THE ROLE OF THE LAITY

In the post below this one where a group of Catholics and others were able to move the VA hospital in Augusta to change its policy concerning the singing of religious Christmas carols, the impetus for it was from the laity. No clergy were involved.

Isn't this sort of thing what the Second Vatican Council asked of the laity to have a role in the public square to promote Christianity?

Evangelical Catholicism is necessary today more than ever and it has to come from the laity where their lives hit the pavement and they can be a positive influence in promoting the Faith.

SILENT NIGHT, DAY OR CHRISTMAS NO MORE!

There was a brouhaha at the Augusta, Georgia Veteran's Administration Hospital this past Christmas. The Alleluia Community School, which is an ecumenical charismatic covenant community  but predominantly Catholic, went to sing Christmas Carols, such as Silent Night, at the VA only to be told by the administration there that they could only sing secular "winter festival" songs, like Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer and the like. In fact the school was given a list of approved secular songs.

Well, through the Alleluia Communities protestations and religious outrage in Augusta, Silent Night is no longer silenced at the VA in Augusta. Religious themed Christmas music may be sung there next Christmas!

This is from this morning's Augusta Chronicle:

Student carolers welcomed to sing freely at Augusta VA again

By Wesley Brown

Staff Writer

Alleluia Community School students are welcome to sing religious Christmas carols again in public patient areas at Augusta’s Charlie Norwood Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

School administrators said Tuesday that VA Director Bob Hamilton apologized for his staff’s restricting student carolers to the hospital’s chapel last December and forcing them to sing from a pre-approved list of 12 nonreligious Christmas songs that the facility’s Pastoral Service “deemed appropriate for celebration within the hearing range of all veterans.” 

 

Alleluia leaders said in a statement to The Augusta Chronicle that Hamilton assured them their students “are welcome to sing their own repertoire of songs and carols, including those with religious content, without discrimination at locations appropriate for singing within the VA.”

The “amicable agreement” brings a peaceful ending to an incident that drew more than four months of national criticism from veterans and residents, members of the Alleluia Community, First Amendment law firms, congressional leaders and representatives of The American Legion.

Bob Garrett, Alleluia Community School’s overall coordinator and administrative team chairman, said that the private south Augusta Christian school accepts Hamilton’s apology, appreciates his candor and good will in handling this matter, and is overjoyed a resolution could be reached.

“We did not want to take them to court, but we would have. We were prepared for that event,” Garrett said. “It means a lot to us to be able to serve veterans and to try to make a difference in encouraging them with our music and presence.”

In its statement, the school thanked hospital leaders for clarifying questions that arose from the Dec. 20 incident, in which Alleluia students left the hospital without singing carols because of the Augusta VA’s taking a stricter stance on a 5-year-old policy it had against imposing religion on patients.

Though students had sung at the hospital without incident in previous years, Hamilton said during a March 5 meeting with school administrators that VA policies “uphold the right to free exercise of religion by all medical, domiciliary and nursing home patients,” which he said includes providing or facilitating appropriate worship opportunities.

Hamilton told the school that the hospital did not and does not have policies that allow “viewpoint discrimination” or prevent groups from singing Christmas carols.
He added that compiling such a list of approved Christmas songs “did not represent the (medical center’s) position” and acknowledged that the hospital is awaiting additional guidance or policy clarification from national VA leadership following the completion of reviews of governing policy on such matters.

The apology was well-received by the chairman of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs.
“We are pleased to hear that Augusta VA Medical Center officials have acknowledged their mistake in curtailing the celebration of Christmas in 2013 and pledged not to repeat it in 2014 and beyond,” said Rep. Jeff Miller. “We will be watching closely to ensure VA facilities across the country don’t allow political correctness to unjustly interfere with activities honoring Christmas or any other federal holidays in the future.”

The Augusta VA said in a statement that Hamilton was grateful for the opportunity to correct any misunderstanding.

“Charlie Norwood VA Medical Center has a deep commitment to Veterans and our community,” the statement read. “We welcome the holiday carolers from the Alleluia School Choir. Veterans and staff alike enjoy their songs, camaraderie and cheerful presence. We look forward to their visit this coming holiday season.

THIS POSTLUDE TO A WORSHIP SERVICE AS YOU MIGHT IMAGINE DOESN'T REALLY APPEAL TO MY SENSE OF DECORUM; HOW ABOUT YOU?

Thank God this isn't a Catholic Mass but the postlude to an Anglican worship service that resembles the Catholic Mass. It was presided by an Anglican bishop. Somehow, I can't see Pope Francis doing this given his austere, sober, ad orientem style of celebrating the Sacred Mysteries.  I wonder if PI's workshop on ecumenism covered this as something that could unite Anglicans and Catholics? :)

ULTRAMONTANISM ANYONE? RETHINKING IT MIGHT NOT BE SO BAD!

 

MY COMMENTS FIRST: Because of the media, especially the new media, i.e. blogs and the such and instant news without much sound analysis, we are bombarded daily with the papacy. This was not the case until relatively recently, like in the past 5 years or more. Prior the the new media through the internet and instant communication, we had to wait for the National Chismatic Reporter (NCR) or the National Catholic Register or any host of magazines and periodicals to be mailed to us once a week or once a month or quarterly to get any real news. 

Not anymore! So Michael Brendan Dougherty's article in "The Week" below is interesting to say the least and helps us to put things into balance. But the internet, blogs and the new media that is evolving are here to stay. We just need perspective.

By Michael Brendan Dougherty | 7:09am ET

 

 

inShare1

Pope Francis has a funny way of naming and shaming certain tendencies in the Church, using insults that are inventive, apposite, and confounding. His ear is finely tuned for the way the Catholic faith can be distorted by ideology. And I'd like to imitate his example when I say this: Most Catholics are completely unprepared for a wicked pope. And they may not be prepared for Pope Francis either. They are more loyal to an imagined Catholic party than to the Catholic faith or the Church.

Between Pentecost and the launch of Vatican.va, most Catholics did not have access to the day to day musings of their pope. The Roman pontiff's theological speculations have been of almost no interest to Catholics throughout history, and never became so unless he was a great theologian already, or there was a great controversy which the authority of the Roman church might settle. To the average Catholic living hundreds of miles from Rome the Faith was the Faith, whether the pope was zealously orthodox like St. Benedict II or a sex-criminal like Pope John XII.

But the social crosscurrents of the last fifty years of Catholic life have made the pope a more intimate figure in the lives of Catholic believers. During the post-Vatican II upheavals in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s, conservative Catholics developed a mental architecture that told them that even if their parish priest or local bishop was lax, immoral, or even vaguely heretical, there was practically a living saint in Rome, whose unassailable orthodoxy, personal charisma, and good works were taken as the living sign of the indefectibility of the Church. The solidity of the message coming from Rome has been for many Catholics the practical experience of this truth about the Church.

The near omnipresence that the modern papacy achieves through media makes me worry that the institution of the papacy would have already hit upon a grave crisis if it weren't for the unusual theological ability of Joseph Ratzinger, first as Cardinal and later as Pope Benedict XVI, acting as a ballast. Modern media, especially the modern Catholic media, has brought the pope into our homes, across the radio, in television, and into our niche media world. He's in the browser of many Catholics every day. And conservative Catholic media relies heavily on the inflated imaginative role of the papacy, just like British tabloids rely on the royals. The pageantry, mystery, and fame attached to the office are a great way of selling magazines, getting clicks, or raising funds. He is the worldwide celebrity that represents "us." He's the reason the Faith gets talked about by others. 

When you add to this the fact that the cultural formation of most engaged Catholics is primarily the ideological combat of political and cultural factions, they tend to treat the pope as their "party leader," and to treat "the world" as an opposing party. It's difficult to describe how distorted this mental image is to true faith, but some examples could suffice.

Look for instance at the reaction of conservative Catholics to the pope's phone call to Jaquelina Lisbona, a woman in Argentina civilly married to a divorcee, in which Francis supposedly counseled her to practically ignore Church teaching on divorce, adultery, confession, and Holy Communion.

Phil Lawler at Catholic Culture speculated, "[F]or all we know, she and her husband are now living as brother and sister, in which case there would be no reason why she could not resume receiving the sacraments." Of course, if this were the case the parish priest could have determined this without the extraordinary phone call from Christ's vicar.

Before deleting it (perhaps in embarrassment), Jimmy Akin reminded his readers at the National Catholic Register that the pope has the power to act as the Church's chief legislature and to execute judgments immediately, and so therefore he could annul the first marriage and radically sanction the second, implying all this could be done over the phone. That he would have short-circuited the church's entire juridical process, undermined faith in the church's discipline, and undercut Catholic priests seems to bother Akin not at all. This same defense was used to justify the pope's breaking of liturgical rubrics, essentially employing the Nixon defense that "when the pope does it, it's not illegal."

Let me suggest that these two good Catholic men are acting not as church men but as party men, and falling into what Hillary Jane White aptly diagnosed as "papal positivism." Lawler and Akin are not alone. The bulk of Catholic media is devoted to moon-faced speculation about how the discreet governing decisions, words, and gestures of the pope are accomplishing some larger goal that we further speculate must be in the pope's head or heart. It's very easy to make the pope into a saintly super-hero when you act as his ventriloquist.

Conservative Catholic apologists say all the right things when you press them. They say that the doctrine papal infallibility does not imply papal impeccability, but the bulk of their commentary about Pope John Paul II in relation to the child-abuse crisis or Pope Francis when he goes off-script seems based on the idea that the pope is irreproachable.

Party membership and church membership are not alike at all. Party bids its members to spin, minimize, and explain away supposed contradictions between one party leader and the next, to hide deviations by party leaders from the party platform. Because party members cannot know the outcome of the next election, crimes, oversight, or simple mismanagement by the party leader are treated as much less serious offenses to the cause than the scandal that would come from admitting or publicizing them in the sight of the opposing party. 

Unlike a party, the Church already knows the outcome of its Election; the blessed reign, the accursed don't. The Church already has victory. And so the Church and its believers do not depend on the righteousness of the pope; the papacy and the Church depend on the righteousness of Christ. The Catholic faith teaches that the pope has the same duty to remain constant in the faith as we do, the Holy Spirit doesn't turn him into an automaton upon his election. If he lies, we must rebuke him in charity. If he fails at something, we should help him. He ain't just the Catholic heavy, he's our brother.

Church members have assurance that comes from God not Rome, the type that if it ever sunk in would prepare them for martyrdom. Party members suffer from a twitchy, defensive anxiety, the type that when it sinks in makes them petty see-no-evil demagogues.

The Catholic Party eclipsing the Catholic Church has a distorting effect on the world's perception too. If the loudest and most prominent orthodox members of the Church in the media treat the pope like a Party leader and are so quick with clever-dick rationalizations of the massive changes to the practice of the Faith over the past fifty years, why should they be surprised that the world conceives of the doctrines and dogmas of the faith as mere party planks or mutable policy, to be exchanged, updated, or abandoned as the times change?

And why should they be surprised that even their co-religionists fail to understand the faith? In truth, the most salient fact of contemporary Catholic life in the West is the way it is pervaded by the pattern of saying things and then acting as if something else were true.

Catholic parishes teach their catechumens that people must be absolved from their mortal sins in sacramental confession before presenting themselves for Holy Communion, yet priests serve communion to packed churches just hours after tiny lines for confession. They say one thing, but act another way. Catholics teach that the Holy Eucharist becomes the body and blood of their Lord, yet the ad-hoc nature of their revised liturgy, the disappearance of genuflection as a Catholic gesture (it's now Tebowing!), and the behavior of priests and extraordinary ministers says that we are as unmoved by consecrated host as Pentecostals.

And the debate that Pope Francis' Lisbona affair sparked about letting divorced and "remarried" Catholics partake in Holy Communion would be yet another instance of saying one thing and acting as if the opposite were true.

Catholics say that a valid marriage is indissoluble and that a civilly remarried person is living in adultery. The Church requires anyone who sins mortally to abstain from holy communion until they repent and receive absolution for their sins. How can the Church say these things and allow those she deems in adultery to the communion rail, while demanding that those who merely missed one Sunday Mass through their own fault deny themselves this same salve for the soul? How can the Church even explain the English Reformation if somewhere, hidden in its own tradition, is the ability to tolerate adulterous marriages? How could the Church possibly honor the English martyrs like St. Thomas More if they died for mere "policy," and not a truth about the sacraments?

Of course, it cannot.

And yet, Catholics conditioned by the last fifty years of life in the Church are totally unprepared for the eventuality of the pope or a papally approved Synod (i.e. a governing council) issuing a "policy" that flatly contradicts Church teaching. For many of them, many good men, it will just be a new party line. Or perhaps, more insanely, they will claim, in an Orwellian turn, that the new policy was always the Church's real policy. 

The Catholic party has cultivated a very specific form of forgetting of the Church's confounding history. They do not recall that ecumenical councils like the one at Vienne wasted Church authority on a silly grudge against the Knights Templar. They do not remember Councils like those at Sirmium, later condemned, where churchmen made compromises with Arianism. They do not remember that Pope Pius VI encouraged a Synod in Italy that eventually promoted Jansenist heresy, condemned much Catholic piety, and improvised new liturgies.

Catholics were reminded at the Second Vatican Council of a doctrine with a foundation in the early Church Fathers, in St. Vincent Lerins, that the whole body of faithful Catholics in their cultivated sense of the faith, are one of the guarantors of the Church's teaching authority. Sometimes, the duty of a faithful Catholic is not just to rebuke and correct those in authority in the Church like St. Catherine of Siena, but to throw rotting cabbage at them, or make them miserable, as we once did, with the connivance of worldly authorities, during the deadlocked papal election in Viterbo.

For now the members of the Catholic Party are cultivating a kind of denial, saying that Pope Francis cannot possibly endorse the line on divorce and remarriage suggested by Cardinal Kasper when very clearly this reform is being actively debated within the highest reaches of the Church, and seems to have been implemented in one phone call. If adopted, it will be time for members of the Catholic Church to reach for the rotting produce and give our prelates a taste of the sensus fidelium.

IS THE LCWR LEADERSHIP LIKE THE CHARACTERS ON THE COMEDY "THE BIG BANG THEORY?"

The LCWR leadership studying theology:

In answer to my question in the above headline, yes and no. The LCWR is far from funny and completely sad and they are real characters as opposed to the fictional ones on "The Big Bang Theory" who are completely funny and sad in a pleasant sort of way.

The following is from the National Catholic Register written on February 18 of this year on some of the heresies that the LCWR's leadership either actively promotes or endorses even in a tacit way. It gives you some insight into the gnostic heresy of the LCWR's active endorsement of Conscious Evolution. I would dare say that Ann Carey in her article below is clairvoyant or the Vatican reads her stuff and listens to her sanity! (Read what I have highlighted in red in the last sentence of the article below!)I'd suggest giving Ann Carey a leadership role in the Vatican since Pope Francis wants more women who are of sound mind and theology to have a greater role in the Church!

Women Religious and the New Cosmology

by Ann Carey Tuesday, Feb 18, 2014 1:48 PM 

New-Age spirituality is often thought of as a fad from the 1960s and 1970s that went out of vogue long ago. However, among some Catholics, including some members of religious orders, New-Age spirituality still is being promulgated — and its proponents are becoming more overtly critical of Catholic doctrine.

New-Age proponents blend aspects of ancient and Eastern spiritualities with the Christian tradition. A common claim is that the "Age of Pisces" — the Christian Age — ended in the last half of the 20th century, and a new "Age of Aquarius" is ushering in 2,000 years of human enlightenment, increased and evolving human consciousness and a universal love for all humanity as well as the planet.

This feel-good, diffuse spirituality allows for no confirmed doctrines, responsibilities or limits and has been denounced by the Catholic Church as well as many Christian denominations.

In 2003, the Pontifical Councils for Culture and Interreligious Dialogue issued the instruction "Jesus Christ, the Bearer of the Water of Life: A Christian Reflection on the ‘New Age,’" calling New-Age spirituality "heterodox," distorting God’s word and replacing it with purely human words.

In spite of this clear instruction, a few New-Age concepts still are promoted vigorously in some Catholic circles. One of these concepts, called "the new cosmology," is being used to characterize Catholic doctrine as flawed because it allegedly is based on outmoded science. Variations of the new cosmology challenge belief in settled tenets of the Catholic faith, including the very nature of the Trinitarian God and the role of Jesus as Redeemer.

New cosmology also dismisses hierarchal order as well as so-called "dualisms" (defined as absolute truths). It holds that God, as a sort of "Earth Spirit," permeates every bit of matter and is part of the evolving universe, a theory called panentheism.

As Michael Morwood explains in his book It’s Time: Challenges to the Doctrine of the Faith (self-published under Kelmor Publishing, 2013): "The thesis of this book is that much of Catholic doctrine, specifically defined dogma about God, Jesus and Mary, being safeguarded and promoted by the CDF [Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith] on behalf of the Roman Catholic Church, has outlived its use-by date. … There are undeniable implications for and challenges to traditional doctrine when the notion of God as a heavenly deity is replaced by an understanding that the word ‘God’ points to a Mystery that permeates everything that exists" (pp. 3-4).

According to Morwood’s website, he resigned from the priesthood and his religious order after the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and the hierarchy in his native Australia silenced him because of errors in two of his earlier books. Yet Morwood’s website shows that he speaks regularly at retreat houses in this country that are sponsored by Catholic sisters, and his book seems to be circulating within some religious orders.

Many of these aspects of New-Age spirituality that challenge Catholic doctrine were refuted by the Committee on Doctrine of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in a March 2011 statement evaluating the book Quest for the Living God: Mapping Frontiers in the Theology of God (Continuum, 2007) by Sister of St. Joseph Elizabeth Johnson.

Some of the errors identified by the bishops included elements of the new cosmology, such as the author’s view on panentheism, which they said "undermines God’s transcendence, in that God’s manner of existence, as Creator, would no longer differ in kind, but only in degree, from that of all else that exists."

Yet, in spite of such concerns and warnings, the new cosmology remains a mainstream interest among some Catholic laity and religious, and this is not a rare or hidden phenomenon. For example, the 2012 documentary film about women religious, Band of Sisters, includes an interview with Immaculate Heart of Mary Sister Nancy Sylvester promoting the new cosmology.

The new cosmology also was cited as one of the problems found by the CDF doctrinal assessment of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR).

Archbishop Leonard Blair of Hartford, Conn., who, as bishop of Toledo, Ohio, had conducted the assessment, explained in an open letter published in the June 8, 2012, Toledo diocesan paper: "LCWR speakers also explore themes like global spirituality, the new cosmology, earth-justice and eco-feminism in ways that are frequently ambiguous, dubious or even erroneous with respect to Christian faith."

Nevertheless, just two months after that letter, the LCWR annual assembly in August welcomed as its keynote speaker Barbara Marx Hubbard, a proponent of the new cosmology.

In 2013, Franciscan Sister Ilia Delio likewise gave a keynote on the new cosmology at the LCWR assembly. DVDs were made of both keynotes and sold by the LCWR.

Among the more startling concepts proposed by Sister Ilia in her keynote, "Religious Life on the Edge of the Universe," was: "There is no cosmos without God, and no God without cosmos." This contention, of course, is in direct conflict with Catholic teaching. The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains that God creates all things from nothing, including the cosmos, and he is not dependent on his creation.

Still, the winter 2014 issue of the LCWR Occasional Papers is dedicated to the new cosmology, with several of the authors referencing both Sister Ilia and Barbara Marx Hubbard.

It is time for the new cosmology to be retired, along with other worn-out fads from the 1960s and 1970s. Surely such New-Age theories, based on flawed logic and misinterpretation of science, pale in comparison to the rich deposit of the faith in sacred Scripture and Tradition entrusted to the teaching office of the Catholic Church.

Pope Francis even alluded to the failure of such theories in a June 2013 homily on the Gospel reading about Jesus teaching his disciples to pray the Our Father, as reported by the Catholic Herald: "You must pray to the Father," the Pope said, not to a "cosmic god," a "polytheistic model that comes from a rather light culture."

Will 2014 be the year that the Holy Father’s message is heard and accepted by the new cosmologists who claim that they are also Catholic?

Ann Carey is the author of 

Sisters in Crisis: The Tragic Unraveling of

Women’s Religious Communities

and Sisters in Crisis Revisited:

From Unraveling to Reform and Renewal

Read more: http://www.ncregister.com/site/article/women-religious-and-the-new-cosmology/#ixzz30wfsqXDN

THE DEVIL IS AT THE HEART OF ALL EVIL AND POPE FRANCIS OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN REMINDS US OF THIS TRUTH

MY COMMENTS FIRST: I've lost track of the number of times now that Pope Francis as spoken of the devil and his influence. I have to say that my formation in the seminary of the 1970's ridiculed such talk and ridiculed the pre-Vatican II emphasis on demons, saints and angels. Pope Francis in emphasizing the devil and his influence is promoting his own version of the hermeneutic of continuity as it regards the Church prior to Vatican II and the Church after Vatican II. We belong to the same Church that is in continuity with her past as she walks in the present toward the future.


This pope is not afraid to call people heretics, whether he uses categories that are historic or with his own twist on things, like the "gnostics and Pelagians" in our midst. We know how indignant the Pelagians and gnostics here are when they think the Holy Father is directing his "who am I to judge except in these cases" remarks towards them.


Pope Francis' prefect for the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith isn't afraid to call out the heresy of gnosticsm of the LCWR and to call their teachings on "Conscious Evolution" a part of the heresy of gnosticism. You had better believe that Pope Francis, the "who am I to judge, except in gnostic and Pelagian cases" had approved of this smack down of the arrogant and heretical LCWR. The Pope isn't going to allow his curia to act independently of him.

Pope at Mass: Church is not just a school of religion

(Vatican Radio) The Christian who does not witness to the faith becomes sterile. This was the focus of Pope Francis’ homily at morning Mass at Casa Santa Marta. The Pope drew inspiration from the martyrdom of St. Stephen, narrated in the Acts of the Apostles. The Church, he said, is "not a university of religion", but the people who follow Jesus. Only in this way, he added , is the Church both “fruitful and mother".

Emer McCarthy reports:

In his homily Pope Francis traced the path that led to the death of the first martyr of the Church, a death that was the exact replica of Christ’s. He, too, like Jesus , he said, had encountered “the jealousy of the leaders who were trying" to eliminate him. He too had "false witnesses" , a "rushed judgment”. Stephen warns them that are resisting the Holy Spirit, as Jesus had said , but "these people - said the Pope – were uneasy, were not at peace in their hearts". These people , he added, had " hatred " in their heart . That is why, on hearing Stephen’s words, they were furious . "This hatred - said Pope Francis - was sown in their hearts by the devil", "this is the devil’s hatred of Christ”.

The devil "who did what he wanted with Jesus Christ in his Passion now does the same" with Stephen. This "struggle between God and the devil" is clearly seen in martyrdom. “On the other hand, Jesus had told his disciples that they had to rejoice to be persecuted in his name: "To be persecuted, to be a martyr, to gives ones’ life for Jesus is one of the Beatitudes". That is why, the Pope added , "the devil cannot stand seeing the sanctity of a church or the sanctity of a person, without trying to do something". This is what he does with Stephen, but "he died like Jesus forgiving".

"Martyrdom is the translation of a Greek word that also means witness. And so we can say that for a Christian the path follows in the footsteps of this witness, Christ’s footsteps, to bear witness to Him and, many times, this witness ends up in laying down one’s life . You cannot understand a Christian without witness. We are not a ' religion' of ideas, of pure theology, beautiful things, of commandments. No, we are a people who follow Jesus Christ and bear witness – who want to bear witness to Jesus Christ - and sometimes this witness leads to laying down our lives”.
On Stephen’s death, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles, "a severe persecution began against the Church in Jerusalem". These people , the Pope observed , "felt strong and the devil provoked them to do this" and so "Christians scattered to the regions of Judea and Samaria". This persecution, the Pope noted, means that "the people spread far and wide" and wherever they went they explained the Gospel , gave testimony of Jesus , and so "mission of the Church" began. "So many - he recalled - converted, on hearing these people". One of the Fathers of the Church, explained this by saying : "The blood of martyrs is the seed of Christians". With "their witness, they preach the faith" :

"Witness, be it in everyday life, in difficulties, and even in persecution and death, always bears fruit. The Church is fruitful and a mother when she witnesses to Jesus Christ. Instead , when the church closes in on itself , when it thinks of itself as a - so to speak - 'school of religion', with so many great ideas, with many beautiful temples, with many fine museums, with many beautiful things, but does not give witness, it becomes sterile. The Christian is the same. The Christian who does not bear witness, is sterile, without giving the life he has received from Jesus Christ".

The Pope continued, "Stephen was filled with the Holy Spirit", and "we cannot bear witness without the presence of the Holy Spirit in us". Pope Francis advised those present: “In difficult times, where we have to choose the right path, where we have to say 'no' to a lot of things that maybe try to seduce us, there is prayer to the Holy Spirit, and He makes us strong enough to take this path of witness":


"Today thinking about these two icons - Stephen, who dies, and the people, the Christians, fleeing, scattering far and wide because of the violent persecution - let us ask: How is my witness? Am I a Christian who witnesses to Jesus or are a simple numerary in this sect ? Am I fruitful because I bear witness, or sterile because unable to let the Holy Spirit lead me forward in my Christian vocation?" .


Text from page http://en.radiovaticana.va/news/2014/05/06/pope_at_mass:_church_is_not_just_a_school_of_religion/en1-796771
of the Vatican Radio website

THE WAY TO THROW DOWN THE GAUNTLET IN SPIRITUAL AND PHYSICAL WARFARE IS TO SPEAK LOUDLY IN VOICE AND DRESS AND CARRY A BIG PLUME OF FEATHERS

With these guards on duty protecting the Church, the LCWR and the Franciscans of Mary Immaculate  have no chance of taking over the Church! All kidding aside, this is really cool and the Swiss Guards at the Vatican are actually very nice and friendly. This took place at the Vatican this morning, May 6 and looks like something out of a movie depicting a Renaissance Rite of Passage. Oh wait, it is a Renaissance Rite of Passage. Thank goodness Vatican II didn't call for an update of any kind to the ceremony or the rugged, austere, no-nonsense uniforms of the Swiss Guard:

BREAKING NEWS: IT APPEARS THAT THE LCWR HAS MISREAD POPE FRANCIS, LIKE SO MANY OTHERS!

This is a bit of a BOMBSHELL from the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith and just released to the public although dated April 30th. It is clear that the LCWR who have singlehandedly deconstructed religious life and replaced it with what is soon to be categorized with the fate of the Dodo bird, just doesn't get it and simply has misread Pope Francis and his desire to reform the Church his way, not theirs!

This is good news indeed! It is a smack down of the LCWR's arrogant, , non-collaborative and non-ecclesiastical and heretical spirit. Yes heresy is charged and a demand for reform and moving away from heresy!

BOTTOM LINE: DONE MESS WITH POPE FRANCIS AND HIS CONGREGATION FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH!

Meeting of the Superiors of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
with the Presidency of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR)

April 30, 2014

Opening Remarks
By Cardinal Gerhard Müller

I am happy to welcome once again the Presidency of the LCWR to Rome and to the Congregation. It is a happy occasion that your visit coincides with the Canonization of Pope John Paul II and Pope John XXIII, two great figures important for the Church in our times. I am grateful as well for the presence and participation of the Delegate for the implementation of the LCWR Doctrinal Assessment, Archbishop Peter Sartain. 

As in past meetings, I would like to begin by making some introductory observations which I believe will be a helpful way of framing our discussion. 

First, I would like to acknowledge with gratitude the progress that has been made in the implementation of the Doctrinal Assessment. Archbishop Sartain has kept the Congregation appraised on the work regarding the revision of the LCWR Statutes and civil by-laws. We are glad to see that work continue and remain particularly interested that these foundational documents reflect more explicitly the mission of a Conference of Major Superiors as something centered on Jesus Christ and grounded in the Church’s teaching about Consecrated Life. For that collaboration, I thank you.

Two further introductory comments I would like to frame around what could be called objections to the Doctrinal Assessment raised by your predecessors during past meetings here at the Congregation and in public statements by LCWR officers. We are aware that, from the beginning, LCWR Officers judged the Doctrinal Assessment to be “flawed and the findings based on unsubstantiated accusations” and that the so-called “sanctions” were “disproportionate to the concerns raised and compromised the organization’s ability to fulfill its mission.” This principal objection, I note, was repeated most recently in the preface of the collection of LCWR Presidential Addresses you have just published. It is my intention in discussing these things frankly and openly with you to offer an explanation of why it is that we believe the conclusions of the Doctrinal Assessment are accurate and the path of reform it lays before the LCWR remains necessary so that religious life might continue to flourish in the United States.

Let me begin with the notion of “disproportionate sanctions.” One of the more contentious aspects of the Mandate—though one that has not yet been put into force—is the provision that speakers and presenters at major programs will be subject to approval by the Delegate. This provision has been portrayed as heavy-handed interference in the day-to-day activities of the Conference. For its part, the Holy See would not understand this as a “sanction,” but rather as a point of dialogue and discernment. It allows the Holy See’s Delegate to be involved in the discussion first of all in order to avoid difficult and embarrassing situations wherein speakers use an LCWR forum to advance positions at odds with the teaching of the Church. Further, this is meant as an assistance to you, the Presidency, so as to anticipate better the issues that will further complicate the relationship of the LCWR with the Holy See.

An example may help at this point. It saddens me to learn that you have decided to give the Outstanding Leadership Award during this year’s Assembly to a theologian criticized by the Bishops of the United States because of the gravity of the doctrinal errors in that theologian’s writings. This is a decision that will be seen as a rather open provocation against the Holy See and the Doctrinal Assessment. Not only that, but it further alienates the LCWR from the Bishops as well. 

I realize I am speaking rather bluntly about this, but I do so out of an awareness that there is no other interpretive lens, within and outside the Church, through which the decision to confer this honor will be viewed. It is my understanding that Archbishop Sartain was informed of the selection of the honoree only after the decision had been made. Had he been involved in the conversation as the Mandate envisions, I am confident that he would have added an important element to the discernment which then may have gone in a different direction. The decision taken by the LCWR during the ongoing implementation of the Doctrinal Assessment is indeed regrettable and demonstrates clearly the necessity of the Mandate’s provision that speakers and presenters at major programs will be subject to approval by the Delegate. I must therefore inform you that this provision is to be considered fully in force. I do understand that the selection of honorees results from a process, but this case suggests that the process is itself in need of reexamination. I also understand that plans for this year’s Assembly are already at a very advanced stage and I do not see the need to interrupt them. However, following the August Assembly, it will be the expectation of the Holy See that Archbishop Sartain have an active role in the discussion about invited speakers and honorees. 

Let me address a second objection, namely that the findings of the Doctrinal Assessment are unsubstantiated. The phrase in the Doctrinal Assessment most often cited as overreaching or unsubstantiated is when it talks about religious moving beyond the Church or even beyond Jesus. Yes, this is hard language and I can imagine it sounded harsh in the ears of thousands of faithful religious. I regret that, because the last thing in the world the Congregation would want to do is call into question the eloquent, even prophetic witness of so many faithful religious women. And yet, the issues raised in the Assessment are so central and so foundational, there is no other way of discussing them except as constituting a movement away from the ecclesial center of faith in Christ Jesus the Lord. 

For the last several years, the Congregation has been following with increasing concern a focalizing of attention within the LCWR around the concept of Conscious Evolution. Since Barbara Marx Hubbard addressed the Assembly on this topic two years ago, every issue of your newsletter has discussed Conscious Evolution in some way. Issues of Occasional Papers have been devoted to it. We have even seen some religious Institutes modify their directional statements to incorporate concepts and undeveloped terms from Conscious Evolution. 

Again, I apologize if this seems blunt, but what I must say is too important to dress up in flowery language. The fundamental theses of Conscious Evolution are opposed to Christian Revelation and, when taken unreflectively, lead almost necessarily to fundamental errors regarding the omnipotence of God, the Incarnation of Christ, the reality of Original Sin, the necessity of salvation and the definitive nature of the salvific action of Christ in the Paschal Mystery. 

My concern is whether such an intense focus on new ideas such as Conscious Evolution has robbed religious of the ability truly to sentire cum Ecclesia. To phrase it as a question, do the many religious listening to addresses on this topic or reading expositions of it even hear the divergences from the Christian faith present? 

This concern is even deeper than the Doctrinal Assessment’s criticism of the LCWR for not providing a counter-point during presentations and Assemblies when speakers diverge from Church teaching. The Assessment is concerned with positive errors of doctrine seen in the light of the LCWR’s responsibility to support a vision of religious life in harmony with that of the Church and to promote a solid doctrinal basis for religious life. I am worried that the uncritical acceptance of things such as Conscious Evolution seemingly without any awareness that it offers a vision of God, the cosmos, and the human person divergent from or opposed to Revelation evidences that a de facto movement beyond the Church and sound Christian faith has already occurred. 

I do not think I overstate the point when I say that the futuristic ideas advanced by the proponents of Conscious Evolution are not actually new. The Gnostic tradition is filled with similar affirmations and we have seen again and again in the history of the Church the tragic results of partaking of this bitter fruit. Conscious Evolution does not offer anything which will nourish religious life as a privileged and prophetic witness rooted in Christ revealing divine love to a wounded world. It does not present the treasure beyond price for which new generations of young women will leave all to follow Christ. The Gospel does! Selfless service to the poor and marginalized in the name of Jesus Christ does! 

It is in this context that we can understand Pope Francis’ remarks to the Plenary Assembly of the International Union of Superiors General in May of 2013. What the Holy Father proposes is a vision of religious life and particularly of the role of conferences of major superiors which in many ways is a positive articulation of issues which come across as concerns in the Doctrinal Assessment. I urge you to reread the Holy Father’s remarks and to make them a point of discussion with members of your Board as well.

I have raised several points in these remarks, so I will stop here. I owe an incalculable debt to the women religious who have long been a part of my life. They were the ones who instilled in me a love for the Lord and for the Church and encouraged me to follow the vocation to which the Lord was calling me. The things I have said today are therefore born of great love. The Holy See and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith deeply desire religious life to thrive and that the LCWR will be an effective instrument supporting its growth. In the end, the point is this: the Holy See believes that the charismatic vitality of religious life can only flourish within the ecclesial faith of the Church. The LCWR, as a canonical entity dependent on the Holy See, has a profound obligation to the promotion of that faith as the essential foundation of religious life. Canonical status and ecclesial vision go hand-in-hand, and at this phase of the implementation of the Doctrinal Assessment, we are looking for a clearer expression of that ecclesial vision and more substantive signs of collaboration.

THIS SHOULD BE FOOD FOR ALL CATHOLIC BLOGGERS AND COMMENTERS, NOT JUST ORDAINED DEACONS!

This article is directed towards deacons, but it could well be applied to all who are Christians, Catholics, clergy and laity, especially those of us who blog and make comments on blogs. The post is a result of a deacon in England who has been prohibited for the time being from blogging because his blog had become somewhat shrill and divisive as the bishop had determined.

 Public discourse has gone down the drain thanks to the talking heads on TV news and shows like Jerry Springer. Whatever happened to formality and respect in discourse, especially with those who are strangers?

Read the full article at "Deacons Today: Servants in a Servant Church blog" by pressing HERE.

But here are some money-bites from the blog:

The deacon in the current situation (the one whose bishop has banned his blog for the time being) is member of the diocesan clergy, bound by his promise of obedience to his bishop.  Someone asked about Deacon Greg Kandra and his famous “Deacon’s Bench” blog: yes, if Greg’s bishop were to decide that Greg should no longer host his blog, he would be expected to give it up.  As clergy, we surrender a certain amount of freedom which lay people would have in a similar situation.  According to Vatican II’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (Lumen gentium), #18, all clergy exist for one reason: to build up the Body of Christ.  It is one of the responsibilities of the diocesan bishop to assess this “on the ground” and to make determinations about the building up of the Body of Christ in his own diocese.  As clergy, we are public persons.  As such, we cannot really say that “in this activity I am operating as a private person” with regard to the church.  We give that ability up upon ordination.  We now represent Christ and we also represent the Church.  St. Thomas Aquinas famously taught that a cleric acts “in persona Christi et in nomine ecclesiae” (“in the person of Christ and in the name of the Church”).

Cardinal Dolan, in a recent talk at Rome’s University of Santa Croce during a conference on communications, pointed out that we must “adhere to the best and highest standards. . . .  How we say something is just as important as what we say.”  In this observation he is echoing St. John XXIII, who frequently spoke of the permanence of religious truth on the one hand, and the ways in which those truths are expressed on the other.  How we communicate is just as important as the content of what we have to say.  As a screenwriter once put it, “Is coarseness a substitute for wit, I ask myself?”  Truth is one thing; a Christian should be communicating that truth in a Christian manner; there is no room for “snarkiness”, demeaning characterizations, ad hominem arguments or anything of the like.  This is so much more than just “being nice” to others.  For clergy in particular, it is about doing what “builds up” the Body, not acting in a manner which derides and  tears down the Body.  That’s really the gold standard: When I write, when I speak, am I building up the Body of Christ, or serving to tear it down?

THE ENIGMA THAT IS POPE FRANCIS

Sandro Magister who writes the Chiesa Blog has a good article on Pope Francis which you can read by pressing this sentence.

Here are some money quotes:

Francis is the most popular pope in history.

And yet Bergoglio is anything other than tender with what he calls the dominant "uniform thought," atheist and "libertine," the "new opium of the people." His vision of the world is apocalyptic, of a cosmic battle with the devil as the great adversary. He speaks of it often, especially in his morning homilies. He is not silent about his aversion to the advent of new self-proclaimed families without "the masculinity and femininity of a father and a mother." He is inflexible in calling abortion an "abominable crime."

 But where Francis has most revealed this style of his was in the basilica of Saint Peter on March 27, at the Mass he celebrated in front of more than five hundred Italian ministers, deputies, and senators. Not a smile, not a greeting. And a homily full of reproofs in which the key word was "corruption." A word that in Bergoglio's lexicon indicates the hardening of the sinner in his sin, whatever that may be, which blocks him from accepting the forgiveness of God. But which was understood by almost everyone, including the politicians present, in its contemporary meaning as the specific crime that goes under that name.

The "who am I to judge" that has become the key to the narration of this pontificate certainly applies, as he has said, to the homosexual of good will who is in search of God, but on many other things and persons Francis judges and in spades, siding for or against and giving first and last names.

He did not hold back from aiming against Nunzio Scarano, the monsignor of the curia arrested for financial crimes but still awaiting sentencing, the stinging words: "He does not resemble the blessed Imelda."

Nor is he silent when it comes to supporting the needs of workers, as he did on the Wednesday after Easter, when he came to the defense of the four thousand workers of the steel mill of Piombino at risk of closure.

 On the question that has come to be the central object of the dispute, communion for the divorced and remarried, Francis continually alternates flexibility and firmness. When some of the leading bishops in Germany were sending out signals of a breaking of the ranks in favor of communion, the pope had another German, prefect of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith Gerhard Ludwig Müller, give a stern order to halt in "L'Osservatore Romano."

But then he brought forward, as the only speaker at the consistory called to discuss the question, yet another German, the cardinal and theologian Walter Kasper, who has fought for thirty years to relax the ban on communion. And he sided with him, warmly praising him even after other cardinals had risen up against him.

 "Everything depends on how 'Humanae Vitae' is interpreted. Paul VI himself, in the end, urged confessors to be very merciful and pay attention to concrete situations. But his genius was prophetic, he had the courage to take a stand against the majority, to defend moral discipline, to exercise a cultural restraint, to oppose present and future neo-Malthusianism. The question is not that of changing doctrine, but of digging deep and making sure that pastoral care takes into account situations and what it is possible for persons to do."

TAP DANCING SEMINARIANS AT THE NORTH AMERICAN COLLEGE IN ROMA!

This is at the dining hall (refectory) of the North American College in Roma for the Rector's Dinner.  I had many fine "pranzos" in there from September thru November. But I never saw this!

AS THE 1968 CROWD REASSERTS ITSELF IN ITS DYING DAYS, WHAT IS THE TRUE AGENDA FOR REFORM THAT POPE FRANCIS HAS IN MIND?

I read yet another article about what the Church needs to do to get with the program and reinvigorate the Church and stop the bleeding of Catholics who are leaving the Church to become God knows what, many of them becoming "nones."

The tired hippie generation with its tired old ideas continues to seek a Utopian church with so many of their ideas responsible for the sad state of the Church today. They seek bishops who are like them, flaky.

They want bishops and cardinals and priests to retire at age 70 (although I happen to think that is a good idea now that I'm 60). They want married clergy and of course they want the church of the now which is the Church of 1968. They think Pope Francis is with them on this.

But what has Pope Francis officially said in his documents and homilies and in his style of celebrating the Mass? We know the hearsay of what he says to people he calls on the phone which is neither confirmed or denied by the pope or his spokesmen. We know, if we are not coloring book catholics, that there are different levels of papal teachings and popes are allowed to have their own opinions about this, that or the other. But official teachings, such as homilies, speeches to bishops' conferences, letters, exhortations and encyclicals have a higher magisterial quality with encyclicals the highest along with papal bulls.

So, in Pope Francis' homilies and other writings and exhortations what has he been consistently teaching?

1. Fidelity to the Magisterium and the Deposit of Faith; three terms (fidelity, magisterium and Deposit of Faith) despised by post-Catholics and those who taught me in the seminary in the 1970's and many academic theologians today. If these terms are denigrated and lost, then all things heterodox are possible.

2. The renewal of the sense of sin and the need for Divine Mercy especially through the Sacrament of Penance. Pope Francis has consistently and from day one taught about sin and in traditional categories of Original and Actual with the two actual sins discussed, venial and mortal. But he has added another category, that of corrupt, what we could actually call the "lost sinner destined for hell."
This is quite important to Catholic theology and dogma as without the correct magisterial teaching on sin, soterology falls apart, meaning the need for salvation and redemption based on the forgiveness of sins and the liberation from the fires of hell.

3. The emphasis on evil and demonic. No pope in recent history has spoken as loudly, frequently and clearly about the reality of Satan and his influence on society and individual and that he rules the "world" as St. John would use the term "world." 

4. While the pope has called for the expansion of roles for women in the institutional aspects of the Church, he has ruled out definitively ordination to Holy Orders. 

5. He has held up Pope Paul VI's act of heroism in publishing Humanae Vitae and not allowing the lobbying of progressives in and outside of the Church to manipulate him when it comes to proclaiming the truth. Pope Francis has stated explicitly that Pope Paul went against the tide of popular vote in reasserting the Church's truth about marriage and sexuality and the family. 

6. On sexuality, marriage and family, Pope Francis has held up as recently as last Sunday Saint John Paul II's corpus of teachings on the family as the inspiration for the upcoming synod on the family. 

7. As it regards traditional teachings on sexuality, the Holy Father Francis has held up the need for both feminine and masculine in marriage and points to Jesus Christ as the Bridegroom and the Church as the Bride of Christ as the model for families. He teaches that marriage is between one man and one woman and that children need both a mother and father.  He always refers to the Church in the feminine, something anathema for progressives.

8. He is calling Catholics to recover popular pieties, even at Mass! He is places the Blessed Virgin Mary and her various pieties front and center. This really irritates liturgical purists.

9. Pope Francis celebrates Mass, even while facing the congregation, in an ad orientem fashion. He is sober and liturgically austere and does not in the least improvise any of the words of the Mass. He never breaks the momentum of prayer begun with the Entrance Chant and Introit, followed by the Sign of the Cross and Greeting, only to disrupt the Mass, which so many bishops and priests do today, with silly, secular greetings and banter including levity, only to get back to the Mass after this secular silliness by introducing the penitential act. 
And by the way, Pope Francis has celebrated the Ordinary Form of the Mass ad orientem. Progressives are in denial about this.

10. Pope Francis wants lay Catholics to bring their faith to their homes, places of work and recreation and to the public square. He doesn't want us to lock up our faith and practice in the church building or in our homes or in our minds. We need to be unleashed on the world and proclaim the Gospel!

MY FINAL COMMENTS: The wildcard of Pope Francis is his pastoral theology. Pastoral theology is taught in seminaries but as a second rate course and not compared to the academic courses in any way whatsoever.

This may change with Pope Francis who could promote his pastoral theology to a doctrine. But he will do so by upholding the Deposit of Faith and morals of the Church while at the same time calling for sensitivity for those in difficult situations. Most bishops and priests are pastoral and have been for centuries. There is nothing new in this other than it becoming a doctrine of some kind. But of course I'm not clairvoyant or am I?

THE GASPING FINAL BREATHES OF THOSE WHO HIJACKED THE SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL IN THE 1960'S ARE STILL AT IT TODAY EVEN THOUGH THEY ARE IN THEIR MID 80'S!

Please note the age of the Nashville Dominican Sisters in this recent photo and compare it to the LCWR one above! Which order chose the right path of renewal? 

Last night a group of us at dinner were having a discussion about Catholic schools and the fact that numerous religious orders that began many of our Catholic private schools can no longer sponsor their schools as they once did because they have no vocations whatsoever and the average age of their sisters is now well into the 70's. So these orders of sisters, who at one time had abundant vocations, are now in the final hours of agony before their orders die out.

It is sad, especially for the aging sisters who presided over the debacle of deconstructing their order's religious life that has led them nearly to extinction. For some of these orders this extinction will be within the next ten to twenty years.

Yet these same aging sisters heading toward their final days on earth continue to believe that their method of "renewing" their orders was the right thing and that they'd be long extinct before now if they had not done what they did to themselves.

Many of them and their cohorts wanted to bring to the Church the same destroying mentality that they were able to bring to their orders but were unsuccessful because of loyal opposition to their death-dealing ideologies and theologies, although they did inflict considerable damage on the Church Universal.

The National Chismatic Reporter (NCR) has a sad article on 85 year old Father Hans Kung, who himself is at death's door and musing whether or not who should use the "assisted suicide" option as he enters his final days to end his suffering. But isn't that what this clique of academics in the Church who asserted themselves in the 1960's have been trying to do to the religious orders of the Church and the Church herself?

We know about Hans Kung and his serious case of denial of the great evil he inflicted on the Church in his academic career, a similar denial that the aging sisters of so many religious orders continue to experience about what they did to their institutions.

But the 85 year old academic author of this article is another prime example of this denial. We just have to say NO! NO! NO! NO MORE ASSISTED SUICIDE FOR THE CHURCH! STOP IT! GO AWAY!

Read the NCR article and weep for the 85 year old editorialist and those like him who are in such denial as they breathe their final breathes:

Hans Küng knows church's problems - and that change is inevitable

Leonard Swidler  |  May. 1, 2014

Note from Jamie Manson, NCR books editor: Swiss theologian Hans Küng has written more than 70 books that have influenced not only the ongoing quest to reform the Catholic church, but also theologians and practitioners who engage in ecumenical theology and interfaith dialogue. We asked noted scholar Leonard Swidler and veteran journalist John Wilkins to guide us in our appreciation of the vast scope of his corpus. Not only are Swidler and Wilkins experts in Küng's thought, both have read the third and final volume of Küng's memoir, which has yet to be translated from the original German. Both retrospectives also offer reflections on his latest title, Can We Save the Catholic Church?/We Can Save the Catholic Church! (William Collins, $16.99) Today, we offer Swidler's reflection; Wilkins' will run Friday. Both ran in the April 28-May 8, 2014, edition of NCR.

There are a number of reasons why it is particularly apt that I would be writing about theologian Fr. Hans Küng's latest writings. To begin, we are both 85 years old -- one year younger than that of a former colleague of ours on the Catholic theological faculty of the University of Tübingen, Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. Secondly, I was at Tübingen even before Hans in the late 1950s, as a student working on my doctorate in history from the University of Wisconsin, and my Licentiate of Sacred Theology from the University of Tübingen.

I arrived in Tübingen, Germany, in the fall of 1957. During the summer semester of 1958, I attended an interesting course offered by the Protestant theology faculty on a newly published book that compared the doctrine of justification according to 20th-century Swiss Protestant theologian Karl Barth with the doctrine of the 16th-century Catholic Council of Trent. The book dramatically concluded that they were essentially the same.

The author was a brash newcomer on the exciting theological scene, the young Swiss Catholic Hans Küng. I didn't know who he was then, nor did hardly anyone else -- except Ratzinger, who was a fellow assistant to Professor Hermann Volk of the Catholic theology faculty of the University of Münster. It was the same Volk who, as cardinal archbishop of Mainz, Germany, grilled Hans about his best-seller On Being a Christian. At one point, Volk blurted out: "Herr Küng, Ihr Buch ist mir zu plausibel!" ("Mr. Küng, your book is too plausible!")

Hans and I first "met" when he, as the successor at Tübingen to my doctoral adviser, Heinrich Fries, wrote to me at the University of Munich, where I was continuing my research, about the publication of my Tübingen thesis. A year later, after I was ensconced in the history department of Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, I invited him to come as a visiting theology professor.

NCR provides comprehensive, accurate coverage (and a lot of inspiration) for all those who love the Church and want to make it better!

At that point, the excitement over the forthcoming Second Vatican Council (1962-65) was beginning to heat up, and soon the English translation of his book The Council, Reform, and Reunion catapulted Hans to the status of a theological rock star. 

He soon made a triumphant lecture tour of the U.S., including Duquesne, where the largest hall was sold out two weeks beforehand. Hundreds more were put into a neighboring hall, where the lecture was piped in. Hans told me that he subsequently had so many offers of professorships -- starting with Harvard -- that he felt he had to turn down my invitation, along with all the others.

It was in the midst of the frenetic excitement of the council that my wife, Arlene Anderson Swidler, came up with the idea of filling a then-gaping hole in theological scholarship, and we launched a scholarly periodical devoted to ecumenical dialogue: the Journal of Ecumenical Studies. We gathered a key group of associate editors, including Markus Barth (one of Karl Barth's sons) and Hans Küng.

The first issue in 1964 (50 years ago this year) contained articles by two young periti at Vatican II, which was reaching its crescendo by then: Küng and Ratzinger. For Hans, Arlene and me, this was just the beginning of a more than half-century-long friendship and collaboration on innumerable projects.

It is through the lens of our long relationship that I read Volume 3 of Hans' memoirs.

It is vintage Küng. Hans must have -- with German-Swiss clockwork -- saved and carefully filed every paper and note he took on his myriad travels, meetings, conferences and conversations. All is carefully documented, not in a pedantic manner, but in a way that assures the reader that she or he is getting wie es eigentlich gewesen, or what really happened.

So many of the world's thinkers and doers came to Hans, or he to them, that this third, and presumably last, volume of memoirs reads much like an intellectual, cultural and political "who's who" of the late 20th and early 21st century. Hans obviously wrote right up until the printer pulled the paper out of his hand to finish the book, for he recorded that on June 28, 2013, he wrote to Pope Francis asking for permission to reproduce the warm, handwritten note Francis had written to him in Spanish. (He clearly received an affirmative response.)

Hans means to make this volume his vaya con Dios in the sense that, at the end, he looks back and reflects on what he judges is a full and complete life. He said goodbye to his lifelong weeks of skiing -- "one of the most fascinating sports" -- in his beloved Swiss Alps as of 2010. He speaks of his various health issues and countering exercises.

The title of the mere 350-page English-language book, Can We Save the Catholic Church?/We Can Save the Catholic Church!, says it all. The second half of the English title is not in the original German (which was Ist die Kirche noch zu retten? -- "Can the Church Still Be Saved?"), but it echoes a sentiment that can be found in all seven chapters of the book. Küng sees long-term history moving through an ongoing series of lesser and larger paradigm shifts that are always resisted until a tipping point is reached and the new paradigm takes the center of thought and action.

He is convinced -- as I am, as well -- that we are in the midst of a major paradigm shift that, expectedly, is vehemently resisted. Nevertheless, it is replacing the old -- in this case, the Catholic medieval/Counter Reformation -- paradigm.

It is interesting and encouraging to read that last summer, when Hans sent a note of greeting and a Spanish copy of this book to Francis (and to the cardinals on the new papal Council of Cardinals, each in his own language), in only a few days he received the handwritten card mentioned above. In it, Francis thanked Hans for his note and the book, which, he said, he would read with pleasure.

Hans obviously knows intimately more about the deep problems of the past and present Catholic church than anyone else alive today, and he distills these structural, deadly flaws with scorching clarity. However, he doesn't simply criticize. He also lays out a set of suggested action plans. Hans, and now his readers, sees the depth of the disease in each portion of the church. But, learning the lessons of history, he knows that change is not only possible, but also inevitable.

Further, Hans also provides grounds for the inner courage that is needed to begin, or continue, those efforts, which will accelerate that positive change in the Catholic church. It is a vision of the church to which Hans, like so many others, has devoted, and will continue to devote, his life.

[85 year old Leonard J. Swidler is professor of Catholic thought and interreligious dialogue at Temple University, Pennsylvania.]

HAS GEORGIA GONE MAD? GUNS ALLOWED IN CHURCH!

If this is what I see when I am preaching, I think I would be driven to distraction!

One county above my parish in Macon, Georgia in the Savannah Diocese is the Archdiocese of Atlanta, where a goodly number of my illicit parishioners who are registered in my parish live. Their archbishop, Archbishop Wilton Gregory, has decreed that guns cannot be brought onto church property by rank and file Catholics even if the State of Georgia allows them to do so.

Thank you Archbishop Gregory for common sense in this matter. Here is what he wrote in the Georgia Bulletin, the Archdiocesan newspaper and at the end of the article is a link to the new Georgia State law on carrying guns to church:

Decrying the state’s new gun law

By ARCHBISHOP WILTON D. GREGORY, Commentary | Published April 30, 2014  | En Español

A new gun law has now been enacted in Georgia. I regret that legislative action more than I can possibly express in this brief column. I publicly supported and continue to endorse the objections of many of our religious and civic leaders as our elected officials were weighing this measure. And before this legislation takes effect in July, I will officially restrict the presence of weapons in our Catholic institutions except for those carried by the people that civic authorities have designated and trained to protect and guard us—and those who are duly authorized law and military officials.

The last thing we need is more firearms in public places, especially in those places frequented by children and the vulnerable. I do not want to suggest restricting firearms in places where they are needed, to protect one’s home and property or to defend the public by officials who are entrusted with our protection. Yet this new legislation de facto makes firearms more available in places where they may allow violence to escalate.

Churches and other places of worship are intended to be sanctuaries—holy sites where people come to pray and to worship God. In this nation of ours, they have seldom been the locations where violence has disrupted the otherwise peaceful atmosphere. Yet even those occasions—rare as they may be—are not sufficient reasons to allow people to bring more weapons into God’s house.

The new legislation makes weapons more readily available in places where alcohol is served. Most jurisdictions have rather specific laws regarding driving under the influence of alcohol. MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving), along with many similar related organizations, continues to remind the public that operating a vehicle always demands a sober mind. How can we who seek to keep our highways safe from people driving under the influence of alcohol justify allowing the presence of firearms in bars and saloons? Are not the same potential dynamics present when people with guns may be imbibing alcohol and less capable of making prudent decisions? Are we in the era of the fictionalized Wild West where people wore guns on their belts and settled disagreements with shoot-outs?

I trust our public agents and police officers to secure our safety. We may very well need more of them in some areas, and we should support legislation that honors those public servants and adequately provides for their civic duties and needs.

We obviously do live in an increasingly violent society. The long list of places where human carnage has destroyed lives and families is shameful:  Newtown, Connecticut; Fort Hood, Texas; Virginia Tech; and Columbine High School, Colorado, to mention only the more recent ones. Each one of those sad situations identified a person or persons with serious mental illness as the perpetrator. Often they may have been under some form of clinical treatment but obviously not sufficient to avert their brutal behavior. We need more professional mental health officials with the necessary resources to care for those whose unbalanced personalities can flare up into violence in public places.

Will more guns halt the violence that so terrifies us with increasing frequency? Is there no relationship between the violence that masquerades as entertainment and those who act out their rage in our midst? Does the world of communications not share some responsibility for broadcasting violent language, hate speech and brutal diatribes under the guise of First Amendment rights? What is the relationship between mental health and uncontrollable rage against other people or classes of people? These are serious questions that demand serious discussion and effective response and should not be swept under the rug.

During the recent past, we have witnessed the antics and heard too many of the diatribes of some personalities that brimmed over with hate against a race, a religion, those of gay or lesbian sexual orientation, the undocumented in our midst and those with differing political opinions. The language and sometimes even the behavior of these personalities are despicable and vile. Sadly, we know that such individuals do exist and their opinions garner far too much public attention. They become celebrities of the media and thus spew their hatred far too widely and too often firearms become part of their persona. Rather than more guns, we clearly need more facilities to help these types of people to at least control their rage and thus make us all safer.

Misuse of firearms is certainly not by any means limited to those suffering mental illness as we see guns used in the heat of anger in domestic situations, in suicides during fits of despair, in accidents resulting from inadequate training or negligence in securing weapons, and in blatant criminal activity.

Rather than making guns more available as a solution, we need leaders in government and society who will speak against violence in all aspects of life and who teach ways of reconciliation and peace and who make justice, not vengeance, our goal.

Read the Georgia Bulletin story on the new gun law here.