Journeys of a Catholic Poster Girl

Yes, this is long, but read the whole thing!

As always, my favorite online priest, Fr. Z, is on the Pelosi case:

GOP demands Pelosi apology for abortion comments

By Bob Cusack

Posted: 08/27/08 01:24 PM [ET]

DENVER —House Republicans are demanding that Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) apologize for her recent comments on abortion, saying they “mangle Catholic Church doctrine.” 

The letter comes just a day after Archbishop Donald Wuerl, for the second time in a week, [second time?  Where?  When? What?] slapped down the Speaker’s theological explanation for her support of abortion rights.

Pelosi, a Catholic, said on Sunday’s edition of “Meet the Press” that the moment of conception has long been an issue of controversy in the Catholic Church. In a highly unusual move, Wuerl publicly corrected Pelosi on doctrine, and New York Archbishop Edward Cardinal Egan said he was “shocked” by her comments. 

Egan said, “What the Speaker had to say about theologians and their positions regarding abortion was not only misinformed; it was also, and especially, utterly incredible in this day and age. … Anyone who dares to defend that they may be legitimately killed because another human being ‘chooses’ to do so or for any other equally ridiculous reason should not be providing leadership in a civilized democracy worthy of the name.”

Now, a group of 19 Catholic Republican House members are also expressing their outrage. In a letter sent to Pelosi, they write, “[Y]our erroneous claim about the history of the Church’s opposition to abortion is false and denigrates our common Faith.”

They point out that in 1679, the Church unequivocally said it is in “an error for Catholics to believe fetuses do not have a soul.”

The Republicans’ letter concludes, “To reduce the scandal and consternation caused amongst the faithful by your remarks, we necessarily write to you to correct the public record and affirm the Church’s actual and historical teaching that defends the sanctity of human life. We hope that you will rectify your errant claims and apologize for misrepresenting the Church’s doctrine and misleading fellow Catholics.”

Pelosi spokesman Brendan Daly issued a statement Tuesday in which the Speaker stood by her comments. He said that not all Catholics believe that life begins at conception and cited St. Augustine, who said, “The law does not provide that the act [abortion] pertains to homicide, for there cannot yet be said to be a live soul in a body that lacks sensation.”

Wuerl blasted Pelosi’s statement, saying the “philosophical discussion of St. Augustine’s time is not relevant today.” [Not sure about that.  I think it isentirely relevant.  What Augustine has to say is helpful and we haven’t, I suspect, gotten to the bottom of what he was really struggling with… but I’ll get to that eventually.  What is important is that Augustine’s teachings are not the equivalent of the modern Magisterium.]

In his statement, Daly also said, “The Speaker agrees with the Church that we should reduce the number of abortions. She believes that can be done bymaking family planning more available, as well as by increasing the number of comprehensive age-appropriate sex education and caring adoption programs.” [That is greater distribution of contraceptives, most of which are abortifacients and also of invasive sex-education.  Speaker Pelosi should review The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality.]

Asked for comment on the House Republican letter, Daly referred to Tuesday’s statement.

The GOP members who signed the letter are: Thaddeus McCotter (Mich.), John Boehner (Ohio), Steve Chabot (Ohio), Virginia Foxx (N.C.), Phil Gingrey (Ga.), Peter King (N.Y.), Steve King (Iowa), Daniel Lungren (Calif.), Devin Nunes (Calif.), John Sullivan (Okla.), Patrick Tiberi (Ohio), Phil English (Pa.), Jean Schmidt (Ohio), Jim Walsh (N.Y.), Jeff Fortenberry (Neb.), Michael McCaul (Texas), Paul Ryan (Wis.), Walter Jones (N.C.) and Mike Ferguson (N.J.).

 

• • • • • •

Catholic dissenter and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi thinks she can use a 1500 year old sound bite from St. Augustine (+430) to confound the clear teaching of the Catholic Churchon when human life begins.

We need a public retraction from the Speaker.

And she really needs to stop with the St. Augustine thing.

Find out what St. Augustine really says about abortion and when fetuses are ensouled or vivified.

Remember:

1) Augustine’s writings, while important, are not equivalent in authority to the formal teaching of the Catholic Church.

2) We know more today about embryology than people did in the 5th century.

3) Ignorant as they might have been about biology, 5th century Christians still believed abortion was evil.  

Consider that the

USCCB

the

Cardinal Archbishop of New York
Cardinal Archbishop of Philadelphia
Archbishop of Washington DC (go fam!)
Archbishop of Denver

all issued statements to correct and redress the falsehoods about Catholic doctrine on the beginning of human life stated on network television pro-abortion Catholic Speaker of the House of Representatives.

I cannot imagine this would have happened even two years ago.

 

So you know how some people (like, OK, me) occasionally say they’d like to hear the bishops speak out on this pro-choice Catholic politicians taking communion thing? 

Well, thank God, they finally have, in response to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) theological stupidity.

What the Speaker said, on Meet the Press: (emphasis and comments mine) 

REP. PELOSI:  I would say that as an ardent, practicing Catholic, this is an issue that I have studied for a long time.  And what I know is, over the centuries, the doctors of the church have not been able to make that definition.  And Senator–St. Augustine said at three months (that would be St. Thomas Aquinas, not St. Augustine).  We don’t know. The point is, is that it shouldn’t have an impact on the woman’s right to choose.  Roe v. Wade talks about very clear definitions of when the child–first trimester, certain considerations; second trimester; not so third trimester.  There’s very clear distinctions.  This isn’t about abortion on demand, it’s about a careful, careful consideration of all factors and–to–that a woman has to make with her doctor and her god.  And so I don’t think anybody can tell you when life begins, human life begins.  As I say, the Catholic Church for centuries has been discussing this, and there are those who’ve decided…

MR. BROKAW:  The Catholic Church at the moment feels very strongly that it…

REP. PELOSI:  I understand that.

MR. BROKAW:  …begins at the point of conception.

REP. PELOSI:  I understand.  And this is like maybe 50 years or something like that.  So again, over the history of the church, this is an issue of controversy.  But it is, it is also true that God has given us, each of us, a free will and a responsibility to answer for our actions.  And we want abortions to be safe, rare, and reduce the number of abortions.  That’s why we have this fight in Congress over contraception.  My Republican colleagues do not support contraception.  If you want to reduce the number of abortions, and we all do, we must–it would behoove you to support family planning and, and contraception, you would think.  But that is not the case.  So we have to take–you know, we have to handle this as respectfully–this is sacred ground. We have to handle it very respectfully and not politicize it, as it has been–and I’m not saying Rick Warren did, because I don’t think he did, but others will try to.

(we’ll forget the fact that she confused St. Augustine with St. Thomas Aquinas for one minute)

And I guess 70 AD is, um, 50 years ago. (this link also has a video! and h/t dad for the linkage)

Well apparently this travesty of theology could not go unremarked upon by the higher-ups. So:

First, from my cousin (family love flying high right now). Here’s the press release

The following statement is from Washington Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl: 

On Meet the Press this past Sunday, August 23, 2008, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi made statements regarding the teaching of the Catholic Church, human life and abortion that were incorrect. 

Speaker Pelosi responded to a question on when life begins by mentioning she was Catholic. She went on to say, “And what I know is, over the centuries, the doctors of the Church have not been able to make that definition…” After Mr. Tom Brokaw, the interviewer, pointed out that the Catholic Church feels strongly that life begins at conception, she replied, “I understand. And this is like maybe 50 years or something like that. So again, over the history of the church, this is an issue of controversy.”

We respect the right of elected officials such as Speaker Pelosi to address matters of public policy that are before them, but the interpretation of Catholic faith has rightfully been entrusted to the Catholic bishops. Given this responsibility to teach, it is important to make this correction for the record.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church is clear: the current teaching of the Catholic Church on human life and abortion is the same teaching as it was 2,000 years ago. The Catechism reads: 

“Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception…Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law.” (Catechism, 2270-2271)

The Catechism goes on to quote the Didache, a treatise that dates to the first century: “’You shall not kill the embryo by abortion and shall not cause the newborn to perish.’”

From the beginning, the Catholic Church has respected the dignity of all human life from the moment of conception to natural death. 

And then, from Cardinal Egan in NYC: (h/t Corner)

STATEMENT OF HIS EMINENCE, EDWARD CARDINAL EGAN

CONCERNING REMARKS MADE BY THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

            Like many other citizens of this nation, I was shocked to learn that the Speaker of the House of Representatives of the United States of America would make the kind of statements that were made to Mr. Tom Brokaw of NBC-TV on Sunday, August 24, 2008.  What the Speaker had to say about theologians and their positions regarding abortion was not only misinformed; it was also, and especially, utterly incredible in this day and age. 

            We are blessed in the 21st century with crystal-clear photographs and action films of the living realities within their pregnant mothers.  No one with the slightest measure of integrity or honor could fail to know what these marvelous beings manifestly, clearly, and obviously are, as they smile and wave into the world outside the womb.  In simplest terms, they are human beings with an inalienable right to live, a right that the Speaker of the House of Representatives is bound to defend at all costs for the most basic of ethical reasons.  They are not parts of their mothers, and what they are depends not at all upon the opinions of theologians of any faith.  Anyone who dares to defend that they may be legitimately killed because another human being “chooses” to do so or for any other equally ridiculous reason should not be providing leadership in a civilized democracy worthy of the name.

                                                            Edward Cardinal Egan

I guess the real key to getting an episcopal reaction is to go on National TV and really, really flub up Catholic theology. 

I also liked Archbishop Chaput’s call for V-P candidate Biden not to receive communion. 

As Archbishop Chaput said, “BE CATHOLIC.” You have to take what the Church believes hook, line and sinker if you’re going to be Catholic, the way we’re supposed to be, if our faith is our “North Star” (Arch. Chaput). You can’t just muddle the theology and hem and haw to try to make it support your position if it doesn’t. 

#mce_temp_url#, in his homily last night (as reported by KLO)

The message? BE CATHOLIC. Don’t “pretend.” 

But wait…there’s more! (As the Count on Sesame street says…)

Here are two awesome interviews with Archbishop Chaput of Denver, who is a hero of mine. If any American could be Pope, I’d pick him (well, and my cousin, naturally.). 

The first is from NRO

Some choice bits (but you really need to read the whole thing) (emphasis mine):

LOPEZ: What should it mean when someone says, “I’m Catholic.”

ARCHBISHOP CHAPUT: It should mean that we love Jesus Christ as our redeemer, love the Catholic Church as our mother, and give our hearts to what she teaches, because she teaches in Christ’s name.

LOPEZ: What should it mean when I’m “voting Catholic?”

ARCHBISHOP CHAPUT: We should see ourselves as Catholic first — not white or black, or young or old. or Democrat or Republican, or labor militant or business owner, but Catholic firstas the main way we identify ourselves. Our faith should shape our lives, including our political choices. Of course, that demands that we actually study and deepen our Catholic faith. The Catholic faith isn’t a set of clothes that we can tailor to a personal fit. We don’t “invent” our faith, and we don’t “own” it. If we really want to be Catholic, then we’ll live by Catholic teaching. Otherwise we’re just fooling ourselves and abusing the belief of other Catholics who really do try to practice what the Church teaches.

And: (emphases mine)

LOPEZ: Whenever I write about Catholics and abortion, I am immediately asked, “What about war? What about the death penalty?” What about them? Can a Catholic vote for Senator “Surge”? We have killed people in Iraq, after all.

ARCHBISHOP CHAPUT: I’ve written and spoken against the death penalty for more than 30 years. And along with most other American bishops, I opposed our intervention in Iraq. But these issues are different in kind, not merely degree, from the violence involved in abortion. Anyone rooted in Scripture and Catholic tradition will understand the distinction if he or she reasons honestly. Genocide, euthanasia, abortion, and deliberately targeting civilians in war — these things are always grievously wrong. But in Catholic thought, war and capital punishment can be morally legitimate under certain carefully defined circumstances. Abortion is never morally justified. 

Last: 

LOPEZ: If there is one single point that every Catholic reader of your book could take away from it and pray about and make their own, what would you pray it be?

ARCHBISHOP CHAPUT: Again: Don’t lie. If we say we’re Catholic, we need to back it up with proof. Our faith needs to be the North Star of our lives. Our behavior needs to match our words, including in our political choices.

Here’s the Archbishop’s interview with radio host (and Catholic) Hugh Hewitt

And, of course, here’s the book: Render Unto Caesar. 

Yes, it has been a million years, but–for my posting here, I like to be “inspired”, so to speak, and not just post dribble. So here we go with link-o-rama; specifically, Obama and abortion. 

These first two are about Obama’s performance on Sat/Sunday night with Pastor Rick Warren:

Bill Krystol in the NYT

Michael Gershon in the WaPo

My comment: Anyone who says that abortion decisions, or when life begins, is “above his pay grade”, then I don’t want him making life and death decisions. Besides, if you aren’t sure, shouldn’t you err on the side of life? 

Next, Rick Lowry of NR on Obama and “born-alive” abortions

Carl Anderson on Catholics and voting (NRO) 

This is worth some quoting: 

Building a culture of life and a civilization of love means truly transforming our politics. In this process, dealing with the abortion rights issue is fundamental. While there are certainly many issues that are important to Catholic voters, none has caused more damage to our society than this taking of innocent human life.

It is time that Catholics demand real change — and real change means the end of Roe v. Wade. Real change is possible, but it is difficult. First, the political manipulation of Catholic voters by abortion-rights advocates needs to end. It is time to stop creating excuses for voting for pro-abortion-rights politicians. It is time that Catholics shine a bright line of separation between themselves and all those politicians who defend the abortion-rights regime of Roe v. Wade.

During the Pope’s visit to the United States in April, he urged those gathered at Yankee Stadium to protect “the unborn child in the mother’s womb.” That statement drew the loudest, longest applause of his trip. In this election year, when the Catholic vote is crucial, politicians who choose to ignore that thunderous response do so at their peril.

Imagine the effect if this year millions of Catholic voters simply say “no” — no to every candidate for every office of every political party who supports abortion rights. 

It’s time Catholics stop accommodating pro-abortion-rights politicians and it’s time to start demanding that they accommodate us. This is the only decision that offers the real chance for real change, because no candidate or political party can withstand the loss of millions of Catholic voters in this — or any other — election. In this election, if a Catholic cannot vote for the pro-life candidate, then not voting for that office may be the sincerest expression of faithful citizenship.

This year, Catholic voters have the power to transform politics. As faithful citizens, Catholics can build a new politics — a politics that is not satisfied with the status quo, but one that is dedicated to building up a culture of life. If they stand together and demand better from politicians, Catholics can transform politics, and that would be real change. 

And then, one from the “I can’t believe this makes sense” pile: 

Pat Buchannan

For not only is Barack the most pro-abortion member of the Senate, with his straight A+ report card from the National Abortion Rights Action League and Planned Parenthood. He supports the late-term procedure known as partial-birth abortion, where the baby’s skull is stabbed with scissors in the birth canal and the brains are sucked out to end its life swiftly and ease passage of the corpse into the pan.

Partial-birth abortion, said the late Sen. Pat Moynihan, “comes as close to infanticide as anything I have seen in our judiciary.” 

Yet, when Congress was voting to ban this terrible form of death for a mature fetus, Michelle Obama was signing fundraising letters pledging that, if elected, Barack would be “tireless” in keeping legal this “legitimate medical procedure.” 

And Barack did not let the militants down. When the Supreme Court upheld the congressional ban on this barbaric procedure, Barack denounced the court for denying “equal rights for women.” 

As David Freddoso reports in his new best-seller, “The Case Against Barack Obama,” the Illinois senator goes further than any U.S. senator has dared go in defending what John Paul II called the “culture of death.” 

Thrice in the Illinois legislature, Obama helped block a bill that was designed solely to protect the life of infants already born, and outside the womb, who had miraculously survived the attempt to kill them during an abortion. Thrice, Obama voted to let doctors and nurses allow these tiny human beings die of neglect and be tossed out with the medical waste. (EMD: emphasis mine) 

 

Obama has a 100% voting record with NARAL. Think about that for a minute. 

From the Corner:

Bianca Jagger [Jack Fowler]
lobbies for expansion of Tridentine Mass in England. She’s one of a number of Latin Massers signing a petition prompted by the lack of clerical enthusiasm for Pope Benedict XVI’s 2007 apostolic letter (Summorum Pontificum) advocating greater use of the once-universal rite.

From NRO, via Time:

The Virgin Mary got support of a sort from two embattled females at Washington’s Catholic University last week. Ti-Grace Atkinson, mighty mouth of Women’s Liberation, told an audience of students, priests, nuns and laymen that in the Virgin Birth poor Mary had been more “used” than if her Son had been conceived normally. “I can’t let her say that!” yelled Patricia Buckley Bozell, the managing editor of a rightist Catholic magazine, Triumph, and sister of right-wing Columnist William Buckley and Senator James Buckley. To the podium stormed Patricia; she aimed a hefty slap at Ti-Grace, who managed to ward it off. Hustled outside, Pat shouted, “To hell with Catholic University!” then knelt to say the Rosary in protest, together with a group of students that included one of her ten children, Cathy, 19. Ti-Grace, considerably shaken, cut her speech short. “That face,” she said later, “I’ve seen it in so many churches—the hysteria, the desperation. I felt for her. It’s outrageous that it’s the women who are the sufferers.”

I found this little post today over at The Happiness Project:

Until I started my Happiness Project, I didn’t think much about rituals and whether they made me happy.

But when I reflected on them, I realized that I find rituals both calming and energizing (this is no paradox, and in fact, is a very desirable, happy state).

For example, In my high school, exams were taken VERY seriously, and the process was always the same. When everyone was settled at a desk, the teacher would pass out the papers, and we’d lay them face down. She’d return to the front of the classroom, look at the clock, and say quietly, “It is now 9:10. You have two hours. Be sure to read all instructions carefully”—then a dramatic pause—“you may turn over your test paper and begin.”

This familiar, grave, quiet formula made the start of an exam into a little ritual that helped put me in the right frame of mind to face a stressful exam.

I was astonished when I went to college to find a completely chaotic exam-taking process. People would hurry to the professor’s desk, grab a paper, and shove each other out of the way to sit down. When the end of the exam was announced, some people would keep writing for ten or fifteen more minutes before a TA snatched away their blue books.

This lack of ritual left me rattled and distracted – just the opposite of how I’d approached exams in high school.

Along the same lines, the Little Girl just started “camp,” and I’d braced myself for a dismissal when they’d all rush out of the door helter-skelter as we adults pushed amongst ourselves to try to scoop up the right kid. Intead, after singing a good-bye song, the children stand in a circle in the classroom, while the grown-ups wait in a line outside the door. The counselors call the children’s names, one by one, and the child comes to the door to get a big hug and to leave. The orderliness and deliberateness of this process keeps everyone calm and cheerful.

Whenever I sit down to work, in my office or at a coffee shop or at New York Society Library, I run through a series of updates, checks, synchronizations, and switching on of various devices and programs. It’s both soothing and energizing to perform my machine ritual.

So think about rituals in your life. Take a moment to savor the enjoyable ones. Think about opportunities to heighten the experience of an ordinary occasion by treating it with special deliberation—particularly if it’s a stressful or emotional experience. Discussing a child’s report card. Giving a performance review. Packing for a trip. Getting ready for a date.

Studies show that family traditions and family rituals encourage children’s social development and boost feelings of family cohesiveness. But they’re not just important for children.

We are steeped in ritual, as Catholics. The Liturgy is the same all over the world, in every country. I don’t know about you, but that gives me great comfort to know that, wherever I go, the Mass is the same. Sure, the songs might be a bit different than what your parish normally does, but in general, it is comforting and relaxing for me to attend Mass.

And when the ritual is disturbed, things seem quite…off, don’t they? Like when we changed the Mass so that we stand before the priest says “Pray then, my brothers and sisters…” That still feels wrong to me. I feel like I should be sitting. Or when we got rid of “This is” before “The word of the Lord” after the readings.

What part of the Mass is your favorite?

This, from Mark Shea, is definitely worth a read.

Of Closed Communion and Japanese Restaurants

A while back when the Atlanta Braves were (yet again) playing the Yankees (yet again) in the World Series, somebody undertook to ask some Native Americans what they thought of the Atlanta team’s Indian symbol. In the article I read, I was amused to discover that, with one exception, none of the Native Americans interviewed cared a whit about the “Braves” symbol or felt it to be insulting, humiliating, etc. The one exception was an “outraged” “social activist” (i.e., a professional grievance mongerer, whose life and livelihood depended on surveying the landscape for affronts to Native Americans so as to get TV face time and funding for further identity politics and still more face time and money.) The activist’s “outrage” was purely professional and wildly out of touch with the people he claimed to speak for. Real Native Americans had lives and were cheering for the Braves.

This strange disconnect between the “activists” and the people they supposedly care about springs to mind when I contemplate the American Catholic Church. One of the current frets among the perpetual hand-wringing crowd in AmChurch is the terrible psychic trauma supposed to be inflicted on thousands of well-meaning non-Catholic visitors to Mass when they are informed that they cannot receive communion. So great is that trauma, we are told, that the Church must–simply must–change its cruel and nonsensical rule of closed communion and “welcome” all to the altar. Otherwise, we allegedly risk “alienating” a throng of exquisitely sensitive souls whose tender and trembling nerves cannot bear, even for a moment, the thought of “exclusion”.

All this sort of thing is stated as self-evidently obvious: like the fact that wife-beating skyrockets during the Super Bowl. Or the fact that Nostradamus predicted the WTC bombing. Or the fact that the Inquisition killed 46 million people. It’s just widely known, universally acknowledged, received wisdom that closed communion in the Catholic Church is devoid of reason, a relic of the Church’s insistence that She alone is right and only Catholics are saved, and that the response to this medieval tribalism by any thinking inquirer is to find some more tolerant and enlightened religion.

Now the curious thing is that the people who say these sorts of things are usually incredibly earnest acolytes of all that is progressive, PC, and multicultural. Walk into a Japanese restaurant with one of these folks and boorishly refuse to take your shoes off in deference to custom and you will be regarded as a mouth-breathing Neanderthal henceforth. Attend a Jewish friend’s bris for his son at the local Orthodox synagogue and complain that they didn’t serve ham sandwiches to accommodate your Gentile taste buds (”What about me? What about my needs!”) and they will wince (rightly) at your loutishness. Traipse into a silent auction and start barking out bids at the volume Ted Turner tells Polish jokes and they will, with complete justice, write you off as a self-centered loser with no capacity for dealing with social situations that do not completely orbit around your own immense ego.

But walk into Mass as a guest and start loudly demanding, “Hey! How come I can’t have some of those crackers and wine?! Real Presence? What’s that? The body and blood of Christ? No, I don’t believe in fairy tales, but I resent being excluded and I demand my rights!!” and they applaud you as a cutting edge pioneer in Catholic theology.

Now, it may have occurred to you that not many visitors at Mass really want to do these boorish things. It has occurred to me as well. I have a brother, mother, neighbors and many friends who are not Catholic. When they join us for Mass, we routinely remind them, “You can’t, of course, receive communion. However, you are welcome to come up and receive a blessing from the priest by just crossing your arms across your breast.” And they do. No fuss. No muss. They’re happy to honor our customs, happy to show respect for our Faith in whatever way seems best to us, just as I would be happy and not feel put upon to don a yarmulke should I pay a visit to my friend’s synagogue.

Indeed, I’ve never known or heard of a living soul, visiting the Church, who has been “hurt” by closed communion. Typically, such visitors are, as I once was, strangers in a strange land, a little awed, a little curious, a little amazed, a little amused, by the gestures, rituals, statues, candles, holy water, genuflections, litanies, candles, standing, kneeling, sitting, signs of the cross, sprinklings, anointings, readings and assorted sensory experiences being flung at them in the liturgy. It can be a little baffling, but who says that’s bad? Any contact with the divine worth its salt ought to have something about it that is mysterious. A religious rite that is clear as water and simple as the multiplication table is going to be as satisfying to the human soul as reading the phone book. There should be, for the newcomer, the sense that we are, as Thomas Howard put it, in the precincts of a great mystery, that we are in terra incognita, and that we are not in command of the situation.

Along with that sensation is a certain sort of humility that is at the far end of the spectrum from “humiliation”: the humility that makes us take off our shoes in Japanese restaurants, or respect the customs in a foreign country, or refrain from writing in magic marker on the Great Pyramid like a doltish tourist. This same sensation bids us to honor the local custom of the sanctuary and to observe the proprieties, not because we know what’s going on, but because we don’t. I have never known a soul, alive to this Common Courtesy 101 rule of thumb, who has felt “humiliated”, “excluded”, “diminished” or otherwise harmed by it. On the contrary, it is an enormously enriching approach to life since it makes us alive to the mysteries, twists, and turns that both human custom and sacred revelation may spring on us.

Indeed, the only people I know who fret about it are dissenting leftist Catholics, for whom no “problem” with the Church’s teaching and practice is so trivial, preposterous, or daffy that they cannot find some way to take offense on behalf of the phantom legions of the Wounded out there. (Dissenting rightist Catholics can also fixate on trivial, preposterous and daffy things. But they usually claim these objects of fixation are an offense against TRVTH, not against the tender sensitivities of buttercup twirlers.) It is the custom of leftist dissenters to talk about “nonsensical rules” without inquiring as to their sense. But when real visitors visit, they find the Church’s “nonsensical” rules to make a great deal of sense. When I explain “Please don’t take communion since, by that gesture, you are proclaiming ‘I believe all that the Catholic Church teaches and proclaims is revealed by God’ and you don’t want to do that unless you mean it and have been received into full communion by the Church”, I never get a quarrel. I get cheerful nods, interest, and a friendly desire to honor the sanctuary.

That’s because visitors, unlike the “activists” and “advocates” in the Church who claim to speak for them, are reasonable people with real lives to live and baseball teams to root for.

My thoughts: I have a lot of non-Catholic friends. Some of them have gone to Mass with me. And I always tell them, if you go up to receive communion, the Earth won’t open and God won’t smite you (Well, it hasn’t happened yet.). Then I go on to explain the Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist, and tell them that by receiving communion, you are agreeing to that (That’s what the “Amen” is about). If they agree, then go on up, then join RCIA. (Kidding…sort of) If not, then you can come up to be blessed or you can stay in the pew.

I believe most of my friends just stay in the pew. I can’t recall ever seeing one of them get up and receive with me. But I probably get more Protestant vitrol about this topic than any other, that’s for sure.

President and pontiff

Web Posted: 06/07/2008 12:57 AM CDT

By Francis X. Rocca
Religion News Service
VATICAN CITY — When President Bush pays a visit to Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican next Friday, it will be his sixth meeting with a pope, and his third meeting with Benedict in just over a year.

Never in U.S. history has a president consulted so often with the leader of the Catholic Church. Carl Anderson, a former Reagan aide who now heads the Knights of Columbus, calls it “remarkable.”

“Less than 50 years ago,” he said, “it was a question as to whether a Catholic should even be able to run for president.”

Bush has emphasized his admiration for the papacy, and in particular for Benedict, whom he has called a “very smart, loving man.” When Benedict arrived in Washington in April, Bush met him on the tarmac, the only time he has so honored any dignitary.

Less obvious is how the pope views the president. It is not only Benedict’s relatively shy personality that prevents him from being so demonstrative, but the customary reserve that his office imposes on its occupants.

“These are the kinds of cards that popes don’t show,” said Father Thomas Reese, a senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Woodstock Theological Center and author of “Inside the Vatican.”

Yet according to informed observers, there is reason to believe that Benedict, despite some important policy differences with the president (most notably over Iraq), feels a genuine affinity with Bush as both a man and a leader.

For the pope, part of the attraction may lie in Bush’s life story.

“I’d imagine that he has respect for the president as a man who turned his life around, had a conversion experience, stopped drinking and started living a religious life,” Reese said.

Benedict, who has warned against the increasing secularization of Europe and praised the prominent role of religion in American public life, is likely to appreciate a head of state who is “not afraid to express his faith as a Christian,” said Father Joseph Fessio, a former student of the pope who now runs Ignatius Press, Benedict’s principal English-language publisher.

In the president, the pope finds a key supporter of the Catholic Church’s positions on such controversial questions as abortion, stem-cell research and same-sex marriage. Bush’s arguments have frequently echoed Benedict’s appeals to “natural law” and even employ the terms of Catholic social doctrine (despite the fact that the president is a Methodist).

Nowhere has the congruence of their thinking been clearer than at April’s welcoming ceremony at the White House, when Bush cited Benedict’s denunciation of the “dictatorship of relativism,” and the pope noted the importance of American religiosity as inspiration for abolitionism and the civil rights movement.

To which Bush replied, “Thank you, Your Holiness. Awesome speech.”

“They could pretty much have given each other’s speech,” said William McGurn, Bush’s former head speechwriter and a Catholic, who was present at the ceremony but did not write the president’s remarks.

Fessio agreed. “In terms of authentic, normative Catholic teaching, I don’t see any area in which the pope and President Bush disagree,” he said.

The most notable case of disharmony between the two leaders was over the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger opposed at least as ardently as Pope John Paul II.

“But Iraq is not a matter of Catholic social teaching,” Fessio said. “That was a prudential decision on whether or not the use of force was justified. The pope would be the first to tell you that good Catholics can disagree on that.”

Likewise, Benedict’s views on economics, taxation and government regulation — which are known to lie to the left of Bush’s — are merely his personal opinions, not doctrine that he holds as binding on the faithful, Fessio said.

In any case, it would be uncharacteristically undiplomatic of any pope to let past differences get in the way of constructive collaboration with a world superpower.

“The Vatican knows how to agree and disagree with heads of state and work with them anyway,” Reese said. “It’s got a big agenda.”