Journeys of a Catholic Poster Girl

has arrived.

Tried it on in the mirror, and I think it looks pretty sweet. It doesn’t fall off when I bow or lower my head either, so that’s a good thing!
Hopefully I can make it to Mass tomorrow and give it a first run. I’m excited!

Happy All Saints’ Day, friends. Don’t you love this feast?
I do–as a kid I always thought it was weird to be juxtaposed with halloween (sacred and profane, and all that), but as I grew older and realized how important the saints are to us, and how close they are, I’ve really grown to love this feast.

Here are the three saints I’m celebrating this year:

St. Therese of the Child Jesus, as always. She was the saint I chose at my confirmation, and the more I learn about here, the more I fall in love with her. She’s the most popular saint of modern times for a reason. If you’re looking for a good book on her, I recommend this one.  And there’s the movie!

St. Francis is the saint I have been studying this year. I got the idea from “Around the Year With the Von Trapp Family” to pick a saint every first Sunday of Advent that you will study during the year. I chose St. Francis since, at that time, I was applying to Franciscan University and wanted to learn more about St. Francis and the order he founded. This book is a good introduction, and this movie (also featuring St. Clare) is fantastic. (Also, in my family, my grandfather’s name is Francis, and it is my brother’s middle name.)

And finally, St. Dominic, whom, as we know from here, I have been studying. Right now I don’t have any books or movies to recomment, except–say the rosary! This great gift was given by Mary to St. Dominic, and is such a powerful prayer.

In addition to these, there is also St. Emily and St. Michael the Archangel, who are my name saints (Michele is my mom’s name, and my middle name.)

What about you? Who are your special saints?

Talking about new religious avenues for myself over here.

It isn’t often that TV shows lead to deep theological discussion, but last night’s episode of House, M.D. provided that for several of my friends and I. The topic? The sacrament of Confession.

Probably no other sacrament is as misunderstood among non-Catholics as this one. So when Dr. Robert Chase entered the confessional to confess the killing of a patient, I was really hoping the show would handle this accurately. (FOX has a pretty good track record for being on-spot with Catholic things—see Agent Booth in Bones.)

The scene, for those of you who didn’t see the episode, essentially went like this: Dr. Chase (who was a former seminarian) enters the confessional (behind the screen, natch), and begins with the standard “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.” He waits for a few seconds, gathering up the nerve to continue. Then he blurts out that he killed a man (note he doesn’t say patient), but that he knows it was the right thing to do, and thus, doesn’t really feel sorry about it.

The priest tells him that in order to receive absolution, he has to be sorry (this is correct). Chase (who should know better, being a former seminarian and all) asks what he has to do to receive absolution (not forgiveness). He asks if he has to go to the police and turn himself in, even though the man he killed was responsible for the deaths of thousands of other people. The priest says yes. Chase leaves the confessional, unable to reconcile the fact that he has killed a very bad man (someone who was responsible for killings many others, and now can no longer kill), but yet feels this intractable guilt.

(Note: Perhaps the priest would’ve reacted differently if Chase said he was a doctor who killed a patient. But I’m not sure. I think Chase was thinking more in terms of deliberate killing, or murder, than malpractice.)

So that’s the set-up. After the episode, a few of my friends and I were tossing around our thoughts on Facebook.  Among my Catholic friends, the questions were more, “Would a priest really react that way?” (For the record—I didn’t think it was too far-fetched. He can’t give absolution if the person isn’t sorry. Being sorry is a required for valid confession.)

Among my Protestant friends, the questions were (understandably) different. Mostly, they involved two points: one, why does Chase even go to confession, since priests don’t forgive sins—God does, (corollary—and anyway, how can the priest deny forgiveness?) and, two, no amount of penance (the priest had made a reference to saying Hail Marys) can “earn” forgiveness from God. He just gives it.

I responded to these concerns with the following (in a more concise way, since this was, after all, Facebook):

1) A priest cannot give absolution if the person isn’t sorry—being sorry is an important part of the confession. In the Act of Contrition, you essentially say (wording varies depending on your version of choice) that what you did is wrong, that you’re sorry you did it, and you’re (going to try) not to do it again. Chase isn’t sorry, therefore he can’t, in good conscience, say the Act of Contrition. Therefore, the priest cannot give a valid absolution.

2) A penance is our part of the bargain here, and is derived from the Jewish custom of sacrifice, depending on the size of the person’s sin (see Dr. Scott Hahn’s book Lord, Have Mercy for a lot more on this idea). The process of forgiveness/atonement requires that we do something in reparation. It is an active sacrament. Sometimes, yes, the penance is a rosary. Sometimes it’s doing a good deed. I once had a priest tell me (in my younger days) to hug my mom. But the idea is that the penance helps you avoid the temptation to sin again. And you have made reparations—you have done your part to repair whatever damage, visible or invisible, that you have done.

3) Some Biblical basis for Confession can be found in John 20:28, and Matthew 16:18, where Jesus tells the disciples that “whatever [they] bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven, and whatever [they] loose on Earth shall be loosed in Heaven.” (This was in reply to the idea that Confession is a man-made invention and not instituted by Christ.)

Confession is probably the most misunderstood sacrament the Church has. If you’re not Catholic, it can easily seem mysterious and sort of out there. And let me tell you, it’s a whole lot easier to mumble through the occasional Confiteor at Mass than it is to go into the confessional and tell the priest what you, yourself, have done wrong in the past week, month, year. Mumbling through prayers with the rest of the congregation sort of absolves your sense of responsibility. You’re not telling everyone what you did. In the confessional, you have to. That’s what you’re there for, and that’s what the priest is there for—to hear the sins, to council you, to give you God’s forgiveness.

In today’s Enquirer (article by Dan Horn)–my emphases and comments.

Catholics stand together during Sunday Mass to recite the “Profession of Faith,” a creed that defines precisely what it is that makes them Catholic.

“We believe in God … We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ … We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.”

The prayer covers a lot of ground, from God’s creation of the Earth to Christ’s birth and crucifixion to the promise of life in heaven. Most churchgoing Catholics memorized the words as children and consider the creed a statement that unites them in a common belief.

And yet, when they walk out of church at the end of Mass, they still find plenty about their faith to argue about.

The arguments have been passionate in recent weeks as Cincinnati’s Catholics debated Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk’s decision to punish Sister Louise Akers for publicly supporting the ordination of women priests.

Pilarczyk told Akers she could not teach in archdiocesan schools until she renounced her stance on the issue. A week after she refused, a parish priest in Westwood dismissed a volunteer religion teacher, Carol Egner, for writing a letter to The Enquirer supporting Akers and her position on women priests.

The decision to punish the teachers not only rekindled debate over the ordination of women, but also highlighted a long-running tug-of-war between traditionalists and progressives over the future of the Catholic Church.

“What’s happening with Akers is not an isolated case,” said John Allen, an author and columnist who covers the Vatican for the National Catholic Reporter, an independent weekly newspaper. “It’s a small piece of a much bigger picture.”

The struggle within the church has intensified in the past few years as conservative Catholics, energized by the appointment of Pope Benedict XVI, pushed for stricter adherence to church teaching. They have praised a Vatican investigation of women’s religious orders, welcomed a return to traditions such as the granting of indulgences and cheered Pope Benedict’s declaration that Catholics must “not seek to adapt the faith to the fashions of the age.”

They also supported Pilarczyk’s decision to get tough with Akers over the ordination of women, which some consider a vestige of a liberal theology that took hold in the 1960s and 1970s after the Second Vatican Council.

The council, also known as Vatican II, launched reforms that some theologians now say were misinterpreted as an invitation to change the central teachings of the faith to better mesh with the changing secular world.

“Vatican II wasn’t intended to set off a liturgical civil war, but that’s what we got,” said Rich Leonardi, a Cincinnatian who writes the conservative Catholic blog Ten Reasons. “There was a tendency to think the church should just go with the flow, to move with the world rather than to move the world.

“That ship has sailed. There’s no intensity around that movement any more.”

Catholics who favor reform dispute Leonardi’s take on their views, saying they remain active and committed to changing their church from within. They acknowledge, however, that they face more challenges today than they did just a few decades ago.

“I do think there seems to be a trend among bishops around the country to get much more hard-line about women’s issues,” said Christine Schenk, director of FutureChurch, which favors a “discussion” about women’s ordination but has not endorsed the idea.

“It’s a mystery to me, but talking about women’s equality in the church is threatening at some level.” (Oh. Puh-leaze. Genesis doesn’t say “male and female he created equally” It says, “Male and female he created them.” Each gender is unique, and each has unique gifts. They are not interchangable things. For more–read the Theology of the Body. Even a brief summary will suffice.)

Dealing with dissent

Conservatives have gained momentum in the past decade among the laity, in seminaries and in the church hierarchy. They have taken to blogs, TV and radio and have become more active in church affairs and in secular politics.

That was evident earlier this year when bishops and thousands of lay Catholics publicly opposed President Barack Obama’s speech at the University of Notre Dame on grounds that his pro-choice stance conflicted with Catholic teachings.

“What we’re living through right now is a kind of reaction against what was seen as an excessively liberal period,” Allen said.

From the outside looking in, divisions within the church are not all that visible because polls show America’s 70 million Catholics tend to hold views similar to those of the general population.

But those polls also show that Catholics who describe themselves as “orthodox” or who attend Mass regularly are more closely aligned with their church’s teachings on issues such as abortion, homosexuality and embryonic stem cell research.

These are the Catholics who have embraced what some call the “Catholic identity movement,” which calls for closer adherence to the traditions and teachings that separate Catholics from other Christian faiths.

“A watered down Catholicism that asks nothing of its members shouldn’t expect to get anything in return,” Leonardi said.

One of those teachings is the all-male priesthood. While not referenced in Scripture, it is based on sacred tradition passed down over 2,000 years and is specifically referenced in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

In other words, the male priesthood is non-negotiable.

“The church has no authority to ordain women,” said archdiocese spokesman Dan Andriacco. “It is not an open question.”

He said the discipline imposed on Akers and Egner is not part of a wider crackdown on dissent, as some fear, and the archdiocese has no interest in rooting out rank-and-file Catholics who don’t agree with everything the church does, including the 60 percent who tell pollsters they support ordaining women.

“There is no witch hunt,” said the Rev. Earl Fernandes, dean of Mount St. Mary’s Seminary. “We’re a big church. We try to help each person to grow in faith.”

‘Spirit of openness’

Dissent is nothing new for Catholics. The church’s positions on birth control, celibacy for priests, the Latin Mass and a host of other traditions and teachings have been argued for decades, or even centuries.

Priests and bishops know not every Catholic will adhere to every teaching of the faith, and most say there is room on some issues for healthy debate, or at least for disagreement.

“We want to have a fundamental spirit of openness,” Fernandes said.

Church officials say Akers and Egner crossed a line because they are teachers who publicly challenged church teachings. Their argument goes something like this: Religion is about belief, and those who believe women should be priests don’t believe what the Catholic Church teaches. They believe what Methodists teach. (Ha!)

That doesn’t mean they have to quit the church, but it does mean they aren’t permitted to teach. (Exactement!)

“We want our teachers to be authentic,” Fernandes said. “We want our teachers to believe what they teach.”

Both Akers and Egner say they would not express their views on women’s ordination in their classes, and they consider themselves loyal to their church and to the core beliefs recited every Sunday in the Profession of Faith.

They say there should be room in their church for them to do the work they love, even if they disagree on the ordination of women.

“Catholics have a very long tradition of various beliefs and the ability to talk about them,” Egner said. “Sometimes things change.”

In Cincinnati, there’s things a-brewing, since the archibishop has told a nun she can no longer teach, due to her support for female ordination.

Now, a supporter of the nun’s, an OB/GYN who teaches 6th grade Old Testament at her parish, has been asked to stop teaching, because she, too, supports women’s ordination.

I was going to do a write-up about this, but, as usual, Fr. Z does it so much better than I. He also includes article links.

Jeb on his brother’s faith–and faith in politics.

A very excellent Magnificat pondering for today:

It is all too easy for us to treat the Pharisees as embodying all that is worst in humankind. But in fact they were probably the best men of their time, the most religious, the most devoted to the will of God, the most eager to express their loyalty to him in obedience to his every word, the most determined never to compromise with the world around them. But, as Saint Paul came to see in retrospect, they were exposed to a fatal flaw: the trouble with their outstanding righteousness was that, all too easily, it could be viewed precisely as their righteousness. It was a righteousness that could be measured, so that, at a certain point, you could say that you had achieved it. This meant that it could all too easily come adrift from its original inspiration in devotion to God and become self-sufficient, an end in itself..

Today I went to noon Mass at St. Joseph’s downtown. I made a promise to myself to go more often, so…no day like today, right?

Usually I like to get there early so I can say my rosary (or most of it) in front of the tabernacle, in the Eucharistic chapel. There’s just something about praying my rosary there, in front of Jesus in the tabernacle, that makes it that much more special for me, and I feel so much closer to Our Lord. So this is an important time for me. I tend to work out big problems while doing this, too.

So I was praying, per usual, when I saw a nun and a little girl. I couldn’t tell what order the nun was with–I didn’t recognize her habit (grey head scarf/pieces, whatever it’s called now, a sort of lighter-gray, dark white dress, rope around the waist, wooden rosary also at waist). The nun, who looked about my age, was pointing things out to the little girl, and, when they reached the chapel, the nun showed her how to genuflect and make the Sign of the Cross. I’m guessing the girl was about three or four.

The sister and the child attended the Mass (today’s the feast day of St. Bartholemew, BTW), and I sat in front of her. During the peace we shook hands. She had the most radiant, calm, peaceful face. And she was very friendly and obviously patient, to take the little girl around like that.

Seeing a nun–in habit!–worshipping and teaching like that was a good insertion to my day. It also helped me stick to my resolve to be more prayerful, more in tune with God.

Surrender is hard.

OK , we knew that. If anything about Christianity was easy, then a lot more people would be good Christians–myself included.

Today at Mass we heard the end of John Chapter 6, which we’ve been reading all month, also known as the “Bread of Life” discourse, where Jesus gives us great Eucharistic theology–”My flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink”.

John tells us that many of the disciples stopped following Jesus after this–the saying was “too hard”. But when Jesus spoke to the twelve–”Do you also wish to go away?” Peter said, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of everlasting life.”

Peter is an interesting apostle. He can be brilliant–here, and when he says that Jesus is “The Christ, the son of God”, in Matthew, –and he can also be breathtakingly stupid–telling Jesus not to go to Jerusalem, “thinking as men think”–or just way out of it–wanting to build the booths for Moses, Jesus and Elijah on Tabor.

But the thing I like about Peter is that he falls, and then gets back up and does it all again. He denies Jesus three times, but then goes on to be Pope, and to be crucified. Peter is entirely, wonderfully human.

When I think about surrender, I think about what Peter said in today’s gospel. Where else can we go? If you are Christian, you believe that Jesus is “The way, the truth, and the life.” That’s it. No other way. Only Jesus can take us to the Father. So we follow him, because he has the words that Peter was talking about–the ones of life.

But to really follow him, we have to give everything, and follow him. Sell it all, leave family and friends, and, most importantly, leave behind self.

But we like ourselves, don’t we? For the most part, anyway. There are things I don’t like about myself, but for the most part, I like how God made me. And if God made me this way, then why do I have to give it up, to follow him?

Again, we get Peter and Jesus:

[Jesus] said to [Peter] the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter was distressed that he had said to him a third time, “Do you love me?” and he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” (Jesus) said to him, “Feed my sheep.  Amen, amen, I say to you, when you were younger, you used to dress yourself and go where you wanted; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.” (Jn. 21:17-18, NAB)

Where you do not want to go.

That’s the thing. It’s not that we mind “dying” to self, if that means giving up those irritating habits, and becoming a “nicer” Person, someone who “does what Jesus would do.”

But dying to self means just that–dying to it. In Peter’s case, he would be led to a cross, just like Jesus.

And I think we know what surrender means. And we don’t want to go.

It’s hard to surrender. I haven’t done it. I might think I’ve done it, but then someone reminds me that everything comes in God’s time, and God is in control, and then I sit there going, “yup. I’m dumb.”

He knows everything. And I know just about nothing. But I always think I know better. Just like Peter.

From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer greatly from the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised.

Then Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, “God forbid, Lord! No such thing shall ever happen to you.”

He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.

For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? Or what can one give in exchange for his life?

For the Son of Man will come with his angels in his Father’s glory, and then he will repay everyone according to his conduct.