Pope Francis vs. Beelzebub: Round 2

I Posted a story about, and a video of, Pope Francis' homily from the Friday before last, which he offered at the Domus Sanctæ Marthæ.  The Gospel passage he preached on was Luke 11:15-26, where Jesus is casting out demons and is accused by the Pharisees of doing so by the power of the Evil One.  The Lord explains that this charge is absurd from the get go because a kingdom divided against itself can not stand.  Satan may be evil, but he isn't dumb; he knows that his only chance at wreaking maximum havoc is to maintain a disciplined unity among his minions (and these aren't the cute, yellow, goggle wearing weebles from Despicable Me we're talking about here).  The Holy Father went out of his way to say that neither Jesus nor the Evangelist were speaking metaphorically about possession, demons and the destructiveness of demonic powers.  

I bring this up because the Holy Father has raised eyebrows on both sides of the ideological divide since his election in March; some perplexed (on the right) others gleeful (on the left).  This divide has been a plague on the Church since at least the end of Vatican II, sapping us of our ability to truly put into practice the true aim of the Council; the evangelization of the contemporary world.  Too many of us within the Church are overly concerned about coming off seeming the most intelligent, most relevant, most enlightened or most orthodox, forgetting that all that really matters is that we all should be holy; which does means being bold and unafraid, but more to the point humble and simple.  

Satan is a real force, a personal being who made a choice to do evil; a choice that because of his angelic nature makes his an eternal option.  To paraphrase the Holy Father, his existence and mission are real not because I say it, or the Pope says it, but because the scripture says it.  How we understand the nature of demons may be a bit murky if we stick with the Old Testament, but by the time of Jesus things are made clear; Satan is not simply a jokster or some kind of cosmic prosecutor.  He is the Enemy who has set his back to The Lord, and is a murderer from the beginning.  This is not true because any earthly myth or legend says it's so, it is true because Our Lord and His faithful witnesses do.

There are those that in the light of modern psychology try to explain away these passages.  They are mistaken, as much as those who try to dismiss the Sermon on the Mount as some sort of pious impossibility.  Both are real and the challenge is to embrace them, along with accepting all the hard teachings required of a disciple.

If we do not learn to embrace the whole Gospel we will continue to be divided by idiological lines.  The Evil One is very happy with this.  While we squabble over the "true meaning of Vatican II" or the proper posture of the priest during Mass we are giving the devil a head start to steal souls.  Does this mean we shouldn't care about or discuss things like the direction the Church should be taking or how the liturgy should be celebrated?  Of course not.  But we have to understand that the average woman on the street doesn't care about how Lumen Gentium, 9 should be read or if the priest should be facing east or west during the Canon of the Mass.   Insignificant issues?  No.  But to a person on the outside, a person searching and poking her head in to the Church to see if Christ really will fulfill the longings of her soul these discussions probably strike her as navel gazing and more than a bit obtuse.  Rather than a refuge from an idiologicly confused and relativistic world, she sees nothing but a mirror image of the chaos she is trying to leave behind.

Unlike the Enemy we do not see the value in being united.  We are happy to be divided up, not only Protestants, Catholics and Orthodox, but also within our own tribes (high church, low church, evangelical, nondenominational or what have you).  While we argue and keep a distance, Satan is cleaning our collective clocks.  Are there not real issues dividing those who bear the name Christian that can't be airbrushed away?  Yes.  But when we can't even agree on who the Enemy really is, or if he exists at all, we are not as intelligent, relevant, enlightened or orthodox as we suppose.

The Pope understands that greatest weapons against the devil are humility and unity.  It's time for us to stop worrying about if the Holy Father will change this teaching or that, and if it will be to our liking, and stand with him in the battle for souls. 

Salesian Loyalty to the Pope

I've always made it an unofficial part of what is an already loosely defined editorial agenda here at The Ax to cover the Pope, no matter who the pope happens to be, and explain his words and defend him as necessary (like he needs me to explain or defend him).  I did this with Pope Benedict, and I continue with Pope Francis.  It's important to me because I am a Salesian, and loyalty to the Pope is a central part of our spirit.  Don Bosco had a close relationship with Bl. Pius IX,  and a more distant one with his successor Leo XIII.  But when the latter pontiff asked Don Bosco to build the Basilica of the Sacred Heart for him the saint put all his energy into the project, to the point of possibly losing his health over it.  And so it is, or should be; our loyalty is not to Joseph Ratzinger or Jorge Bergoglio, but to the Pope, no matter who he is.  Though I must admit that it is with more than a little pride that I can mention that the Holy Father attended a Salesian school as a child.

The 6th grade graduation picture at the Salesian College of Ramos Mejia c. 1949.

At this point, seven months into his pontificate, I've already written more posts about the pope than in the previous three years of this blog's existence, during Benedict XVI's reign.   This is due in large part because of how new the Franciscan Papacy is.  Even though he's not much younger than Cardinal Ratzinger was at the time of his election, Pope Francis is demonstrating a dynamism and charisma that has seemed to be missing since the first decade or so of John Paul II.  While it was less than ten years ago, it seems many forget that there was a buzz surrounding Benedict's first months in the Chair of Peter, and how he was attracting larger crowds to the Wednesday Audiences than Bl. John Paul II.  Peggy Noonan wrote that people came to see John Paul, but they were listening to Benedict.  Yes, he was called "God's Rottweiler," and people viewed him as coming out of JPII's shadow, much like George H.W. Bush emerged from Ronald Reagan's when he became president, but people were also noting differences in style.  Benedict was going off script more than his predecessor did, speaking of himself, as well as the apostles he succeeded as sinners in need of God's grace. (sound familiar?).  

Without a doubt Francis' personal style is much different that that of Benedict, his ascendancy has brought with it a bigger dose of "buzz" than previously, and for good reason.  If people came to hear Benedict, they are hanging on every word that proceeds from Francis' mouth--words that are coming at us almost daily and in differing forms than have been used by pontiffs the past.  He is using interviews, off the cuff comments to reporters at impromptu news conferences, his daily homilies (which can be found most days on You Tube) among other informal methods of communication to get his message across.  This has been beneficial for the faithful and non-believers alike , but has also left the Holy Father open to misinterpretation, a modern danger for any pope in this secular, multimedia age.  But even more so now with a Pope who speaks simply, but in small chunks that can leave room for doubt as to what he "really means."

There is no denying that Francis is shifting emphasis from his predecessors.  He still thinks abortion is evil--the product of a disposable culture that sees value in convenience and instant gratification over the deeper values of life, but wants us to also think about economy justice and the plight of the poor as life issues.  He still teaches that marriage is a union of one man and one woman, and that young people should have the courage to settle down and raise families, but he also doesn't think we should single out or target gays as somehow the greatest sinners in the world, or the root of the world's problems.  The temptation among some long suffering progressives in the Church, who feel they haven't had a "pope of their own" since Paul VI is to read the change of emphasis as a change in doctrine; that Francis somehow wants to do away with the "old rules" and usher in some Post Vatican II Golden Age, or what Ross Douthat calls the desire to "Episcopalianize" the Catholic Church.  I think before we get too far ahead of ourselves we need to do what I've been saying for a while now; take a deep breath, exhale and really see what the Pope is saying.  

The Salesian Rector Major, Don Pascual Chavez Villanueva (center) visiting Pope Francis 

The temptation for the more conservative or traditionalist Catholics is to think that the Church is going to fly off the rails somehow with a "liberal" pope at the controls.  I don't worry, I really don't.  I am a part of the John Paul II Generation of priests who came of age during his pontificate, and was reading Cardinal Ratzinger's books before he became Benedict XVI.  In Francis I see a Salesian educated Jesuit with vast pastoral, as well as academic experience who's putting a human face on Catholic doctrine, connecting them to the Gospel, putting Jesus first.  Not that his predecessors didn't, but their scholarly style may have distracted some from that fact.  I don't worry.  Like Don Bosco I'm with the Pope, now as much as ever.

Next time out I'll give you a more concrete reason why Pope Francis is right on target when we take a second look on his recent comments about Jesus and the existence of the Evil One.

Pope Francis vs. Beelzebub: Round 1

Here's something from Asia News on the sermon Pope Francis gave this morning, and a clip of the Holy Father's remarks from the Vatican You Tube page.  I'm going to have something to say on this a little later.


Vatican City ( AsiaNews) - "We must always remain vigilant, on guard against deception, against the seduction of evil, " because the devil, against whom Jesus truly fought and won," always tries to come back," to "take possession of us. "

Today's Gospel in which Jesus responds to some who accuse him of casting out demons in the name of Beelzebub, gave Pope Francis occasion to warn about the reality of the struggle against the devil, for which he offered three "criteria" of " vigilance. "

During the Mass celebrated this morning at Casa Santa Marta, the Pope, as reported by Vatican Radio, noted that all along, " and even in our days " , there is the temptation to belittle the figure of Jesus.
 
"Some priests when they read this Gospel passage, this and others, say : 'But , Jesus healed a person from a mental illness .' They do not read this here , right? It 's true that at that time you could confuse epilepsy with demonic possession, but it is also true that there was the devil! And we have no right to simplify the thing, as if to say: 'They were not possessed ; they were mentally ill .' No! The presence of the devil is in the first page of the Bible and the Bible ends with the presence of the devil, with God's victory over the devil. "

For this reason "we must not be naive". The Pope, therefore, observed that the Lord gives us some criteria to "discern" the presence of evil and to chose "the Christian path when there are temptations ." One of the criteria is "not to follow Jesus' victory over evil "only "halfway". "You're either with me - says the Lord - or you're against me." Jesus came to destroy the devil, "to liberate us" from the "slavery of the devil upon us ." And you can not say that this is an "exaggeration" . "At this point there are no grey areas. There is a battle, a battle where salvation is in play, eternal salvation , eternal salvation" for all of us. Then there is the criterion of vigilance. "We must always remain vigilant, on guard against deception, against the seduction of the evil one".

"And we should ask ourselves this question: 'Am I watching over myself, my heart, my sentiments, my thoughts? Do I still preserve the treasure of grace? Do I still preserve the presence of the Holy Spirit in me, or do I leave it, certain in the belief it is? ' But if you do not safeguard it, along comes someone stronger than you . But when someone stronger attacks it and overcomes it, he takes away the weapons in which one trusted, and divides the spoil. Vigilance ! With three criteria: Do not confuse the truth . Jesus fought against the devil: the first criterion . Second criteria: whoever is not with Jesus, it is against Jesus, there is no halfway. Third criterion: keep guard of our hearts , because the devil is cunning . He is never completely banished, only on the last day will he be. "

Jesus said that when the unclean spirit leaves someone " it haunts desert places , seeking rest and finding none it says : 'I will return to the house from which I came .' And when he finds it " swept and decorated". Then it goes "gathers seven other spirits more wicked than itself , and they take up their abode are". And so , "the last state of that man becomes worse than it first was".

"Vigilance! Because his strategy is this: 'You became Christian. Advance in your faith. I will leave you. I will leave you tranquil. But then when you are used to not being so watchful and you feel secure, I will come back'. The Gospel today begins with the devil being cast out and ends with the devil coming back! St. Peter would say: 'It is like a fierce lion that circles us'. It is like that. 'But, Father, you a little ancient. You are frightening us with these things...' No, not me! It is the Gospel! And these are not lies: it is the Word of the Lord! Let us ask the Lord for the grace to take these things seriously. He came to fight for our salvation. He conquered the devil ! Please do not do business with the devil ! He tries to find his home, to take possession of us ... Do not relativize this, be on guard! And always with Jesus! "

Fr. Barron Comments on the Pope Francis Interview

St. Francis of Assisi: The Transitus

Another Papal Interview

I was preparing a post about October being the Month of the Rosary and chock full of important saint's days, when I saw that Pope Francis has been interviewed yet again; this time in a secular Italian publication.  Eugenio Scalfari, the veteran journalist and publisher who conducted the tete a tete, is a self proclaimed non-believer who also stresses that he is not anti-clerical.  And he has reason not to be; after he deserted the Italian Army during World War II he was hidden in a Jesuit residence.


The interview is not long, and you can read it for yourselves, so I won't waste time with a line by line review.  I'll just give a few impressions.

The Pope as Happy Culture Warrior
The Holy Father approaches the encounter as a meeting of minds seeking understanding, not as a missionary meeting a heathen in search of a convert (he calls proselytizing "solemn nonsense.")  This doesn't mean that Pope Francis is somehow passive or without an edge.  While it is very obvious that this is a congenial encounter, at one point the Pope makes Scalfari articulate what he believes in if not in God.  It's always hard to judge tone in the written word, but it strikes me as a very forceful, passionate moment in the interview.  The interviewer becomes the interviewee, with the new interrogator always respecting the person while probing the ideas, challenging assumptions.

Also, while some might accuse Francis of being too subjective when he says that a non-believer following his or her conscience, that is following one's natural inclinations as to good versus evil, would be enough to make the world a better place, he speaks of grace in purely objective terms.  When Scalfari expresses incredulity that a non-believer could be touched by grace the Pope tells him that grace touches the soul, not the consciousness, so that we are unaware when of it.  Scalfari protests that he doesn't believe in the soul, to which the Pope assures him that he has one irregardless of what he believes.  The Pope is here to debate, but he's not accepting the world's terms, or acting like he has to necessarily defend Christianity's basic assumptions.  He is willing to be challenged as well as to lay down the gauntlet himself, always with respect, vigor and joy.

The Worldly and the Spiritual Intersect
The Pope states that the most serious evils facing the world right now are youth unemployment and the loneliness of the elderly.  He is asked if these are not matters for governments and trade unions to sort out.  Francis agrees, but stresses that these conditions touch body and soul.  They sap the person economically and emotionally, robbing them of hope for a better life and a feeling of belonging in the social community.  But they also touch the soul.  The Church as an institution is not to get involved with politics, but the People of God certainly have this responsibility to be involved in the shaping of the public order.  Catholics do this not as people who seek to dominate, but rather contribute.

The Holy Father also stressed the importance of mysticism.  The Church has a distinct role from that of government, which is secular by nature.  We come to certain conclusions about what constitutes the correct social order because we have met Jesus Christ, not because we adhere to some political ideology.  He states clearly that "Religion without mysticism is philosophy."  While he does not see himself as being a mystic in the strict sense, he has had what he would describe as brushes with the mystical, particularly when he was elected and asked for a few moments to reflect before accepting.  While politics and religion are distinct, you can gather from the Holy Father's words he believes that faith brings with it political implications, even if the Church as an institution needs to let the state do it's job free of interference.  

The Liberation Theology Pope?
This is strictly me musing a bit, but a lot of ink has been spilt over Francis' views on liberation theology, and that his election signals a sea change in the Vatican's attitude toward that controversial theological school of thought.  Both Bl. John Paul II and Benedict XVI were cool to LT, but with Francis, a native of the region where it was born, meeting recently with LT's founding father Gustavo Gutierrez there is much speculation that the theology of liberation's time has come.  I think we need to take a pause and a deep breath on that one.

It is true that the Pope has spoken on economic justice, both as Archbishop of Buenos Aires and in his recent interviews and talks.  It's safe to say that Francis, like most European and Latin American prelates, can probably be best described as a social democrat (as was JP II and BXVI).  In other words he believes in more government oversight of the economy than your average Republican, but is no Marxist.  He has stressed in the past that there is not one liberation theology, but rather theologies of liberation, some in greater accord with Church teaching than others.  Someone at a private audience with the Pope after the sit down with Fr. Gutierrez indicated that Francis made it clear that the approval of the theologian's work given by a curial cardinal was that person's personal opinion and did not necessarily reflect Francis' point of view.   Even in the latest interview the Holy father talks about the need for economic rules, but that "if necessary direct intervention from the state to correct the more intolerable inequalities" should happen (emphasis mine).   

Again, I'm not arguing that Francis is a free market libertarian.  He also said that "Personally I think so-called unrestrained liberalism only makes the strong stronger and the weak weaker and excludes the most excluded."  He means liberalism in the classical sense, not in today's U.S. political usage.  His words tell me that his threshold for when government should intervene into the economy would be lower than mine, but he still doesn't see the state as the first or only line of defense against economic injustice.  

In other words Francis will not be afraid to appeal to elements of LT, but is a true believer in Christ, not in an ideology, even one that dresses in theological cloths.
    
Who's Wig is the Holy Father Twisting?
It is becoming a cliche to say that Pope Francis is the liberal (in the contemporary political sense) answer to Benedict and John Paul.  There is no doubt that some conservative minded or traditionalist Catholics are nervous about the Pope's recent statements.  As one friend said to me recently, "I love Pope Francis, I just wish he wouldn't talk so much."  

If I can be so bold, both liberals and conservatives in the Church are getting things wrong.  We can't view the Holy Father's words through the lens of ideology or politics.  He is not advocating fundamental changes in doctrine but in structure and emphasis.  Look to his words on clericalism and role of Church councils and synods in Church governance and you will find the key to understanding the Pope's mind.  

Conservatives should be nervous about talk of conciliarism, but liberals shouldn't think they're off the hook when he speaks of clericalism.  Clericalism takes many forms, and I've encountered it here in the States, but also in Latin America where the clergy has by and large abandoned the use of clerical dress and some like to think of themselves as a part of the "People's Church."  It can take the form of priests overly concerned with liturgical pomp and circumstance and with those who are entrenched in diocesan bureaucracies more concerned with the maintenance of the Church "machinery" than in extending the mission they are there to serve.  In my experience people who think of themselves as progressive fall into the trap of clericalism just a easily those on the right.  If we think the Pope's words are meant for "the other guy," we better think twice.  The call is to move beyond ideology and into the pure light of the Gospel, and that should make all of us a little nervous.

St. Jerome from AOP

Third in a Series: Fr. Barron comments on The Sacrament of the Eucharist as Real Presence

The Value of Silence from AOP

Quick Takes: The Pope and Prince Amukamara

Further Thoughts on Pope Francis' Interview 

As I hinted at previously the Pope's recent interview, along with other statements he has made, has been read by many in both secular and Church circles as representing a change of policy, much like what happens when a new political party comes into power in a country, at the Vatican.  There is no doubt that Francis' words and actions are a change of tone over previous pontificates, but we should be careful not to read a change of substance in the Pope's words.  As I wrote before, the Pope has spoken out against abortion recently, and the Catholic News Agency reported today that he ordered the excommunication of a priest in Australia, functioning without the proper faculties, who was publicly supporting gay marriage and abortion.  As one cardinal put it in response to questions of Francis' orthodoxy, the Pope is still Catholic.

Nonetheless there are those who would normally be considered on the "right" and involved with the pro-life movement who are troubled by the Holy Father's words.  Janet Smith, apologist, speaker and philosophy professor at the University of Dallas, who has been out spoken for years about the evils of artificial contraception and abortion, wrote a piece in First Things questioning what the Pope meant by saying we shouldn't be "obsessed" with particular moral issues when preaching the Gospel.  While she is never hostile toward the Pope, and strikes a conciliatory note at the end, you can feel the hurt and confusion of one toiling faithfully in the fields for years who feels a bit betrayed (she doesn't say that, this is strictly my impression of the article).

I  have a great deal of respect for Dr. Smith, and have often drawn on her materials in preparing classes and homilies.  I don't disagree with many of the points she makes, but in the end we have to match the words and the actions together.  The Holy Father is trying to stress the love God has for us all while pointing out that sin is ugly.  He is telling us that we need to be mindful of a wide variety of concerns, and at the same time he isn't afraid to discipline someone who steps out of line in very particular ways.    

A Prince Among Men

New York (Football) Giants corner back Prince Amukamara revealed in an interview on the Muscle and Fitness website that some of his teammates call him the "Black Tim Tebow."  The 24 year old is engaged to be married, but is "unashamed" to say that the is a virgin and has never had an alcoholic drink in his life.  He is a practicing Catholic, and from his youth has seen the path of chastity and sobriety as a way to heaven.  He does say that he might break the no drinking policy at his bachelor party, though I hope he takes that one slow.

My first reaction was: Fantastic.  Professional athletes, musicians, actors and just about anyone in the sports and entertainment field are surrounded by temptations the average person can't imagine.  That is a big reason why lasting, lifelong marriages are so hard to come by in Hollywood.  Add on to that the ego that goes along with being in the NFL, and the sense of entitlement so many young, suddenly rich and famous people often feel; to not let it go to your head, to stay grounded and true to your faith is quite an accomplishment.  For a game that has been marred in recent years by stories of murder and off the field violence, the Tebows and Amukamaras of the world come as breath of fresh air.

My second reaction was, what a shame he felt compelled to say that he "wasn't ashamed" of living his faith. Against living virtuously there is no law, except in the eyes of the twisted.  But ours is such an age when virtue makes headlines.  I noticed the story last week on Drudge, who linked to the local CBS afiliate in New York, and the next morning it was all over the place, even making London's Daily Mail.  It reminded me a little bit of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, where monogamy is thought of as perverted, and any one who only sleeps with only one partner is thought of as "one of those girls."

Prince, congratulatuions on your upcoming nuptuals, and remember;  If you stay true to the faith you'll never have to worry about feeling ashamed (well, maybe except for how the G-Men have played the first three weeks of the season).

The Pope's Interview: What He "Really" Means

 
Back in the 1960's, shortly after the Second Vatican Council, Rome announced modifications to the Friday abstinence from meat, which was in effect for the entire year, not just during Lent.  In essence, Friday was still to be observed as a day of penance in commemoration of Our Lord's Passion, but one could substitute some other appropriate penance for the ordinary practice of going meatless.  Individual dioceses were also able to modify the observance in light of local customs.  But not eating meat was still considered the ordinary way of observing Friday as a day of penance, with the Lenten practice of meatless Fridays remaining in force.  This is still the prescribed discipline of the Church today.  By the time the secular press got hold of the story it was reduced to VATICAN SAYS: HOT DOGS FOR EVERYONE ON FRIDAYS.  That meat was now permissible fare on Fridays, without any of the nuances, was all most of the faithful, and even many priests, ever heard about the change.  As one priest who lived through that period told me, most Catholics, including priests, got their news about the Church from secular tabloids like The New York Daily News more than from the L' Osservatore Romano.  To this day most Catholics think the Church changed Her long standing discipline without qualification.  I will admit that in the big picture whether you eat meat or not on Friday may seem like a small matter, but the example is illustrative of how the secular press often over simplifies stories about the Church, and sometimes just gets them plain wrong.
This past Friday I was on my way to the airport and saw a man standing on a median at a traffic light selling the paper.  It was the Sun-Times, which is the tabloid daily here in Chicago.  He wore a nylon vest with a see-through panel on the front and back that housed the front page.  The headline was bold and succinct as you would expect from a tabloid: POPE RIPS FOCUS ON GAYS, ABORTION. The Sun-Times was making reference to an interview of Pope Francis published last week in several Jesuit journals around the world and here in the States by the Society of Jesus' flagship publication America.  I read the interview finally, after hearing and reading much about it and can say that the Holy Father "rips" no one.  His comments about gays, abortion and contraception were less than a paragraph of a rather lengthy interview that covers a variety of topics.  He isn't supporting same sex marriage or suggesting abortion is OK. In fact the day after the interview first appeared His Holiness met with a gathering of Italian OG-BYNs and spoke of the evils of abortion and the need to promote the Gospel of Life.  So what did the Pope mean? 

What the Holy Father is saying that what comes first and foremost is the proclamation of the Gospel message of salvation and repentance.  We live in a wounded world with people who are spiritually injured and these wounds need to be healed first.  He likens the Church to a field hospital.  In a triage situation where a person has a compound fracture and is bleeding to death you don't ask about his cholesterol and blood sugar - to use Pope Francis' example.  There is time for that once the patient has been stabilized.  But the first proclamation of the Gospel needs to be about God's love and mercy.  Once the person has been introduced to Jesus Christ, and has that personal encounter with Him then the doctrines and moral  teachings can be introduced in a more systematic way.  Once the person knows Jesus, has a relationship with Him the doctrines will be better understood and seen as flowing naturally from being a disciple, as opposed to being a "disjointed" collection of moral imperatives that don't seem to have a link to life in general, let alone to life in Christ.

The Holy Father is at once subtle and clear that we are to always separate behavior from the person.  In the case of homosexuals, the teaching is clear on homosexual acts, and as a son of the Church the Pope holds to them.  But we also have the person who is a child of God who needs to be treated as such; with respect, dignity and love. 

Is the truth of the Church's teachings on human sexuality to be taught and proclaimed?  Yes.  But so are Her teachings on social justice, respect for the environment, the dignity of the disabled, the proper care of the sick and the need for an active and deep prayer life, to name a few things.  We need to preach it all, but as Pope Francis said, we don't have to preach it all at once.  So when the Pope talks to gynecologists he'll speak about abortion, and when he speaks to the unemployed in Sardinia, as he did the other day, he'll speak of the dangers of globalization and the need for an economic system that puts people and their right to work ahead of greed.  He will chose the right time and place to proclaim the message needed in the moment, and he is reminding all of us charged with preaching to do the same. 

In the end the reaction to the Pope's interview highlights our contemporary crisis of a politicized Church, with people taking sides as liberals and conservatives.  With his words of conciliation and talk of mercy many liberals see an ally in Pope Francis, hoping that the changes they've been waiting for since 1965 are finally on the way.  Conservatives, stung that the Holy Father is seemingly not as stringent on liturgy and "hammering heretics" as his immediate predecessors are scrambling to explain what the Pope really meant. This misses the point.  We are neither a liberal nor a conservative Church in the way that the world understands these words.  Christ is concerned about the poor and the afflicted, wants us to form a more perfect and just world.  He also calls us as individuals to a high standard of personal holiness and self control. He is interested about what goes on in the chambers of the senate and also in the spiritual chambers of our hearts, and yes, even in the privacy of our bedrooms.  Nonetheless we can never reduce Him to a political candidate, a self help guru or puritanical moralist.  He loves us with the deepest love imaginable, beyond our imagining, really, but will never flash an OK sign at us and say, "Your OK, I'm OK."  He will always challenge us to move beyond our opinions, beyond our certitudes and beyond our comfort to surrender all to Him. 

And one final message to everyone out there: beware stories about the Church appearing in the secular news services, be they print, radio or television.  They usually over simplyfy things and force bloggers like me to slave over  posts like this.

Lasting Peace

Last Saturday, September 7, the Holy Father asked Catholics to fast and pray for peace in Syria.  While there appears to be a diplomatic solution in the offing, the outcome of the crisis is still in doubt, albeit less so than forty-eight hours ago.  In taking such a strong stand against military action Pope Francis has faced criticism from some people in the press.  He has been accused of taking sides against the United Stated in the conflict.  This is a misinterpretation of the Pope’s words and actions.  He is calling on all sides to slow down, use the diplomatic process and avoid a conflict that could grow into a wider, far more destructive war.  The Holy Father is calling upon us,  as disciples of Christ, to use our spiritual weapons, namely prayer and fasting, to aid in bringing healing to a world in conflict.

This striving for peace must not be confined to nice thoughts or abstract wishes.  We must make peace an everyday reality of our lives.  It is true that we as individuals can do little to influence the course of human events directly and immediately.  We are living our everyday lives; trying to make a living, or going to school.  Maybe we are retired.  Either way we have worries of our own right here.  We are not great and powerful people.  How can we make world peace a reality?

We help make world peace a reality by making peace right here and now with the people we live with and around.  When we forgive a brother or sister who has offended us, we are making a more peaceful world.  When we act with kindness toward a neighbor, especially one we may not get along with, we are making the world more peaceful.  When we reconcile with someone who has offended us, or we reach out a hand and seek forgiveness for our own sins, we are making the world more peaceful.  We shouldn’t think of the world as only places that are far away.  The world for us is the house and the block in.  It is the place we work and the school we attend.  If there is no peace in these places we should not be surprised when there is no peace in the wider world.  

As active and honest citizens should we vote, call our congressman and sign petitions?  Yes.  But all the political action will be useless if there is no conversion of heart.  There is a saying that all politics is local.  We can also say that the struggle for peace in the world begins locally.  Actually, we should say it begins inside of each and every one of us.  The Holy Father asked us for a day of fasting and prayer, and I would like to think that the quick turn of events is a result of our heeding of this call.  But we simply can’t return to old ways once the crisis is diverted and expect lasting change.  An attitude of simplicity, self-denial and openness to the Spirit of reconciliation is a key to forming a world of true peace; not for a day or an evening, but every day and at every moment, beginning with the people right around us.  May Christ our light open our hearts and minds so that we can be peacemakers right here and now in the place we live.  

Here is Pope Francis in his own words from last Saturday

Blue Jasmine // Movie Review

 

I slipped away for a few hours last week and saw the latest Woody Allen directed film Blue Jasmine.  I would not count this as a must see, except if you are a dedicated Allen fan.  This is not a comedy, though it does have plenty of comedic touches.  That it's a drama is not why I don't recommend it.  Allen can do serious material.  He is also under-appreciated as a visual director, I think, and his keen sense of composition and the taking in of majestic landscapes is on display here.  But it is the writing, the thing that he's best known for, that bogs the movie down. There is a certain out of touch quality to Blue Jasmine, derived I think from a combination of the writer-director's age and socio-economic class, that makes it feel like he's imagining what his working class characters must be like without actually having met any in real life.   They're sympathetic, but more than a little superficial in their rendering.

To put it in a nutshell; Cate Blanchett plays the title character; a woman married to a Bernie Madoff like swindler (Alec Baldwin).  She's living the high life in New York, willfully unaware of her husband's crooked business dealings and numerous marital infidelities.  Eventually he's found out, on both counts; needless to say they lose it all.   The husband goes to jail, eventually commits suicide, and the emotionally fragile Jasmine goes to live with her working class sister in San Francisco.  Both sisters were adopted, and there is this ongoing debate between them, which never seems to go anywhere, as to whether genes are responsible for the divergence in their social standings.  The story is told in flashbacks, and we see that Jasmine was emotionally brittle even before her fall from grace, and may be responsible, in part, for her predicament.

Allen makes about a movie a year and writes his own material.  This is a clear formula for plenty of hits and misses, and this is a miss.  I didn't catch last year's To Rome with Love, but did see Midnight in Paris, and liked it very much.  But even there, as with Blue Jasmine, I was aware the entire time that Woody Allen had written the dialogue.  He has this strange way of trying to sound natural that still comes off as mannered and contrived.  I find this less problematic with comedy, but with drama it seems to undercut the power of the performances.  And beyond the visuals, the strength of this film lies in the performances, especially by Blanchett and Baldwin.  Unfortunately they are made to deliver lines that I'm not sure real people would ever say, or at least not in the way they're formulated.  The big exception is one scene between Blanchett and Baldwin that I have a strange feeling is mirroring real life way more than the whole Madoff thing they have going on here. 

As I think I've said in other places, mediocre Woody Allen is still better than most film makers out there when they bring their "A Game."  So a reluctant pass on Blue Jasmine, but maybe wait for the DVD and catch it then.

One of the Proud 77%

Of the many things I began to write about over the last several months but never finished was something on a poll Rasmussen released around Easter Week reporting that 86 percent of respondents believe Jesus was an actual historical figure, with 77% believing he resurrected. One of the big claims that the new atheists try to push is the idea that Jesus never really lived; he was a myth created by the early Church, and possibly by St. Paul.  The numbers seem to indicate that they are not making great inroads, if we take into account that the non Christian population in the US is growing, a group that would be disinclined to believe in the Resurrection to begin with.

But what of this idea that Jesus never existed?  It is true that he never wrote anything that we know about, outside of those mysterious scribblings he made on the ground with his finger when he confronted those who accused the woman caught in adultery.  The very claim that he rose from the dead discounts skeletal remains.  There is no birth certificate or obituary we can look at, even if such things existed back in the first century.  We don't seem to have any contemporary accounts of Jesus' life, outside of the Jewish historian Flavious Josephus.  But the brief passages referring to Jesus are suspected of being a later incursion into to text, and are so unreliable (though there does seem to be scholars who take varying positions on the topic).

When it comes to the historical reality of Jesus we have are two things we can hang our hat on, as I see it.

One is that we do have the New Testament cannon that is unjustly discounted because of their standing as Sacred Scripture.  Yes, they tell stories of the miraculous, and so what?  Even if you don't believe Jesus was a worker of wonders, all it proves is that his followers liked to guild the rose a bit (a position I do not take, of course).  The Evangelists, especially Luke goes to great lengths to place Jesus' life in an historical context, unlike the ancient myths, and in John there is constant harping about how all that was described was being communicated by a witness to the events; a witness whose testimony is true.  The Evangelists name the names of people who were at the cross or on the road to Emmaus, as if to say, "if you don't believe me, go ask them. They're still alive (at the time of this writing), they can set you straight."

Beyond the four canonical Gospels, we have the letters of Paul, as well as the others.  They were written before the Gospel accounts and attest to Jesus' death and resurrection.  Along with "Jesus Birthers" there are those who question Jesus' divinity, or his self understanding of his divine nature.  They will go as far as to claim that the Evangelists made it up, or that the Gospels really don't say that he's God.  Well, if the Gospels don't convince you, then go to the letters, written twenty to thirty years before the Gospels.  Here we see a firm profession of the divinity of Jesus and the bodily resurrection.  These were what the early Christians believed going back to the first generation, attested to by witnesses (Peter) and by those who consulted with those who knew the Lord during his earthy ministry (Paul).

The second point is that so many, including ten of the surviving 12 Apostles died as martyrs.  Judas committed suicide and John died as an old man, but endured exiles and torture for the faith.  Unlike our own time and place, in the Mediterranean of the first century everybody was religious, and it was a very public thing.  Most people were polytheistic.  One of the popular God's was Sol Invictus - the Unconquered  Sun, and while he was very popular, as Pope Francis writes in his first Encyclical, quoting Justin Martyr, no one was know to be willing to die for his belief in the sun god.  Yet thousands gave their lives for their belief in the Son of God, Jesus Christ.  It's possible for a few fanatics to give their lives for a myth maybe, but only if they were also insane; but thousands over centuries starting right from the beginning?  I doubt it.  Someone would have cracked.  Sure, some ran away to save their hides, but none said it was a scam.


And so yes, I believe in Jesus the historical person and Resurrected Savior.  I believe because it's reasonable to me, as well as being a matter of faith.  In the end, I wouldn't put my faith in something that didn't make sense. 

The Pope's Monthly Prayer Intention: For Persecuted Christians

The Passion of Saint John the Baptist

Back in June we celebrated the nativity of St. John the Baptist, the only birth we observe on the liturgical calendar, other than those of Jesus and Mary.  John is the last of the Old Testament prophets, and his life is intimately intertwined with our Lord's from the time of their respective conceptions.  John's, in Old Testament style, was miraculous in so far as God guided nature, taking one who was thought to be baron (St. Elizabeth) and allowing her to be her fertile, causing surprise and wonder in the people.  With Jesus, he shows that he is the master of nature, intervening in human affairs in such a way as to totally surpass people's expectations.   

In his death we see that John was a true prophet, suffering and dying for the Word he professed.  It is no accident that the first reading from today's Mass is from the book of Jeremiah.  This past Sunday we heard that he was thrown down a well by the officials of Jerusalem because he was preaching against war and foreign alliances that would lead to doom.  Tradition tells us that he left the city as it was falling to the enemy, only to be murdered in Egypt.  He accepted the call to preach as we heard today, but professing the Word of God came at a great personal cost.

John also was fearless in his preaching of the Word.  He preached justice, equity and personal repentance.  His words were strong, calling those who came out to him a "brood of vipers" who needed to repent and so avoid the great wrath that was to come.  It was not for these things that he was beheaded though.  John told Herod, the puppet ruler of Galilee, that it was not lawful for him to have Herodias, his sister-in-law, as his wife while his brother was still alive.  John was defending the sanctity of marriage, and touching upon something so personal to Herod's way of life that it excited his ire.  He had John arrested, and Herodias manipulated a situation to effect his execution.

Today the Church is called to be prophetic.  She is vocal on issues of economic justice, racial equality, immigration reform and other social issues as seen through the lens of the Gospel.  When we do we are sometimes criticized, sometimes lauded and mainly, it seems to me, ignored.  But when we get up and say that marriage is a union of one man and one woman, for the good of the couple and the raising of a family we are accused of every vile epitaph imaginable.  We are called bigots and homophobes.  The former Archbishop of Buenos Aires was heavily criticized by that country's president for preaching that core doctrine of the faith (for those who don't know who I'm referring to, the archbishop in question is now the much lauded Pope Francis).   When we preach these truths we are touching to core of the human person.  Economics and politics can seem distant to us, especially in this age when the news has been dumbed down to such a large extent.  But our sexuality is tied to our inner self and identity, and so if we are told that maybe we are misusing it we react, sometimes violently, to the messenger.  But preach the truth we must in season and out, no matter the cost.

We do not preach this out of hate, but out of love.  I don't want to see people persecuted or abused because of their sexual orientation.  I believe that what goes on in the privacy of people's homes is none of my business, unless lives are in danger or they want to make it my business by way of the confessional.  I believe who people choose to live with is none of my business, for that matter.  But I can't believe in same sex marriages because it can never be a marriage in the way the Christian community has always understood it.  And just so gays don't think that I'm singling them out, straight couples who purposely exclude the possibility of children from their lives are in relationships that fall short of Christian marriage as well.

I'm not judging if the partners love each other.  I'm not questioning their mutual devotion.  But marriage, at a certain level, transcends these things. It's a commitment made for life that must endure many hardships, including the possibility of falling out of love, and the dimming of the sexual appetite.  It has it's feet planted in the here and now, with eyes fixed on the future, all the way into eternity. 

John the Baptist was put to death for defending the truth of marriage, in his case it's exclusive and indissoluble nature.  We are called to preach the manifold truths of the Gospel, whose implications touch every aspect of our personal, social, cultural and political lives.  We must profess it even when it is hard;  Always with clarity, always with charity.  Ready to accept any consequence that may come. 

Fr. Barron Comments on Eucharist as Sacrifice: Second in a Series

Fr. Jose Carlos Contreras, SDB, Delared Innocent, Freed From Prison!

Fr. Jose Carlos Contreras, SDB has spent four years in prison in Mexico for the rape and murder of 16 year old Itzachel Shantal González López, crimes he did not commit.  Yesterday the Supreme Court of Mexico, in a 4-1 decision, declared Fr. Jose Carlos innocent of all charges. 

The court's decision stated that the priest was convicted without proof that he was the rapist, and called the evidence and accompanying narrative of the overall events presented by prosecutors illogical and beyond the boundaries of common sense.

Today, the feast of the Queenship of Mary, Fr. Jose Carlos will be celebrating a Mass of thanksgiving with his family.

To echo the words of the statement put out by the Salesian Provence of Guadalajara, we have gratitude to God for Father's freedom.  It is hard to imagine the hardships that he endured over these years.  By all accounts he continued to be a priest for the other prisoners of the jail, giving guidance and consolation at a time he himself was suffering so much.  We pray for him as he makes his adjustment back into his regular Salesian life.  We pray for all those unjustly convicted, as well as the victims of the drug violence in Mexico, of which this episode appears to be a part.

Most of all we must remember that there is a young girl who will never grow up to be a woman.  We continue to pray for Itzachel Shantal González López, for her family, and that justice may be done in her case.

The Sacred Heart of Jesus from the Apostleship of Prayer

A Serious Man // DVD Review

Larry Gopnik is having a bad day.  This quiet, more than slightly nebbish physics professor's ordinary life is disrupted in an afternoon by a student who tries to bribe him in a failed attempt to raise his midterm grade (later the student tries extortion), he gets into a property line dispute with his goy neighbor, and his wife Judith (Sari Lennik) reveals that she's been seeing a close friend on the sly and wants a divorce.   Plus, his tenure request is endangered by a series of anonymous letters besmirching his character that keep on arriving to members of the tenure board, and the Columbia Record Club is hounding him for payment on a subscription that his son secretly took out in his name.  More bad things happen in the following days, including several sudden deaths, but you get the point. In the midst of this Larry, an observant Jew, wonders where Hashem (the Hebrew word used to refer to God in informal conversation) is in all this madness and confusion. Does life have meaning, or is everything that happens to us the product of random chance?  The rabbis he consults don't seem to know the answer, and one even tells him that Hashem owes him no answer, even though he plants the curiosity within us from the start.  As Larry frustratingly muses, if he gives us the question, why won't he give us the answer?

This is the set up for the Coen Brothers 2009 offering A Serious Man. The film is set in an Upper Midwest, mostly Jewish suburb in 1967.  It's based on Joel and Ethan Coen's own childhood neighborhood in Minnesota, and while the late 60's setting is somewhat superfluous, except to make certain gags possible, it does add to the atmosphere.  Though the film asks serious questions about God and fate, taking a critical view on the existance of a providential God and the ability of religion to answer the deeper questions of life's meaning, it's an affectionate, and often funny look at what it was like to grow up Jewish (albeit in the Coen Brother's dark style).

A Serious Man is billed as a modern retelling of the Book of Job, but the only thing the main character, Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg), has in common with his Biblical counter part is that bad things start happening to him, seemingly out of nowhere, and he wonders where God is in all the suffering.  The difference is that Job was a serious man of property and wealth who lost it all, and got it all back, and then some, after his time of trial was over.  If we are honest in reading Job we are left with more questions than answers, even if the Divine author wraps everything up neatly at the end.  Here, Gopnik is an every-man who schleps his way through life, contently enough, to find himself suddenly confronted with calamities that thrown him for an existential loop, forcing him to questions the meaning of life and faith.  When things begin to turn around for the better real problems seem to be barreling down just as the film is ending.  We are left with the same questions as Job, only without the pretty bow and with a dose of palpable dread.

This isn't an easy movie to follow, especially since there really isn't a driving, clearly focused plot, and scenes are inserted that don't seem to be serving the story, such as there is.  This doesn't mean that these bits don't work, because they do; especially a bizarre Yiddish language prologue about a suspected ghost that takes place in another century and location.  Then there's the story of the dentist and goy's teeth; very funny but still leaves you scratching your head as to why we took the detour.  But the scenes themselves work, especially the one about the goy's teeth, in so far as they highlight the idea that life itself is a movie without a plot and the more you try to tease one out the more frustrated you will get. 

What I saw as a key to understanding the movie was an encounter at the end of the film between Larry's son Danny (Aaron Wolf) and the aged Rabbi Marshak (Alan Mandell).  It is the boy's Bar Mitzvah day and he goes into the old sages cluttered and slightly spooky office to be congratulated.  Featured prominently amid all sorts of strange scientific specimens in jars and random bric a brac is a copy of Caravaggio's Sacrifice of Issac, depicting another biblical story that makes one question what God's up to.  As he sits nervously, the grizzled and wizened wise man begins to slowly paraphrase the opening lines to a Jefferson Airplane song popular at the time:

     "When the truth is found to be lies,
     And all the hope within you dies,
     then what?"

This is the key question of the movie, even if Larry hasn't come to see the answers offered by faith to be lies yet.  The Rabbi Nachtner (perfectly played by George Wyner), who Larry consults after an unsatisfying sit down with the "junior" rabbi, can only tell him how God doesn't work as opposed to how he actually does (a later funeral scene shows that he doesn't have a grip on what the afterlife is about either).  He dismisses questions of ultimate meaning as annoying tooth aches that will go away with time.  For his part, Marshak, like the other rabbis, offers no answers, just the grandfatherly admonition to "be a good boy," as he returns the boy's transistor radio that had been confiscated by the Hebrew teacher at the beginning of the movie.  But where does one go when the basic assumptions that guide our life don't seem to be valid anymore?

In the end A Serious Man leaves us with questions, and no answers.  When what we were raised to believe doesn't seem to match up with the realities of life, what do we do?  Do we give in to hopelessness?  Obviously the Christian answer is no; life has a purpose and their is a plan even if we can't figure it out in our own time.  But I don't want to dismiss the questions, because, while God gives us more to work with than Rabbi Nachtner gives him credit for, he does leave plenty of room for mystery, wonder and questioning.  There isn't a person who hasn't had to grapple with these questions at one time or another, including great saints of strong faith.  The Coen Brothers make us grapple with them with humor, irony but also with a clear sense of appreciation for the religious and cultural tradition they were raised in, even if they are unsure how they view its deeper implications.