It’s been a blistering and draining week with the Komen story. As tomorrow’s Gospel tells us, Jesus often withdrew to prayer and solitude, and so am I today. Time for a retreat weekend. Here is an outstanding homily given by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger on the eve of his election to the Chair of Peter. It addresses what we all need to know and understand in our hearts, what we need to do in order to fortify ourselves.

At this hour of great responsibility, we hear with special consideration what the Lord says to us in his own words. From the three readings I would like to examine just a few passages which concern us directly at this time.

The first reading gives us a prophetic depiction of the person of the Messiah – a depiction which takes all its meaning from the moment Jesus reads the text in the synagogue in Nazareth, when he says: “Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing” (Lk 4,21). At the core of the prophetic text we find a word which seems contradictory, at least at first sight. The Messiah, speaking of himself, says that he was sent “To announce a year of favor from the Lord and a day of vindication by our God” (Is 61,2). We hear with joy the news of a year of favor: divine mercy puts a limit on evil – the Holy Father told us. Jesus Christ is divine mercy in person: encountering Christ means encountering the mercy of God. Christ’s mandate has become our mandate through priestly anointing. We are called to proclaim – not only with our words, but with our lives, and through the valuable signs of the sacraments, the “year of favor from the Lord”. But what does the prophet Isaiah mean when he announces the “day of vindication by our God”? In Nazareth, Jesus did not pronounce these words in his reading of the prophet’s text – Jesus concluded by announcing the year of favor. Was this, perhaps, the reason for the scandal which took place after his sermon? We do not know. In any case, the Lord gave a genuine commentary on these words by being put to death on the cross. Saint Peter says: “He himself bore our sins in his body upon the cross” (1 Pe 2,24). And Saint Paul writes in his letter to the Galatians: “Christ ransomed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written, ‘Cursed be everyone who hangs on a tree’, that the blessing of Abraham might be extended to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.” (Gal 3, 13s).

The mercy of Christ is not a cheap grace; it does not presume a trivialization of evil. Christ carries in his body and on his soul all the weight of evil, and all its destructive force. He burns and transforms evil through suffering, in the fire of his suffering love. The day of vindication and the year of favor meet in the paschal mystery, in Christ died and risen. This is the vindication of God: he himself, in the person of the Son, suffers for us. The more we are touched by the mercy of the Lord, the more we draw closer in solidarity with his suffering – and become willing to bear in our flesh “what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ” (Col 1, 24).

In the second reading, the letter to the Ephesians, we see basically three aspects: first, the ministries and charisms in the Church, as gifts of the Lord risen and ascended into heaven. Then there is the maturing of faith and knowledge of the Son of God, as a condition and essence of unity in the body of Christ. Finally, there is the common participation in the growth of the body of Christ – of the transformation of the world into communion with the Lord.

Let us dwell on only two points. The first is the journey towards “the maturity of Christ” as it is said in the Italian text, simplifying it a bit. More precisely, according to the Greek text, we should speak of the “measure of the fullness of Christ”, to which we are called to reach in order to be true adults in the faith. We should not remain infants in faith, in a state of minority. And what does it mean to be an infant in faith? Saint Paul answers: it means “tossed by waves and swept along by every wind of teaching arising from human trickery” (Eph 4, 14). This description is very relevant today!

How many winds of doctrine we have known in recent decades, how many ideological currents, how many ways of thinking… The small boat of thought of many Christians has often been tossed about by these waves – thrown from one extreme to the other: from Marxism to liberalism, even to libertinism; from collectivism to radical individualism; from atheism to a vague religious mysticism; from agnosticism to syncretism, and so forth. Every day new sects are created and what Saint Paul says about human trickery comes true, with cunning which tries to draw those into error (cf Eph 4, 14). Having a clear faith, based on the Creed of the Church, is often labeled today as a fundamentalism. Whereas, relativism, which is letting oneself be tossed and “swept along by every wind of teaching”, looks like the only attitude (acceptable) to today’s standards. We are moving towards a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one’s own ego and one’s own desires.

However, we have a different goal: the Son of God, true man. He is the measure of true humanism. Being an “Adult” means having a faith which does not follow the waves of today’s fashions or the latest novelties. A faith which is deeply rooted in friendship with Christ is adult and mature. It is this friendship which opens us up to all that is good and gives us the knowledge to judge true from false, and deceit from truth. We must become mature in this adult faith; we must guide the flock of Christ to this faith. And it is this faith – only faith – which creates unity and takes form in love. On this theme, Saint Paul offers us some beautiful words – in contrast to the continual ups and downs of those were are like infants, tossed about by the waves: (he says) make truth in love, as the basic formula of Christian existence. In Christ, truth and love coincide. To the extent that we draw near to Christ, in our own life, truth and love merge. Love without truth would be blind; truth without love would be like “a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal” (1 Cor 13,1).

Looking now at the richness of the Gospel reading, I would like to make only two small observations. The Lord addresses to us these wonderful words: “I no longer call you slaves…I have called you friends” (Jn 15,15). So many times we feel like, and it is true, that we are only useless servants. (cf Lk 17,10). And despite this, the Lord calls us friends, he makes us his friends, he gives us his friendship. The Lord defines friendship in a dual way. There are no secrets among friends: Christ tells us all everything he hears from the Father; he gives us his full trust, and with that, also knowledge. He reveals his face and his heart to us. He shows us his tenderness for us, his passionate love that goes to the madness of the cross. He entrusts us, he gives us power to speak in his name: “this is my body…”, “I forgive you…”. He entrusts us with his body, the Church. He entrusts our weak minds and our weak hands with his truth – the mystery of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit; the mystery of God who “so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son” (Jn 3, 16). He made us his friends – and how do we respond?

The second element with which Jesus defines friendship is the communion of wills. For the Romans “Idem velle – idem nolle”, (same desires, same dislikes ) was also the definition of friendship. “You are my friends if you do what I command you.” (Jn 15, 14). Friendship with Christ coincides with what is said in the third request of the Our Father: “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”. At the hour in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus transformed our rebellious human will in a will shaped and united to the divine will. He suffered the whole experience of our autonomy – and precisely bringing our will into the hands of God, he have us true freedom: “Not my will, but your will be done”. In this communion of wills our redemption takes place: being friends of Jesus to become friends of God. How much more we love Jesus, how much more we know him, how much more our true freedom grows as well as our joy in being redeemed. Thank you, Jesus, for your friendship!

The other element of the Gospel to which I would like to refer is the teaching of Jesus on bearing fruit: “I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain” (Jn 15, 16). It is here that is expressed the dynamic existence of the Christian, the apostle: I chose you to go and bear fruit…”. We must be inspired by a holy restlessness: restlessness to bring to everyone the gift of faith, of friendship with Christ. In truth, the love and friendship of God was given to us so that it would also be shared with others. We have received the faith to give it to others – we are priests meant to serve others. And we must bring a fruit that will remain. All people want to leave a mark which lasts. But what remains? Money does not. Buildings do not, nor books. After a certain amount of time, whether long or short, all these things disappear. The only thing which remains forever is the human soul, the human person created by God for eternity. The fruit which remains then is that which we have sowed in human souls – love, knowledge, a gesture capable of touching the heart, words which open the soul to joy in the Lord. Let us then go to the Lord and pray to him, so that he may help us bear fruit which remains. Only in this way will the earth be changed from a valley of tears to a garden of God.

In conclusion, returning again to the letter to the Ephesians, which says with words from Psalm 68 that Christ, ascending into heaven, “gave gifts to men” (Eph 4,8). The victor offers gifts. And these gifts are apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. Our ministry is a gift of Christ to humankind, to build up his body – the new world. We live out our ministry in this way, as a gift of Christ to humanity! But at this time, above all, we pray with insistence to the Lord, so that after the great gift of Pope John Paul II, he again gives us a pastor according to his own heart, a pastor who guides us to knowledge in Christ, to his love and to true joy. Amen.

Hot on the heels of our medical conference last Saturday, Therapeutic Advances in Poor Prenatal Diagnoses, comes this letter from Archbishop Chaput to the people of his archdiocese. Opposition to this new eugenics is swelling all over the nation. Here is a bishop who makes me proud of my Church.

Earlier this week local media covered the story of Amelia Rivera, a young girl with Wolf-Hirschhorn syndrome reportedly denied a kidney transplant by a local hospital. Amelia’s syndrome results in serious developmental delays, and according to her parents, the hospital declined a transplant due to her diminished mental ability and shortened lifespan.

It’s unwise to assume that news media get all the details of a story like this right, or that the motives of an entire hospital’s leadership and staff are as unfeeling as an individual doctor might seem. Nonetheless, a couple of things are worth noting. First, Amelia’s parents are persons who love their daughter zealously for who she is, and who know the beauty and dignity of her life despite her disability. Second, the habit of treating genetically disabled children as somehow less worthy of life is growing across the country.

A number of my friends have children with disabilities. Their problems range from cerebral palsy to Turner’s syndrome to Trisomy 18, which is extremely serious. Prenatal testing can now detect a high percentage of pregnancies with a risk of genetic problems.

The tests often aren’t conclusive. But they’re pretty good. And the results of those tests are brutally practical. Studies show that more than 80 percent of unborn babies diagnosed with Down syndrome, for example, now get terminated in the womb. They’re killed because of a flaw in one of their chromosomes – a flaw that’s neither fatal nor contagious, but merely undesirable.

The older a woman gets, the higher her risk of bearing a child with special needs. And so, in medical offices around the country, pregnant women now hear from doctors or genetic counselors that their baby has “an increased likelihood” of a genetic flaw based on one or more prenatal tests. Some doctors deliver this information with sensitivity and great support for the woman. But, as my friends know from experience, too many others seem more concerned about avoiding lawsuits, or managing costs, or even, in a few ugly cases, cleaning up the gene pool.

In practice, medical professionals can now steer an expectant mother toward abortion simply by hinting at a list of the child’s possible defects. And the most debased thing about that kind of pressure is that doctors know better than anyone else how vulnerable a woman can be in hearing potentially tragic news about her unborn baby.

I’m not suggesting that doctors should hold back vital knowledge from parents. Nor should they paint an implausibly upbeat picture of life with a child who has a disability. Facts and resources are crucial in helping adult persons prepare themselves for difficult challenges. But doctors, genetic counselors and medical school professors should have on staff – or at least on speed dial – experts of a different sort.

Parents of children with special needs, special education teachers and therapists, and pediatricians who have treated children with disabilities often have a hugely life-affirming perspective.

Unlike prenatal caregivers, these professionals have direct knowledge of persons with special needs. They know their potential. They’ve seen their accomplishments. They can testify to the benefits – often miraculous – of parental love and faith.

Expectant parents deserve to know that a child with special needs can love, laugh, learn, work, feel hope and excitement, make friends and create joy for others. These things are beautiful precisely because they transcend what we expect. They witness to the truth that every child with special needs has a value that matters eternally.

Raising a child with special needs can be demanding. It always involves some degree of suffering. Parents grow up very fast. None of my friends who has a daughter or son with a serious disability is melodramatic, or self-conscious, or even especially pious about it. They speak about their special child with an unsentimental realism.

It’s a realism flowing out of love – real love, the kind that forces its way through fear and suffering to a decision, finally, to surround the child with their heart and trust in the goodness of God. And that decision to trust, of course, demands not just real love, but also real courage.

The real choice in accepting or rejecting a child with special needs is never between some imaginary perfection or imperfection. None of us is perfect. No child is perfect. The real choice in accepting or rejecting a child with special needs is between love and unlove; between courage and cowardice; between trust and fear.

That’s the choice we face when it happens in our personal experience. And that’s the choice we face as a society in deciding which human lives we will treat as valuable, and which we will not.

This Sunday, January 22, marks the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that legitimized permissive abortion around the country. More than 45 million abortions later, the damage of that decision continues to grow — undermining our reverence for the life not just of unborn children but of the mentally and physically disabled as well.

We need to understand that if some lives are regarded as unworthy, respect for all life is at risk. We should pray that Amelia Rivera gets the help she needs, and that God surrounds her parents with the support they need.

And especially this week, more than ever, we should recommit ourselves to defending the dignity of all human life, no matter how “flawed” it may seem in the eyes of the world.

We continue our study today of a little-known and little-studied 1974 document from the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith entitled:

Declaration on Procured Abortion

Read Part I here.

Read Part II here.

Today we turn our attention to the prophetic voice of the document, with commentary to follow:

17. Scientific progress is opening to technology – and will open still more – the possibility of delicate interventions, the consequences of which can be very serious, for good as well as for evil. These are achievements of the human spirit which in themselves are admirable. But technology can never be independent of the criterion of morality, since technology exists for man and must respect his finality. Just as there is no right to use nuclear energy for every possible purpose, so there is no right to manipulate human life in every possible direction. Technology must be at the service of man, so as better to ensure the functioning of his normal abilities, to prevent or to cure his illnesses, and to contribute to his better human development. It is true that the evolution of technology makes early abortion more and more easy, but the moral evaluation is in no way modified because of this.

26. But this does not mean that one can remain indifferent to these sorrows and miseries. Every man and woman with feeling, and certainly every Christian, must be ready to do what he can to remedy them. This is the law of charity, of which the first preoccupation must always be the establishment of justice. One can never approve of abortion; but it is above all necessary to combat its causes. This includes political action, which will be in particular the task of the law. But it is necessary at the same time to influence morality and to do everything possible to help families, mothers and children. Considerable progress in the service of life has been accomplished by medicine. One can hope that such progress will continue, in accordance with the vocation of doctors, which is not to suppress life but to care for it and favor it as much as possible. It is equally desirable that, in suitable institutions, or, in their absence, in the outpouring of Christian generosity and charity every form of assistance should be developed.

A few thoughts…

Paragraph 17 especially hits home with the scientific and medical communities. We simply do not have the right to manipulate life in every direction simply because we have the means to do so. This factors into IVF and Embryonic Stem Cell experimentation, as well as developing prenatal diagnostic technologies whose sole purpose is eugenic in nature.

In 1983, the life expectancy of an individual with Down syndrome was 25 years. Today it is 60 years. It’s not a miracle, we just decided to treat them as we would any other human being. That leads to a consideration of one of the proabort’s greatest slurs:

We only care for the baby after it is born.

The paragraphs selected here highlight the great lie in that slur. In the document, the Church invokes the Law of Charity:

“But it is necessary at the same time to influence morality and to do everything possible to help families, mothers and children.”

“One can never approve of abortion; but it is above all necessary to combat its causes.”

Every human being is called upon in this document to do all that we can to assist families with those burdens that drive women to seek abortion as a desperate last measure. In that light, it would be a good idea to challenge the proabort, who utters the great slur against us, with a demand to know why they do not themselves join with us in supporting women’s most desperate needs, and why they only hold out death (along with a hefty fee for the abortion) as their sole contribution.

Finally, when the Bishops state in Paragraph 25, “To measure happiness by the absence of sorrow and misery in this world is to turn one’s back on the Gospel,” their statement deserves a long pause for consideration. In the Last Judgement scene of Matthew 25, Jesus admonishes that whatever we do for the least among us, we do for Him. To turn our backs on those who suffer, especially by murdering them, we commit spiritual suicide. The sufferings of others make demands on us, and in the America of the past 50 years, we have become an increasingly narcissistic and hedonistic society. We cannot stand imperfection in others, not because we are so compassionate, but because we are so bereft of Love.

Imperfection and need in others place demands on us. They draw from our time and material resources in proportion to the degree of imperfection and need. 53 million dead babies later, 93% of all Down syndrome babies aborted, and we see the extent to which American society has succumbed to mental illness and despair, we see the predatory nature of the abortion industry and how it has invaded and corrupted medicine, especially among the baby doctors, the Ob’s, who should be the greatest advocates of the unborn.

This document was a prophetic jewel, issued in 1974 when I was a freshman in high school. It has languished, relatively unknown to most Catholics for decades. Perhaps that’s not so bad. We now have the ability to guage the prophetic wisdom of the Magisterium through the perspective of hindsight.

More tomorrow…

We continue our study today of a little-known and little-studied 1974 document from the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith entitled:

Declaration on Procured Abortion

Read Part I here.

Today we turn to the document’s treatment of the Church’s varied voices on when the body is infused with a soul. This is critical, because so many proaborts look selectively to voices from within the Church that have fixed a point some time after fertilization. What they do not do is point to the universal condemnation of abortion at every stage, going all the way back to our most ancient document of apostolic teaching, The Didache (pronounced DID-a-kay), subtitled, The Lord’s Teaching Through the Twelve Apostles to the Nations.

Here are excerpts from the Declaration on Procured Abortion, followed by the footnotes from the text, and then a few words of analysis:

“6. The tradition of the Church has always held that human life must be protected and favored from the beginning, just as at the various stages of its development. Opposing the morals of the Greco-Roman world, the Church of the first centuries insisted on the difference that exists on this point between those morals and Christian morals. In the Didache it is clearly said: “You shall not kill by abortion the fruit of the womb and you shall not murder the infant already born.”[6] Athenagoras emphasizes that Christians consider as murderers those women who take medicines to procure an abortion; he condemns the killers of children, including those still living in their mother’s womb, “where they are already the object of the care of divine Providence.” Tertullian did not always perhaps use the same language; he nevertheless clearly affirms the essential principle: “To prevent birth is anticipated murder; it makes little difference whether one destroys a life already born or does away with it in its nascent stage. The one who will be a man is already one.”[8]

“7. In the course of history, the Fathers of the Church, her Pastors and her Doctors have taught the same doctrine – the various opinions on the infusion of the spiritual soul did not introduce any doubt about the illicitness of abortion. It is true that in the Middle Ages, when the opinion was generally held that the spiritual soul was not present until after the first few weeks, a distinction was made in the evaluation of the sin and the gravity of penal sanctions. Excellent authors allowed for this first period more lenient case solutions which they rejected for following periods. But it was never denied at that time that procured abortion, even during the first days, was objectively grave fault. This condemnation was in fact unanimous. Among the many documents it is sufficient to recall certain ones. The first Council of Mainz in 847 reconsidered the penalties against abortion which had been established by preceding Councils. It decided that the most rigorous penance would be imposed “on women who procure the elimination of the fruit conceived in their womb.”[9] The Decree of Gratian reported the following words of Pope Stephen V: “That person is a murderer who causes to perish by abortion what has been conceived.”[10] St. Thomas, the Common Doctor of the Church, teaches that abortion is a grave sin against the natural law.” At the time of the Renaissance Pope Sixtus V condemned abortion with the greatest severity.[12] A century later, Innocent XI rejected the propositions of certain lax canonists who sought to excuse an abortion procured before the moment accepted by some as the moment of the spiritual animation of the new being.[13] In our days the recent Roman Pontiffs have proclaimed the same doctrine with the greatest clarity. Pius XI explicitly answered the most serious objections.[14] Pius XII clearly excluded all direct abortion, that is, abortion which is either an end or a means.[15] John XXIII recalled the teaching of the Fathers on the sacred character of life “which from its beginning demands the action of God the Creator.”[16] Most recently, the Second Vatican Council, presided over by Paul VI, has most severely condemned abortion: “Life must be safeguarded with extreme care from conception; abortion and infanticide are abominable crimes.”[17] The same Paul VI, speaking on this subject on many occasions, has not been afraid to declare that this teaching of the Church “has not changed and is unchangeable.”[18]

FOOTNOTES

6. “Didache Apostolorum,” edition Funk, “Patres Apostolici,” V, 2. “The Epistle of Barnabas,” IX, 5 uses the same expressions (cf. Funk, l.c., 91-93).

19. This declaration expressly leaves aside the question of the moment when the spiritual soul is infused. There is not a unanimous tradition on this point and authors are as yet in disagreement. For some it dates from the first instant; for others it could not at least precede nidation. It is not within the competence of science to decide between these views, because the existence of an immortal soul is not a question in its field. It is a philosophical problem from which our moral affirmation remains independent for two reasons: (1) supposing a belated animation, there is still nothing less than a human life, preparing for and calling for a soul in which the nature received from parents is completed, (2) on the other hand, it suffices that this presence of the soul be probable (and one can never prove the contrary) in order that the taking of life involve accepting the risk of killing a man, not only waiting for, but already in possession of his soul.

There are a few lines in all of that which jump out at the reader, and ought to be deployed as tactical weapons in our pro-life argumentation. Firstly, the last few lines of Paragraph 7:

“Most recently, the Second Vatican Council, presided over by Paul VI, has most severely condemned abortion: ‘Life must be safeguarded with extreme care from conception; abortion and infanticide are abominable crimes.’[17] The same Paul VI, speaking on this subject on many occasions, has not been afraid to declare that this teaching of the Church ‘has not changed and is unchangeable.’[18]“

The quote about safeguarding from the moment of conception comes from the Vatican II document “Guadium et spes,” which, as a conciliar document is considered INFALLIBLE teaching. As such, it can never, ever change, which gives rise to the following quote from Pope Paul VI.

Next, it is worth considering footnote #19:

“on the other hand, it suffices that this presence of the soul be probable (and one can never prove the contrary) in order that the taking of life involve accepting the risk of killing a man, not only waiting for, but already in possession of his soul.”

Thus speaks the Church. While there have been, and remain, different voices within the Church, the human organism from the moment of conception is presumed to be in possession of a soul. This cannot be overstated. In her wisdom, the Church grants the presumption of a soul from the moment of conception.

And therein lies a rhetorical dilemma when words such as conception and pregnant come into play.

The plain meaning of the words in their traditional usage are that a child is conceived at the moment the sperm penetrates the egg. When that conception occurs, the mother is said to be pregnant. Simple, right?

Wrong.

The rabidly pro-abortion American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, (ACOG)which is the official society of Ob/Gyn’s adopted an official change of lexicon thirty years ago that defines conception and pregnancy as both being synonymous with IMPLANTATION of the embryo in the uterus, an event that occurs several days after fertilization. Thus, proaborts will argue that even the Catholic Church doesn’t recognize that life begins at fertilization, because we state that the presumption of humanity begins at conception, an event that has been redefined by the proabort crowd.

It should be noted that the Declaration on Procured Abortion was written years before ACOG engaged in their verbal engineering.

More on this tomorrow…

Update: See Part III Here.

There is a little-known and little-studied document from the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith entitled:

Declaration on Procured Abortion

In my reading of proabort arguments and pre-life rejoinders, it has become evident that most Catholics are not armed with the truths and rejoinders in this document. We’ll spend a few posts looking at key portions of the document and considering it’s prescience. The Declaration on Procured Abortion was issued in 1974 with the approval of Pope Paul VI who, like this document, remains underappreciated. Paul VI was a giant, squeezed between John XXIII and John Paul II, his Encyclical, Humanae Vitae, along with the Congregation’s Declaration on Procured Abortion laid the groundwork for John Paul II’s Papacy. From the document:

“14. Divine law and natural reason, therefore, exclude all right to the direct killing of an innocent man. However, if the reasons given to justify an abortion were always manifestly evil and valueless the problem would not be so dramatic. The gravity of the problem comes from the fact that in certain cases, perhaps in quite a considerable number of cases, by denying abortion one endangers important values to which it is normal to attach great value, and which may sometimes even seem to have priority. We do not deny these very great difficulties. It may be a serious question of health, sometimes of life or death, for the mother; it may be the burden represented by an additional child, especially if there are good reasons to fear that the child will be abnormal or retarded; it may be the importance attributed in different classes of society to considerations of honor or dishonor, of loss of social standing, and so forth. We proclaim only that none of these reasons can ever objectively confer the right to dispose of another’s life, even when that life is only beginning. With regard to the future unhappiness of the child, no one, not even the father or mother, can act as its substitute- even if it is still in the embryonic stage- to choose in the child’s name, life or death. The child itself, when grown up, will never have the right to choose suicide; no more may his parents choose death for the child while it is not of an age to decide for itself. Life is too fundamental a value to be weighed against even very serious disadvantages.”

As we battle the rising tide of eugenic selective abortions, this paragraph slams the door on the argument over the future happiness of the child and what it is the parent may, or may not, do to act in the child’s name. Then, addressing the legitimate claims of feminism, and its distortions, the Congregation has the following to say:

“15. The movement for the emancipation of women, insofar as it seeks essentially to free them from all unjust discrimination, is on perfectly sound ground.[22] In the different forms of cultural background there is a great deal to be done in this regard. But one cannot change nature. Nor can one exempt women, any more than men, from what nature demands of them. Furthermore, all publicly recognized freedom is always limited by the certain rights of others.

“16. The same must be said of the claim to sexual freedom. If by this expression one is to understand the mastery progressively acquired by reason and by authentic love over instinctive impulse, without diminishing pleasure but keeping it in its proper place – and in this sphere this is the only authentic freedom – then there is nothing to object to. But this kind of freedom will always be careful not to violate justice. It; on the contrary, one is to understand that men and women are “free” to seek sexual pleasure to the point of satiety, without taking into account any law or the essential orientation of sexual life to its fruits of fertility,[23] then this idea has nothing Christian in it. It is even unworthy of man. In any case it does not confer any right to dispose of human life – even if embryonic- or to suppress it on the pretext that it is burdensome.”

Pretty much speaks for itself.

Update: See Part II Here.
Update: See Part III Here.

"Lion of Münster"

H/T to Deacon Greg Kandra who posted this yesterday on the 70th Anniversary of this Homily. This comes from historyplace.com which has an excellent repository of historical speeches and commentary. This homily, slightly reworded for current leaders is a commentary for our present age. For distributing copies of this homily, the Nazis beheaded three priests, but left the Cardinal alone for fear of making him a martyr. See the link for additional commentary before and after the homily. Now, the commentary and homily:

Commentary:

This is an excerpt of the sermon by Catholic Cardinal Clemens von Galen, delivered on Sunday, August 3, 1941, in Münster Cathedral, in which he risked his life by openly condemning the Nazi euthanasia program.

Code named “Aktion T4,” the Nazi program to eliminate “life unworthy of life” began on Hitler’s order in October 1939. The program at first focused on newborns and very young children. Midwives and doctors were required to register children up to age three that showed symptoms of mental retardation, physical deformity, or other symptoms included on a questionnaire from the Reich Health Ministry.

A decision on whether to allow the child to live was then made by three medical experts solely on the basis of the questionnaire, without any examination and without reading any medical records.

Each expert placed a + mark in red pencil or – mark in blue pencil under the term “treatment” on a special form. A red plus mark meant a decision to kill the child. A blue minus sign meant meant a decision against killing. Three +++ symbols resulted in a euthanasia warrant being issued and the transfer of the child to a ‘Children’s Specialty Department’ for death by injection or gradual starvation.

The decision had to be unanimous. In cases where the decision was not unanimous the child was kept under observation and another attempt would be made to get a unanimous decision.

The Nazi euthanasia program soon expanded to include older disabled children and adults. Hitler granted “the authority of certain physicians to be designated by name in such manner, that persons who, according to human judgment, are incurable, can, upon a most careful diagnosis of their condition of sickness, be accorded a mercy death.”

Questionnaires were then distributed to mental institutions, hospitals and other institutions caring for the chronically ill. A total of six killing centers were established including the well-known psychiatric clinic at Hadamar. The euthanasia program was eventually headed by an SS officer named Christian Wirth, a notorious brute with the nickname ‘the Savage Christian.’

At Brandenburg, a former prison was converted into a killing center where the first experimental gassings took place. The gas chambers were disguised as shower rooms, but were actually hermetically sealed chambers connected by pipes to cylinders of carbon monoxide. Each killing center also had a crematorium where the bodies were taken for disposal. Families were then falsely informed the cause of death was medical such as heart failure or pneumonia.

Homily:

Fellow Christians! In the pastoral letter of the German bishops of June 26, 1941, which was read out in all the Catholic churches in Germany on July 6, 1941, it states among other things: It is true that there are definite commandments in Catholic moral doctrine which are no longer applicable if their fulfillment involves too many difficulties.

Cardinal Clemens von Galen – August 3, 1941

Dr. Grossman is at his hospital office one day per week. When he’s not there, he spends 1-2 days per week working at the local Planned Parenthood as their abortionist. If that isn’t enough, the Planned Parenthood in Durango is the only one providing surgical abortions within a 200 mile radius.

Worse still, Live Action did a telephone sting of Grossman’s office in the hospital and actually solicited an abortion referral from within Mercy with absolute ease. See the video:

“Personally, I believe in the strength, intellect and fortitude of women. When a woman says a fetus is a person, I think it is one. I believe the woman empowers the fetus,” Grossman is quoted as saying in a Durango Herald article on last year’s protest.

Also from the article:

Grossman, 67, was approved by the hospital’s board of directors to practice medicine at the hospital in 1976. Today, he is the hospital’s longest-serving physician.

He was at work in the hospital during the protest.

In a statement, Mercy spokesman Nathan Schmidt said abortions are not performed at the hospital and that it neither employs nor compensates Grossman.

“Dr. Richard Grossman is a member of the medical staff at Mercy Regional Medical Center. Being a member of the hospital’s staff does not constitute employment,” Schmidt said.

Mercy’s physician-credentialing and privileging practices are consistent with the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services, Schmidt said.

Mercy is part of Catholic Health Initiatives, the nation’s third-largest Roman Catholic health-care system, headquartered in Denver. It was founded by the Sisters of Mercy in 1882.

There is a reason why physicians gain “privileges” to practice medicine at a given hospital, and not mere “permission.” Having an MD, or DO does not constitute an automatic prerogative. The character of the physician, as written in the history of how they practice medicine, factors into whether or not a physician is deemed worthy of practicing at the hospital in question.

In that light, it is rather disingenuous of the hospital to assert that Grossman is not an employee. The fact of the matter is that the man who spends as much, if not more time aborting babies at Planned Parenthood as he does delivering babies at Mercy (by his secretary’s own admission in the above video), has been granted the PRIVILEGE of practicing medicine at a Catholic Hospital. Moreover, he is being given a level of social/professional recognition by elements within the Church that he does not deserve, and which no official arm of the institutional Church has a right to give-especially when abortion referrals are coming from his office within the hospital.

Simply put, his privileges at Mercy are tantamount to approving his murder of children at Planned Parenthood, as they are not seen as a moral or ethical impediment to gaining privileges at Mercy.

Next Thursday there will be another protest at the Hospital. It must be made perfectly clear to the officials at Mercy and the Diocese of Pueblo that Grossman’s continued presence is intolerable. He must be confronted and forced to choose. We do him no service in charity by allowing him to live in both worlds.

Folks should contact protest organizer, Daniel Anguis, President of LifeGuard at 970-385-8451.

We should also call the following folks and demand some positive action:

Mercy Regional Medical Center 970-247-4311

Catholic Health Initiatives 303-298-9100

Catholic Diocese of Pueblo 719-544-9861

Catholic Archdiocese of Denver 303-715-3129

More to come on this…

The following is a statement by Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio, Bishop of the Brooklyn Diocese, regarding the passage of the gay marriage bill in New York. The Diocese of Brooklyn is one of the largest in the United States in terms of population, and Bishop DiMarzio’s is therefore a very influential voice. First Bishop DiMarzio’s statement, and then a few comments.

Today, Governor Andrew Cuomo and the state legislature have deconstructed the single most important institution in human history. Republicans and Democrats alike succumbed to powerful political elites and have passed legislation that will undermine our families and as a consequence, our society.

With this vote, Governor Cuomo has opened a new front in the culture wars that are tearing at the fabric of our nation. At a time when so many New Yorkers are struggling to stay in their homes and find jobs, we should be working together to solve these problems. However, the politicians have curried favor with wealthy donors who are proponents of a divisive agenda in order to advance their own careers and futures.

What is needed in our state is leadership and not political gamesmanship.

In light of these disturbing developments and in protest for this decision, I have asked all Catholic schools to refuse any distinction or honors bestowed upon them this year by the governor or any member of the legislature who voted to support this legislation. Furthermore, I have asked all pastors and principals to not invite any state legislator to speak or be present at any parish or school celebration.

The above request is intended as a protest of the corrupt political process in New York State. More than half of all New Yorkers oppose this legislation. Yet, the governor and the state legislature have demonized people of faith, whether they be Muslims, Jews, or Christians, and identified them as bigots and prejudiced, and voted in favor of same-sex “marriage.” It is mystifying that this bill would be passed on the last day of an extended session under the cover of darkness.

This issue has been framed as upholding marriage equality. This is not the case since one of the principal purposes of marriage is to bring new life into the world. This cannot happen in same-sex marriage. It is not a civil rights issue, but rather a human rights issue upholding the age-old understanding of marriage. Our political leaders do not believe their own rhetoric. If they did, how in good conscience could they carve out any exemption for institutions that would be proponents of bigotry and prejudice?

Republicans and Democrats equally share responsibility for this ruinous legislation and we as Catholics should hold all accountable for their actions.

Bishop DiMarzio’s statement is to be lauded as a good first step, but only as a first step. It isn’t enough to refuse honors from, or give honors to legislators. There are members of the Catholic Church who have been waging war against all that we stand for and then walk up on Sunday and receive Holy Communion.

Enough!

The sins of the Ted Kennedys, Andrew Cuomos and Nancy Pelosis are so vast, so deeply rooted, and entirely the fabric of the Democrat Party, that any confession by these people needs to have a public recanting of their deeds and concrete evidence of an action plan to undo them as the penance. If the politician is unwilling to work within the political system to undo their grave injustices and work toward a restoration of justice under law, then they are not contrite.

We have run out the rope on the excuse by so many bishops that we don’t know the private state of their souls. That simply strains credulity. If the politicians remain the same week after week, month after month, year after year, then as we say in Brooklyn, that’s a clue.

It’s a clue to their impenitence, and it is a sin against charity to confirm them in their impenitence by allowing them to eat and drink condemnation upon themselves, as Saint Paul put it.

As I’ve said before on this blog, if the fight was “too political” for the bishops in the past, the threat is now existential going into the future. The faithful are enraged over this law, and the bishops have a once-in-a-generation opportunity here to publicly call upon Catholic pro-abortion, pro-gay marriage politicians to publicly repent or face severe sanctions, beginning with being barred from the Eucharist, and leading to excommunication. There is a small window of opportunity here to reclaim the leadership most have eschewed for far too long.

For great good, or great evil, this is an historical moment for the United States Bishops in general, and New York’s bishops in particular. This is the great moment where the bishops can define what it means to be a Catholic in terms of sacramentality, and how to be a Catholic in the public square. This is the time for a muscular response. The faithful will back them to the hilt.

Carpe Diem!

Update: See Bishop DiMarzio’s condemnation of both parties here.

We have seen in blistering detail the way the Church goes about dealing with the mere allegation of sexual impropriety between consenting adult parties when a priest is involved. If an allegation is deemed credible, the priest is out, laicized. The same for allegations involving minors. This is all to the good in the case of minors, and less so in the case of consensual relation between adults, as we have thoroughly vetted here at Coming Home this past week.

In the case of pro-abortion, pro-gay marriage politicians such as Governor Andrew Cuomo, the time has come for the bishops to remove the gloves. Yesterday, I posted an article by a Canon Lawyer who explored this in some detail. I also posted an article, wherein I opined that we have all, laity and clergy, waited too long and allowed too much corrosion to set in that led to this new gay marriage law. It was simply too little, too late.

Abortion and gay marriage are realities in America in no small measure because of Catholic politicians who have sponsored them and fiercely defended them. But for sporadic cases, one cannot point to the bishops for an example of a comparatively fierce defense of the faith regarding these issues. We see how effective the kid glove treatment has been.

In yesterday’s post, Canon Lawyer Ed Peters makes the case for Governor Cuomo being publicly denied communion until he repents. This is as much for his sake as it is for bringing clarity to the laity. The bishops are far more severe in their treatment of priests based solely on allegations, how much more muscular should their response be to Catholic politicians who visit such atrocity on our nation?

They are either ‘in communion’ with us, oneness in the Body of Christ, or they are not.

It’s time for a Dallas Charter for our rogue Catholics in high office.

Thoughts?

Father John McGuire

Yesterday saw two notable funerals in the Archdiocese of New York. Geraldine Ferraro, the first vice-presidential candidate in U.S. history was buried from Manhattan’s Church of Saint Vincent Ferrer, the Church where Regina and I were married eighteen years ago. Awe-inspiring beauty doesn’t even begin to describe this church. It is without parallel. Filling the pews were politicians of every stripe, including the Clintons and Walter Mondale.

There were eulogies as soaring as the giant vaulted ceiling of the Gothic church, and the stained glass windows whose height seem to defy gravity. Ferraro was a giant in her day, and stood for the equal treatment of women in a time when women truly were second class citizens in many quarters of society. Here at Coming Home, Ferraro’s quest for equal rights is not in question. It is laudable.

How one gets there matters, and that is where our paths diverge.

Ferraro broke with the Church and advocated advancing women on the ever-growing pile of babies’ corpses. In advancing the rights of women on such a blood-soaked platform, Ferraro and her peers chose the innocent on which to vent their righteous rage. In so doing, they surrendered the moral high ground and made of themselves victimizers whose atrocities made their male tormenters’ pale in comparison.

What might our nation look like today if Ferraro had stood at the Democratic Convention and proclaimed that women could get to the promised land without making war on their babies, their bodies, or men? In truth, candidate Ferraro and her message were not the fulfillment of the founders of women’s suffrage, but a repudiation of their values concerning children and family. Ferraro was a grotesque implosion, and the resulting Reagan landslide, the biggest in history, buried her. American women spoke, and proclaimed that Ferraro did not represent them.

So, yesterday Ferraro was lionized by the lions who, like her, are committed to eating our young.

At the same hour, one hundred miles to the North, I sat in the tiny Church of Saint Colman in the sleepy hamlet of East Kingston, New York, as Archbishop Dolan presided over the funeral mass of Father John McGuire. Father McGuire was none of the things that Ferraro was, and was everything she was not.

He wasn’t famous. He wasn’t a household name all over the nation. He was a quiet, humble priest.

Jack began his life of service to the Church as a boy in the early 1940′s when he joined the LaSalle Christian Brothers. He professed final vows in 1949. Jack would go on to earn several master degrees, including one in social work, and he would spend years working in a boy’s reformatory as the head of a cottage, as well as the admissions director.

Jack felt the call to priesthood and left the brothers in the mid-70′s and entered seminary, being ordained for the Archdiocese of New York on November 3, 1979. I didn’t know Jack then, but was in attendance at his ordination to see one of his classmates who was a deacon in my parish.

I met jack in 1981 through Father Luke McCann, another brother in Jack’s community who left and was ordained with Jack. At the time, Jack was struggling with alcohol, went to recovery, and spent the rest of his life helping others with addictive disorders. He became pastor of Saint Colman’s parish and would remain there for the rest of his active ministry.

When I struggled with leaving the seminary and pursuing science, Jack told me to “get the hell out of there and become a doctor. The Church needs your voice in science and medicine, Gerry.”

I never looked back.

Jack busied himself with all of the pastoral duties of a small town church. There was a community of developmentally disabled adults in the area, and when any one of them died, he waked them in the church. He was missing on the altar at Saint Vincent Ferrer on my wedding day, so he could preside at the funeral of a saint with Down Syndrome.

If nothing I am saying about Father Jack seems remarkable, that’s what was so very special about him. He was a priest’s priest. He loved the people, and saw them as far holier than he ever hoped to be. He was an ardent supporter of the pro-life movement and worked tirelessly for the disenfranchised. He spent the last two years of his life living back among the brothers in their nursing home, anointing the dying, hearing confessions and saying daily mass. Jack had come home to live with the boys of his youth.

So yesterday his archbishop and about twenty priests joined the people of the simple little (very little) country church to bid farewell to the man who knew the depths of human despair from his own alcoholism and lifted the weary with his own huge heart and the assurance of God’s love and mercy. We laughed and wept simultaneously at the remembrances of this Irish rogue with a quick smile and a kind word for everyone.

Jack saw the beauty of simplicity, and the strength contained within human frailty and imperfection. He saw through the eyes of faith, through the eyes of his Divine Master what Ferraro could not, did not, and never did see. Jack’s response to injustice was not blame, or death, or anger such as the wicked fury of modern feminism. Jack’s response was love, and prayer, and identifying the real target for change. As Jack always reminded me,

“You need to pray for them, Gerry. You won’t change anything without prayer.”

Nobody knew that better than Jack. He was a great friend and mentor through the years. Yesterday in the small church that he filled with his love we said goodbye to a humble giant, a saint as sure as there has ever been one.

Bishop Patrick V. Ahern

Last week two New York giants died within days of each other; one a pro-abortion political trailblazer who did much to advance abortion, and the other an auxiliary bishop who left behind him a legacy of life-giving love to handicapped children and their families. The politician is Geraldine Ferraro (my commentary on her right to a funeral mass here), and the bishop, none other than Patrick V. Ahern.

Ferraro was the first woman vice-presidential candidate, and rabidly pro-abortion. She hailed from New York City and her nomination electrified the nation. For as earth-shattering as the idea of a woman on the presidential ticket was, the American people weren’t buying what she was selling and buried Mondale-Ferraro in the largest electoral landslide in American History. The only state they carried was Mondale’s home state. Ferraro couldn’t even carry her home state, liberal New York, the first state to legalize abortion on demand fourteen years earlier. It was a bloodbath.

It was the mid-80′s and New York belonged to John Cardinal O’Connor who famously went after Ferraro and then-Governor Mario Cuomo on their irreconcilable pro-abortion polemics and self-professed Catholicism. I had just entered the college seminary system and had the good fortune to go out to dinner one night with Staten Island’s Vicar, Auxiliary Bishop Ahern. At dinner, the conversation turned to Cuomo and his protestation that as Governor he couldn’t push his own private beliefs and that he was bound by an oath sworn on the Bible to uphold the law of the land. As only young men can do, I looked Bishop Ahern dead in the eye and asked if the Church was suggesting that Cuomo violate his oath. I also asked if the Governor was permitted to allow his private faith into public office. Bishop Ahern’s answer was one for the ages.

He smiled his warm and gracious smile and explained that the Church fully expected the Governor to uphold the law of the land and his constitutional oath. However, Bishop Ahern went on, all politicians work from within the political system, using the machinery of politics to effect what they perceive to be just laws. Cuomo as Governor can work with legislators to get legislation sponsored on any matter he believes to be an injustice in need of remediation. That’s what was done in the Civil Rights movement. That he does not is an indication that he’s being less than honest when he claims to be personally opposed to abortion but unable to act on what he believes to be an injustice.

Bishop Ahern went further. Governor Cuomo is personally opposed to capital punishment, yet repeatedly vetoes any legislation put on his desk for signature, that would reinstate capital punishment. Thus, the Governor shows his duplicity, the same for Ferraro who works to enact legislation on a range of issues that are informed by her conscience.

Now that was greatness. They were a great duo, O’Connor and Ahern. Now they’re gone, along with the rest of their pro-life generation of Bishops, There are few left like them. What we have now are men who cower, fearful of losing our tax exempt status should we proclaim the Gospel of Life and hold our Catholic pro abort politicians to account. Such timidity is a death spiral for the Church.

If we cower for fear of losing our tax-exempt status, then what good does that status avail us? We’ll lose the churches in which we cower and no longer boldly proclaim the Gospel. If we refuse to engage the Culture of Death and deal firmly with Catholic generals in the enemy camp, then we should lose our churches.

Christianity thrives when we don’t cower and count the cost of discipleship. That’s the lesson of Mary and the Apostles. The Church withers and dies when we do. That’s the lesson of the current crop of Bishops.

It’s stand and be counted time. It’s also time to fast and pray for our bishops.

I was made aware of this late last night. The following statement is from Fr. Corapi’s website:

A Call for Prayer

All of the allegations in the complaint are false, and I ask you to pray for all concerned.

This is profoundly disturbing on many levels. Father John Corapi is a stalwart pro-life priest (a tragedy that such distinctions exist within the clergy). Unlike Father Euteneuer, there is no admission of any guilt here, and so we are left to ponder a great many dimensions.

First, it is possible that the allegations are true in whole, or in part. While I strongly doubt that may be the case, it is nevertheless a possibility, grounded in the reality of past cases of very public clergy, and people should have that level of awareness.

That of course raises what for me is the absolute certainty of a grotesque immorality that has been committed here, though not by Father Corapi. He has been placed on administrative leave, which is tantamount to being tarred and feathered in public, before any reasonable investigation has taken place. I see no indication in Fr. Corapi’s statement that his bishop has placed him on leave, and it may well be the action of his superior in his order. So before the bishop-bashing swings into high gear, we need some clarification.

However, we are not speaking of children. We are also not speaking of rape. The allegations seem to be about sex between consenting parties. They also happen to be about drug addiction. Regardless of who placed Fr. Corapi on leave, it is an outrage that we have devolved to the point where a man is denied due process and the presumption of innocence (An Enlightenment philosophy benefit, compliments of the protestants, trumping Catholic justice). A discreet investigation using Father’s whiskers, blood, and urine could easily put together a portrait reaching back months regarding drug abuse.

A discreet investigation on the sex charges could also provide some clarity. Taking Father at his word, none of this was done prior to publicly trashing his good name. It’s madness.

If denial of due process and the presumption of innocence are the new norm for our bishops, if the mere accusation of sin merits headline coverage, then our leadership has lost its way. Badly. The stress of such humiliation could well cause a relapse of the cancer and cost Father Corapi his life.

Innocent or guilty, the minimum standard of due process and the presumption of innocence ought to apply to our priests, as they do for the rest of us. That increasingly they do not is a sin greater than a priest’s dalliance. Our priests sacrifice marriage, family, career, etc for us. It’s about time the laity demand justice for the accused. If we don’t, we deserve empty seminaries.

My prayers for the restoration of Father Corapi and his good name, and for the intentions of the woman who has brought these allegations forward.

The Catholic Church has certainly taken its lumps for speaking out consistently against contraception and where it naturally leads. Today we contrast two quotes. They speak to very different visions of the same human reality, and point to a validation of Rome’s visionaries.. The first is from the Church’s Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The second is from the Alan Guttmacher Institute, Planned Parenthood’s statistician. Both excerpts speak for themselves.

SACRED CONGREGATION FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH

DECLARATION ON PROCURED ABORTION

15. The movement for the emancipation of women, insofar as it seeks essentially to free them from all unjust discrimination, is on perfectly sound ground.[22] In the different forms of cultural background there is a great deal to be done in this regard. But one cannot change nature. Nor can one exempt women, any more than men, from what nature demands of them. Furthermore, all publicly recognized freedom is always limited by the certain rights of others.

16. The same must be said of the claim to sexual freedom. If by this expression one is to understand the mastery progressively acquired by reason and by authentic love over instinctive impulse, without diminishing pleasure but keeping it in its proper place – and in this sphere this is the only authentic freedom – then there is nothing to object to. But this kind of freedom will always be careful not to violate justice. If; on the contrary, one is to understand that men and women are “free” to seek sexual pleasure to the point of satiety, without taking into account any law or the essential orientation of sexual life to its fruits of fertility,[23] then this idea has nothing Christian in it. It is even unworthy of man. In any case it does not confer any right to dispose of human life – even if embryonic- or to suppress it on the pretext that it is burdensome.

18. We know what seriousness the problem of birth control can assume for some families and for some countries. That is why the last Council and subsequently the encyclical “Humanae Vitae” of July 25, 1968, spoke of “responsible parenthood.”[24] What we wish to say again with emphasis, as was pointed out in the conciliar constitution “Gaudium et Spes,” in the encyclical “Populorum Progressio” and in other papal documents, is that never, under any pretext, may abortion be resorted to, either by a family or by the political authority, as a legitimate means of regulating births.[25] The damage to moral values is always a greater evil for the common good than any disadvantage in the economic or demographic order.

{The Bishops warned us that contraception took us one long walk down the road to abortion. They were ridiculed as clueless old celibates.}

Then, there is this from Guttmacher:

Contraceptive use is a key predictor of women’s recourse to abortion. The very small group of American women who are at risk of experiencing an unintended pregnancy but are not using contraceptives account for almost half of all abortions. Many of these women did not think they would get pregnant or had concerns about contraceptive methods. The remainder of abortions occur among the much larger group of women who were using contraceptives in the month they became pregnant. Many of these women report difficulty using contraceptives consistently.

This is quite an admission by Guttmacher. The people who hand out the birth control pills like candy indicate elsewhere that 54% of all women presenting for abortion were using contraception in the month in which they became pregnant. In the face of their colossal failure, they claim that what is needed is more contraception.

I love my Bishops.

My article in today’s Headline Bistro:

The Internet is abuzz this week with reports from the U.S. Census Bureau that one-fourth of all U.S. counties are dying. The reasons given are an aging population, an increase of only 9.7% in the U.S. population over the past ten years (the lowest decennial increase since the great depression), and migration to more affluent counties in the midst of a protracted economic slump. Demographers call this “natural decrease.” The etiology, in fact, may not be so natural at all.

In the same decade that “natural decrease” has taken place, Catholic bishops have been closing Catholic schools all over the nation, much to the consternation of the laity. So what’s behind the trend?

First and foremost, we are simply not reproducing as previous generations have done. A smaller population has led to increasing demands for higher salaries, as there is less competition in the domestic labor pool, leading companies to relocate manufacturing overseas where populations are large and the cost of living is low. This has a domino effect throughout the economy.

The fact that we have an aging population and are not producing enough workers to support them in their retirement years is an economic disaster. We are beginning to see this played out in state economies that cannot sustain current civil servant salary, retirement and benefits packages, which are far more generous and comprehensive than those in the private sector.

The Church is not immune from the chaos of what many in the pro-life movement call an impending demographic winter. Parishes and schools are closing at a steady and alarming rate, and it makes perfect sense.

I recall my very large parish, St. Michael’s, in 1960s Brooklyn when I was a child. Every Mass was packed on Sundays. Three priests were on hand to distribute communion. By the early 1970s, the church was half-filled. Today when I visit, it’s one-third filled, and with not so many Masses as we had when I was a child.

The schools and churches were built to accommodate the sizeable immigrant Catholic Church, with their sizeable families, including the Baby Boom generation. In my community, families of four and five children were the norm, and families of seven or more children were not at all uncommon. Logic then dictates that if many families no longer go to church or are active in their faith, and if those who do are only having two children, then we simply do not need the infrastructure built to accommodate an active Catholic populace 50-60% larger than we have today.

Sealing the fate of the Catholic schools and parishes has been the precipitous decline in vocations to the priesthood and religious life. Churches cannot function without priests, and a lay staff of teachers has a higher cost of living than the previous communities of religious.

Underlying all of this has been the overwhelming rejection of the Magisterial teaching articulated in Humanae Vitae. Eighty percent of Catholics simply disregard the Church’s teaching about the use of birth control and the obligation to accept children willingly and lovingly from God. Many who decry the parish and school closings are those who also decry Humanae Vitae, and do not see the connection.

It isn’t rocket science.

If we do not produce a sizeable population of workers, there will be nobody to support us in our age and infirmity. If we do not produce sizeable Catholic families and encourage priesthood and religious life as vocations for our children, our institutional infrastructure will collapse. If we do not encourage our children to live marriage as a sacramental vocation, with all that is required of it, our Church will contract like our dying counties.

The “natural decrease” is largely the result of artificial contraception.

These contractions and the suffering and inconveniences they bring are signs to us that perhaps Humanae Vitae was indeed a relevant document. They also highlight for us some of the blessings that come from openness to large families. If we are wise, if we teach our children well, these contractions can be reversed.

The signs of spring are beginning to emerge in the Church. Vocations to more traditional religious orders are on the rise, along with an uptick in the numbers of seminarians. With a protracted downturn in the economy, many are reconsidering the treadmill of pursuit of material acquisitions and discovering the simpler joys of family life.

We certainly have a long way to go in reclaiming lost ground, but there is a sense that a newness is upon the Church. This includes a fresh look at Humanae Vitae through less rebellious and more sober eyes.

I came home to find this work of beauty on Deacon Kandra’s blog, so for now it’s simply Gloria time. I praise God for this great work to which we are called and for the thousands of eyes being opened. Abba is in charge!

Click the image and listen to the beauty!