God Has Appeared As A Child

By Pope Benedict XVI

Dear Brothers and Sisters!

The reading from Saint Paul’s Letter to Titus that we have just heard begins solemnly with the word “apparuit”, which then comes back again in the reading at the Dawn Mass: apparuit – “there has appeared”. This is a programmatic word, by which the Church seeks to express synthetically the essence of Christmas. Formerly, people had spoken of God and formed human images of him in all sorts of different ways. God himself had spoken in many and various ways to mankind (cf. Heb 1:1 – Mass during the Day). But now something new has happened: he has appeared. He has revealed himself. He has emerged from the inaccessible light in which he dwells. He himself has come into our midst. This was the great joy of Christmas for the early Church: God has appeared. No longer is he merely an idea, no longer do we have to form a picture of him on the basis of mere words. He has “appeared”. But now we ask: how has he appeared? Who is he in reality? The reading at the Dawn Mass goes on to say: “the kindness and love of God our Saviour for mankind were revealed” (Tit 3:4). For the people of pre-Christian times, whose response to the terrors and contradictions of the world was to fear that God himself might not be good either, that he too might well be cruel and arbitrary, this was a real “epiphany”, the great light that has appeared to us: God is pure goodness. Today too, people who are no longer able to recognize God through faith are asking whether the ultimate power that underpins and sustains the world is truly good, or whether evil is just as powerful and primordial as the good and the beautiful which we encounter in radiant moments in our world. “The kindness and love of God our Saviour for mankind were revealed”: this is the new, consoling certainty that is granted to us at Christmas.

In all three Christmas Masses, the liturgy quotes a passage from the Prophet Isaiah, which describes the epiphany that took place at Christmas in greater detail: “A child is born for us, a son given to us and dominion is laid on his shoulders; and this is the name they give him: Wonder-Counsellor, Mighty-God, Eternal-Father, Prince-of-Peace. Wide is his dominion in a peace that has no end” (Is 9:5f.). Whether the prophet had a particular child in mind, born during his own period of history, we do not know. But it seems impossible. This is the only text in the Old Testament in which it is said of a child, of a human being: his name will be Mighty-God, Eternal-Father. We are presented with a vision that extends far beyond the historical moment into the mysterious, into the future. A child, in all its weakness, is Mighty God. A child, in all its neediness and dependence, is Eternal Father. And his peace “has no end”. The prophet had previously described the child as “a great light” and had said of the peace he would usher in that the rod of the oppressor, the footgear of battle, every cloak rolled in blood would be burned (Is 9:1, 3-4).

God has appeared – as a child. It is in this guise that he pits himself against all violence and brings a message that is peace. At this hour, when the world is continually threatened by violence in so many places and in so many different ways, when over and over again there are oppressors’ rods and bloodstained cloaks, we cry out to the Lord: O mighty God, you have appeared as a child and you have revealed yourself to us as the One who loves us, the One through whom love will triumph. And you have shown us that we must be peacemakers with you. We love your childish estate, your powerlessness, but we suffer from the continuing presence of violence in the world, and so we also ask you: manifest your power, O God. In this time of ours, in this world of ours, cause the oppressors’ rods, the cloaks rolled in blood and the footgear of battle to be burned, so that your peace may triumph in this world of ours.

Christmas is an epiphany – the appearing of God and of his great light in a child that is born for us. Born in a stable in Bethlehem, not in the palaces of kings. In 1223, when Saint Francis of Assisi celebrated Christmas in Greccio with an ox and an ass and a manger full of hay, a new dimension of the mystery of Christmas came to light. Saint Francis of Assisi called Christmas “the feast of feasts” – above all other feasts – and he celebrated it with “unutterable devotion” (2 Celano 199; Fonti Francescane, 787). He kissed images of the Christ-child with great devotion and he stammered tender words such as children say, so Thomas of Celano tells us (ibid.). For the early Church, the feast of feasts was Easter: in the Resurrection Christ had flung open the doors of death and in so doing had radically changed the world: he had made a place for man in God himself. Now, Francis neither changed nor intended to change this objective order of precedence among the feasts, the inner structure of the faith centred on the Paschal Mystery. And yet through him and the character of his faith, something new took place: Francis discovered Jesus’ humanity in an entirely new depth. This human existence of God became most visible to him at the moment when God’s Son, born of the Virgin Mary, was wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger. The Resurrection presupposes the Incarnation. For God’s Son to take the form of a child, a truly human child, made a profound impression on the heart of the Saint of Assisi, transforming faith into love. “The kindness and love of God our Saviour for mankind were revealed” – this phrase of Saint Paul now acquired an entirely new depth. In the child born in the stable at Bethlehem, we can as it were touch and caress God. And so the liturgical year acquired a second focus in a feast that is above all a feast of the heart.

This has nothing to do with sentimentality. It is right here, in this new experience of the reality of Jesus’ humanity that the great mystery of faith is revealed. Francis loved the child Jesus, because for him it was in this childish estate that God’s humility shone forth. God became poor. His Son was born in the poverty of the stable. In the child Jesus, God made himself dependent, in need of human love, he put himself in the position of asking for human love – our love. Today Christmas has become a commercial celebration, whose bright lights hide the mystery of God’s humility, which in turn calls us to humility and simplicity. Let us ask the Lord to help us see through the superficial glitter of this season, and to discover behind it the child in the stable in Bethlehem, so as to find true joy and true light.

Francis arranged for Mass to be celebrated on the manger that stood between the ox and the ass (cf. 1 Celano 85; Fonti 469). Later, an altar was built over this manger, so that where animals had once fed on hay, men could now receive the flesh of the spotless lamb Jesus Christ, for the salvation of soul and body, as Thomas of Celano tells us (cf. 1 Celano 87; Fonti471). Francis himself, as a deacon, had sung the Christmas Gospel on the holy night in Greccio with resounding voice. Through the friars’ radiant Christmas singing, the whole celebration seemed to be a great outburst of joy (1 Celano 85.86; Fonti 469, 470). It was the encounter with God’s humility that caused this joy – his goodness creates the true feast.

Today, anyone wishing to enter the Church of Jesus’ Nativity in Bethlehem will find that the doorway five and a half metres high, through which emperors and caliphs used to enter the building, is now largely walled up. Only a low opening of one and a half metres has remained. The intention was probably to provide the church with better protection from attack, but above all to prevent people from entering God’s houseon horseback. Anyone wishing to enter the place of Jesus’ birth has to bend down. It seems to me that a deeper truth is revealed here, which should touch our hearts on this holy night: if we want to find the God who appeared as a child, then we must dismount from the high horse of our “enlightened” reason. We must set aside our false certainties, our intellectual pride, which prevents us from recognizing God’s closeness. We must follow the interior path of Saint Francis – the path leading to that ultimate outward and inward simplicity which enables the heart to see. We must bend down, spiritually we must as it were go on foot, in order to pass through the portal of faith and encounter the God who is so different from our prejudices and opinions – the God who conceals himself in the humility of a newborn baby. In this spirit let us celebrate the liturgy of the holy night, let us strip away our fixation on what is material, on what can be measured and grasped. Let us allow ourselves to be made simple by the God who reveals himself to the simple of heart. And let us also pray especially at this hour for all who have to celebrate Christmas in poverty, in suffering, as migrants, that a ray of God’s kindness may shine upon them, that they – and we – may be touched by the kindness that God chose to bring into the world through the birth of his Son in a stable. Amen.

Read it at the source.

The key to the Pope's success in Great Britain

by Phil Lawler

Most of the reporters writing about the papal visit are clearly surprised by this outcome, and more than a few are betraying their disappointment. A week ago the same reporters were predicting a debacle, and some of them were relishing that prospect. The Pope would face angry protesters wherever he turned, they said. The crowds would be small and subdued. There would be empty seats at the Pope’s public appearances. The staid, jaded secular world of Great Britain would listen skeptically, perhaps nod and clap politely, and then quickly move on to other things, dismissing the old man from Rome.

But Pope Benedict didn’t follow that script.

In every particular, the predictions were wrong. The crowds were loud and enthusiastic. The protesters were there, but even their friends in the mass media had trouble locating them among the tens of thousands who lined the streets to cheer for the passing papal motorcade, or thronged around Hyde Park to join in an evening prayer vigil. Britain’s political and intellectual leaders watched and listened carefully as the Pope spoke, and his words had an obvious impact. Prime Minister David Cameron spoke for an entire nation when, at the conclusion of the papal visit, he told the departing Pontiff that he had made Britain “sit up and think.”

Now the analysts who had predicted a disaster—or perhaps, at best, a polite irrelevancy—are struggling to explain how the Pope confounded their expectations. I think I can explain.

When they predicted an unsuccessful papal visit, analysts were basing their judgment on an assumption. They took it for granted that Pope Benedict would respond to the criticism that had dominated the British media during the last few weeks before his arrival. They assumed that the Pope would be worried about the protests and nervous about the likelihood of popular rejection. Clearly he was not... Read the whole article.

What if the Constitution is unconstitutional?

by Diogenes

Thank goodness Judge Walker has enlightened us. All those years we thought that marriage was a union of a man and a woman, but now we know that was "an irrational classification." Not just irrational but harmful. Not just harmful but unconstitutional.

But there's a problem with Judge Walker's logic. If it is unconstitutional to disallow same-sex marriage, why was the old, unenlightened, restrictive, pre-Walker, irrational definition of marriage upheld by the very men who wrote the Constitution? Most of these men were members of legislatures; they could have revised the laws of their own states to make the legal definition of marriage match the principles that they were setting forth. Yet they didn't. Why not? Were they being irrational?

And if the authors of the Constitution were irrational men, what other nasty surprises might we have in store for us? What other emanations might emerge from the penumbrae of the document, leading us to discover a meaning apparently quite different from the Founders' own understanding? The men who gathered for the Constitutional Convention would have recoiled in horror at the idea that abortion, sodomy, or even contraception could be tolerated in society. Yet we now know, thanks to the infallible logic of contemporary jurisprudence, that these are fundamental rights, guaranteed by the document which these same men wrote. If they were so irrational-- if they were capable of crafting and enacting a document so totally at odds with their own beliefs and practices-- it's impossible to say what other time bombs might be hidden in the Constitution. It's safer to assume that they produced a document full of contradictions: a document at war with itself.

Judge Walker didn't go far enough. It's not just the definition of marriage that needs to be re-examined. There's bigger game in this legal forest. The real challenge for Judge Walker and his peers on the judicial bench is to determine whether or not the Constitution is unconstitutional. 

This is the whole article.  Read the original here.

Copernicus re-buried: an interesting but misleading story

by Phil Lawler

An interesting AP story is making the rounds this week, reporting that the Catholic Church has finally given due honors to Copernicus. Unfortunately the story is chock-full of statements that are severely misleading if not downright wrong.

Start with the opening sentence:

Nicolaus Copernicus, the 16th-century astronomer whose findings were condemned by the Roman Catholic Church as heretical, was reburied by Polish priests as a hero on Saturday, nearly 500 years after he was laid to rest in an unmarked grave.

That sentence implies that Copernicus was denounced as a heretic before he died, and thus deprived of a proper Christian burial. In fact he was never denounced; he died in good standing with the Church. He was buried not in a pauper's grave but in the cathedral in Frombork (a city that is now a part of the Archdiocese of Warmia, Poland).

The heliocentric theory that Copernicus advanced was indeed controversial during his lifetime. So controversial, in fact, that Copernicus delayed for years before publishing his masterpiece, De Revolutionibus Orbium Caelestium. Yes, he delayed because he feared an adverse reaction-- not from Church leaders, but from his fellow scholars. There is absolutely no evidence to suggest that Copernicus was worried about a hostile reaction from the Church. De Revolutionibus was published under the auspices of a Catholic bishop; it was dedicated to Pope Paul III.

Nor did Church leaders turn on Copernicus after his book was printed. Actually they didn't have time. Because of the author's delays, De Revolutionibus did not appear in print until the astronomer was on his deathbed.

There is a grain of truth to the notion that Church authorities were suspicious of Copernicus during his lifetime. At one point he was suspected of keeping a mistress; later he was suspected of Lutheran sympathies. But his scientific work never caused him any conflict with the Church.

Later, during the unfortunate and avoidable dispute over the works of Galileo, De Revolutionibus was placed on the Index of prohibited books. (The book was soon republished with a few sentences amended, and taken off the Index.) But the questions raised about the Copernicus book in 1616 obviously did not affect his burial in 1542.

Copernicus was buried in the Frombork cathedral, where he had held the title of canon. At the time, burial sites for such officials were not precisely marked, and in that sense it's true that he lay for almost 500 years in an "unmarked" grave. But a plaque in the cathedral testified to his burial there, and the circumstantial evidence pointing to his gravesite was sufficient to guide the search that, in 2005, pinpointed his remains.

The truth about Copernicus can be found, even in the AP story, by those readers who persist beyond the first few sentences. After the unusual ceremony honoring the great astronomer, an honor guard took the coffin and "lowered it back into the same spot where part of his skull and other bones were found in 2005." The mortal remains of Nicolaus Copernicus now lie exactly where they had lain for most of the past 500 years: in a place of honor, in a Catholic cathedral. Read the original story here.

An Important Quarrel in Rome

by Dr. Jeff Mirus

You probably remember the case of the abortions performed on the Brazilian girl who was impregnated with twins by her step-father last year. Archbishop José Cardoso Sobrinho publicly stated that the doctors who performed the abortions would incur excommunication. But the President of the Pontifical Academy for life then wrote an essay in L’Osservatore Romano in which he sharply criticized Archbishop Sobrinho for an alleged lack of sensitivity to the difficulties of the situation, especially for the girl. Archbishop Salvatore Fisichella argued that the Church would have been better served by a strong display of mercy and tenderness rather than a pronouncement of justice.

If this had been all that was said, it would be a case of two prelates disagreeing about the best pastoral approach to a serious situation, something in itself as unobjectionable as it is common. It would have been rare and troublesome only because of the serious and rather obviously deliberate faux pas of an archbishop in Rome unilaterally using the Vatican’s newspaper to criticize the archbishop on the scene—a criticism which was also ill-informed, none of his business ecclesiastically, and leveled without any effort to discuss the issue in advance with his Brazilian brother. Moreover, his Brazilian brother was already under heavy secularist attack. If this was circling the wagons, then Fisichella is an Apache.

But, in fact, this isn’t all that was said, for Archbishop Fisichella also went on to wring his verbal hands over how difficult the moral case was, and how the conflicting values involved required that the moral decision be left to the doctors alone. Not only is this false; it is false in a way that should never be misunderstood by the man who leads the Pontifical Academy for Life. Nobody likes the fact that a prematurely fertile nine-year-old girl was raped repeatedly by her step-father until she became pregnant with twins. Nobody likes the horrible situation this put the girl in. Nobody likes the available options. Nobody likes the suffering each of those options entails. But the moral truth is exceedingly clear. The innocent babies in the womb cannot be murdered in order to lessen the immediate suffering of the girl or her family. Earth to Fisichella... Read the whole article.

What happened in Massachusetts?

by Phil Lawler

The Kennedy dynasty has ended.

It was probably over in August, when Ted Kennedy died, because the long love affair between the Kennedy family and the voters of Massachusetts was personal rather than political. Another member of the Kennedy clan might have claimed that extraordinary legacy, but when the family could not produce a political heir, the Kennedy mystique could not be transferred to another Democratic candidate.

With the victory of Scott Brown in the Massachusetts special election on January 19, the end of the Kennedy dynasty was announced clearly to the world. A Senate seat that has been held since 1952 by a member of the Kennedy family (or, for two short stretches, by college roommates who served as designated place-holders for the Kennedys) is now held by a Republican. The political landscape of Massachusetts has been changed forever.

There are rich ironies in the stunning result from Massachusetts. For decades Ted Kennedy had fought for a sweeping national health-care reform. The “Obamacare” program, which was so close to Congressional approval, would surely have been packaged as a posthumous tribute to the late Senator’s efforts. Now that legislation may be doomed by the opposition of the man who will replace Ted Kennedy in the Senate.

To compound the irony, Scott Brown is a US Senator today only because on his deathbed Ted Kennedy asked for, and won, a change in the state laws governing a special election. If the law had not been changed, his permanent successor would have been elected in November 2010. Kennedy’s own hand-picked replacement, Paul Kirk, would have remained in the Senate for nearly another full year, during which time he might well have cast the deciding vote in favor of health-care reform. But now Kirk—whose temporary authority ended with the election—is powerless to advance his old friend's plans.

In a final irony, Scott Brown won the election in part because he convinced the voters of Massachusetts that he—not the liberal Democratic candidate, Martha Coakley—embodied the spirit that John F. Kennedy had brought to Massachusetts politics. In campaign ads, Brown reminded his constituency that Jack Kennedy favored tax cuts and strong national defense. The Republican candidate boldly severed the ties between President Kennedy—who would be judged a conservative by today’s standards—and the liberal Democrats who have long laid claim to the “Camelot” legacy... Read the whole article.

The Pope's 'green' message: not standard environmentalism

by Phil Lawler

After Pope Benedict XVI delivered his “State of the World” address to the Vatican diplomatic corps on January 11, your local newspaper probably carried a headline like the one atop the story in the New York Times: “Pope Denounces Failure to Forge New Climate Treaty.” The AP story began:

Pope Benedict XVI denounced the failure of world leaders to agree to a new climate change treaty in Copenhagen last month, saying Monday that world peace depends on safeguarding God’s creation.

BBC carried a very similar headline: “Pope Benedict XVI lambasts Copenhagen failure.” And Time magazine, also running with the AP coverage, followed suit with its headline text: “Pope Denounces Lack of New Climate Treaty.”

You might have concluded, from the press coverage, that the Holy Father’s speech was devoted mostly to the Copenhagen conference. But that conclusion would have been wrong. In his full 3,000-word address, Pope Benedict spent barely 100 words on the climate-change summit. It was a part of his message, but only a small part. However, it was the part that the secular media wanted to hear... Read the whole article.

The Church Perfect

by Dr. Jeff Mirus

Considering the frequent criticism of ecclesiastical persons on this web site, I think it essential to consider why the Church remains so important, so special and so beautiful despite the sins of her members. This need may be greater for some readers than for others; some of our correspondents have betrayed a deeper disaffection with Church leadership than CatholicCulture.org has ever expressed. But all Catholics, at least, ought to recall that the only legitimate reason for criticizing contemporary bishops, priests, religious communities, Catholic agencies, politicians and theologians is that they fail to uphold the standards of the Church herself.

Please pay close attention to what I’m saying here: Considered in her members, their organizations and their activities, the Church is legitimately subject to criticism only when she differs from what she actually is, considered in her essence. This fundamental fact of Catholic life is unlike any other fact concerning any other organization in history, and it is extraordinarily instructive. It not only indicates the sole legitimate criterion for criticism of ecclesiastical persons and organizations; it also expresses the reality that the Church possesses a perfect identity, an identity which transcends the individual actions and even the general associational impact of her members. Read the whole article.

Popes Pius XII, John Paul II declared 'venerable'

In a series of decrees issued on December 19, the Vatican has approved miracles allowing for the canonization of five people and the beatification of five others. The Vatican also recognized the 1984 murder of Father Jerzy Popieluszko by Communist intelligence officers as a martyrdom, preparing the way for his beatification.

The decrees, approved by Pope Benedict XVI during a private audience with Cardinal Angelo Amato, prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, also proclaimed that ten other candidates for sainthood had lived lives of heroic virtue. Those decrees make the candidates eligible for beatification if a miracle is attributed to their intercession.

The two decrees commanding the greatest public attention were those recognizing the heroic virtue of Pope Pius XII, who reigned from 1939 to 1958, and Pope John Paul II, who reigned from 1978 to 2005... Read the whole article.

The Catholic case against health-care reform

by Phil Lawler


President Obama’s crusade to enact health-care reform legislation is nearing its climactic battle in the US Senate. How should Catholic Americans look upon this legislative struggle?

The US bishops have consistently voiced their support for health-care reform, while insisting that the legislation must include some language ensuring against public support for abortion. In the House of Representatives their lobbying had its desired effect, and the “Stupak Amendment” gave the bishops a bill they could support. In the Senate a pro-life amendment was rejected. Still the US bishops’ conference has clung to the bare hope that some acceptable language might be inserted, somewhere during the remaining steps of the legislative process.

As a matter of practical politics, I think the bishops’ hopes are unrealistic. The Senate vote against the pro-life language was decisive. If the Senate passes a bill without a pro-life amendment, a joint committee will iron out the differences between that legislation and the version passed by the House. That reconciliation process will be dominated by the Democratic majority leadership, which is wholeheartedly committed to abortion coverage. Thus if a health-care reform bill is passed in this Congressional session, it will almost certainly include subsidies for abortion.

But just for the sake of the argument, let’s assume that the final legislation includes a solid pro-life amendment. Should Catholics then give their legislation their wholehearted support?

Absolutely not, for four reasons.

First, even if it doesn’t subsidize abortion this year, the federal health-care program will subsidize abortion in the future. All it takes is one act of Congress to amend the bill, one federal judge to rule that a ban on abortion funding is discriminatory, or one bureaucrat to rule that abortion is a “preventive” medical procedure, and the subsidies will snap quickly into place. Pro-life forces have battled valiantly to stave off the public funding of abortion this year, but as long as the federal government controls the health-care market, the battle will be fought repeatedly—month after month, year after year, legal case after case—until the left reaches its goal, and locks in the funding.

Second, abortion isn’t the only moral issue. The main focus of public attention has been the potential subsidies for abortion. But the legislation would also ensure federal subsidies for contraception and sterilization. American citizens could soon find themselves paying for in vitro fertilization treatments and sex-reassignment surgeries, if doctors and their federal overseers certified that these procedures were necessary.

He who pays the piper calls the tune, and if the federal government pays for health-care treatment, the White House ultimately will set the standards to determine which procedures warrant support. We already know where President Obama stands on embryonic stem-cell research, and we can easily predict how he will respond to the use of medicines obtained from human embryos in the treatment of diseases. Such medicines (if any ever appear) will receive federal subsidies. On the other hand, efforts to provide rudimentary medical care (as opposed to extraordinary treatment) for comatose patients will be stifled. So at both beginning and end of human life, the financial pressures will be adverse to the cause of human dignity... Read the whole article. 

The Divorce Myth

by Dr. Jeff Mirus

Children are happier if their parents are happier; they are better off growing up in an environment free from bickering; they are resilient enough that family upheavals do not negatively affect them over the long-term. Few would argue with these statements, but there is at least one scenario in which all of them are resoundingly false: That scenario is divorce. It turns out that, apart from violence and abuse, children are very much worse off if their parents become happier by divorcing, or if they avoid bickering by divorcing, or if the upheaval in question is the destruction of the family unit itself by divorce.

An article in this month’s Homiletic & Pastoral Review by Barbara Meng (not yet available online) summarizes the data. Meng herself has an impressive résumé. She holds an MTS degree from the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family in Washington, DC; she is the editor of the Catholic Family Quarterly and the business manager of Catholic Faith Alive; she has seven children and eighteen grandchildren; and, by the way, she’s been married for 50 years.

In considering marriage and divorce, I’m always reminded of my wife’s grandmother, who had a reputation as a bit of a shrew, and who was heard to make the following comment on her own marriage when she was considerably older than Barbara Meng, had been married longer, and had become far less mentally alert: “Willie and I have been married for sixty years,” she said, “and never a bad day!”

Yes. Well. But this is not as much of a digression as you may think, for by the very laughter with which this statement must be greeted by any married couple, the opposite is proved, and a key point is made: There are many “bad days” in every marriage. It isn’t only those who are deliriously happy who stay the course. Yet staying the course is supremely important to children, and even to grandchildren...  Read the whole article.

The Bishops at the Cliff: Tobin's Challenge

by Dr. Jeff Mirus

I see three challenges in Bishop Thomas Tobin's public rebuke of Congressman Patrick Kennedy in an open letter on November 12th. With respect to his pro-abortion stance, Kennedy had asserted that “the fact that I disagree with the hierarchy on some issues does not make me any less of a Catholic.” Bishop Tobin replied, point blank, that this simply is not true. The three challenges I see in this are for Kennedy, Bishop Tobin himself, and the American bishops as a body...  Read the whole article.

The Anglicans and the Eastern churches

by Phil Lawler

Secular journalists, hearing the news about the Pope's dramatic invitation to Anglicans, immediately fastened on the question of celibacy. If married Anglican priests can be admitted to the Catholic priesthood, will the issue of priestly celibacy in the Roman Church be re-opened for discussion? Probably not.

The opening for married priests will occur only within a clearly defined structure, created for those who are preserving the Anglican tradition within the Catholic Church. If you are a married Catholic from any other background who wants to be ordained, you'd have to absorb that entire Anglican tradition first-- and demonstrate your bona fides in doing so, no doubt-- before you could be considered for the priesthood. Will some men take that circuitous route? Perhaps. Many? I doubt it.

For the rest of us, Catholics outside the Anglican tradition, the same rules will continue to apply, for the same reasons.

But the Pope's opening to Anglicans may bring a change in practice for Catholics from other traditions: specifically, those of the Eastern churches. Most Eastern Catholic churches admit married men to the priesthood (although a single man, once ordained to the priesthood, cannot marry). Their traditions, like the Anglican tradition, allows for married priests.

When they first began establishing parishes in the US, however, the Eastern Catholic churches found that their married priests were causing consternation among their American Catholic neighbors. So for decades, the Eastern churches have agreed not to ordain married men in this country. (There have been a few exceptions to that rule, and married priests have continued to arrive in the US from other countries.)

If the Pope's new apostolic constitution brings a large number of married Anglican priests into the Catholic fold, it will no longer be a novelty-- or a cause for raised eyebrows-- to encounter a married Catholic priest. So the reason for the old agreement with the Eastern Catholic churches will no longer exist. It's only a matter of time, it would seem, before the Eastern churches begin ordaining married men in the US, just as they do in their homelands.  This is the whole article.  Read the original here. 

I shall send you the Paraclete, who will lead you into constructive disagreements

by Diogenes

In gauging the reactions to the Holy See's announcement of a Personal Ordinariate for Anglican converts, it's clear that, as is almost invariable in contemporary controversies, the rift in opinion reflects not church affiliation but one's alignment in the culture wars. The response of U.S. Episcopalians, for example, largely mirrors the divisions found in the responses tendered by U.S. Catholics. The higher clergy appear as rattled as everybody else and have yet to find their voices; the initial statements issued by the USCCB and The Episcopal Church are cautious to the point of contentlessness. TEC's Deputy for Ecumenical and Interreligious Relations said, "We in the Episcopal Church continue to look to the Holy Spirit, who guides us in understanding of what it means to be the Church in the Anglican Tradition." Sounds pretty desperate. Ronald Knox tells the story of a worldly gentleman in a storm at sea, who asked the captain about their predicament. When advised to take to his prayers he replied, "Is it as bad as that?"  Read the whole article.

The Pope's bold invitation to Anglicans

by Phil Lawler

With a single, bold stroke that caught nearly everyone by surprise, Pope Benedict XVI has eased the way for tradition-minded Anglicans who wish to enter the Catholic Church.

The apostolic constitution that was announced at the Vatican today will create a hierarchical structure within the Catholic Church, allowing Anglican priests to become Catholic priests with a minimum of red tape, and providing for the appointment of former Anglicans as Catholic bishops. The "personal ordinariates" established under the terms of this apostolic constitution will ensure that Anglicans who become Catholics are not simply absorbed into the existing Catholic structures and then forgotten; they will be allowed-- and encouraged-- to maintain their own distinctive traditions.

Oddly, today's Vatican press conference announced the new apostolic constitution, but the Vatican officials who briefed reporters spoke about the document in the future tense. Cardinal William Levada, the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, discussed the impact of the "forthcoming" apostolic constitution. The document is not yet ready for publication; the Vatican did not even announce its name.

Ordinarily, the press conference would be convened only after the document was prepared, and the high Vatican officials would unveil the document at the same time that they explained its impact. In this case, apparently, the Vatican wanted to explain the document even before it appeared-- probably in order to prevent the sort of premature leaks that could give rise to misunderstandings and inaccuracies about the nature of the papal initiative.

In other words the Holy See rushed to explain this apostolic constitution before misunderstandings could arise. In a rare and welcome display of media savvy, the Vatican seized control of the story, giving its own explanation before the confusion set in...  Read the whole article. 

Belmont Abbey College: Preparing to Fight

by Dr. Jeff Mirus

Belmont Abbey College in North Carolina has been striving for the past few years to become a more thoroughly Catholic institution of higher education. The College has a long tradition which extends back to its founding in 1876 as St. Mary’s College by the Benedictine monks of Belmont Abbey. The school changed its name to Belmont Abbey College in 1913. In the wake of John Paul II’s Apostolic Constitution on Catholic higher education, Ex Corde Ecclesiae, which was issued in 1990, Belmont Abbey has been prominent among American Catholic colleges and universities in attempting to represent ever more faithfully the mind of the Church in education.

Many readers will be familiar with the engaging “Got Monks?” advertisements used by the College to attract students in recent years. Like most Catholic colleges and universities, Belmont Abbey College found itself adversely affected by the collapse of Catholic culture which dominated the second half of the twentieth century. The school's faculty became less consistently committed to Catholic principles and the student body followed suit. But new leadership brought change: improved hiring practices, deliberate recruitment of students from stronger Catholic families, and more consistent academic policies. The College is now on the Cardinal Newman Society’s list of twenty-one Catholic colleges and universities in America which get a clean bill of Catholic health...  Read the whole article.

Catholic Martyrs of the Holocaust

by Matthew Bunson

By 1939, more than 10,000 Catholic schools had been closed and the Catholic boys and girls sent to Nazi public schools for indoctrination.

Catholics are constantly confronted with the claims that Pope Pius XII was complicit in the Holocaust, that vast numbers of Catholics collaborated with Hitler's diabolical regime, and that Catholic priests, nuns, and bishops were ardent members of the Nazi Party and supporters of its policies. It is true that many Catholics turned a blind eye to the Holocaust, and others remained silent out of fear for their lives and the safety of their families. There were certainly many ex-Catholic members of the ruling Nazi circles, just as there were Catholics in some numbers who supported the Nazis out of a twisted sense of nationalism, anti-Semitic beliefs, or for pure personal advancement in a corrupt and evil state.

But what many people don't know is that the Church itself was a target of the Nazis. On June 6, 1941, Martin Bormann, head of the Nazi Party Chancellery, private secretary to Adolf Hitler, and one of the most powerful figures in the Third Reich, issued a secret decree for all Gauleiters (or regional party leaders) of the Reich regarding the true intentions of the Nazi regime toward the Christian churches...

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From Our Lady’s Dowry

by Zsolt Aradi

The England of the eleventh and twelfth centuries shared with the other parts of Europe in veneration of Our Lady, and early in this period a famous shrine in her honor sprung up in the calm and lovely countryside near Norfolk, three miles from the sea. Its origins are obscure, but according to the legend a noble widow, Richeldis de Favershes, said that in a vision the Mother of God had led her in spirit to the little house of the holy family in Nazareth, bidding her to build a replica of it in England in honor of the Annunciation. This little house was built and is said to have endured for four hundred years; paneled with wood, its darkness was lit with tapers and, as time went on and many pilgrims came with gifts, it gleamed with gold, silver and precious stones. And from a seal preserved from the thirteenth century we know that it contained a figure of Our Lady enthroned with the Child in her left arm. This is one of the most beautiful medieval representations of Mary, "The Seat of Wisdom."

In time the small house built by Lady Richeldis was enshrined in a splendid Lady Chapel and in the thirteenth century, during the reign of Edward the Conqueror, a great Priory Church was erected beside it for the Augustinian Canons who were made the guardians of the shrine. Walsingham was not the only place of pilgrimage to Our Lady in England, but it became the most famous of them all...

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On Waffling, Tradition, and the Magisterium

by Dr. Jeff Mirus

Over the past week or two, I’ve had a fascinating yet frustrating exchange with a priest on the question of whether CatholicCulture.org is “waffling” on Church affairs when it is willing to criticize prudential decisions and strategies of modern popes and bishops while fully accepting the modern Magisterium. By modern, I mean of course the Magisterium from the Second Vatican Council to the present.

There is no question that this priest is concerned about our good and the good of the Church. He was responding to my fund-raising messages, and he was simply making clear that he could not support us unless we quit “waffling”. In his mind, we “waffled” when we failed to admit that the Magisterium of the Church has contradicted itself in modern times, and that when this happens, Tradition must be our guide to the truth. “Tradition”, he maintained, “is God’s gift to keep us on track.”

I replied repeatedly but in vain that his position was not Catholic...

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The Argument from Conscience

by Dr. Jeff Mirus

In his Grammar of Assent, John Henry Cardinal Newman attempts to explain how human persons come to assent to both ideas and realities, including both the idea and the reality of God. In the course of his study he persuasively explains the significance of the faculty we call “conscience”, and in so doing articulates an important argument which has largely fallen into disuse.

Newman points out that the operations of the conscience point strongly to the existence of a supreme judge, that is, to the existence of God. While all human faculties can be more or less developed depending on personality and circumstances, Newman rightly notices that it is the overwhelming experience of human persons to feel a strong sense of right and wrong, and to be thrown into various emotional and psychological states depending on whether they have acted rightly or wrongly. Newman sees this at work beginning in very young children, though he acknowledges that this sense of right and wrong, and its corresponding emotions, can be strengthened or weakened based on circumstances, including habitual virtues or vices...

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