Journeys of a Catholic Poster Girl

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. 

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 have really fallen for this wonderful man and we have been dating for 3 years and seriously looking at marriage. Here is the problem: He goes to church. I really don’t mind the Christmas and Easter visits, but he insists on going every Sunday. It is so hard to plan weekends with his over-commitment to his church. On top of that he insists on “tithing” which means 10 percent of his income to this church. This drives me crazy! That is like a car payment! I love this man so much, but I don’t know how to approach the subject of his crazed over-commitment to his faith or church. I mean, people don’t do church like they used to, right? How can I drag this man out of his cave and get him to live in the real, modern world.

Carolyn Hax: Um. In my version of the modern world, each of us is entitled to live in whatever cave we damn please. Earth currently hosts about 6 billion people. Surely you can find one to love whose choices you respect.

Wow.

The above was part of today’s advice chat on the WaPo’s website.
A few comments:

Here is the problem: He goes to church. I really don’t mind the Christmas and Easter visits, but he insists on going every Sunday. It is so hard to plan weekends with his over-commitment to his church.

Um, going to church once a week is not an “overcommitment.” In fact, it’s just about the bare minimum you can do to practice your faith.

On top of that he insists on “tithing” which means 10 percent of his income to this church. This drives me crazy! That is like a car payment!

This is the second thing most people do when they attend church regularly–they tithe. You know, Biblical injunctions and all that, plus the general feeling of obligation when the basket is passed, usually lead to tithing. If he gives 10%, bravo to him!!!! That’s superb!

don’t know how to approach the subject of his crazed over-commitment to his faith or church.

Honey, “Crazed overcommitment” would be like taking you and hiding away in some cabin in Montana, waiting for the second Coming with an ammo stockpile and Spam. This ain’t it.

mean, people don’t do church like they used to, right?

If this is her definition of “do church,” then she’d be totally appalled by the practices of some of the readers of this blog (and its author)–prayer every day! confession! Sacraments! Spiritual reading! Oh my gosh! And some people still become priests and nuns and monks, and give themselves totally to God! Wow!

How can I drag this man out of his cave and get him to live in the real, modern world.

“Out of his cave?” Um, he believes in God. He’s religious. He is, apparently, Christian. I’m not seeing any caveman behaviors here.

I loved Carolyn’s response: “Wow.” That just about sums it up.

If you haven’t bought Josh Groban’s Christmas CD, Noel, yet, do so!

It’s a great album and it also, coincidentally, the best-selling album of 2007, surpassing High School Musical 2 (which shows me that The End is Not As Nigh).

Some of my favorite tracks:

–Silent Night
–It Came Upon a Midnight Clear
–Angels We Have Heard On High
–I’ll Be Home For Christmas (which is interspersed with messages from soldiers–awesome!)
–The Christmas Song
–The First Noel (duet with Faith Hill)

“It Came” is a special favorite because it is arranged very cleanly and simply. It really shows off his voice and the arrangement is unique in its sparseness, but it’s still very moving. The same is true for “The Christmas Song”. It’s done in an understated, classy way that emphasizes the song’s natural beauty, as opposed to demonstrating vocal histronics.

Today’s gospel was perfect for my state of mind lately; Jesus spoke about not worrying what to say when you are questioned about your faith, because he will give you the words that no one can refute. He promised that “not a hair on [our] head[s]” will be lost. He takes such good care of us–I think that is something that we often forget.

We think that if God loved us, then He’d sort of “leave us alone”; that is, we’d have enough money, perfect health, etc., etc. Everything would be easy. But if you look at the lives of those God and Jesus loved, it was the exact opposite. Mary was told at Jesus’ presentation that a sword would pierce her heart. John, the “beloved disciple”, died in exile on Patmos. Peter and some of the other apostles were crucified. How many saints had illness, the “dark night”, doubt, pain, fear? Almost all of them. Look at Jesus himself, the “beloved Son”–crucified. For love of us. God’s love is, to our human way of thinking,a funny kind of love. But we have to remember that His knowledge is perfect. He wants us to be with Him in Heaven, and if that takes discomfort and pain, etc., then that’s what it takes. And it doesn’t take that for everyone. I’m re-reading St. Teresa of Avila’ s The Interior Castle, and in her discussion of the First Mansion, she discusses this point, saying, “there are different way of being in this castle”; she writes later that “if we start with the false principle of wishing God to follow our will and to lead us in the way we think best, upon what firm foundation can this spiritual edifice rest?” RTusting God is vital. But that doesn’t mean we can’t doubt. Mother Angelica said

Don’t worry if you have doubts. Doubts do not displease God. They are permitted by Him–permitted to bring out the depth of faith within us.

But this was all just one part of the Gospel. The other part, the first part, about not being afraid of what to say because Jesus will give us the words, is what I’ve been dealing with lately. So many people seem to want to blunt God’s truth and what His Church teaches. They want balance. They want other ideas presented. This is not a political arena. There are no other sides in the Catholic Church. There is right, and there is wrong. There is sin, and there is virtue. There is Heaven, there is Hell (well, OK, Purgatory too, but you know what I mean). I know people who want to present sin, heresy, blasphemy (all good old-fashioned words we’re too afraid to use anymore) as “alternatives” or “other ideas” or “balance.” Well, there isn’t balance when we’re talking faith. God will keep us from error, but I don’t want to have my parish end up like some Protestant denominations, who write statements like (and I’m paraphrasing), “abortion is bad, but if you really need to have one, then you should be able to. (Side note: What other sin do we talk about like this? None. We don’t say, “well murder is bad, but if you really need to kill someone, do it.” “Well, stealing is bad, but if you need to..” “adultery is bad, but…” Only abortion. Funny.) NO.

One among the many things I love about Catholicism is its total definitiveness. There is right and wrong. Black and white. This is what is good, and this is what is not. There’s no wishy-washy beating ’round the bush. You know what’s going on, and if you don’t, get thee to your CCC. If you’re Catholic, be Catholic. Believe what we believe hook, line and sinker. Or go find a church that believes what you believe. To pull the name of a blog, “The cafeteria is closed.” No more of this balance talk. We have to talk truth.

If you are what you should be, you will set the whole world on fire.

–St. Catherine of Sienna

DISCIPLESHIP isn’t easy. Jesus told us it wouldn’t be. He sent us as sheep among wolves. People would hate us, He said, but we were to remember that the world hated Him first. And since He was persecuted, we would be as well. We cannot escape it.

So often we think of this in terms of martyrdom, or great acts of faith and courage. But we must stand for Christ and His Church everyday. It’s our duty. It is our mission. It is our calling. We must defend the Truth always. God will give us the words and the courage if we ask for them. We must always stand up for the Truth and not be afraid. God is with us. He will give us the words, as He has given each of us our mission. He alone knows what He desires for us, and knows what we must do to achieve the glory He has envisioned for uys. If we but trust in Him, He will not abandon us.

It is hard.  We my not face the scaffold or the soldier or the blade, but we face the loss of respect, of friends, of understanding. Why do we need these? Yet we do. We crave human acceptance and approval. Yet is is so much more important to crave God’s approval. We must strive to do His will. We can do it, every day, if we ask for God’s help. He holds us in the palm of His hand–He will never forsake us. He loves us more than we can fathom. Let us love Him with abandon, with fervor. Let us defend His Church and Her Truth. “The gates of Hell shall not prevail against it.” We are the vineyard workers, we are Christ’s body on earth. We are His disciples now.

Gandhi said that if Christians truly lives their faith, there would be no Hindus in India. We must love and live our faith, our complete faith, without picking only the parts we can handle. The Cross is hard. Christianity is hard. Catholicism, at times, can seem even harder. We must persevere in faith. We must  strive to live and teach the Truth. Veritas Splendor. “Be not afraid!” It sets us free, but first it must be taught an embraced. We cannot hide it. We must not hide it. To do so is to deny Christ and His love for us.

We are not perfect. We all stumble on our road. But we must be like Peter, and not Judas; we must realize our mistakes, confess them and strive to do better. We must not despair.

“Quo est veritas?” Jesus, and His Church. We must teach that. It is imperative.  It is our mission. Without it, we flounder and stumble and lose the Light. We are the Light of the World, the Salt of the Earth. We cannot lose our savor. It denies it, it denies Christ, it blunts our purposes and we lose our way. We cannot and must not be ashamed of the light and the Truth. He is our entire purpose. Jesus gives everything meaning. His Truth cannot be changed or “softened” or mutated. It is, always.

We must not be afraid, for Christ is with us “until the end of the age.”

I seriously need to do a books/movies update, so here’s what you have to look forward to:

BOOKS

–Rediscovering Catholicsm

–Left to Tell

–The Choice

–The Gift

MOVIES

–Evening

–Knocked Up (Yes, it does belong on CPG–trust me!)

Excited yet? 

I really shouldn’t be surprised by these things, and yet I am…

I don’t really watch that much TV–House, Desperate Housewives, a little bit of Supernanny, and Grey’s Anatomy (although based on last season’s ridiculousness, that might be up in the air. But I digress). My complaint/question/query has to do with the latter.

In preparation for the new season (and the release of season 3 on DVD), I’ve been recapping season 2. (Hey, labor Day, long weekend…I needed some chill time here. :)) So last night I watched and episode where the OB/GYN has a patient with seven kids, who is being admitted for a C-section. After her husband and kids go to find some ice cream, Rose (the patient) tells Addison (the doctor) that she wants to have her tubes tied while she’s having the C-section, because she doesn’t want any more kids. Addison suggests birth control. Rose says (shock!) she’s Catholic and it won’t work, because her husband doesn’t think you can “pick and choose” what you believe. And, of course, the husband is then cast as eeevil, forcing all these children on his poor wife, who’s been hospitalized for dehydration, exhaustion, etc. Rose also says that if her husband foudn out about the pills or the tube tying, she’d lose her marriage (to which Karev, the blunt to the point of pain surgical resident, says, “why? He won’t divorce you.”).

So as usual, faithful Catholics are seen as crazy people and Catholics, in general, just see women as baby-making machines. She talks about how they didn’t have sex between their seventh child and the current one for three years. Um, sorry, but that’s not what the Church means by NFP. You abstain during periods of “fertility”, and last time I checked, a woman wasn’t fertile for 3 years STRAIGHT.Um, hello. Basic biology tells us that. It also seems like this woman is a little wimpy and not talking to her husband about her concerns. They should talk to a priest, a pastoral minister, whatever, and get the real deal on NFP. You are NOT just supposed to have kids wily-nily. That’s not what the Church teaches.

Of course the show doesn’t deal with any of this. Rose tries to blame their issues on their religion and her husband, but Karev says that she doesn’t get to “blame her husband and pin this on the Pope.” (He got a lot of good lines in this episode)

Addison does tie her tubes, over Karev’s objections, and the husband may sue the hospital because Karev told him that the “complication” (as Addison and Rose put it) wasn’t really a complication. I don’t think anything ever came of it, but I’m not totally sure.

Just another instance of how Catholics get misunderstood in the media all the time. And the thing is, it’s not even innocent anymore. I’m not expecting to find EWTN stuff on ABC on Thursday nights. I’m really not. But some accuracy, something other than working off blatant stereotypes without evening checking to see what the real position is, would be nice.

Before I head off for my vacay in NYC (thank God for it!), I will leave you with Part V of Oscar Wilde’s incomparable “The Ballad of Reading Gaol” (”Jail” to us American English kids), written as a reflection in Capital Punishment, conditions in the jail where he spent two years for debts, and a religious reflection. Be sure to read the whole thing here.

Part V

I know not whether Laws be right,

Or whether Laws be wrong;

All that we know who lie in gaol

Is that the wall is strong;

And that each day is like a year

A year whose days are long.

But this I know, that every Law

That men have made for Man,

Since first Man took his brother’s life,

And the sad world began,

But straws the wheat and saves the chaff

With a most evil fan.

This too I know–and wise it were

If each could know the same–

That every prison that men build

Is built with bricks of shame

And bound with bars lest Christ should see

How men their brothers maim.

With bars they blur the gracious moon,

And blind the goodly sun:

For in it things are done

That Son of God nor son of Man

Ever should look upon!

The vilest deeds like poison weeds,

Bloom well in prison-air;

It is only what is good in Man

That wastes and withers there;

Pale Anguish keeps the heavy gate,

And the Warder is Despair.

For they start the little frightened child

Till it weeps both night and day;

And they scourge the weak and flog the fool,

And gibe the old and grey,

And some grow mad, and all grow bad,

And none a word may say.

Each narrow cell in which we dwell

is a foul and dark latrine,

And the fetid breath of living Death

Chockes up each grated screen,

And all, but Lust, is turned to dust

In Humanity’s machine.

The brackish water that we drink

Creeps with a loathsome slime,

And the bitter bread they weigh in scales

is full of chalk and lime

And Sleep will not lie down, but walks,

Wild-eyes, and cries to Time.

…

With midnight always in one’s heart,

And twilight in one’s cell,

We turn the crank, or tear the rope,

Each in his seperate Hell,

And the silence is more awful far

Than the sound of a brazen bell.

And never a human voice comes near

To speak a gentle word:

And the eye that watches through the door

Is pitiless and hard:

And by all forgot, we rot and rot,

With soul and body marred.

And thus we rust Life’s iron chain

Degraded and alone:

and some men curse, and some men weep,

And some men make no moan:

But God’s eternal Laws are kind

And break the heart of stone.

And every human heart that breaks,

In prison-cell or yard,

Is as that broken box that gave

Its treasure to the Lord,
And filled the unclear leper’s house

With the scent of costliest nard.

Ah! Happy they whose hearts can break

And peace of pardon win!

How else may man make straight his plan
And cleanse his soul from Sin?

How else but through a broken heart

May Lord Christ enter in?

And he of the swollen purple throat,

And the stark and staring eyes,

Waits for the Holy hands that took

The Thief to Paradise;

And a broken and a contrite heart

The Lord will not despise.

…

And with tears of blood he cleansed the hand,m

The hand that held the steel:

The only blood can wipe out blood,

And only tears can heal:

And the crimons stain that was of Cain

Became Christ’s snow-white seal.

From Rod–well DUH!!! (my emphases in bold)

IVF
Matt Yglesias writes: “I’m also always curious as to where the opponents of stem cell research stand on issues related to in-vitro fertilization.”

His point — and it’s a good one — is that if you oppose embryonic stem-cell research because it takes a fully human life, then you are logically bound to oppose in vitro fertilization, because that process results in the creation of more embryos — that is, people, to the anti-ESCR crowd — which will inevitably be discarded.

Yglesias is right, which is why I think IVF should be outlawed. Of course it won’t be outlawed, and in fact there is no meaningful constituency opposing it. Reluctantly, I have to admit that if the logical contradiction were put to anti-ESCR politicians, the result would be not a gain in converts to the anti-IVF side, but the loss of proponents on the anti-ESCR side. I don’t see how you can be in favor of one but not the other.

In fact, I’d guess we’d sooner see abortion outlawed in this country than IVF. Why? Because IVF has been thoroughly mainstreamed by the middle class. There’s no “ick” factor. And hey, it makes babies; what, you’re against babies? You’re against human happiness? Etc.

If you buy that moral reasoning — and I do not — then on what grounds can you oppose ESCR?

You know, I love it when the Church wins another round in the Logic Wars. Isn’t it great?