"My Grace Is Sufficient For Thee"

I would have preferred to narrate the following experience according to the promptings of a spirit of peaceful reflection or the like. But recent events have induced me to relate it in almost a spirit of self-defense, or perhaps more importantly, in a spirit of defense of the priesthood, as it is and has been understood by the Church, and lived out by some of the best men I know: the priests whom I attended seminary with and are products of "modern" priestly formation.

I have been reticent about sharing the following, except with a few close friends, because intense spiritual experiences, experiences which hindsight reveals to be turning points in one's life, are initimate matters. To reveal them too widely risks a sort of spiritual nakedness, which can perhaps render one more vulnerable than the physical variety. I am also reluctant to share this because I do not want to be seen as "tooting my own horn".

I am prompted to share this now as a result of some comments made by another commentor over on Amy Welborn's blog (You'll have to scroll fairly far down to find the relevant comments). He and I were carrying on a running debate on various issues relating to feminism and women's ordination, and at one point he wrote:

We have too many instances of people following the way of the reluctant Biblical figure or Christian saint: aware of unworthiness, they respond anyway. (Hardly the model of modern priestly formation, I might add.) [emphasis mine]

This remark that the awareness of unworthiness is "hardly the model of modern priestly formation...", carries with it the implication that I and other recently ordained priests somehow think of ourselves as worthy or deserving of the privilege of the Priesthood, as though we see ourselves as some sort of elevated Brahmin caste. Nothing could be further from the truth, and I found the remark and the implication deeply offensive. Knowing the years of trial, purification, and sheer hell that many of my confreres went through to be ordained makes the remark all the more offensive. While the author didn't intend it this way, it seems to impugn the priesthood of all of those good men with whom I am privileged to serve as brother priests.

No doubt, there are some men who enter the seminary with some twisted idea that they are "worthy" of the priesthood, or that they are doing God some sort of favor by offering themselves for ordination. I met a few along the way during my formation. But those guys usually didn't last long, and I'm glad to be able to say that not one of those losers I encountered made it to ordination. The fact is that the difficulties and trials of seminary life simply won't permit that sort of nonsense to survive long. Furthermore, a man's classmates are usually the best bullshit detector in the seminary. I recall once, during my time at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Philadelphia, I heard a classmate complaining over dinner about being made to do work at his Apostolate assignment which he felt was "beneath" him. He said "these hands were meant for chalices, not callouses." I felt sickened upon hearing his remark, and at that moment lost any respect I had for him. I seriously considered "reporting" his comment to the seminary Formation Team, and believe me, that was the sort of thought I rarely entertained. But I felt that a man who harbored such an attitude was simply unfit for ordination. I was dissuaded from reporting this seminarian by my spiritual director, who advised me to hold off, and assured me that the Formation Team was "onto him". When, later that year, that seminarian was dismissed, his departure came as no surprise to, and was greeted with a sense of relief by, his classmates.

Now, after that long preface (I'm sure that purgatory for me will consist mainly of having to endure the ramblings of people as long-winded as myself), on to the narrative of an experience I had in the seminary which I think is relevant to the above-mentioned comment:

Because I transferred both dioceses and seminaries, my reception of the ministries of Lector and Acolyte (two "stepping stones" on the way to ordination) was delayed. This meant also that my admission to Candidacy for Holy Orders was also delayed. Candidacy is the formal recognition by the Church's authority that a man is in fact considered a candidate for Orders. It is, in a sense, the Church's "seal of approval", that in due course of time, when a man completes his studies, he will be ordained. Normally, at Sacred Heart Major Seminary, where I completed my formation, Candidacy is received in a man's third year of Theology. Because of my transfer, I did not receive Candidacy until the fall of my fourth year.

I received Candidacy at a regular Sunday Mass at the seminary, from the then-Rector of Sacred Heart, Bishop Allen Vigneron (now bishop of Oakland, California). I was the only man to receive Candidacy then, so I felt particularly "on the spot". I was also both touched and challenged by the fact that, as it seemed to me at the time, Bishop Vigneron's homily was directed to me personally. His admonitions and exhortations seemed to be tailored specifically to my shortcomings, strengths, and weaknesses. I did not feel threatened or oppressed by this, so much as I felt a growing sense that this was serious business.

The ritual for Candidacy includes a prescribed Instruction, with which Bp. Vigneron concluded his homily. These words seemed to leap up and challenge me:

Day by day you [the candidate] will learn to live the life of the Gospel and deepen your life of Faith, Hope, and Love. In the practice of these virtues you will gain the spirit of prayer and grow in zeal to win the world to Christ.

I began thinking, "OK, I've got the zeal, but that's about all that I have. My Faith is weak, my Hope struggles, and I can think of a dozen people who are much better than me at exhibiting the Love of Christ. Why me, Lord?"

Then, a little later in the ceremony, the bishop asks the candidate two questions:

Bishop: In response to the Lord's call are you resolved to complete your preparation so that in due time you will be ready to be ordained for the ministry of the Church?

Candidate: I am.

Bishop: Are you resolved to prepare yourself in mind and spirit to give faithful service to Christ the Lord and his body, the Church?

Candidate: I am.

At this point, my mind started whirling. I asked myself, am I really prepared? Am I really ready to give myself to Christ and His Church?

The enormity of what I was doing struck me. I realized at that moment that I was standing before the Church - the whole Church, the Church in Heaven and the Church here on earth, and saying "Ordain me. I will serve." And it seemed to me at that moment that I was no longer standing in just that seminary chapel. I felt as though the space had opened up, and I was in the midst of some vast space, surrounded by a multitude. I looked up at Bishop Vigneron, and realized that I had addressed my words, those two simple "I am's" not to Bishop Vigneron, not even to my assembled brothers, but to Christ Himself.

And the thought came to my mind "Who do you think you are? Who are you to be standing here? You're not worthy of this great calling. You're a fraud, a poseur."

And my heart sank, as I began to feel that I was committing some great effrontery.

Then, as if welling up from some great depth, I heard in my heart a voice. That voice was not my own mind, my own thought. It had a different quality than my questions and self-reproach. The voice seemed to be both from the very center of my self, and yet from somewhere else.

And the voice said "My grace is sufficient for thee. (2 Cor. 12:9) My grace, my life, my body and blood, are sufficient for thee, Rob."

And the weight, the reproach, vanished. I knew once again that this wasn't about me. It wasn't about me, my strengths or my weakness. It was about Christ. He had called, and I would say "yes." Christ was the one who would remedy my unworthiness. He was the one who would supply the sufficiency for my lack.

After the Mass, I went back to my room and looked up Second Corinthians. The full verse is this:

"My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness." I will rather boast most gladly of my weaknesses, in order that the power of Christ may dwell with me.

This verse has been a constant part of my prayer ever since.

The Pope As Ignorant Schoolboy

I Respond To Fr. Tuohey's Commonweal Article

Amy Welborn linked to an article by Fr. John Tuohey published in last week's Commonweal magazine titled "The Pope On PVS", in which he critiques the Holy Father's teaching regarding care of PVS patients as expressed in his Address to the Participants of the International Congress on Life Sustaining Treatments and the Vegetative State. Fr. Tuohey's article begins in this vein:

In brief, you propose to show there is a moral obligation to maintain nutrition and hydration, “even artificially administered,” for the PVS patient, saying that doing so is “necessarily ordinary and proportionate.” You affirm that this is “not a medical act,” but a “natural means of preserving life.” In short, you say it is required whenever it works to maintain life.

While we are pleased to accept your proposal, we would like to bring up some issues to which you will want to pay particular attention as you continue your work. Our brief comments below will refer only to the 1980 Declaration on Euthanasia, the most authoritative statement by the church to date on the topic; the 1995 Pontifical Council’s Charter of Health-Care Workers; and some older traditional references that represent the long-held moral tradition on this subject. Other sources will, of course, also need to be explored as you continue your work.

As this is an issue of great moment today, and Fr. Tuohey's article is so problematic in certain respects, I felt obliged to reply.

To the Editor:

Fr. Tuohey's article "The Pope on PVS" is problematic on several levels, and requires rebuttal. Firstly, though this is perhaps a concern of style rather than substance, I cannot pass over the condescending tone in which the article is written. Had I received a similar letter from my advisor or thesis committee during my own graduate work, I would have immediately sought new ones, who demonstrated the ability to offer criticism without being patronizing and insulting. The Holy Father has demonstrated more than adequate knowledge of the Church's moral tradition in several encyclicals. It is quite certain, for example, that the Holy Father is familiar with the distinction between probabilism and tutiorism. It is especially offensive that a priest should address the Vicar of Christ as though he were an ignorant schoolboy.

Apart from the tone, however there are even more serious difficulties with Fr. Tuohey's article. The first is his statement that the "1980 Declaration on Euthanasia" and the "1995 Pontifical Council’s Charter of Health-Care Workers" represent the most recent authoritative teaching regarding the care of PVS patients. But, of course, he ignores the teaching authority of the Holy Father's address, which certainly constitutes the most recent pronouncement of Church authority on the issue. While the Holy Father's address does not rise to the level of an encyclical, it nonetheless represents the Holy Father articulating and explicating what has previously been said by the Church. I would compare it to the pronouncement of another pope on another moral issue, Pius XII's address to the Italian Catholic Union of Midwives in 1951. Pius XII's address was an elaboration and reinforcement of Catholic teaching on conjugal morality, built on the work of his predecessors. It is now considered part of authoritative papal teaching, and is standard reading for any student of Church teaching on the theology of marriage and sexuality. So here John Paul II is enlarging upon previous pronouncements on life issues. This is the exercise of the Ordinary Magisterium, and as such must be considered authoritative. The Holy Father's pronouncement last March must be taken as part of the data from which moralists reason, and not merely another theological opinion.

Fr. Tuohey takes issue with the Pope's evaluation of "the clinical reality of PVS", in which he stated "that PVS is not a diagnosis, but 'only a conventional prognostic judgment.'" Fr. Tuohey then opines that "PVS refers to a medical condition, defined by specific clinical indications..." But, in fact, as I wrote in last January's Crisis Magazine, the diagnosis of PVS is notoriously difficult and unreliable. Indeed, a 1996 study, "Misdiagnosis of the Vegetative State", published in the British Medical Journal discovered that the diagnosis of PVS was inaccurate 43% of the time. They found that the misdiagnosed patients had severe communication problems as a result of their disabilities, but, with the proper clinical measures, "nearly all were able to communicate...some to a high level." They concluded that:

The vegetative state needs considerable skill to diagnose, requiring assessment over a period of time; diagnosis cannot be made, even by the most experienced clinician, from a bedside assessment [emphasis is mine]... Recognition of awareness is essential...to avoid inappropriate approaches to the courts for a declaration for withdrawal of tube feeding.

The difficulty in diagnosing PVS, and the widespread errors in making the diagnosis, has led many leading hospitals, such as the Northwestern University Rehabilitation Institute, to routinely re-assess patients referred to them as PVS.

Furthermore, the criteria themselves for a diagnosis of PVS are highly problematic. Cindy Province, MSN, of the Bioethics Center of St. Louis, has criticized the reliance for a diagnosis of PVS on judgments regarding a patient's "thought" or "awareness", things which are not medically measurable. One speaker at the Rome conference, Dr. D. Alan Shewmon, observed that "the PVS literature suffers from an oversimplified notion of 'consciousness' and from conflating consciousness with responsiveness." Province also observes that doctors are realizing that "consciousness is a continuum, not an all-or nothing phenomenon. In general terms, human brains aren't light bulbs with an 'on' and 'off' switch, but instead are more like irons, with 'warm' settings all the way up to 'hot'."

Fr. Tuohey also criticizes the Pope's understanding of prognosis in evaluating artificial nutrition/hydration for PVS patients. He seems to take for granted a moral certitude that PVS patients will almost certainly never recover. However, the difficulty and inaccuracy of diagnosis makes reliable prognosis all the more problematic. There is ample empirical evidence that people supposedly diagnosed as PVS recover with an unsettling frequency: the cases of Rus Cooper-Dowda and Sgt. Richard Mack are recent examples. Perhaps the most chilling recent example of a supposed PVS patient recovering is Kate Adamson, who, once diagnosed as PVS, had her feeding tube removed. But she was in fact fully conscious, aware of what was going on around her:

I could see and hear everything going on around me, and I had no way... of communicating with anyone. I knew what I wanted to say.  I had -- I was completely paralyzed. I had no way of communicating at all. When the feeding tube was turned off for eight days, I was -- thought I was going insane. I was screaming out [in her mind] "don't you know I need to eat." ... Michael [Schiavo] on national TV [the infamous Larry King interview last October] had mentioned last week that it's a pretty painless thing to have the feeding tube removed. It is the exact opposite. It was sheer torture...

The tenuousness of the PVS diagnosis, the consequent uncertainty regarding the prognosis of PVS patients, and the fact that a disturbing number of supposed PVS patients seem to "recover", has led some doctors, especially those who regularly treat brain-injured patients, to describe PVS as a "meaningless diagnosis". Given these difficulties, it strikes me as almost absurd for Fr. Tuohey to speak of "moral certainty" in this regard. If there is uncertainty surrounding whether or not a patient is PVS, and uncertainty surrounding whether or not such a patient can recover, it makes no sense to assert "moral certainty" in making a decision to withdraw treatment. Under these circumstances, and given the overriding nature of the dignity of human life, the only responsible position to take is the tutioristic ["more cautious"] approach Fr. Tuohey so readily dismisses.

In asserting Gerald Kelly's conclusion regarding the withdrawal of nutrition and hydration from patients in "terminal coma". Fr. Tuohey either is using sloppy language or is engaging in semantic sleight of hand. The PVS condition (when it has actually been accurately diagnosed), is not what would ordinarily be called "terminal", that is, approaching death within a reasonably foreseeable amount of time. The PVS condition is not a disease process which in se causes death. PVS patients can and frequently do live for years in that condition, if they are given proper care. The proper care required of PVS patients is normally quite minimal, and does not require hospitalization: ensuring sufficient food and water, regular turning to prevent bedsores, and basic hygiene. This basic level of care can be provided by any nursing home. When PVS patients do die, it is usually as a result of some secondary disease or trauma. To apply the diagnosis "terminal" to PVS patients is simply unwarranted.

Hence the sleight of hand employed by Tuohey in defining terminal as "a condition from which he or she was unlikely to recover." Surely Fr. Tuohey does not mean this? For there are many conditions from which a person will not recover, but no reasonable person would call "terminal". For example, Down's Syndrome is congenital, and no one "recovers" from it. Is Down's thereby a "terminal" condition, which could justify the withdrawal of food and water from those afflicted with it? Congestive Heart Failure is a degenerative condition from which patients do not recover. Indeed, it can even be called "terminal", because eventually it will lead to death, and the only cure is a heart transplant Would Fr. Tuohey argue that a diagnosis of CHF would justify the withdrawal of food and water from its sufferers? Fr. Tuohey's definition of the "terminal" condition provides easy justification to end the lives of all manner of patients.

Fr. Tuohey also implies that the use of a feeding tube to supply nutrition and hydration to PVS patients may be unduly burdensome, and therefore licitly denied. He even quotes Pope John Paul's use of phrases like “therapeutic tyranny,” and "artificially prolonged agony". But if Fr. Tuohey is referring to the Holy Father's remarks in his 1992 "Address to An International Congress on the Care of the Dying", it would seem that Fr. Tuohey is taking the Pope's remarks out of context, for they in fact do not signify what Tuohey implies. The Pope did in fact refer to "'aggressive therapeutic care' which refers to the use of treatments which are particularly wearing and burdensome for the sick person, condemning him or her in fact to an artificially prolonged agony." [emphasis is mine] But he prefaced this remark by reiterating the CDF's 1980 Declaration On Euthanasia:

Nothing and no one can in any way permit the killing of an innocent human being, whether a foetus or an embryo, an infant or an adult, an old person, or one suffering from an incurable disease, or a person who is dying. Furthermore, no one is permitted to ask for this act of killing, either for himself or herself or for another person entrusted to his or her care, nor can he or she consent to it, either explicitly or implicitly. Nor can any authority legitimately recommend or permit such an action. [emphases mine]

Furthermore, he followed his remark about "artificially prolonged agony" with this statement, also from the CDF's Declaration:

When inevitable death is imminent in spite of the means used, it is permitted in conscience to take the decision to refuse forms of treatment that would only secure a precarious and burdensome prolongation of life, so long as the normal care due to the sick person in similar cases is not interrupted."

John Paul's statement, then, was made in the context of patients who are imminently dying, for whom medical treatment will no longer avail. As I have stated above, PVS patients cannot be considered "terminal" or in danger of imminent death. Furthermore, the Pope clearly has in mind what most people would regard as "treatment": surgery, medications, etc. There is nothing in the Pope's statement which could be construed as applying to the withdrawal of nutrition and hydration from PVS patients. Indeed, I would argue that the Pope's 1992 address, elaborating on the CDF Declaration, when taken in conjunction with his remarks last March, strongly indicate that authentic Catholic teaching cannot be interpreted as permitting the withdrawal of nutrition and hydration from PVS patients.

And the fact is that use of feeding tubes for PVS patients cannot reasonably be considered "unduly burdensome". The percutaneous gastrostomy tube (PEG) is most commonly used in PVS patients. It consists of a plastic tube inserted directly into the stomach through the abdominal wall and sutured into place. Once surgical wound has healed, it is a stable and low-risk device. This method has been in use for nearly a century, and cannot by any reasonable stretch be called "high-tech", and is considered a minimally invasive measure. As long as proper hygiene is maintained (a basic nursing task), it presents very minimal risk of complication. Furthermore, it normally occasions little to no discomfort in the patient. Many people are misled by the general fear of "tubes" to think that the use of the PEG is more burdensome than it really is. Indeed, in the treatment of the various forms of dysphagia, procedures even more invasive than the PEG tube are routinely tolerated. Why would a low-tech intervention such as the PEG tube be considered "unduly burdensome" in PVS patients, but even more aggressive treatments be accepted in otherwise "normal" cases? It would seem that for some, the PVS patients are considered somehow less worthy or deserving than others.

Finally, Fr. Tuohey's discussion of such things as "basic" or "normal" care reflects a shift in the thinking and language about the place of food and water in the overall care of a patient. Twenty to thirty years ago, no clinician would have classified food and water as "treatment". They were considered part of the routine care which were given to all patients. But as Cindy Province points out in her essay "Hungering and Thirsting After Righteousness: Providing Nutrition and Hydration to Patients in the Persistent Vegetative State", there has been a redefinition of food and water as "treatment" by a growing number of clinicians and ethicists. But, Province points out, the actual arguments in favor of this redefinition are "relatively weak." Fr. Tuohey appears to have adopted this redefinition, saying that whether intervention is justified or not depends not on whether it achieves its purpose, but on "its ability to offer what McFadden called 'the sound hope of providing benefit'". Of course, the question Tuohey begs is "what benefit does one expect food and water to provide?' The answer is that no reasonable person would expect that food and water would have some kind of "benefit", in terms of producing a cure. They are simply the fundamental prerequisites of maintaining life. If we are going to label food and water as treatment, we may as well define providing sick people with shelter from the elements as such. But no one, at least as of today, is advocating exposing PVS or terminally ill patients, because we implicitly understand that shelter, too, is one of the basic prerequisites of maintaining life.

Indeed, underlying Fr. Tuohey's position, and that of many who advocate removing food and water from PVS patients, is a further redefinition of what constitutes "futile" treatment. It is a commonplace of medical ethics, as well as Catholic teaching, that one is under no obligation to continue, and may indeed be obliged to withdraw, treatment that is "futile." A treatment has typically been considered "futile" if it has no benefit or desired effect whatsoever. Thus food has not been considered treatment because no one expects food to have any "direct curative effect". Furthermore, Province explains, in PVS patients tube feeding can be considered effective because it "clearly achieves the objective of maintaining a good nutritional state." But this kind of common-sense thinking has been rejected by much of the medical community:

...This view has been largely replaced by a more general view of the nature of nutrition as treatment... in that it has not enabled the patient to recover from his underlying condition.

Now, since food and water, redefined as treatment, do not help the patient to recover from his underlying condition, it can be labeled as "futile." Having deemed feeding the patient, by this sleight-of-hand, as "futile", it is a short step to justifying its withdrawal. By means of these redefinitions, Fr. Tuohey and others have provided those want to help the sub-functional to depart this life a little more quickly with an infinitely fungible, increasingly meaningless and arbitrary set of boundaries within which to do so.

The Holy Father, in his address last March, demonstrated that he has a very sound grasp of the current clinical realities in dealing with PVS patients. Furthermore, when taken in context, his remarks are quite clearly emerging from the magisterial teaching on caring for the sick and dying that the Church has articulated both recently and historically . Finally, analysis of Fr. Tuohey's remarks, as well as its implicit assumptions, reveals that they rely on a misreading of the authoritative pronouncements of the Church, as well as on certain dubious trends in contemporary bioethics. Perhaps it is he who needs to exercise "greater care" in his "use of sources".

Why Is Mary Crying?

Probably because ignoramuses like Jack Chick and those who hand out his tracts so ridiculously misrepresent what the Church her Son founded actually teaches about her.

Just a couple of examples of the errors in this tract: Firstly, the confusion of an offering to cleanse one of ritual impurity (Leviticus 12:6-8) with an offering to atone for personal sin. Also, the misunderstanding of the phrase "Mother of God", the doctrine concerning which, is, in actuality, about safeguarding the doctrine of the divinity and humanity of Christ.

And let's not even get into all of the well-trodden nonsense linking Mary with Semiramis...

To paraphrase Archbishop Sheen, there aren't 1 in a 100 people who actually hate the Catholic Church, but hate the slanders and distortions circulated about her by the ignorant and dishonest.

Evangelical Catholicism

Fr. Jay Scott Newman is the pastor of St. Mary's Catholic Church in Greenville, South Carolina. He's a convert from the Episcopal church, in the line of John Henry Newman and Ronald Knox. He's also a passionate advocate of "Evangelical Catholicism", about which he says:

Responding to our Holy Father's call to the New Evangelization means that we must become Evangelical Catholics. By our Baptism, we are called to be men and women of the Gospel who are Christian disciples by conviction rather than Church members by convention. Being Evangelical Catholics requires that we know the Gospel, believe the Gospel, live the Gospel, and share the Gospel with others. Becoming Evangelical Catholics is a lifelong adventure of letting go of cafeteria, casual, and cultural Catholicism by accepting the liberating truth of the Word of God and living by grace through faith in the Son of God.

Fr. Newman (great name to have...) has outlined Seven Principles of Evangelical Catholicism, such as number four:

Through Word and Sacrament we are drawn by grace into a transforming union with the Lord Jesus, and having been justified by faith we are called to sanctification and equipped by the Holy Spirit for the good works of the new creation. We must, therefore, learn to live as faithful disciples and to reject whatever is contrary to the Gospel, which is the Good News of the Father's mercy and love revealed in the life, death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Fr. Newman has some great ideas, a great parish, and a great website. While I've never met him, I'm sure he's the kind of priest I'd love to meet.

Thanks to Pontifications for the link!

Another Spineful Bishop!

Bishop Victor Galeone of St. Augustine, Florida published a powerful statement on CINO politicians and Holy Communion in his diocesan paper.

Bishop Galeone reiterates Church teaching that "the right to life is the foundation fo all other rights." He also points out that abortion is not a sectarian issue for Catholics, but an issue of fundamental human rights.

But his strongest language is directed at those who claim to be pro-choice and Catholic:

“Can an avid proponent of abortion-on-demand be at the same time a Catholic in good standing with the church?” I answer that question by asking another: Can an avowed racist be a member in good standing of the NAACP? For similar reasons, there are some positions so extreme that they would bar one from being considered a good Catholic, not because a specifically Catholic teaching is being denied, but because a basic tenet of the natural law is being trashed. As members of the human family, we must obey the natural law, written on our hearts: “You shall not take an innocent life.”

Go forth and read it!

(Thanks to Amy and Michael for the link.)

Pilgrimage Cancelled

I'm sorry to have to announce that the Mark Shea - Fr. Rob Pilgrimage to France has been cancelled.

The go/no-go deadline was today, and we fell short of the minimum number required to make it economically feasible.

However, Mark and I have not given up on the idea of doing a Pilgrimage. We are going to revisit the idea and see if we can come up with something next year.

C'est la vie...

Judicial Nominee Deemed "Unacceptable" to Women

That's what Sen. Dianne Feinstein said regarding J. Leon Holmes, a candidate for a federal judgeship.

Even some female Republican senators, like Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, denounced Holmes, saying he does not have a "fundamental commitment to the equality of women in our society."

Why is Holmes such a threat to women? Does he have a track record of unfair rulings about women from the bench? Apparently not. Is he a wife-beater or sexual harasser? Nope.

The problem is that he and his wife actually try to take seriously the Christian teaching about marriage, as expressed by the New Testament and Tradition. They wrote an article together in a Catholic publication in 1997, in which they discussed what it means when St. Paul says that "wives should be subordinate to their husbands as to the Lord..." (Eph. 5:21-27). Wonder of wonders, the Holmes' actually try to take St. Paul seriously. That's enough to disqualify Holmes in their book.

Now, the Holmes' article isn't available on-line, but anyone who has given the matter more than cursory study knows that St. Paul didn't intend, nor has the Church ever taken him to mean, that women should be treated as second-class citizens in the Church, as though they should be barefoot-and-pregnant. But why go into all those inconvenient details when you can seize on the word "subordinate" and use it as a club?

J. Leon Holmes' problem, it seems to me, is that he does not bow before the idol of gender feminism. That makes him a threat. Furthermore, I think it is no accident that the senators mentioned in the article are all pro-choice (though Hutchinson and Murkowski are less ideologically committed than Feinstein or Collins). Perhaps they suspect that Holmes, as a serious Catholic, is also pro-life? They couldn't pin that on him though, for lack of a public track record. So instead they use this rather thin reed to flog him. "Watch out", they're saying, "we know what kind of guy he really is." Wink, wink, nudge nudge.

Thank God a majority of the Senate didn't buy this nonsense, and voted (barely) to confirm him. Or he may have been another victim of "Serious Catholics Need Not Apply".

Federal Marriage Amendment Failing

Both ABC News' Nightline and FoxNews are reporting that the Federal Marriage Amendment, which would effectively ban same-sex marriage throughout the country, is about to die in the Senate for lack of the 60 votes needed to go forward.

In spite of a deluge of e-mails and phone calls in the last few days, apparently too few Senators, even those who oppose same-sex marriage, are willing to get off the dime to put a stop to the gay activists' assault on the family.

Of course, one of the more shameful aspects of this situation is the fact that some of the most outspoken and energetic supporters of gay marriage are - you guessed it - Catholics - or at least so they would call themselves.

Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois is a leading Catholic-In-Name-Only politician, who is also noteworthy for his service at the Democratic Party's altar of Abortion. He attacked the Republican conspiracy to make those defending "the love that dare not speak its name" be honest about where they stand:

"They want to put senators on the spot. Ads will be running. Trust me," said Durbin, who added that the Republicans were trying to "change the subject" of the election away from the war in Iraq and the economy.

Indeed, Senator! How dare those evil Republicans try to call people's attention to your ideological compatriots' efforts to reshape the very foundation of human society!

I'm sure the Senator will be grateful for the chance to skulk back into the shadows now that the Amendment is all-but-dead.

Of course, if the 15 Catholic senators opposing the protection of marriage actually were doing their duty both as Catholics and good legislators, their votes would probably put the Amendment "over the top" and ensure the measure's progress. Mark Windsor has posted a list of these senators over at Vociferous Yawpings, as well as a sample letter for you to use as a model for your own letters to these pols. Perhaps letters from Catholic constituents will move them in a way that their apparently malformed and atrophied consciences have not.

One interesting statistic mentioned on the Nightline program is that only 28% of Americans surveyed think gay marriage is an "important" issue. But of those people, 20% say that a candidate's opposition to gay marriage is essential for them to vote for him, while only 8% say that a candidate's support for gay marriage is essential for them to vote for him. The lopsidedness of those statistics, I think, is evidence that the opposition to gay marriage is very wide and deep.

But why are seemingly so few people sufficiently concerned about the issue? One possible reason is that issues like terrorism and the war are front and center in their minds.

But another possible reason is this: Gay marriage is, like so many other liberal initiatives over the past 30 years, largely being foisted upon us through the agency of activist courts and judges, rather than by any actual democratic deliberative process. I think many people, seeing our black-robed masters once again exercise their judicial diktat, are simply giving up on "the process". I have heard a number of people express an attitude of resignation about this. They see themselves as powerless to stop the onslaught, and given the history of the last few decades, such an attitude is not entirely irrational.

But despair and apathy are never counsels for the Christian. So write, speak out, and pray!

Who Is My Neighbor?

Homily for the 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Cycle C

Deuteronomy 30:10-14
Colossians 1:15-20
Luke 10:25-37

The scholar of the law asked, "Who is my neighbor?" And we're told that he asked this "in order to justify himself". That reminds me of something the Catholic writer Mark Shea once said: People ask questions for one of two reasons: We can ask a question either because we want to know the truth, or we can ask because we're hoping to avoid the truth. So, for example, someone might ask "What does the Church say about our duty to pay taxes? Or, he might ask, "it's not a big deal if I fudge a little on my taxes, right?" Those two questions are about the same issue, but betray much different attitudes. Well, the Lawyer here is asking the question "who is my neighbor" so as to find a "loophole" in the moral law.

And Jesus shows us in the parable that there is no loophole. Our neighbor is anyone we encounter who is in need, anyone who is downtrodden, anyone who is weak, or cannot speak for himself. Our neighbors, in fact, are all around us. The weaker or more defenseless a person is, the more he is our neighbor.

If we want to know what loving our neighbor looks like, if we want to know how we're supposed to live that out in the real world, we have to look to Christ. We must look to the Gospel, to the teaching and example of Christ. We must "put on Christ", as St. Paul tells us in his letter to the Romans. That means Christ must guide our judgments, Christ must guide our priorities, Christ must guide our values, and Christ must guide our decisions.

We must look to Christ, and to the Church that Christ Himself founded. We say that the Church is the Body of Christ. That means that when the Church teaches, she does so with the voice and with the mind of Christ. So all of us have a duty to form our consciences, to form our judgments about what is right and wrong, and to make decisions, according to the teaching of the Church.

Now, whenever we talk about making moral decisions, we get into an area that moral theologians call "prudential judgment". Prudential judgments are decisions about how we will go about loving our neighbor. Prudential judgments are about deciding what is the best way to carry out our duty or fulfill our vocation. Here's an example: Those of you who are parents, you know that you have a duty to feed your children. It's part of your God-given responsibility to make sure that your kids get enough to eat. You make prudential judgments about when your kids will eat, and what they will eat. You can make a prudential judgment that you will not give your kids chocolate cake and ice cream for dinner, but you can't legitimately make a choice not to feed your kids at all.

Most of the time, if we get into trouble, morally speaking, it's because we decide either to create a loophole for ourselves in the area of who our neighbor is, or we get mixed up in what is or isn't the proper area for prudential judgment.

Today, our society has decided, as a matter of law, that a whole group of persons is not our neighbor, and because of that, they can be deprived of the most basic right, the right to life. I'm speaking of unborn children, pre-born human beings who, through the injustice of abortion, we strip of the most basic human dignity, because they are unseen and unheard.

Those who try to justify abortion come up with clever rationalizations - but they're just like that scholar of the law in Jesus' parable - trying to avoid the truth. They do so in the name of a woman's "right". But what other right is built upon the bodies of the innocent? They do so in the name of "compassion". But abortion is most certainly not compassionate to the child whose life is ended in the womb. And for the woman who has one, abortion is also a cruel and perverse kind of compassion. What sort of compassion is it to tell a woman that the solution to her problems lies in the death of her child? That is why we must always offer the mercy and forgiveness of Christ to women who have had abortions: most often they have been frightened, duped, pressured, or even forced into having the abortion; In doing so, abortion robs them of their dignity as women.

But in addition to denying that the unborn child is our neighbor, the defenders of abortion also try to confuse the issue by making it seem equal in importance to other issues. Unfortunately, there are a number of politicians, some of whom even call themselves Catholic, running for office right now who are doing this: confusing issues in which there is room for prudential judgment with those in which there isn't. You see, there is no such thing as a prudential judgment in favor of abortion. Abortion is always wrong. The Church teaches, and it's really just common sense, that the right to life is the most basic right. So Pope John Paul II has said that all other rights are meaningless if the right to life is not protected and defended. A prudential judgment for abortion makes about as much sense as a prudential judgment to starve your children.

Now things that are always wrong, things in which there is no room for prudential judgment, have a higher moral priority, and a greater moral weight, than things that do. Again, this is just common sense. A murderer cannot excuse himself by saying "I know I killed someone, but hey, I always gave generously to the United Way". But these pro-choice politicians try to do precisely that. Some pro-choice Catholics in Congress released a document in the spring claiming that their support of things like relief to needy families or raising the minimum wage balances out or even outweighs the fact that they support abortion-on-demand. I find it particularly ironic that these same politicians also mention their support of increased funding for Head Start programs for poor students as one of the things in their "plus" column. Apparently they see no contradiction between funding programs to help poor children, while at the same time assuring that many of those poor children will never be born at all on account of their support for abortion.

Of course, such claims by these politicians are just smoke and mirrors. Even the trump card issue they bring out, opposition to the death penalty, is smoke and mirrors. Why? Because here there is also a clear difference between an issue of prudential judgment, and one in which there isn't. As I said before, abortion is always and absolutely wrong. There is never a legitimate choice in favor of it. But the Church's teaching against the death penalty is not so absolute. The Church teaches that the death penalty is usually not warranted, and indeed is to be used only as a last resort when there is no other way to defend society from a criminal. But the Church acknowledges (you can read it in the Catechism, numbers 2266, 2267) that the State has the right, in limited circumstances, to enact the death penalty. And that decision, about whether any particular instance is one of those rare occurences warranting the death penalty, is a prudential judgment. So in comparing abortion to the death penalty, you have on the one hand something that is always wrong, something that can never rightly be chosen, something in which there is no room for prudential judgment. And against that you have something which, albeit rarely, can nonetheless be legitimately chosen, and in which there is room for prudential judgment. The difference between abortion and capital punishment is so great as to be not a difference of degree, but a difference of kind. They are apples and oranges.

That is why the Holy Father and the bishops of the United States have said that abortion is the foremost issue confronting us today. In fact, last year the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome said that whether you are a politician or a private citizen, one's position on other issues, such as helping the poor, the minimum wage, or funding social security, no matter how "right", they may be, "can never excuse a wrong choice regarding direct attacks on innocent human life."

Our Lord makes it clear that there are no loopholes in acknowledging and caring for our neighbor. The foundation of any just and moral society is safeguarding the lives of the most innocent and vulnerable. We must hold ourselves to this moral standard, and hold our political leaders accountable to it, especially those who claim to share our faith. In the words of Moses from our first reading, "this command... is not too mysterious and remote" for us. "It is something very near...already in [our] hearts". We have only to carry it out.

No Justification to Fund Embryonic Research

That's the conclusion of a Letter to the Editor in today's Chicago Tribune by David Prentice, a Professor of Life Sciences at Indiana State University.

He writes in response to another letter, published last week, which regurgitated the current agitprop being circulated in the press in favor of embyonic stem-cell research. Embryonic stem-cell research creates human embryos for the purpose of destroying them in order to harvest the stem-cells, and is therefore morally illicit.

The advocates of embryonic stem-cell research typically either:

(a) engage in dishonesty by failing to differentiate it from adult stem-cell procedures, which are morally licit.

or (b) Justify it by promising all sorts of benefits to be gained in the future, everything from curing cancer, Parkinson's disease, liver disease, etc. What they don't say is that all of these promised gains are purely speculative, and there is little actual scientific evidence to back up those claims.

On the other hand, adult stem-cell research is rapidly reaching the status of proven technology that is already producing results.

This is one of the most important life-issues of our time, so I think it's important to read what Dr. Prentice writes:

David Prentice, Professor of Life Sciences
Indiana State University
Published July 1, 2004

Terre Haute, Ind. -- Jose Javier Otero of Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine argued that embryonic stem-cell research offers a promising future while adult stem cells are a myth ("Voice of the people, June 22).

As a scientist, it is sad that Otero is seemingly so uninformed about the facts.

It is simply incorrect to assert that adult stem cells are not capable to become any tissue in the body.

This is repeating an outdated litany.

The most noteworthy of several published papers indicating the extensive transforming abilities of adult stem cells is by Catherine Verfaillie's research group at the University of Minnesota. Her research showed (using the same gold standard experiment used for embryonic stem cells) that a type of bone marrow stem cell called MAPC could generate every tissue in the body.

In fact there are more than 200 other scientific references over the last few years that attest to the fact that adult stem cells cannot only generate other cell types but are effective in repairing tissue damage in animals and in human patients.

The exact mechanism of repair is still unclear.

The repair sometimes occurs by fusing with and reinvigorating the tissue, sometimes by generating new tissue cells from the adult stem cells and sometimes by simply stimulating the tissue to begin its own regeneration.

One of the major difficulties with embryonic stem cells is how to direct them into becoming differentiated and thus suitable for transplant.

Most studies show production of the cells result in a mixture of cell types (rather than producing the one cell type needed) and consequently are totally unsuitable for transplant.
Otero is incorrect in asserting that those few differentiated embryonic stem cells that are able to be produced do not form tumors.

A recent article published in the journal Diabetologia explains how researchers attempting to make insulin-secreting cells showed that such differentiated embryonic cells still formed tumors in mice.

Otero rightly indicated that lifting current restrictions on federally funded embryonic stem-cell research would not result in cures tomorrow.

Unfortunately he mistakenly suggested that the current restrictions on funding human embryo research contribute to the misery of suffering patients and their families.

The government has invested in this research, with the Bush administration pouring in more than $20 million to date.

In fact, animal embryonic stem-cell research has been open to funding for more than 20 years, yet there is still little to show for the investments.

The science has demonstrated no justification for putting additional funding or destroying more embryos for such experimentation.

Archbishop Burke of St. Louis Writes This:

The “intolerant secularism,” which tells a Catholic politician that he may not act according to his conscience, characterizes the exercise of the bishop’s pastoral responsibility as a violation of the legitimate autonomy of the political sphere from the church. Right reason, on the contrary, tells us that a bishop, if he truly cares for the flock, must admonish Catholic politicians “who choose to depart from church teaching on the inviolability of human life in their public life” regarding “the consequences for their own spiritual well being, as well as the scandal they risk by leading others into serious sin” (Living the Gospel of Life, No. 32). Once again, it must be noted that the bishop always has before his eyes the most fundamental good of life from the moment of conception.

...[F]or the Catholic politician to receive Communion when he or she has publicly violated the moral law in a grave matter like procured abortion risks leading others into thinking that they can accept procured abortion with a right conscience. In such a case, if the Catholic politician does not recognize the lack of the proper disposition to receive Communion, then the church herself must refuse the sacrament, in order to safeguard the worthy reception of the sacrament and to prevent a serious scandal among the faithful... After I had set forth the church’s discipline in the matter during my service as bishop of La Crosse, many Catholics and non-Catholics alike wrote to thank me for making clear what had been very confusing for them. The teaching and discipline that I set forth is not in any way new, and it should not be exploited as a political tool by anyone.

And, in response to Archbishop Burke's clear and compelling statement, many people wrote letters to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, which noted that "We received an extraordinarily large volume of letters in response to Archbishop Raymond L. Burke's comments last week on Catholics and politicians who support abortion rights. A total of 57 letters were critical of the archbishop; 21 supported him."

Well, there you go! A majority of the letters disagreed with Burke, so he must be wrong!

These letters to the editor exhibited a predictable array of confusion and fuddlement:

As practicing Catholics, we were disappointed to find out we can no longer vote Democrat without being condemned by the church.

No, you just can't vote for pro-abortion zealots who never heard of an abortion they couldn't justify. You're perfectly free to vote for pro-life Democrats, while a few still exist.

...Is Archbishop Raymond Burke telling us to vote Republican?

No. Not even close. Please re-read his statement.

...Many of us, while not necessarily Democrats, believe that the Democratic ideology best expresses the majority of our views and priorities. Among other things, the Democratic Party often excels in areas such as serving the poor and homeless with health care, social services and basic needs - values grounded in our faith and church teachings.

All of those assertions are arguable. And all of them involve issues of prudential judgment on which Catholics can in good conscience disagree. And none of those issues come close to equalling the moral gravity of abortion. Our bishops have made clear that being "right" on other issues...

"can never excuse a wrong choice regarding direct attacks on innocent human life...All direct attacks on innocent human life, such as abortion and euthanasia, strike at the... foundation of the dignity of human life".

In other words we must take the defense and protection of the unborn as the starting point, the sine qua non of our pro-life ethic. Because the protection of innocent human life is fundamental, and the prohibition on abortion so absolute, the US bishops warn that "failure to protect and defend life in its most vulnerable stages renders suspect any claims to the 'rightness' of positions in other matters..."

Has the archbishop overlooked the good these programs do for our community?

I doubt it. But he recognizes that giving kids free school lunches does not make up for slaughtering thousands of other kids daily in the womb.

Of course, there's the de rigeur letter from the "God-is-a warm-and-fuzzy-puppy-dog" set:

After 50 some years, I admit my catechism lessons have gotten a bit fuzzy. However, I recall that Jesus was a loving, caring God who urged us to help each other. That would include fellow adults and children who suffer or die from muscle diseases, cancers, diabetes, paralysis, Parkinson's disease and such.

.
Yes, that's right. God will countenance any sort of monstrosity or outrage as long as you want to "help each other". But don't unborn human beings count as those "others" who we should help? I guess not. Too bad. :-(

The faithful have been fed milk and pablum for thirty years by the go-along-get-along American Catholic^TM establishment. Now that some of our shepherds are giving them the spiritual equivalent of steak, it's not surprising that some are finding it somewhat indigestible. There will be more reactions like this before things improve.

For Freedom Christ Has Set Us Free

Homily for the 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Cycle C


St. Paul tells us "For Freedom Christ has set us free". We are meant to be free, but Sin gets in the way of that - it is an obstacle between us and God, like a wall or barrier in our way.

Christ came to conquer sin, so that we would have no more obstacles between us and God. That is the freedom that St. Paul talks about: the freedom to love God and be loved by Him, without our own pride and selfishness getting in the way. Only in Christ are we truly free.

We are given freedom so that we can share in the work of Christ, truly be part of His work in the Church and the world. But freedom can be abused. St. Paul warns us against this, saying "do not use this freedom as an opportunity for the flesh; rather, serve one another through love.

St. Paul tells us that the Spirit and the flesh are opposed, and St. Paul tells us elsewhere what he means by "serving the flesh": some of the things he mentions are obvious, like impurity, licentiousness or drunkenness. But others he lists are not so obvious, like idolatry, enmity, anger, or envy.

The fact is, that every time we turn away from God back to ourself, every time we say "me first", we are turning back to the flesh, and away from the Spirit. St. Augustine summed it up when he said "the one who lives according to the flesh is the one who lives for himself".

The fact is, we all live in this tension between living for the Spirit and living for ourselves. We all would like to adjust or "tweak" the gospel, just a little bit, to suit our own comfort or priorities. And that's what Jesus is talking about in our Gospel. Jesus meets these people who say "I will follow you", but then say, in effect, "oh,wait a minute, there's one other thing." They want to follow Jesus on their terms, not His.

We want to submit the Gospel to our judgment, rather than submit our judgment to the gospel. So are we really willing to follow Jesus "wherever he goes"?

This problem is with us today in every aspect of our lives, even our public life. There are a number of politicians who call themselves Catholic, but yet put themselves at odds with the Church in fundamental issues of morality, by supporting things like abortion or same-sex marriage. The Church teaches, and has always taught, that such things are intrinsically and always wrong, and yet they maintain that it is possible to support and work for laws permitting such things, and still be a "good" Catholic. But what they are doing is trying to adjust or "tweak" the Gospel of Christ to suit themselves, or what they think the world expects of them.

In order to justify their position, they frequently appeal to their "freedom of conscience". When they do this, they demonstrate that either they are confused, or that they are dishonest, and hope you are confused.

The way these politicians refer to their conscience, they make it sound as though the conscience is simply "whatever I happen to feel strongly about." And I imagine that many people think of it that way. But that isn't what the conscience is at all. The conscience is a judgment, a judgment about what is right and wrong, made according to reason. The conscience is not just my own strongly felt opinion.

Our consciences have to be formed, that is, shaped and guided. And if we call ourselves Christians, they must be shaped and guided according to the mind of Christ. St. Paul says in his letter to the Romans that we must "put on Christ". That means Christ must guide our judgments, Christ must guide our priorities, Christ must guide our values, and Christ must guide our decisions, whether they be decisions about how we raise our children, spend our money, or order our political lives. And if we want to know the mind of Christ, we must look to the Gospel, and to the Church that Christ Himself founded, through which we have that Gospel.

We say that the Church is the Body of Christ. That means that when the Church teaches, she does so with the voice and with the mind of Christ. So politicians, and all of us, have a duty to form our consciences, to form our judgments about what is right and wrong, and to make decisions, according to the teaching of the Church.

Now, this is sometimes difficult. I know, firsthand. While I was in the seminary, and even before that, I came across teachings of the church that challenged me, that I found difficult to accept. I struggled with a number of issues of Church teaching over the years, and, every time, after study and prayer, I've discovered that it's the Church that is right, and I'm the one who needed to deepen or change my understanding. I've learned that we must approach the Church's teaching with a spirit of humility, as one needing to be taught, rather than as one who is going to teach or "correct" the Church.

So it is not only incorrect, it is in fact absurd, to say "I know the Church says that X is wrong, but I will support it anyway, because my conscience tells me it is right". Such a person hasn't truly formed his or her conscience according to the mind of Christ, within the church, as we are called to. The most charitable thing you can say about such a person is that he is confused.

A Catholic politician, or anyone else, who holds that he can be a "good Catholic" and yet go against Church teaching on such fundamental moral issues as abortion is like the man in the gospel who says "I will follow you wherever you go... but first there's one other thing..." That's giving in to the temptation, a temptation we all face, to try to conform the gospel to ourselves, rather than ourselves to the gospel.

And if someone were to persist in such a course even after being corrected, as some of these politicians unfortunately have, then I can only remind them, and you, of the words of the gospel: "No one who puts his hand to the plough and looks back is fit for the Kingdom of God."

Florida Supreme Court To Hear Terri's Law Case

Well, while I was getting ready to go on vacation, the Florida Supreme Court decided to take up the 2nd District Court of Appeals' invitation to bypass the Appellate hearing and rule directly on Terri's Law. As I have written before, this action was sought by George Felos, attorney for Michael Schiavo, and Judge Greer, so as to prevent reconsideration of Judge Greer's dubious rulings of fact, such as that Terri is in a PVS. Numerous doctors have questioned that diagnosis, and the understanding of PVS has advanced since Judge Greer's ruling, but under our legal system, a judge's rulings of fact are not normally able to be questioned on appeal. Governor Bush and the Schindlers have been trying to reintroduce these issues, but the decision of the Supreme Court to take the case and bypass the appellate level effectively precludes that avenue.

This is not good news for Terri or the Schindlers. It would appear that the judges' concern, first and foremost, is to preserve their own power to issue god-like edicts of life and death. Oral arguments on this case will be heard on August 31. I pray that right will prevail.


Listen Up!

I'm going to be on the Kresta In The Afternoon Show this afternoon, at 4:00, to talk about developments in Terri Schiavo's case.

Sorry for the short notice, but I only just got the call. I'll write more later!

I'm Going To Florida!

I'm on vacation, and I'm on my way to Florida this afternoon to visit my Mom, who has lived there for several years.

While I'm down there, I'm going to drive down to St. Petersburg on Monday-Tuesday and visit Bob and Mary Schindler, Terri Schindler-Schiavo's parents.

If you would like to leave a message of encourgement and support for the Schindlers, please do so in the comment box. I'll collect them and print them out to give to Bob and Mary when I see them.

Also, if you can, please consider making a more tangible demonstration of your support by making a donation to the Terri Schindler-Schiavo Foundation. Bob and Mary are retirees and maintaining the fight to keep Terri alive is an incredible financial strain on them. Please be generous.

I'll try to post from Florida once I'm there.

Make A Difference For Life!

I wrote yesterday that Jan Govan, a Pinellas County attorney, is running against Judge George Greer, whose questionable and sometimes simply unaccountable rulings have repeatedly threatened Terri Schiavo's life.

We can make a difference for life by supporting Mr. Govan in his bid to unseat Judge Greer. His campaign has a website, which gives instructions as to how you can contribute to support his campaign.

This is where the rubbber hits the road, people. Being pro-life is about putting tangible weight behind our convictions. I'm sending Mr. Govan a check for $100.00 today. I urge all of you to make a donation as well. The election is on August 31, NOT in November with the general election, so the time in which we can make a difference is short.

Act now! Pray, work, and give for the victory of Life!

(Thanks to Mark Windsor for finding Mr. Govan's site.)

Terri Schiavo Reunited With Family, But For How Long?

I spoke with Bob and Mary Schindler, Terri's parents, earlier this week. You may recall that Michael Schiavo, Terri's husband, had barred her parents, siblings, and her priest, Msgr. Malanowski, from visiting Terri for two months. He has frequently suspended Terri's family's right to visit her in the past, for capricious reasons or no reason at all, but this latest incident was by far the longest such deprivation.

The reason given for this latest denial was a bizarre incident following a routine visit by the Schindlers on March 29. Michael accused the Schindlers of inflicting what he described as "puncture wounds" on her arms. As I wrote last month, there was only the flimsiest of evidence to support the allegation, as the Florida office of civil rights had examined Terri and found no evidence of any needle marks. What is perhaps more interesting about the timing of the accusation is that they followed closely on the Schindlers' discovering, and making complaints about, neglect and poor care of Terri.

The Clearwater Police Department also investigated the incident and found no evidence of the purported needle marks. There was some speculation that the marks on Terri's arms may have been caused by a "Hoyer Sling", a device commonly used to lift bedridden patients. There was, in the words of the police report, "no evidence of criminal activity", and the case has been closed. You may read the police report for yourself here.

The police issued their report on May 14. However, even the complete collapse of his absurd allegation was not enough for him to lift the ban, so the Schindlers went to court on May 26 to regain access to Terri. Judge Greer issued an order on June 4 requiring Michael to once again allow Terri's family and Msgr. Malanowski to visit her.


The Legal Battle Continues

The Schindlers are, of course, relieved and happy to be able to see Terri once again. According to Bob, Terri started to cry when her sister kissed her at that visit.

But Michael and his attorney, George Felos, continue to press for Terri's judicially-sanctioned death. The legal fight is now entering the appellate phase, after Judge Douglas Baird's ruling that "Terri's Law" is unconstitutional. What George Felos and Judge George Greer want desperately is to prevent the re-exmination of Greer's rulings of fact in the case; for example, that Terri didn't want to go on living if she became incapacitated, or that Terri is in a Persistent Vegetative State. I have argued in this blog and elsewhere that these rulings are highly questionable. Governor Bush and the Schindlers are seeking to reopen these matters, and in order to head them off, Felos has sought to "fast track" the case to the Florida Supreme Court, where only issues of law, not of fact, would be considered. His public rationale for bypassing the Appeals Court is the "gravity of the issue".

Unfortunately, the Appeals Court has let itself be bypassed, and unless Governor Bush's legal team can pull off some sort of coup, that ruling will probably stand. The Schindlers' legal team doesn't expect that the case will be argued until the fall, so it is likely that Terri is safe for that long. As Bob has told me several times, "every day she's still alive is a victory." We must keep praying for many such victories.


Some Good News

Speaking of victories and prayers, it appears that one prayer of mine and many others has been answered: Judge George Greer, the "unjust judge" who has repeatedly and sometimes unaccountably ruled in favor of Michael Schiavo's efforts to end Terri's life, is being challenged in this fall's election. Jan Govan, an attorney from Clearwater, Fla., is running against Greer. He reports that he has been motivated to run by Greer's activist rulings in the Terri Schiavo case. Govan faces an uphill battle, as Greer has already collected around $55,000 from area lawyers and supporters, according to LifeNews.com. Furthermore, judicial elections usually have poor response, which works in the favor of incumbents. But now that someone is actually willing to oppose Greer, we have cause to hope that didn't exist before. So let Govan's victory be the subject of our prayers.

France or Bust!

2004 Pilgrimage to Lourdes and the Shrines of France

Mark Shea and I are leading the 2004 St. Blog's Pilgrimage to France this September!


Come and deepen your faith by visiting some of France's great Shrines, such as:

Lourdes

The Shrine of the Little Flower at Lisieux

The Shrine of the Miraculaous Medal

Also tour some of the great churces of France, such as:

Notre Dame de Paris

Chartres

The Basilica of Sacre Coeur


We'll also be taking a day trip to Normandy to visit the D-Day Invasion beaches, Memorials, and cemetaries. As this year marks the 60th anniversary of that "great crusade", this will be especially appropriate.

From September 21-29, 2004.

Not only do you get to visit all these great Shrines, and pray in all these historic and beautiful churches, but you get to do it with fun guys like me and Mark Shea! On the pilgrimage, I'll be giving a talk about my experiences of the Saints, titled "The Communion of the Saints: A Living Reality". Since this pilgrimage is focused so much on Marian Shrines, I'll pay special attention to how Mary is very much a real and present person in our lives today. I know Mark is planning on giving his presentation "An Evangelical Discovers Mary" on the pilgrimage, and he may work up a new one as well, exclusively for the pilgrimage.

Please come, and deepen your Faith by visiting the Shrines where Our Lady appeared, and where so many great Saints have a lingering presence yet. Reservations need to be made by July 15 - which is sooner than you think! For more information on the Pilgrimage, go here. You can also e-mail me or our Tour Director, Mark Windsor, at yawper1 [at] comcast.net.

Cardinal Law Gets "Promoted"

Or so some would think, based on this article which proclaims that Cardinal Law has been made "head" of Saint Mary Major Basilica in Rome.

Now that article is an object lesson in lazy/bad journalism. Upon reading it, you might be led to think that Cardinal Law is "running" or "in charge of adminsitration" of the basilica.

Well, he's not. He's been given the honorary title of "archpriest". It's an obsolete honorific going back to the Middle Ages, when cathedrals had "chapters" that made major decisions and wielded considerable power. They don't and they haven't anymore.

All the title "archpriest" gives him is the right (if he so chooses) to sit all dressed up in choro at major events.

Based on the term "position", and the comment of Mitchell Garabedian that the "position" is "comfortable", you might think this job is a well-paid sinecure.

In fact, some people came to that conclusion, for in the comments boxes on Amy Welborn's and Mark Shea's blogs, people got upset that Law was being given a "sinecure".

Now, the word "sinecure" comes from the Latin sine cura, meaning "without care". The term denotes a position from which one derives an income, but having no real responsibilities.

In fact, based on some of the comments, it seemed to me that some people imagine that this appointment will allow Law to "hang out" in Rome, where he will be wined and dined and live in a luxurious palazzo, while being waited on by nubian chamberlains in a modern-day recreation of the Borgia Papal Court.

That would make an entertaining scene in a movie, but it's not reality.

Cardinal Law isn't being given "a cushy job at the Vatican". It's not even a job, much less at the Vatican. For being an archpriest of the basilica, Cdl. Law will receive precisely no (that's $0.00) remuneration. It's not a real job. He will receive no stipend, salary, or honorarium of any kind (no archpriest of a Roman basilica does, as an archpriest per se) from the basilica.

But, as cardinal archpriest of the Roman basilica, he will be expected to give substantially to the Basilica, and raise money for its maintenance and support. So this move will likely cost the cardinal.

So whatever this appointment is, it's not a sinecure. It gives him no income, and certianly no power. As a lowly parochial vicar of my parish, I have more power than Cardinal Law does as Archpriest of St. Mary Major.

Furthermore, as an archpriest of the basilica he has no regular duties or responsibilities. He will not be given a place to live there, nor is it customary for the cardinal archpriests of Roman basilicas to reside in Rome, unless they also have full-time Vatican appointments - which Law has not been given. It is unlikely that Law will live in Rome as a result of this appointment, as he'd be on his own to support himself there. And Rome is an expensive place to live (I know, as I've lived there). So wipe away any images of Law lolling about in Rome in some luxurious palazzo enjoying his "sinecure".

He won't be hanging around in the basilica. Given that cardinal archpriests of Roman basilicas aren't provided with lodging, receive no remuneration, and that Law would have no means of support in Rome, that's extremely unlikely. If he were to "hang around" in Rome in the manner some envision, he'd almost certainly make a pest of himself and quietly be told to go find something to do. Because the bishop(s) who really run Santa Maria Maggiore won't stand for some nosy American interloper to be underfoot for very long.

As I've written in those comment boxes, I do think this was a dumb move on Rome's part. If anyone in Rome had bothered to consult with me (not that they should) or any other moderately culture-savvy American, we might have said:

Your Excellencies, please do not give Cardinal Law an honorary appointment of any kind, not even the most trivial. Do not make him even the "Prefect of Papal Stamp-Licking". Because such a move will be misunderstood by many Americans, even Catholics. The headlines will read "Cardinal Who Shuffled Abusers Given Top Vatican Post", or "Law Given Cushy Roman Job" even "Protector of Pedophile Priests Promoted". Regardless of what you may intend, regardless of what subtle statement you are making in Romanitas, you will be perceived as giving Cardinal Law, and everything he did, the Papal Seal of Approval. Cardinal Law is, whether deservedly or not, perhaps only slightly less reviled than the priest-abusers themselves. He has become a symbol, a talisman of evil. American Catholics are still largely incapable of seeing how they are complicit in creating the environment of moral laissez-faire which gave rise to the Shanley's and the Cardinals who protected them, so they have not yet moved from blame to self-examination. Cardinal Law and his episcopal brethren are largely responsible for that as well. This is the reality which you must face and take into account for at least the next decade. Cardinal Law and those like him must pay a price for their failure to exercise their office, and it must be clear to all that they are paying a price. Giving Cardinal Law any kind of appointment sends the opposite message.

I'd like to think that someone would say that to the Holy Father and the Curia. But in spite of the apprearance of this move, I think it's an example of Vatican un-savvyness, and little else. Cardinal Law has been "put on the shelf" in a pretty typically Roman way.

Living the Communion of Saints

We say in the Apostles Creed "I believe in the Communion of the Saints...". What does that mean? Well, it means that, in and through Christ, we have a real relationship with "those who have gone before us marked with the sign of Faith," and are now with God in Heaven. It means that our relationship to them is every bit as "real" as it is to your fellow parishioners who share a pew with you every Sunday.

The Saints are not dead and gone, they are alive! They are alive to God in Heaven. And if they're alive to God, that means they're alive to us. And because they are with God in Heaven, they are in perfect communion with Him, whereas our communion with Him is still imperfect. Our sins and shortcomings place obstacles in the way of our relationship with God. But the Saints in Heaven know no such obstacles. So the Saints are able to pray in perfect accord with the will of God. That makes them perfect intercessors. I don't know about you, but I need all the intercession I can get, and having perfectly praying intercessors sounds like a good deal to me.

Furthermore, because each Saint uniquely and differently lived out the Lord's call to holiness and discipleship, they are each able to offer us a unique, different, but nonetheless equally valid and powerful witness and example of how we can live out our faith. If Saint Francis doesn't inspire you, maybe St. Ignatius Loyola will. If St. Catherine of Siena doesn't get you fired up, maybe St. Therese of Lisieux will.

Is the Communion of Saints a reality in our lives? Or is it an abstraction, something we assent to intellectually without really experiencing?

For me, I'll admit, it was more an abstraction than anything else, until I went to Rome and studied there in 1997. It was there that I really started to "get" the Communion of Saints in a big way. My first such experience was on my first visit to the Catacombs of St. Callixtus (San Callisto in Italian). While wandering through the galleries, I tried reading the many inscriptions that adorn the loculi (the "niches" in which the bodies were placed), putting my grad school training in Latin and epigraphy to use. I encountered a loculus that had an almost intact inscription on it: Tertia ****[illegible] *hristi XV an vix, and a little palm branch - the sign of martyrdom! The inscription means "Tertia, [illegible] of Christ, 15 years old". I was riveted to the spot (which annoyed our tour guide to some extent). Here was the tomb of an unknown, unheralded girl who died a martyr! All of a sudden, it was as if I could feel the presence of her, and all of the other believers who lie there, awaiting the resurrection. And it was a good feeling. I could almost sense their presence and intercession for me, and for the whole Church. All of a sudden, my prayers to various saints took on a new significance and immediacy for me, which is still with me today.

I had a couple of even more powerful experiences of the Saints while in Rome, and have had a couple at other shrines. And those will be the subject of a presentation I'm working on.

It's because of this experience, and my conviction about the Saints, that I'm so fired up about the Pilgrimage to France that I'll be leading in September with Mark Shea. Mark and I both have pretty strong convictions about our friends in heaven, and I want you, hopefully, to come to share some similar experiences to those I've been blessed with.

On the Pilgrimage, I'll be giving a talk about my experiences of the Saints, titled "The Communion of the Saints: A Living Reality", in which I'll go into greater depth about my experiences of the Saints in Rome and elsewhere. Since this pilgrimage is focused so much on Marian Shrines, I'll pay special attention to how Mary is very much a real and present person in our lives today. I know Mark is planning on giving his presentation "An Evangelical Discovers Mary" on the pilgrimage, and I'm trying to talk him into working up a new one as well, exclusively for the pilgrimage.

Please come and enjoy France with Mark and myself, and deepen your Faith by visiting the Shrines where Our Lady appeared, and where so many great Saints have a lingering presence yet.

The Pilgrimage is from September 21-29, 2004. Reservations need to be made by July 15 (so hurry and sign up!). For more information on the Pilgrimage, go here or here. You can also e-mail our Tour Director, Mark Windsor, at yawper1 [at] comcast.net.

The Visit of HRE Marcus I to St. Joseph

A Photo Memoir

Last week, my humble parish of St. Joseph, in St. Joseph, Michigan, was graced by a visit from His Plenipotentiary Excellence, The Holy Roman Emperor Marcus Sheavius I. We were particularly blessed in that he deigned to spend two days with us, and give two talks to the faithful. He edified us with his thoughts on the Eucharist on one night, and his thoughts on the Blessed Virgin on the second. In between his talks, we enjoyed the local scenery, some fine meals, and quaffing various heady potations.




This is His Excellence in front of the Royal Bulk Freighter, "Alpena", which brought him to our fair burg, on the
lovely Southeastern shore of Lake Michigan.




This is His Excellence whilst giving his talk on the Blessed Mother,
"An Evangelical Discovers Mary".




While he was with us, I had the privilege of offering a
private Mass for His Excellence.




In touring these dominions, His Excellence was shown the wide vistas from the bluffs overlooking Lake Michigan.




Here His Excellence surveys the beach adjacent to our famous pier and lighthouse, which has from time to time
graced our nation's postage stamps.




We also made a trip to Notre Dame University, and had lunch with the bright and fun folks from The Shrine of the Holy Whapping. Here we are in front of "Touchdown Jesus" on campus.




Here are His Excellence and I, at the Grotto of Notre Dame.




Upon our return to St. Joseph, His Excellence inspected (and lounged against) the Eleven-inch Dahlgren guns which overlook the bluff, waiting in readiness to repel any miscreants or Canadians who might dare attack our shores.

His Excellence was a boon companion throughout his visit, and spread much cheer and mirth wherever he went. He also confuted many heresies and errors in his talks, both comforting those who love True Doctrine, and confounding those who would try to tickle our ears with false teaching. He is a blessing to all whom he touches with his presence.

Update On Terri Schiavo


The Real Significance of Terri's Law

By now most of you know that last week, Judge Douglas Baird issued a decision ruling "Terri's Law" unconstitutional. Terri's Law is the legislation which gave the governor of Florida, Jeb Bush, the authority to intervene on her behalf and restore her feeding tube. Judge Baird's decision is a setback, but not an unexpected one.

Given the dedication which Judge Baird and his colleague on the Pinellas County bench, George Greer, have shown in making their courtrooms a congenial forum for Michael Schiavo and his attorney, George Felos, it is surprising to no one that Baird ruled the way he did. It is even less surprising, given that Judge Baird revealed that he had already concluded that Terri's Law was unconstitutional before briefs were filed or arguments heard in the case. Normally such clear evidence of judicial prejudice would cause a judge to recuse himself, or be removed from the case. But oddly enough in this case, though Governor Bush sought Baird's removal, it didn't happen. Apparently Pinellas County judges are considered so godlike in their intuitive powers that they don't have to consider things like arguments or evidence when they prejudge cases before they're even heard.

So Judge Baird ruled Terri's Law unconstitutional. I've read Judge Baird's ruling, and while I'm not a lawyer (nor do I play one on TV), it seems to me that Judge Baird's arguments are these (any lawyers out there feel free to jump in and clarify!):

(a) Judge Baird argues that "Terri's Law" is an unwarranted usurpation of the powers of the Legislative Branch, because it grants the governor the power to intervene without any standards or guidelines as to how that intervention should be carried out. Now, this seems to me a fairly weak objection. After all, if the Legislature decides to grant a power to the Governor, and that power is the Legislature's to grant, then who's to complain about it? Legislatures do this all the time. Given that the power to intervene only applies in a very narrowly defined and rarely occurring situation, I don't see how this give the governor the unbridled power that, oh, say, judges routinely exercise.

(b) Judge Baird argues that "Terri's Law" is an invasion of Terri's privacy. As the right to privacy is construed, it includes the right to make decisions about end-of-life issues such as what "extraordinary measures" one will and will not allow. These decisions, generally speaking may not be overruled or obviated by the State. And so, since Judge Greer ruled that Michael's story about Terri not wanting to be kept alive was "clear and convincing", protecting Michael's "right" to end Terri's life is considered a defense of Terri's rights. While this reasoning is perhaps the most perverse in its outcome, it is also, perhaps, legally the strongest. Since the Griswold Supreme Court decision, and it's monster stepchild, Roe v. Wade, a large and increasingly unassailable body of case law has grown up around the "right to privacy", with all its emanations and penumbras.

Of course, this line of reasoning hinges upon Judge Greer's ruling of fact that Terri did tell Michael (and his brother and sister-in-law) that she wouldn't want to go on living if she required anything approaching extraordinary care. As I have discussed before (here and here), this is perhaps Judge Greer's most tendentious and biased ruling. It was based on little more than Michael's assertion, was contradicted by substantial and credible evidence, and was only allowed through Judge Greer's own procedural sleight of hand, in disregarding the usual rules for presenting and deposing witnesses. That Florida is one of the few states where such half-assed legal bootstrapping as Felos' is admissible may, in the end, cost Terri her life. But our judicial system does not like to revisit rulings of fact, no matter how egregiously misbegotten such rulings may be.

And that brings us to argument (c). Here Baird argues that Terri's Law is an unwarranted intrusion into the power of the judiciary. The courts, Baird says, have ruled on Terri. They have ruled that she is in a Persistent Vegetative State. They have ruled that Terri wants to die. They have ruled that Michael may in fact starve her to death. So no one, not even the legislature, certainly not the governor, may gainsay our robed masters. The courts, in effect, are omniscient, omnipotent, and inerrant.

What this ruling is really all about is apparent further on, where Judge Baird once again rules that Governor Bush may not introduce new testimony or new evidence in this case. Above all, Baird does not want his and Judge Greer's dubious deliberations subjected to impartial scrutiny. They do not want the evidence that Greer ignored in previous hearings, and advances in the understanding and treatment of brain-injured patients, to come out into the light of day. They do not want another court to consider facts such as the 43% error rate in diagnosing PVS patients. Because if they were, it might become apparent that they are wrong, and have been culpably wrong all along.

This case is, at the legal level, about more (and less) than Terri Schiavo. It is about judges protecting their power to decide who may live and who may die. They will do almost anything to protect that power.

And if the price of protecting their god-like power is Terri Schiavo's life, that's a price they're willing to pay.


What's Next?

I spoke with the Schindlers the other night, and, as I mentioned above, they were not surprised by Judge Baird's ruling. They and their legal team were expecting it. Governor Bush's attorneys immediately appealed Baird's ruling. What remains to be seen is whether or not George Felos attempts to short-circuit the appeals process and get Judge Greer or Baird to lift the stay brought about by Bush's appeal and issue another order to remove Terri's feeding tube. This is not considered likely, but it is possible. Right now, we're waiting to see what will happen with Gov. Bush's appeal. Bush is hampered by the fact that the appeals are going back up before the very courts that, time and again, have shown themselves to be very protective of Greer and Baird. The governor has tried to get the cases moved to Tallahassee, under a state law granting the governor the right to have cases involving him moved to courts in the state capitol. But those attempts, though a matter of statute, have failed as well.


Schindlers Prevented From Visiting Terri for 44 Days

What is most upsetting to Bob, Mary, and Terri's family is that Michael has successfully prevented them from visitng Terri for six weeks. After the bizarre allegations in March that needle marks had been found on Terri, the Schindlers have been kept from her. Of course, Michael's denial of visitation also happened at about the time that reports of neglect and poor care of Terri came to light.

The Schindlers are being treated as though they were the ones who were responsible for the purported needle marks. Of course there is no evidence to support that supposition, and no one has come right out and claimed that, perhaps because if such a claim were openly made, it would be dismissed as the absurdity it is. In fact, the existence of the purported needle marks is itself dubious. Investigators from the Florida office of civil rights have investigated the claim and examined Terri, and found no evidence of any needle marks. And the Pinellas County Sheriff has also supposedly investigated the allegation, but has so far not made any statement or issued a report, much less named a suspect or brought charges.

But the Schindlers, and Msgr. Malanowski as well, have been prevented from visiting Terri. To add insult to injury, Michael's other lawyer, Deborah Bushnell, has stipulated that the Schindlers may be permitted to visit Terri only if they pay for "additional security" on their visits.

The Schindlers have filed a motion before Judge Greer demanding to be allowed to visit Terri. Judge Greer has declined to hear that motion on an expedited basis. So how long it will be before they are allowed to see Terri again is anybody's guess.

I'm Catholic & Enjoying It!

Mark Shea is here, honoring our parish with his faith, wisdom, and trenchant wit. Last night he spoke to a group of over 100 people in our parish church, on "Discovering the Real Presence". He described his experience of finding the fullness of the Faith, and the fullness of Christ's presence, in the Holy Catholic Church. Along the way he handily disposed of common objections to Catholic belief in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and generally edified the faithful while confounding error.

Today I'll be showing Mark around a little, and we'll be making a trip to Notre Dame. Then, tonight, Mark will be speaking at our neighboring parish, St. Bernard's in Benton Harbor, Michigan. His topic will be "An Evangelical Discovers The Blessed Virgin Mary". That talk will also begin at 7:30 PM.