Catholic Medical Association annual conference

Here's a press release about the upcoming Catholic Medical Association conference in October in Portland, Ore. Please let your physicians know about it and encourage them to attend. This group is the one really bright spot in Catholic health care in the U.S. today. If anyone wants more info, please put some info in the Comments section and I'll get back to you.

Catholic Medical Association
PRESS RELEASE

National Headquarters
1241 Highland Avenue
P.O. Box 920480
Needham, Massachusetts 02492
Phone: (781) 455-0259
Fax: (781) 455-0357
Email: info@cathmed.org
www.cathmed.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
June 24, 2005

Children’s lives are of the greatest importance in public life since they are the future of the human race. How they are treated from their earliest days is of great concern to the medical professional.

The Catholic Medical Association, a group of physicians dedicated to upholding the principles of the Catholic faith in the practice of medicine, will be holding its 74th annual national conference in Portland, Oregon, on “The Biological and Spiritual Development of the Child.” Included in this conference will be discussions by a world-renowned child and adolescent psychiatrist about the latest research on the child’s brain development and the social environment needed to develop it. There will also be talks on “Sensory Development of the Fetus; Getting Started as “We, not Me”; the impact of sexual education on children’s brains; and on the child and the working mother.

“This conference will be looking at the rich connections between the physical development of children and their interactions with their families, families and the culture, and all of these with the Church,” said conference organizer, Thomas Pitre, M.D.

“This will be an important educational conference on the development of the human brain,” he added.

The gathering is taking place at the end of the Year of the Eucharist, proclaimed by Pope John Paul II, observed Pitre, a board certified urologist in private practice in Portland. “All of our topics relate to the Eucharist,” he said. “Our conference coinciding with the closing of this Year of the Eucharist will be a great source of reflection, blessing and grace for all of us.”

The Catholic Medical Association has guilds in various cities throughout the U.S. and Canada.

The New York Medical College has designated this educational activity for a maximum of 14.5 category 1 credits toward the AMA Physician’s Recognition Award.

The full program of events and registration materials are available on our website at www.cathmed.org.

Details:
What: The 74th annual national educational conference of the Catholic Medical Association

Who: Daniel Siegel, M.D., an internationally acclaimed child and adolescent psychiatrist and author from UCLA
David Fagerberg, Ph.D., a theology professor at the University of Notre Dame
Cardinal Francis George of Chicago
Bishop Thomas Olmsted of Phoenix
Bishop John Nienstedt of New Ulm, Minn.
Archbishop John Vlazny of Portland, Ore., and Bishop Robert Vasa of Baker, Ore., will celebrate Masses and preach.
It will also feature the choral groups
Portland Cathedral Choir
Cappella Romana (superb!)
Cantores in Ecclesia
Actor, producer and film and stage director Leonardo Defilippis will also perform his one-man play, “Maximilian: Saint of Auschwitz.”

Where: The Portland Hilton Executive Tower

When: October 20-22, 2005

A new book by Yours Truly (sort of)

At the end of next week, a new book should be out on the market called Dare to be Holy. It's by Bill Wegner and I'm the co-author (hence, the "sort of" in the title of this entry).

Bill is a New Jerseyite who was raised Catholic, left the Church when he went to college in the late 60's, made a whole bunch of life-type of mistakes, then made a whole bunch of money, lost it all, had a conversion experience, made a whole bunch of other money and then some, and then gave it up to go around the country and even to different countries to give lay parish missions. (He's been to my sister's parish in Jaffrey, NH and will be at St. Peter in Peterborough, NH, in October, along with a whole bunch of other places.)

The book is an easy read and is autobiographical as well as providing some challenging teaching on living the Christian life. It's been endorsed by Jeff Cavins, Ralph Martin, Johnette Benkovic, Joe Klecko (of New York Jets fame) and one other sports figure whom I can't remember at this time.

Here's Johnette's endorsement:

Pope Paul VI said, "Modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, or if he listens to teachers he does so because they are witnesses." How well these words apply to the evangelization efforts of Bill Wegner! In his book, "Dare to Be Holy," he recounts the unvarnished details of his journey from "would-be bookie" to real estate dynamo to full-time Catholic lay evangelist, and offers us a witness that truly teaches. With humor, insight, and inspiration, he gives us a window into his soul and convicts us in the process. This easy read packs a powerful punch as Bill Wegner all but "double dares" us to "be holy!"

Anyway, you can find more information about Bill at the website for Good News International. At some point in the next couple of weeks, there should be an order form available on that site as well as site for the book itself.

On marriage vows

On marriage vows

For those of you who are married, I’m sure you remember when you took your marriage vows. Even if it was 50 or 60 years ago, that moment doesn’t fade from memory. It is one of those life-defining moments that you simply cannot forget. I know I certainly don’t forget it.

But there seems to be a crisis in vows today. A lot of people don’t seem to know what they mean. Vows are public statements that we are making a commitment for life. We don’t know what the future will hold, we don’t know everything there is to know about this particular person we are marrying, but by God’s grace, I will commit myself to him or her and by that commitment, I will help myself and my spouse get into heaven.

You know, I think that’s something a lot of people forget about marriage. Marriage is one of the seven sacraments of the Catholic Church. Sure, the Church recognizes that marriage is a natural institution made by God at creation, and so all marriages, whether Catholic or not, are presumed to be valid. But she also recognizes that marriage has been raised by Christ, for those who believe, to more than a natural state. It has been elevated to help the spouses get into heaven.

That’s right, folks, marriage is supposed to help you get to heaven; it is supposed to help make you holy. That’s what the sacraments are all about, isn’t it? When we get baptized or confirmed, when we receive the Eucharist or the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick, or Confession, we know that we are receiving grace to grow in holiness. And we know that those who receive ordination are called to be holy and to help the rest of us become holy by administering the sacraments to us.

But when it comes to marriage, I’m afraid too many of us look at it as simply the Church’s blessing on our desire to live together. How much we’re missing when that’s what we think. Everyday you are married, you wake up and you are living in the grace of marriage. Think about that. Think about the fact that every time you engage in marital intimacy, you are renewing your wedding vows.

You know, I think that because marriage entails so much of the nitty-gritty of daily life, the grace that’s present in it is simply overlooked. But that’s really where the grace is – in the nitty-gritty of everyday life, of changing diapers, making meals, driving kids to soccer games, hashing out the money problems, going to the in-laws for Thanksgiving – all that stuff is to help make us holy.

So when we take those vows, we are committing ourselves to living in God’s grace with this particular man or woman. That’s why the Catholic Church only has two options for taking marriage vows. Today a lot of people make up their own vows and there are even websites that have sample vows. I was looking through some of those and you know what’s really interesting? A lot of those so-called vows don’t include a vow to a life-long commitment. And if doesn’t have that, then it’s simply not a vow.

A vow is a public statement that I will be committed to you for the rest of my life, no matter what happens. A vow is not a mere promise; it is much deeper than that. If I break a promise, that’s something between me and the person I promised. But if I break a vow, not only have I broken faith with my spouse, I have also broken faith with the people that I made that vow in front of, and in marriage, that means breaking faith with the Church.

Now, I know there are a lot of you who took vows but who made a mistake of one kind or another and I know that happens and it’s very painful when it happens. But I also know that very often we simply do not commit ourselves to the vows we took because we look at them as something less than they really are. If, however, we commit ourselves to those vows, then God will act and bless your marriage abundantly.

On liberal churches

Would you want to stay in a church that taught heresy? I know I wouldn’t. How about a church that taught less than the truth? I couldn’t go for that either. And it appears that many other Americans don’t like those kinds of churches all that much, too. Mainline Protestant churches in the U.S. have been steadily losing membership since about 1965. Churches like the Episcopal Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Methodists, United Church of Christ, the Disciples of Christ have all been losing members. Sometimes, as in the case of the Disciples of Christ, up to nearly 50 percent of their members have left or died without being replaced.

Contrast that with churches that are more faithful to the Gospel, or as the mainstream media like to say, conservative. Evangelical churches have seen an increase of at least 10 percent over the last 20 years, the Southern Baptists have increased 4 percent, Pentecostals have increased percent.

And even with the number of people leaving the Catholic Church for other denominations like the Evangelicals and Pentecostals, or leaving because of scandals, the numbers of those coming into the Roman Catholic Church have been steadily increasing.

Why is this happening? I think it’s because people are finding out that the liberal agenda is a dead end street. They’re realizing that a God who loves you where you’re at and then leaves you there isn’t much of a God. They’re realizing in their hearts that they need something more than to be told that they’re OK where they are, because they know they can’t go on sinning. They know in their heart of hearts that love is more than getting what I want when I want and how I want.

So they are looking for someone to serve. They are looking for a God who can take them out of their misery and bring them up to something they can’t get – divinity. Only God can give that to us.

So many churches today, and there are, unfortunately, a lot of Catholics who buy into this as well, have said we have to conform to the culture. We have to support people who want to contracept, who want abortions, who want us to bless homosexual “unions,” who want us to say, “It’s OK if you divorce and remarry even though Jesus himself said that to do so would be to commit adultery.”

And that’s what is happening in many of these churches. But what happens when the Church does that? The Church disappears. There is no need for it to exist anymore. If you say that the prevailing culture is good, then what purpose does the Church fulfill? The Church is there to call people to God, to call people away from sin and if the Church says, “Go ahead, sin all you want – it’s OK, we don’t mind,” then the Church has lost her reason for existence. And people know this in their hearts. Oh, sure they’ll grouse about how the Church says this and that and can’t they just shut up and leave us alone, but, like Herod before John the Baptist, they know the attraction of his words and their hearts are being pulled to the beauty of the truth.

On begging

Atlanta's City Council just passed an ordinance banning panhandling in a good portion of downtown. Here's what Drew had to say:

For a number of years in cities across the country, officials have been trying to “clean up” the streets. No, we’re not talking about picking up the litter; we’re talking about the poor and the homeless. The “clean up” that city officials want to do is to get the poor off the streets and, basically, out of sight and out of mind.

The poor and homeless out on the streets are embarrassing to everyone who’s lower middle class or above, to use our polite way of saying that those who are better off are simply better human beings. And since we’re better human beings, we don’t need these others around littering and cluttering up the streets.

But here’s the problem – we really do need these people around. I’m sure you’re asking yourselves now, What’s that, Drew? We need these people? Yes, we need these people. Let me ask you something – if everyone in the world was well off and well provided for, who would there be to do good to? If there were no handicapped people in the world, how could we be drawn out of ourselves and see people who are in much greater need than we are?

Jesus himself said that we would have the poor with us always and that we can do good to them whenever we want. This was a statement of fact, but it was also affirmed all that God had said throughout the Old Testament – we have to treat the poor with compassion and care.

Now, I’m not trying to romanticize the poor here. If you go to a downtown where there are people living on the street, you know as well as I do that they are an interesting group of people. Many of them have mental illnesses or addictions of one kind or another; they smell since they don’t get to shower very often, if at all; they can often be rude and demanding; and if you do something for them they can sometimes get the impression that you’re going to give them everything they need and become almost obnoxious.

But what of it? Don’t we all have our own faults and sins and bad habits? Of course, ours are a little more polite – instead of being obnoxious, we backbite. Instead of stealing, our checks bounce. Instead of begging, we hint at something we want. Our faults may not be as obvious, but they’re there and they’re no less wrong than those of the street beggar.

In other words, the poor remind us of our own poverty – and that makes us uncomfortable. We don’t like it that they remind us that if the company we work for went down the drain tomorrow or our spouse divorced us or some economic catastrophe struck the country, then we could end up like that.

But even more, they remind us of our spiritual poverty, and we have that in abundance. What did Blessed Mother Teresa say? “It is a great poverty that a child should die so that you may live as you wish.” Doesn’t that show how impoverished we really are?

When we don’t have the willingness to part with a couple of dollars to give to someone who is asking some help of us, even though Jesus himself said to us in the Sermon on the Mount, “Give to all who ask of you,” what kind of character are we displaying? That’s miserliness in my book, and certainly not a reflection of God the Father.

“Oh,” you say, “but they might go out and buy drugs or some drink with it.” OK, so? Remember what Jesus said about creation? How the sun shines on the just and the unjust and the rain falls on the just and unjust, too? So if God is so magnanimous that he does not withhold his blessings of creation on those who are unjust, who are we to be withholding the blessings God has given us simply because that beggar might spend it badly? Doesn’t God give us grace and don’t we misuse it? I know I do it all the time. But he doesn’t withhold it, does he? It would be awful if he did.

We who are well-off need the poor – and they need us. They need us to act like God the Father towards them, to be generous even though they might abuse what they receive. We need them so we can act like God the Father and learn to love as he loves – freely and without counting the cost.

So if your city starts talking about “cleaning up the streets” and wants to get an anti-begging ordinance in place, go and lobby your council member against it. Tell them we need the poor as much as they need us – and then watch them stare at you like you’ve got two heads.

The liturgy and EIFWAIL

How are the liturgy and EIFWAIL related you ask? It seems to me that those who think EIFWAIL is OK do not fully recognize the humanity of the child who is unborn. They do not recognize that that child is alive even if it is receiving all its life support from its mother. And, among Catholics, I partially blame ICEL.

The International Committee on English in the Liturgy was established after Vatican II to write up the English vernacular for the liturgy. That committee was dominated by people who thought a few interesting things:

1) Most people are too stupid to understand what's really going on in the liturgy and so we have to dumb everything down for them.

2) We don't want anyone to understand a whole lot about the Church's full tradition prior to 1965, so take out all references to angelic beings (hence the Prefaces no longer have references to angels, archangels, powers, principalities, etc.), Joseph being the most pure spouse of Mary, and so on.

3) English need not be poetic since most Americans aren't poetic, so we'll make the liturgical language as dull as possible.

Well, they succeeded in their task.

But they also succeeded in another task -- they succeeded in making people think that people do not become people until they are born. That came from the translation of the Creed in the section that reads, in Latin, "Et incarnatus est de Spiritu Sancto ex Maria Virgine, et homo factus est." Literally, "By the Holy Spirit, he was incarnate of the Virgin Mary and he was made man." But what we English-speaking Catholics get to say on Sundays is, "And by the power of the Holy Spirit, he was born of the Virgin Mary and became man."

There are a couple of things wrong with this:

1) This is a horrible translation. My children could do a better job than these supposed professionals did.

2) He was not born by the power of the Holy Spirit. That was a natural process.

3) The most grievous fault is this: He was already a man while he was in the womb of his mother. Not a man, of course, in the sense of being grown-up, but in the sense that he was of the human race. But because we recite this every week and have been doing so for nearly 40 years, I contend that the thought has crept into our minds that since Jesus did not become man until he was born, what of the rest of us who are far less than he ever was?

I do not know exactly how to consider ICEL on this point. Did the committee members intend this or not? Let's hope not because if they did, their extreme insidiousness helped to brainwash many, many Catholics to think that Planned Parenthood and Peter Singer really are correct.

EIFWAIL among homeschoolers?

As readers of this blog know, I did a lot of work on early induction of fetuses with anamolies incompatible with life, otherwise known as EIFWAIL (scroll down to the entry of Feb 21 for links to all my pieces on the subject).

So when I got a link to a Catholic homeschooler's blog defending her decision to have this procedure done, it took me aback. I'm assuming from the tone of what she wrote that some of the things she received were written by people who spoke rather rudely to her condemning her decision. Such people should be ashamed.

However, I cannot pass this over nor write approvingly of her decision, no matter how difficult it was for her. I am not speaking in judgment of her, only writing based on what she has stated and what I learned in the course of my work on EIFWAIL.

When I talked with Drs. Thomas Hilgers and Byron Calhoun, both highly respected Ob/Gyn's and Calhoun a highly respected perinatologist, they made it plain to me that it is NEVER necessary to perform an early induction in the case of fetal anomalies, unless the mother's life is at risk. And even when the mother is at risk, that is something that can be closely monitored and taken care of when the need arises.

The important thing here is that the life of the child has to be given the utmost consideration. Anne argues that Sarah was going to die anyway. That is, of course, true. So are we all. But Sarah's life was not over yet. She still had life in the womb. Leaving "her in to cook," as Anne wrote, was not the issue. The issue was whether or not Sarah still had God-given life in her, life no one on this earth was entitled to take until her time had come. As I have said to other people, simply because we are all "going to die anyway" does not entitle me to shoot anyone on sight.

I can understand Anne's decision. All the medical experts she consulted were telling her it was the right thing to do. Indeed, I would say that they were probably expecting and setting up the atmosphere for her to do an early induction. Her reply to someone's comment that she did not want to see Sarah suffer indicates that they did a pretty good job at making that atmosphere permeate nearly all her thinking.

However, it seems to me from reading her blog that her heart told her something different. I only wish that someone who knew better could have been there to tell her that she could have handled it with the grace of Christ that comes from so many different sources -- her marriage, her friends, the sacraments, people who have been through it -- that she could have kept Sarah for as long as she was alive in the womb, that someone like St. Gianna Beretta Molla could intercede for her and give her inspiration to cling as much as possible to Christ's cross, no matter how difficult it is.

We all fail everyday in following Christ, so I make no judgment on Anne at all. But if only someone had told her that love for others, even to the point of sacrificing ourselves, is our highest good....

Commentaries coming up

On my way home from my father's funeral, I found out that I was being offered an independent contractor position with Relevant Radio, a Catholic radio network based out of Green Bay, Wis. I am doing research and writing for the Drew Mariani Show, their afternoon drive-time talk show. I'm writing up some commentaries for Drew on various subjects. After the show for which I write them has broadcast, I'll post them here.

Obviously, I'm writing them for him and his style, so they're very informal and laced with radio-style talking. Of course, I can't completely imitate him -- only he can give his "Drew-isms," but you can get a flavor of what he's like.

Drew did a great service during the Terri Schiavo affair. He did four days worth of broadcasting from there at least three weeks before the rest of the media woke up to realize there was something going on in Clearwater. And since he was doing it from a Catholic perspective, he got it right.

This week he's broadcasting from World Youth Day in Cologne and yours truly is writing up a number of things for that.

You can listen to him live on the Internet by clicking on the Listen Live link on Relevant Radio's homepage. He's on from 3 to 6 Central. RR has stations throughout Wisconsin, in Chicago, Pittsburgh, somewhere in North Carolina, Naples & Fort Meyers Fla. Of course, a complete list is available at their site.

I'm back

I was on an extended hiatus for some good reasons, but have decided to end it. Part of the reason for the break was due to my father's death on July 15, the feast of St. Bonaventure, and his burial on July 20, the feast of St. Apollinaris. Walter Szyszkiewicz died of complications from cancer, a cancer which was manifested on December 12 of last year, the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. He went through six months of exhausting radiation and chemo therapies, none of which really helped a whole lot.

But it is partly a result of his funeral that I am writing again. While I was back home, my cousin told me something at the funeral home -- his wife had noticed that I hadn't updated my blog. When I asked her about after the funeral the next day, she said, "He wasn't supposed to say anything."

When I got back home, I had a bunch of things to do and didn't look at my blog. But this weekend was a family reunion of my wife's family -- with all but one of her eight brothers and their families. (Doing pictures at these events is always kind of interesting for me. We always get one with the brothers and sister with Mom and Dad, and then one with the sisters-in-law -- and me.) Yesterday morning at my in-law's home, one of my sisters-in-law said, "Tom, I've read your blog, but you haven't done anything on it." One of my nephews told me the same thing.

So, due to popular demand from the Szyszkiewicz and Gibson families, I'm back.

Make the clergy pay -- but no one else

Marci Hamilton is a lawyer and legal scholar at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University in New York. She has made numerous statements to the effect that the Catholic Church should be policed by people outside of the institution, have punitive damages leveled against her, and the statutes of limitation on sexual abuse cases be lifted because of clergy sex abuse. (You can find a listing of her columns here.) Now she is advocating this:

Congress could deter such destructive institutional defenses by mandating the revocation of tax-exempt status for any charitable non-profit institution, or one of its legal subdivisions, that fosters or covers up child abuse or fails to report it to authorities.

I find it interesting that basically no one has said anything about other institutions that have child sex abuse problems. As I said in a letter to the editor of USA Today, "Why doesn't Hamilton ask Congress to investigate something it can control -- the public school system? Charol Shakeshaft of Hofstra University has documented the insidious practice of shuffling abusing teachers from one school to the other and shown that the numbers and percentages of children abused in public schools are far higher than those abused by priests." (Whether or not that letter will be published has yet to be seen.)

Many people accuse the Catholic Church of being priggishly self-righteous. It irks me to no end that while people like Hamilton and the MSM are rubbing our noses into the failings of some priests and bishops, they fail to look at the much rather larger pile of do that's behind them.

Watch out, Latinos. Planned Parenthood's mobilizing

The Washington Post today carried an article saying that Hispanic population growth in the U.S. is now taking place more by births than by immigration. This is based on a Census Bureau report.

Hispanics accounted for about half the growth in the U.S. population since 2000, according to a Census Bureau report to be released today that indicates the nation's largest minority group is increasing its presence even faster than in the previous decade.

In another contrast to the 1990s, births have overtaken immigration this decade as the largest source of Hispanic growth.

Actually, this really isn't news. A few years ago at the Catholic Press Association convention in Dallas, one of the featured speakers was a demographer of Hispanic background. He was from one of the local institutions of higher learning, though his name and affiliation now escape me. This demographer told the Catholic editors and writers assembled there that the growth of the Hispanic population in Texas was huge, that it was due more to births than to immigration, and that it would fundamentally change a whole lot of things in that state.

So here I was at a gathering of fellow Catholic writers and editors and so I figured this guy had some sort of pro-life sympathies. Based on that assumption, I ask my question: "With all that you said in mind, is it safe to assume that Planned Parenthood is targeting or is going to be targeting young Hispanic women to have them get more abortions?" Here was (in essence -- I don't remember the exact quote) his answer: "Yes they are -- and they should!"

I admit that I was shocked and don't remember anything more of what he said. I shouldn't have been shocked, but I was. The reason for the shock is because here's a guy saying members of his own race need to be controlled like animals. This can only be described as sick type of envy of white people and a detestation of his own God-given dignity as a member of a particular family.

So, Latinos, watch out -- with a story like the Post's today, that is only going to increase Planned Parenthood's efforts to be the thought and womb police and destroy your children. But not only that, there's something worse -- your own people are willing to betray you to them.

The not-so-peaceful Muslims

I couldn't help but notice three articles on Islam or Islamic states in the big three Eastern newspapers today. The Boston Globe's Jeff Jacoby and the New York Times' David Brooks both had articles excoriating commentators who only blamed Newsweek for the anti-American riots in Afghanistan and Pakistan because of the magazine's wrong story about interrogators at Guantanamo Bay flushing the Koran down the toilet. Instead, they said, we should look at the Islamists themselves.

Good point. So the Washington Post obliged (unwittingly, to be sure) with an article on a Briton who claims he endured torture in a Saudi jail for a crime he never committed.

Here's my perspective: Newsweek was wrong. They screwed up journalistically, no doubt about that, so one cannot deflect any blame for their own error from them or use what James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal's OpinionJournal likes to call "the fake but accurate" defense -- the story was right in its essence, but wrong in its particulars.

However, they are not to blame for the riots. It wasn't the Newsweek writers who got the crowds out on the streets. It wasn't the Newsweek editors who killed the 16 who died. That responsibility lies solely with the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan and their leaders, both religious and secular (or should I say religious/secular, or religiousecular?).

Peaceful Islam? Can't say that's an oxymoron -- but can't say that it isn't, either.

Sorry, Bill, you're wrong on this one

On May 11, Bill Donohue of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights issued this press release:

ALASKA RIGHT TO LIFE BECOMES INTRUSIVE

For the past two years, a non-Catholic pro-life group, Alaska Right to Life, has become increasingly critical of Providence Alaska Medical Center, a Catholic hospital that is under the tutelage of Anchorage Archbishop Roger Schwietz; it has also become quite critical of the archbishop. Alaska Right to Life contends that Providence permits abortions, something the hospital and the archbishop deny.

In 2003, when Archbishop Schwietz was told by Alaska Right to Life that a procedure called early induction of labor was being performed at Providence, and that it was a form of abortion, he immediately declared a halt to it. After he concluded that Catholic ethical principles were not being compromised, he lifted the moratorium. He then asked officials at Providence to work with the National Catholic Bioethics Center to make sure that its guidelines were air tight. The Catholic community was satisfied, but it did nothing to satisfy Alaska Right to Life.

Catholic League president William Donohue commented as follows:

"It is patently untrue, and grossly unfair, to say that Providence Alaska Medical Center performs abortions and that Archbishop Roger Schwietz approves of them. To his credit, Archbishop Schwietz sought the counsel of Dr. John Haas, one of the nation’s leading Catholic bioethicists; he is a person I know and trust. Dr. Haas helped the hospital revise its guidelines, which are constantly being updated, so that there would never be any loopholes.

"Alaska Right to Life stands for a noble cause, but its intrusive manner—lecturing the Catholic community on what the Catholic Catechism says—has turned off the Knights of Columbus and the Catholic Daughters of America. Add the Catholic League to this list. The final straw for us was the April edition of its newsletter wherein it asked its members to appeal to the Vatican to intervene in this issue. This crosses the line—a secular group like Alaska Right to Life ought to learn to mind its own business. Its reputation as a meddler does not help its cause."

(You may recall that I covered the story about Early Induction for Fetuses with Anomalies Incompatible with Life (EIFWAIL) at Catholic hospitals for Our Sunday Visitor and National Catholic Register.)

Now I respect the Catholic League a lot and what Bill Donohue does for them and the Catholic Church in the United States. But, unfortunately, Bill got this one wrong on a number of fronts. I called the League on May 11 to talk with him about this. I got a call back from Communications Director Kiera McCaffrey and talked with her about it. And I did run this e-mail by them hoping that Bill would talk to me about it. The only response I got was that I could post it. So here goes:

1) Providence's CEO, Al Parrish, has told AKRTL vice-president, Ed Wassell, a solidly orthodox Catholic, that they are still doing the procedure. You see, Parrish has frequently let Wassell know when they have done the Early Induction for Fetuses With Anomolies Incompatible with Life (EIFWAIL), either by calling him or by answering the question directly when Wassell asks (strange arrangement, I know, but that is what happens). And virtually every time it has been done, Wassell has asked if it was for the life of the mother, and the answer always is "No." So even though Providence have policies in place prohibiting the practice, by Parrish's own admission, they are not following those procedures.

2) Early induction is a fairly common procedure for many different obstetrical situations, usually to intervene in some sort of life-threatening situation (life-threatening to either the mother or child). But as it is stated in the press release it would appear that AKRTL believe that any hospital doing early inductions is doing an immoral procedure, and that is wrong.

AKRTL are objecting to a very specific procedure called EIFWAIL. It is meant to terminate a pregnancy with a child that has severe post-natal, life-threatening abnormalities, such as anencephaly (a baby with only a brain stem), renal agenesis (failure of the kidneys and lungs to form) and other rare conditions. Providence and other Catholic hospitals practice this induction at 23 to 24 weeks gestation in order to get around the Ethical and Religious Directives of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops prohibition on abortion by saying these children have reached the age of viability.

As I stated in my OSV article after interviewing Drs. Thomas Hilgers and Byron Calhoun, both of whom are maternal-fetal specialists: "Both physicians emphasized that early induction can be done in these situations for the same conditions in which it would be done with normal children, such as when the mother’s physical health is imminently endangered."

But Dr. Hilgers, founder and director of the Pope Paul VI Institute at Creighton University in Omaha, Neb., made clear that "these babies should be allowed to go to term as any other babies are. The bottom line issue is, would you do this to a baby who is normal? No, you would never subject that baby to prematurity."

Here is what the National Catholic Bioethics Center has posted on its website about the procedure:

Early induction of labor for chorioamnionitis, preeclampsia, and H.E.L.L.P. syndrome, for example, can be morally licit under the conditions just described because it directly cures a pathology by evacuating the infected membranes in the case of chorioamnionitis, or the diseased placenta in the other cases, and cannot be safely postponed. However, early induction of an anencephalic child when there is no serious pathology of the mother which is being directly treated is not morally licit, emotional distress notwithstanding. Early induction of labor before term (37 weeks) to relieve emotional distress hastens the death of the child as a means of achieving this presumed good effect and unjustifiably deprives the child of the good of gestation. Moreover, this distress is amenable to psychological support such as is offered in perinatal hospice. Lastly, induction of labor before term performed simply for the reason that the child has a lethal anomaly is direct abortion. (emphasis mine)

3) Archbishop Schwietz did indeed call on the NCBC to help draft new guidelines, which was a good call. But their efforts to do so were hampered by Providence. Even after the policies were written and sent to Providence, it was not entirely clear to the NCBC staff that the hospital would even adopt them as they were free to use them or not.

Providence finally did take them. However, they will not let anyone outside the organization have them. I have requested to see them to no avail. When Ed Wassell asked to see them, he could only do so sitting in the office of a Providence administrator and no copies were allowed to be made or taken.

4) Many of the principals of AKRTL are Catholic. So even though AKRTL is officially a secular organization, its leadership and membership are made up of faithful Christian people, including Catholics. They are, therefore, rightly interested in what goes on at Providence, particularly if they are doing something as serious as EIFWAIL.

Quoting the Catechism of the Catholic Church seems to me to be a very appropriate thing to do when one is confronting a Catholic institution that is not living up to its responsibility -- even, or especially if the group doing the quoting is not Catholic.

5) Bill claimed that the April newsletter of AKRTL called on the group's members to appeal to the Vatican to intervene. That is not correct. Here's what the newsletter did say:

APPEAL TO THE VATICAN

Since the Pope and Vatican in Rome have ultimate jurisdiction over Providence Hospital, Alaska Right to Life petitioned the Holy See in January 2004 to intervene and bring a halt to the practice of early induction abortion. The letter was signed by Karen Vosburgh, Executive Director of Alaska Right to Life. Response from such communications typically takes a lengthy period of time, because such matters are very carefully investigated.

Alaska Right to Life will continue to pursue all means at our disposal to halt early induction abortions.

However, they were not the only ones. Others also reported this to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in early 2004, so it is quite likely that Pope Benedict XVI himself is aware of it. And if you look at John Paul the Great's ad limina speech to the bishops of Oregon, Washington and Alaska last year, there are hints that he even knew about it:

5. The many initiatives of American Catholics on behalf of the elderly, the sick and the needy – through nursing homes, hospitals, clinics and various relief and assistance centers – have always been, and continue to be, an eloquent witness to the "faith, hope and love" (1 Cor 13:31) which must mark the life of every disciple of the Lord. In the United States, generations of religious and committed lay people, by building up a network of Catholic health care institutions, have borne outstanding testimony to Christ, the healer of bodies and souls, and to the dignity of the human person. The significant challenges facing these institutions in changing social and economic circumstances must not be allowed to weaken this corporate witness. Established policies in complete conformity with the Church’s moral teaching need to be firmly in place in Catholic health care facilities, and every aspect of their life ought to reflect their religious inspiration and their intimate link to the Church’s mission of bringing supernatural light, healing and hope to men and women at every stage of their earthly pilgrimage. (emphasis in original)

6) Bill's claim that the Catholic community was satisfied with what Providence did is up for debate. Maybe the NCBC were satisfied when the hospital finally adopted the policies. Archbishop Schwietz appears to have been.

Three things, though:
a) as demonstrated in number 1 above, Providence haven't implemented the policies the NCBC wrote for them;
b) the NCBC do not constitute the whole of the Catholic community; and
c) even if the archbishop is satisfied, weren't certain other prelates satisfied that clerical abusers wouldn't abuse again after getting treatment for their predilictions and their psychologists said everything was OK?

7) Besides EIFWAIL, there are serious issues with Providence that show a deep disregard for the teachings of the Church as evidenced by two key facts of which I am presently aware:

a) They have in their employ one Dr. Nelson Isada who is a known and published abortionist. He authored or co-authored numerous articles on abortion techniques while he was at Wayne State University in Detroit. Two years after he got to Alaska and was in Providence's employ, he was party to a lawsuit against the State of Alaska after the state passed its Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. He is now a maternal-fetal physician on staff there and the head of Providence's genetic counseling center (scary thought).

When asked about this rather incongruous situation of having a known abortionist working at a Catholic hospital, the Archdiocese told me it was a hospital issue. (But the implementation of the Ethical and Religious Directives, one of which states, "Catholic health care institutions need to be concerned about the danger of scandal in any association with abortion providers," is to be overseen by the local bishop.) Providence's response to me was, "Dr. Isada knows and follows our policies."

Prof. Kevin Miller of my alma mater, Franciscan University of Steubenville, posted the following about Dr. Isada on the Heart, Mind & Strength blog (originals are here, here, here and here) after my OSV articles were published:

3. What has Dr. Isada published on abortion?

Here are some relevant citations/abstracts:

• N.B. Isada et al., "Fetal intracardiac potassium chloride injection to avoid the hopeless resuscitation of an abnormal abortus: I. Clinical issues," Obstetrics and Gynecology 80 (1992): 296-99.

Abstract. OBJECTIVE: With the intention of preventing the attendant medical, ethical, and legal problems arising from the birth of live-born, anomalous fetuses, we initiated a program offering fetal intracardiac potassium chloride injection as an adjunctive measure in the setting of genetically indicated second-trimester abortion. METHODS: A lethal fetal injection was offered to patients carrying chromosomally or structurally abnormal fetuses at 19-24 weeks' gestation who desired abortion. When the patient elected this procedure, real-time ultrasound guidance was used to inject 3-5 mL of potassium chloride (2 mEq/mL) directly into the fetal cardiac chambers, followed by observation of fetal heart activity to ascertain cessation. Labor was subsequently induced with uterotonic prostaglandins. RESULTS: The procedure caused immediate cessation of fetal heart motion in 20 of 21 cases. There were no maternal complications. No fetuses were live-born. CONCLUSIONS: Direct fetal intracardiac potassium chloride injection effectively causes immediate fetal cardiac arrest. This approach may be adopted in cases of abortion by labor-induction methods at advanced gestations to ensure that the abortus is stillborn.

• Fletcher, N.B. Isada, et al., "Fetal intracardiac potassium chloride injection to avoid the hopeless resuscitation of an abnormal abortus: II. Ethical issues," Obstetrics and Gynecology 80 (1992): 310-13.

Abstract. Following the diagnosis of a genetic anomaly, some couples choose to have a legal abortion. However, following later abortions at greater than 20 weeks, the rare but catastrophic occurrence of live births can lead to fractious controversy over neonatal management. To avoid this situation, we have added fetal intracardiac potassium chloride injection to cause fetal cardiac arrest before induction of labor. The ethical issues surrounding such a practice are complex. We support this practice for three reasons: 1) The women's decision for abortion is protected because this practice assures her right for non-interference; 2) potential psychological harm to the patient and other family members is avoided; and 3) the potential for coercive intervention by other health care personnel is eliminated. At least three objections can be raised: 1) All abortions are unjust; 2) newborns and second-trimester fetuses at similar weights with identical defects should be managed in like fashion; and 3) the patient is not entitled to death of the fetus, only to evacuation of the uterine contents. On balance, we believe that our approach is justifiable ethically as it reduces the burden of conflict between the wishes of the patient and those of the neonatal care givers. It should be introduced only in situations in which the likelihood of civil or criminal liability or unwarranted medical intervention is high.

• Evans, Littman, N.B. Isada, and Johnson, "Multifetal Pregnancy Reduction and Selective Termination," in High Risk Pregnancy: Management Options, ed. James et al. (Saunders, 1994), chap. 57.
• Evans, N.B. Isada, et al., "Multifetal pregnancy reduction and selective second-trimester termination," in Multiple Pregnancy: Epidemiology, Gestation and Perinatal Outcome, ed. Keith et al. (Parthenon, 1995), chap. 26.
• Evans, Hume, Reichler, Nelson B. Isada, and Johnson, "Selective Termination," in Invasive Outpatient Procedures in Reproductive Medicine, ed. Evans et al. (Lippincott-Raven, 1996), chap. 6.

4. How else has Dr. Isada been involved in pro-abortion advocacy?

In 1997, he was one of eleven plaintiffs on whose behalf the Alaska Civil Liberties Union filed a suit against the state's partial-birth abortion ban.

b) A counselor at Providence helped a 15-year-old Laotion girl and her 17-year-old boyfriend to fly to Seattle at state expense in order for her to have an abortion. Her parents are now suing the counselor and the hospital.

8) While the Knights of Columbus and the Catholic Daughters of America have, for now, severed their ties with AKRTL, this appears to simply be a case of bad communication and misinformation. Ed Wassell has admitted to me that he did mess up in communication before and at the annual service the Knights have to honor the unborn who have died through abortion, but it was not an intentional slight. I think he would admit that AKRTL's tactics have not always been the best. But bad tactics do not amount to being wrong on this issue.

9) Finally, Bill never called the people at AKRTL to get their input on this press release. AKRTL found out about it only after I sent it to them. If I were to write a story about some controversial subject without calling all the parties involved, particularly if those parties were considered friends or allies, I would rightly be excoriated for doing such and I could possibly even be sued for libel or some other malfeasance.

Yet there's still one more thing to look at. On May 12, the day after he sent out the release on AKRTL, Bill sent out another press release, this one rightly castigating Rainbow Sash for planning on protesting at cathedrals and parishes on Pentecost. It seems to me that to attack AKRTL one day and then go after Rainbow Sash the next practically equates the two.

Liberation Theology II

There's one thing I forgot to mention in my post on liberation theology. At the end of our day in Cuernavaca, we were told we were going to go to the house of someone in the group's father. So we all got on board a first-class bus and went to another section of the city. Turns out this person's father lived in a gated community. Beautiful palm tree-lined streets, all the lawns trimmed, gorgeous houses all over the place were the rule. The house we were at was well-tended and at least three servants, a pool, and a very well-liquored party were on order for us. And my confreres enjoyed it.

Somehow this incongruity, not in the city, but in my confrere's attitudes was something I could not resolve. It seemed to me that it was almost a use of the poor to advance some sort of ideology rather than truly caring for the poor, like Blessed Mother Teresa and the many others like her who found God's will in identifying personally with them.

I have a woodcut that is in direct contrast to the picture of Jesus with the cross I mentioned on the walls of that house in Cuernavaca. It shows Jesus with the crown of thorns reaching down to a man who is obviously starving. The starvation he suffers is far more than material -- it is a starvation of love and Jesus is giving that to him. That, it seems to me, should be what we as Christians should be about.

My own encounter with liberation theology

One of the criticisms we're hearing about Pope Benedict XVI is that he squashed the liberation theology movement of the 70's and 80's, a movement that was supposed to identify the Church with the poor and help out with crushing poverty in South America. I'd like to look at that from a personal perspective.

In 1999, not long after I was named editor of the Times Review in the Diocese of La Crosse, I went to a conference in Mexico City on the effects of the North American Free Trade Agreement particularly on the Mexican economy. It was sponsored by the Catholic Press Association and UCIP, the international Catholic press guild.

Many of my colleagues on this trip were fans of liberation theology and the speakers there, including Gustavo Gutierrez, were of this mind as well. This was unfortunate, because then-Bishop Raymond Burke had wanted me to find out what was really going on with the Mexican economy as a result of NAFTA, particularly on the agricultural front.

I did get some sense of what was happening, which was not good, but the overwhelming sense I had was one of resentment against Church teaching on social justice. Nowhere was this more evident than in a day trip we took to Cuernavaca in the south of the country, the site of Cortez's castle. It's a beautiful place where it never gets below 55 degrees (F). But like the rest of Mexico, it is emblazoned with devastating and constant poverty. A quick drive around the city and you see half-finished houses with rebars sticking up out of them as cement is the building material of choice there. This is obviously subsistance living, but it's being carried out in a city which, while having loads of natural beauty around it, is still a city and not a place that makes it easy to grow one's own food.

A group of about three or four of us met with a family in their home in a new neighborhood in Cuernavaca. They had built it on land that the couple were able to take over because they found documents showing that the land belonged to them. It had been an act of derring-do, one done in conjunction with other people in the area, and one which could have resulted in violence. Fortunately, it did not.

However, these people did not rule out the possibility of using violence later on. There was another piece of property across a ravine from this particular neighborhood that was owned by someone else. The man told me that they wanted to get hold of that land as well. Well, I asked him, do you have any claim to that land? No, he replied. Well then, how are you going to get it? I queried. His reply, though not verbatim, was essentially, If we have to take it by force, we will.

As we sat in their house, which was still unfinished on the outside after six years of building, but was fairly nice on the interior, we asked them questions. One of the members of our group noticed two different pictures on their walls: one was Che Guevara; the other was of Jesus with a cross in his hand, but he looked like he was ready to mow down the next person who crossed him (pun intended). She asked the couple, "Can you tell me about the two icons you have up on your wall?" I honestly don't remember their reply, though I do recall how much they liked that particular image of Jesus because it showed he was going to do something and not just be mamby-pamby.

Indeed, this was evident in the cathedral in Cuernavaca. It is a beautiful exterior structure, but in the late 60's it underwent a serious "wreckovation," the likes of which I do not think have been seen in the U.S. It is now dark, sparse and what little furniture is there is made with ugly and sharp angles. There is no longer a womanly beauty to it, "like a bride adorned to meet her husband." Instead, the sharp angles characterize that of a man on a mean mission, like the picture of Jesus ready to mow someone down. That the bishop of the diocese at that time decided that the interior beauty the cathedral possessed at the time was somehow something only for the rich, and the poor needed to have ecclesiastical solidarity shown by stripping it of its adornment, is evidence of a systemized approach.

All of this went to contribute to this insight, which I am sure I am late at coming to: liberation theology is about systems, not people. Systems have people in them and place people below the system. What is important to systems is the process and the end result. The system liberation theology is concerned with is economics. While the poverty is dire and it is wrong for the people of Mexico or anywhere else to be left in it, liberating people from economic poverty is not the ultimate goal of the Christian faith. Rather, liberating people from sin is the ultimate goal.

And that is where liberation theology fails. There is no love present in it, the only thing that liberates us from sin. Rather, just as the picture of Jesus ready to mow down the next person who crosses him, it wants to mow down those horrible landowners who do not care for the plight of the poor. But that's not what Jesus would do. His solution is to bring conversion to them so that they have a change of heart and freely give of what they have been given, like those in the Acts of the Apostles who sold their land and gave the money to the apostles for distribution to all, or make restitution for what they took, like Zacheus the tax collector.

If this does not happen, the liberation movement will only enslave its adherents in anger, hatred and resentment and keep the fires of conflict between rich and poor stoked.

Are we worried yet?

Michael Paulson wrote this article in the wake of Father Tom Reese's leaving America magazine. The problem with his article is that, besides Father Richard John Neuhaus, Paulson talked to no one else in the Catholic publishing world who is solidly orthodox.

Tom Hoopes, Greg Erlandson, Tim Hickey, Gerry Korson, Bob Moynihan, Phil Lawler, Cherie Peacock, Brian Saint Paul, etc., etc., I'm quite sure are not lying awake at night wondering, "Am I next?"

Nor are Father Terrence Henry at Steubenville or the presidents of Christendom, Thomas Aquinas, UD, Magdalen, etc., convening emergency meetings of their trustees to discuss the so-called "chilling effect" this move will supposedly have on academic freedom and publishing.

So one wonders, if those other editors and presidents that Paulson reported on are so worried about Father Tom's departure, how Catholic can they be?

Pope Benedict's first message

Note this in light of my last entry: "I too, as I start in the service that is proper to the Successor of Peter, wish to affirm with force my decided will to pursue the commitment to enact Vatican Council II, in the wake of my predecessors and in faithful continuity with the millennia-old tradition of the Church." (emphasis mine)

BENEDICT XVI, A POPE OF CHRIST, COMMUNION, COLLEGIALITY

VATICAN CITY, APR 20, 2005 (VIS) - Following is the complete text of the first message of Pope Benedict XVI which he delivered in Latin at the end of this morning's Mass with the members of the College of Cardinals in the Sistine Chapel. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected as the 264th successor to St. Peter in early evening yesterday.

"Grace and peace in abundance to all of you! In my soul there are two contrasting sentiments in these hours. On the one hand, a sense of inadequacy and human turmoil for the responsibility entrusted to me yesterday as the Successor of the Apostle Peter in this See of Rome, with regard to the Universal Church. On the other hand I sense within me profound gratitude to God Who - as the liturgy makes us sing - does not abandon His flock, but leads it throughout time, under the guidance of those whom He has chosen as vicars of His Son, and made pastors.

"Dear Ones, this intimate recognition for a gift of divine mercy prevails in my heart in spite of everything. I consider this a grace obtained for me by my venerated predecessor, John Paul II. It seems I can feel his strong hand squeezing mine; I seem to see his smiling eyes and listen to his words, addressed to me especially at this moment: 'Do not be afraid!'

"The death of the Holy Father John Paul II, and the days which followed, were for the Church and for the entire world an extraordinary time of grace. The great pain for his death and the void that it left in all of us were tempered by the action of the Risen Christ, which showed itself during long days in the choral wave of faith, love and spiritual solidarity, culminating in his solemn funeral.

"We can say it: the funeral of John Paul II was a truly extraordinary experience in which was perceived in some way the power of God Who, through His Church, wishes to form a great family of all peoples, through the unifying force of Truth and Love. In the hour of death, conformed to his Master and Lord, John Paul II crowned his long and fruitful pontificate, confirming the Christian people in faith, gathering them around him and making the entire human family feel more united.

"How can one not feel sustained by this witness? How can one not feel the encouragement that comes from this event of grace?

"Surprising every prevision I had, Divine Providence, through the will of the venerable Cardinal Fathers, called me to succeed this great Pope. I have been thinking in these hours about what happened in the region of Cesarea of Phillippi two thousand years ago: I seem to hear the words of Peter: 'You are Christ, the Son of the living God,' and the solemn affirmation of the Lord: 'You are Peter and on this rock I will build my Church ... I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven'.

"You are Christ! You are Peter! It seems I am reliving this very Gospel scene; I, the Successor of Peter, repeat with trepidation the anxious words of the fisherman from Galilee and I listen again with intimate emotion to the reassuring promise of the divine Master. If the weight of the responsibility that now lies on my poor shoulders is enormous, the divine power on which I can count is surely immeasurable: 'You are Peter and on this rock I will build my Church'. Electing me as the Bishop of Rome, the Lord wanted me as his Vicar, he wished me to be the 'rock' upon which everyone may rest with confidence. I ask him to make up for the poverty of my strength, that I may be a courageous and faithful pastor of His flock, always docile to the inspirations of His Spirit.

"I undertake this special ministry, the 'Petrine' ministry at the service of the Universal Church, with humble abandon to the hands of the Providence of God. And it is to Christ in the first place that I renew my total and trustworthy adhesion: 'In Te, Domine, speravi; non confundar in aeternum!'

"To you, Lord Cardinals, with a grateful soul for the trust shown me, I ask you to sustain me with prayer and with constant, active and wise collaboration. I also ask my brothers in the episcopacy to be close to me in prayer and counsel so that I may truly be the 'Servus servorum Dei' (Servant of the servants of God). As Peter and the other Apostles were, through the will of the Lord, one apostolic college, in the same way the Successor of Peter and the Bishops, successors of the Apostles - and the Council forcefully repeated this - must be closely united among themselves. This collegial communion, even in the diversity of roles and functions of the Supreme Pontiff and the bishops, is at the service of the Church and the unity of faith, from which depend in a notable measure the effectiveness of the evangelizing action of the contemporary world. Thus, this path, upon which my venerated predecessors went forward, I too intend to follow, concerned solely with proclaiming to the world the living presence of Christ.

"Before my eyes is, in particular, the witness of Pope John Paul II. He leaves us a Church that is more courageous, freer, younger. A Church that, according to his teaching and example, looks with serenity to the past and is not afraid of the future. With the Great Jubilee the Church was introduced into the new millennium carrying in her hands the Gospel, applied to the world through the authoritative re-reading of Vatican Council II. Pope John Paul II justly indicated the Council as a 'compass' with which to orient ourselves in the vast ocean of the third millennium. Also in his spiritual testament he noted: ' I am convinced that for a very long time the new generations will draw upon the riches that this council of the 20th century gave us'.

"I too, as I start in the service that is proper to the Successor of Peter, wish to affirm with force my decided will to pursue the commitment to enact Vatican Council II, in the wake of my predecessors and in faithful continuity with the millennia-old tradition of the Church. Precisely this year is the 40th anniversary of the conclusion of this conciliar assembly (December 8, 1965). With the passing of time, the conciliar documents have not lost their timeliness; their teachings have shown themselves to be especially pertinent to the new exigencies of the Church and the present globalized society.

"In a very significant way, my pontificate starts as the Church is living the special year dedicated to the Eucharist. How can I not see in this providential coincidence an element that must mark the ministry to which I have been called? The Eucharist, the heart of Christian life and the source of the evangelizing mission of the Church, cannot but be the permanent center and the source of the petrine service entrusted to me.

"The Eucharist makes the Risen Christ constantly present, Christ Who continues to give Himself to us, calling us to participate in the banquet of His Body and His Blood. From this full communion with Him comes every other element of the life of the Church, in the first place the communion among the faithful, the commitment to proclaim and give witness to the Gospel, the ardor of charity towards all, especially towards the poor and the smallest.

"In this year, therefore, the Solemnity of Corpus Christ must be celebrated in a particularly special way. The Eucharist will be at the center, in August, of World Youth Day in Cologne and, in October, of the ordinary Assembly of the Synod of Bishops which will take place on the theme "The Eucharist, Source and Summit of the Life and Mission of the Church.' I ask everyone to intensify in coming months love and devotion to the Eucharistic Jesus and to express in a courageous and clear way the real presence of the Lord, above all through the solemnity and the correctness of the celebrations.

"I ask this in a special way of priests, about whom I am thinking in this moment with great affection. The priestly ministry was born in the Cenacle, together with the Eucharist, as my venerated predecessor John Paul II underlined so many times. 'The priestly life must have in a special way a 'Eucharistic form', he wrote in his last Letter for Holy Thursday. The devout daily celebration of Holy Mass, the center of the life and mission of every priest, contributes to this end.

"Nourished and sustained by the Eucharist, Catholics cannot but feel stimulated to tend towards that full unity for which Christ hoped in the Cenacle. Peter's Successor knows that he must take on this supreme desire of the Divine Master in a particularly special way. To him, indeed, has been entrusted the duty of strengthening his brethren.

"Thus, in full awareness and at the beginning of his ministry in the Church of Rome that Peter bathed with his blood, the current Successor assumes as his primary commitment that of working tirelessly towards the reconstitution of the full and visible unity of all Christ's followers. This is his ambition, this is his compelling duty. He is aware that to do so, expressions of good feelings are not enough. Concrete gestures are required to penetrate souls and move consciences, encouraging everyone to that interior conversion which is the basis for all progress on the road of ecumenism.

"Theological dialogue is necessary. A profound examination of the historical reasons behind past choices is also indispensable. But even more urgent is that 'purification of memory,' which was so often evoked by John Paul II, and which alone can dispose souls to welcome the full truth of Christ. It is before Him, supreme Judge of all living things, that each of us must stand, in the awareness that one day we must explain to Him what we did and what we did not do for the great good that is the full and visible unity of all His disciples.

"The current Successor of Peter feels himself to be personally implicated in this question and is disposed to do all in his power to promote the fundamental cause of ecumenism. In the wake of his predecessors, he is fully determined to cultivate any initiative that may seem appropriate to promote contact and agreement with representatives from the various Churches and ecclesial communities. Indeed, on this occasion too, he sends them his most cordial greetings in Christ, the one Lord of all.

"In this moment, I go back in my memory to the unforgettable experience we all underwent with the death and the funeral of the lamented John Paul II. Around his mortal remains, lying on the bare earth, leaders of nations gathered, with people from all social classes and especially the young, in an unforgettable embrace of affection and admiration. The entire world looked to him with trust. To many it seemed as if that intense participation, amplified to the confines of the planet by the social communications media, was like a choral request for help addressed to the Pope by modern humanity which, wracked by fear and uncertainty, questions itself about the future.

"The Church today must revive within herself an awareness of the task to present the world again with the voice of the One Who said: 'I am the light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life.' In undertaking his ministry, the new Pope knows that his task is to bring the light of Christ to shine before the men and women of today: not his own light but that of Christ.

"With this awareness, I address myself to everyone, even to those who follow other religions or who are simply seeking an answer to the fundamental questions of life and have not yet found it. I address everyone with simplicity and affection, to assure them that the Church wants to continue to build an open and sincere dialogue with them, in a search for the true good of mankind and of society.

"From God I invoke unity and peace for the human family and declare the willingness of all Catholics to cooperate for true social development, one that respects the dignity of all human beings.

"I will make every effort and dedicate myself to pursuing the promising dialogue that my predecessors began with various civilizations, because it is mutual understanding that gives rise to conditions for a better future for everyone.

"I am particularly thinking of young people. To them, the privileged interlocutors of John Paul II, I send an affectionate embrace in the hope, God willing, of meeting them at Cologne on the occasion of the next World Youth Day. With you, dear young people, I will continue to maintain a dialogue, listening to your expectations in an attempt to help you meet ever more profoundly the living, ever young, Christ.

"'Mane nobiscum, Domine!' Stay with us Lord! This invocation, which forms the dominant theme of John Paul II's Apostolic Letter for the Year of the Eucharist, is the prayer that comes spontaneously from my heart as I turn to begin the ministry to which Christ has called me. Like Peter, I too renew to Him my unconditional promise of faithfulness. He alone I intend to serve as I dedicate myself totally to the service of His Church.

"In support of this promise, I invoke the maternal intercession of Mary Most Holy, in whose hands I place the present and the future of my person and of the Church. May the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, and all the saints, also intercede.

"With these sentiments I impart to you venerated brother cardinals, to those participating in this ritual, and to all those following to us by television and radio, a special and affectionate blessing."

The brilliant Benedict

After 26 years of saying "John Paul," it will take some getting used to saying "Benedict."

In some ways, it seems to me, Benedict XVI's name is a refreshing slap in the face -- and a brilliant choice for a name.

When John Paul I took the double name, a true departure from all prior custom, he did it to honor his two predecessors. It was also an acknowledgment of the great work they had accomplished in the Second Vatican Council.

The post-conciliar atmosphere was one of "newness," hence a new pope with a new custom was all part of that. John Paul the Great, who had participated in the Council as a bishop, carried that forward. And with the election of a Polish pope for the first time ever in Church history, that mark of newness continued in an even more marked way.

However, there was a problem with this "newness." As we are all too well aware, there is a sense in many people that anything pre-conciliar (i.e. prior to 1965) is out of date, old, antiquated. You know how many Protestants and other sects believe there was some great apostacy that occurred after the Apostolic Age. It seems to me that many Catholics have the same kind of belief -- everything was fine up until Constantine, and after him, it was all downhill. Until, of course, John XXIII threw open the windows to let in the fresh air. So anything prior to 330 A.D. is great along with anything after 1965. Whatever happened in between is one long nightmare.

Many people were hoping that whoever was elected would choose the name John Paul III. Fortunately, Cardinal Ratzinger didn't do so. The refreshment of him taking the name of Benedict is that he is hearkening back to the rest of the history of the Church. As he is the sixteenth of that name, he is taking on a long view of the depths of the Church's life; after all, the first Pope Benedict was back in the 6th century.

This does not mean, of course, that he will throw out Vatican II. That would be impossible, not only because it has happened and definitively changed the course of the Church and the world, but also because of his own personal experience -- young Father Joseph Ratzinger was there as a peritas, an expert for his own bishop. No, in Benedict XVI (it's hard to get used to typing that Roman numeral after the simplicity of II) we have fused in his person a man who knows intimately the history of the Church by the service he has rendered the Church over the last 24 years at the CDF, and a man who lived Vatican II and so knows how the latter fits into the former.

May God grant him wisdom, insight, boldness and whatever other gifts are necessary for him to bring the Church closer to the Lord. God bless Pope Benedict XVI!

The brilliant Ratzinger

This is the beautiful and awe-inspiring homily he gave today at the Mass for the election of the Supreme Pontiff. The media, interested only in digging up what they consider to be dirt, only quoted one small section in which he rightly talked about the waves of ideology tossing the world to and fro. They contrasted it with his deeply personal homily at John Paul's funeral. However, when he says, "Thank you, Jesus, for your friendship," I'm not sure how much more personal one can get.

But how 'bout Pope Scola?

This is conclave humor.

Two boys were born in the same month, one in Ireland, one in Italy. The Irishman was Michael McConnell, the Italian, Angelo Secola. Both of them were destined for the priesthood and beyond.

They both went to seminary in Rome and both were brilliant in their studies. But everyone knew that Angelo had the edge over Michael. They both got plum assignments when they returned to their home dioceses, not only having parishes, but also working in their chanceries. Everyone knew they were episcopal material, and everyone was right. But those who knew them both always said Angelo had the edge.

When the time came, they were both moved to cardinatial sees and were created cardinals at the same time.

So the Pope died and they went to Rome for the funeral, the congregations and the conclave. Everyone knew it would be a contest between Angelo and Michael, and that Angelo had the edge. As it happened, it only took three votes and when the carmelengo announced, "Habemus papem!", out came....Michael McConnell.

Angelo was devestated. "How did this happen?" he wondered. He went to a senior cardinal, who rebuffed him because of the vow of secrecy. But Angelo insisted and pleaded with him to know why Michael was chosen over him. "After all, everyone knew I had the edge over him."

Finally, the senior cardinal yielded to Angelo's entreaties. "Well, Angelo, it was like this," he said. "When it came down to it, we just could not bring ourselves to vote for someone who would be named Pope Secola."