a sitting U.S. Senator that her deeply held Catholic faith are troubling. She would never have dared to speak such words to a Muslim, a Jew, or a Quaker, but Catholics are fair game.

The Senator went on to say, “You’re controversial because many of us that have lived our lives as women really recognize the value of finally being able to control our reproductive systems. And Roe entered into that, obviously.”[4] She said this despite the judicial nominee’s insistence that “It’s never appropriate for a judge to impose that judge’s personal convictions, whether they derive from faith or anywhere else, on the law.”[5] She said this, moreover, because she is reading the signs of the times. She knows that each year the March for Life grows both longer and younger. She knows Catholics are and have been at the forefront of the growing movement to protect human life at every stage. The senator knows the generations after her will seek to undo the evil she supports and she and her colleagues will not let this happen quietly.

Another senator went so far as to ask the nominee pointedly, “Do you consider yourself an orthodox Catholic?”[6] He asked her this question despite Article VI of the Constitution of the United States, which declares:

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

Ask yourself this question: If the role of a judge is to apply the law of the land to cases heard before him or her, why is her faith being questioned at all? The question should instead be whether a nominee will apply the law as it is written and nothing more.

That is not what happened this past week in Washington, D.C. The implication behind the two senators’ lines of questioning is that a faithful Catholic is unfit to interpret American law. And if a faithful Catholic is unfit for such a high office, for what else is a faithful Catholic unfit in this country? Anyone who knows the history of this nation knows that Catholics were publicly persecuted for more than a century because it was believed that faithful Catholics could not also be good Americans. We fought long and hard to be accepted in this country and those days of persecution and discrimination may soon be upon us again because we remain unflinching in our recognition of the great dignity of all human life. Therefore, each of us must ask ourselves, “Does the dogma live loudly within me?”

Before we can answer this question, we must know what a dogma is. To put it simply, a dogma is “an article of faith proclaimed by a Council or the Pope as divine revelation contained in Scripture and Tradition.”[7] The dogmas of the Church are contained in the Creed, which we recite every Sunday and holy day. They are statements of faith that must be believed in order to be a Christian. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church explains, the dogmas “are lights along the path of faith; they illuminate it and make it secure. Conversely, if our life is upright, our intellect and heart will be open to welcome the light shed by the dogmas of faith” (89).

The dogmas of the Church should live loudly within each one of us because they each contain a different aspect of the life of Christ Jesus and of our salvation from sin and death. If the dogmas do not live loudly within us, we can be certain something is not as it should be, that we have hardened our hearts and have not bowed down in true worship or humbly knelt “before the Lord who made us” (cf. Psalm 95:8; 6). To accept the dogmas of the Church, to embrace the truth of the aspects of the life of Jesus and of his Church they enunciate and reveal, is to live the life of a disciple. This is why the dogmas must live loudly within each one of us. Jesus himself, “What I say to you in the darkness, speak in the light; what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops” (Matthew 10:27). The Christian faith is not meant to be kept quiet and so the senator’s attempted insult was paradoxically a mark of high praise.

If someone tells us the dogma lives loudly within us, we should “sing joyfully to the Lord, and acclaim the rock of our salvation” (Psalm 95:1). If someone tells us the dogma does not live loudly within us, we should be concerned because it would mean we have not yet begun to reflect the love of Jesus in our words and deeds. This is why Saint Paul tells us today to “owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another” and for which reason he reminds us that “love does no evil to the neighbor” (Romans 13:8, 10). The dogma will be known to live loudly within us if we listen to Saint Augustine, who said:

The rule of love is that one should wish his friend to have all the good things he wants to have himself and should not wish the evils to befall his friend which he wishes to avoid himself. He shows this benevolence to all men. No evil must be done to any. Love of one’s neighbor works no evil. Let us then love even our enemies as we are commanded, if we wish to be truly unconquered.[8]

Let each of us, then, not harden our hearts to the Lord, but allow them instead to melt before his the gaze of his mercy and be set aflame with the fire of his love. May all who see us or hear of us know us to be men, women, and children who love Jesus. May they know us to be people within whom the dogma lives loudly! Amen.


[1] Menalogium, in Eleanor Parker, “‘On haerfest ham gelædeÄ‘’: Anglo-Saxon Harvests,” A Clerk of Oxford, 7 August 2016.
[2] Old English Rune Poem, in ibid.
[3] Senator Dianne Feinstein, in “Democrats and ‘Dogma’: Are you now or have you ever been an ‘orthodox Catholic’?”, The Wall Street Journal, 7 September 2017.
[4] Ibid., in Matt Hadro, “Concerns of ‘Anti-Catholic bigotry’ as judicial nominee questioned about faith,” Catholic News Agency, 7 September 2017.
[5] Amy Coney Barrett, in ibid.
[6] Senator Richard Durbin, in ibid.
[7] YouCat: Youth Catechism of the Catholic Church, trans. Michael J. Miller, (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2011), 90.
[8] Saint Augustine of Hippo, Of True Religion, 87. In Thomas C. Oden, et al, eds., Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, New Testament Vol. VI: Romans (Downers Grove, Illinois: Inter Varsity Press, 1998), 320.