What would Matthew say?

DOR Catholic Mike reports that Rochester's malcontent in a miter chimed in on the homosexual marriage bill on the cusp of passage in New York state:

WETM Channel 18 in the Southern Tier has a story on its site concerning the gay marriage bill currently before the NY Senate.

Seeking a comment from a representative of the Church, the station got the following from our local ordinary:

Bishop Matthew Clark of Rochester says the church continues its opposition to the bill but supports equal rights.

"We're very much in favor for equal rights for folks. It depends on the form, shape and format of legislation. We always support civil rights of people and their full exercise." said Bishop Clark.

I cannot think of a better response than that already posted by Kit at By The Brook:

What Would Matthew Say?

If he had a spine or was orthodox at all?

The latest proposed gay marriage bill is wending its way through the corrupt corridors of Albany, and we get this predictably weak "statement" of what the Church opposes, but not its titular head in the DOR. No educating, no expounding on the sacramental nature of marriage...just some happy social justice/civil rights crap.

How unrefreshingly typical.

Update, 17 May 2009. In 2003, at the behest of Pope John Paul II, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith under Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger produced the document "Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons." It sought to "reiterate essential points on this question and provide arguments drawn from reason which could be used by Bishops in preparing more specific interventions, appropriate to the different situations throughout the world, aimed at protecting and promoting the dignity of marriage, the foundation of the family, and the stability of society ..." In other words, it was written precisely for the present situation in New York state. (Perhaps Bishop Clark was left off the CC line.) My Rochester readers might put it to good use. We'll discuss it tomorrow morning (Monday) at 7:35 am EST on the Son Rise Morning Show.

They received the Holy Spirit

Now when the apostles at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent to them Peter and John, who came down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit; for it had not yet fallen on any of them, but they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then they laid their hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit.

-- Acts of the Apostles, 8:14-17

Congratulations to this weekend's confirmandi, including our oldest child.

May God bless you and keep you in His care.

Update, 17 May 2009. Here is the text of the Navarre Bible commentary for Acts 8:14-17:

14-17. Here we see the Apostles exercising through Peter and John the authority they have over the entire Church. The two Apostles proceed to confirm the disciples recently baptized by Philip: we may presume that in addition to laying their hands on them to communicate the Holy Spirit, the Apostles made sure that they had a correct grasp of the central points of the Gospel message. At this time the Apostles constituted the spiritual center of the Church and took an active interest in ensuring that the new communities were conscious of the links—doctrinal and affective—that united them to the mother community in Jerusalem.

This passage bears witness to the existence of Baptism and the gift of the Holy Spirit (or Confirmation) as two distinct sacramental rites. The most important effects Christian Baptism has are the infusion of initial grace and the remission of Original Sin and any personal sin; it is the first sacrament a person receives, which is why it is called the “door of the Church”.

There is a close connection between Baptism and Confirmation, so much so that in the early centuries of Christianity, Confirmation was administered immediately after Baptism. There is a clear distinction between these two sacraments of Christian initiation, which helps us understand the different effects they have. A useful comparison is the difference, in natural life, between conception and later growth (cf. “St. Pius V Catechism”, II, 3, 5). “As nature intends that all her children should grow and attain full maturity [...], so the Catholic Church, the common mother of all, earnestly wishes that, in those whom she has regenerated by Baptism, the perfection of Christian manhood be completed” (”ibid.”, II, 3, 7).

“The nature of the Sacrament of Confirmation,” John Paul II explains, “grows out of this endowment of strength which the Holy Spirit communicates to each baptized person, to make him or her—as the well-known language of the Catechism puts it—a perfect Christian and soldier of Christ, ready to witness boldly to His resurrection and its redemptive power: ‘You shall be My witnesses’ (Acts 1:8)” (”Homily”, 25 May 1980). “All Christians, incorporated into Christ and His Church by Baptism, are consecrated to God. They are called to profess the faith which they have received. By the Sacrament of Confirmation they are further endowed by the Holy Spirit with special strength to be witnesses of Christ and sharers in His mission of salvation” (”Homily in Limerick”, 1 October 1979). “This is a sacrament which in a special way associates us with the mission of the Apostles, in that it inserts each baptized person into the apostolate of the Church” (”Homily in Cracow”, 10 June 1979). In the Sacrament of Confirmation divine grace anticipates the aggressive and demoralizing temptations a young Christian man or woman is likely to experience, and reminds them of the fact that they have a vocation to holiness; it makes them feel more identified with the Church, their Mother, and helps them live in accordance with their Catholic beliefs and convictions. From their formative years Christ makes them defenders of the faith.

Seven-point gain

As we head into a weekend that will feature our pro-abortion president being honored by our once premiere Catholic university, take comfort in the fact that things are trending in a positive direction:

One of the more prominent news stories touching on the abortion issue in recent months involves President Barack Obama's commencement speech and the bestowal of an honorary doctorate degree on him at the University of Notre Dame -- a Roman Catholic institution -- on Sunday. The invitation has drawn criticism from conservative Catholics and the church hierarchy because of Obama's policies in favor of legalizing and funding abortion, and the controversy might have been expected to strengthen the pro-life leanings of rank-and-file Catholics.

Nevertheless, the swelling of the pro-life position since last year is seen across Christian religious affiliations, including an eight-point gain among Protestants and a seven-point gain among Catholics.

iPod inquiry

My computer crashed a couple of weeks ago, taking iTunes and a host of files with it. (At some point over the past year, our backup service stopped working.)

I used the free "MusicRescue" third-party software to backwards restore iTunes from my iPod. It worked well overall, but I'm left with two problems:

(1) Much of my purchased music did not restore and is seemingly gone forever.

(2) I can no longer drag and drop audio files unless they are in the iTunes format. I like to load up my iPod with free lectures and audio tracks from sites like EWTN.com.

'Anybody know what gives?

Yesterday

4 am: Rise and shine
4:45: Drive to Dayton airport
5:15: Torrential downpour begins
5:30: Jack-knifed truck closes highway
6:45: Miss flight
7:00: Rebook flight
8:10: Rebooked flight canceled
9:00: Standby for 10:30 flight
10:30: Learn 10:30 flight oversold
10:45: Receive complimentary $7 meal voucher
11:00: Told I might be on the 2:30 flight
12:00 pm: Told the 2:30 flight oversold
12:15: Book flight out of Columbus
12:15: Drive to Columbus
2:45: Depart Columbus
3:00: Order bourbon with splash of Coke
4:30: Land

Hat trick

In a now-famous March 2006 address, Pope Benedict identified three "not negotiable" principles which the Church is committed to defending in the public square:

(1) the protection of life in all its stages, from the first moment of conception until natural death; (2) the promotion of the natural family structure - as a union between a man and a woman based on marriage - and its defense from attempts to make it juridically equivalent to radically different forms of union; and (3) the protection of the right of parents to educate their children.

President Obama's stands on the first two principles are widely known (and deplorable.) We now have a clearer view of his stand on the third:

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama's May 6 budget proposal to allow 1,700 poor children in the District of Columbia to keep their federally funded scholarships but bar any more students from entering the program means a slow death for an initiative that works, said a Washington archdiocesan official.

"This proposal might help children who are now in the program," said Patricia Weitzel-O'Neill, superintendent for schools. "But what about the many other children in the city who will never have this opportunity?"

She was referring to the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, a federally funded voucher program launched as a pilot program five years ago that has to be reauthorized by Congress.

It allocates $14 million annually in individual scholarships of up to $7,500 to 1,700 children from low-income families, which allows them to attend private schools in the District of Columbia. About half of the scholarship recipients attend Catholic schools. ...

And while I realize that support for vouchers is not synonymous with support for the right of parents to educate their children, this president seems willing to subordinate a manifestation of that right to the wishes of school employee unions.

"OSV does its part to offset its carbon footprint"

The latest issue of Our Sunday Visitor, a magazine founded by Archbishop John Francis Knoll to assert a distinctively Catholic identity threatened by a hostile culture, documents the publisher's pursuit of the green zeitgeist:

Other components of the week, intended to promote a corporate culture of recycling, reusing and reducing waste, included:

• Recycling 105 pounds of batteries from home and office.
• Recycling 2,287 pounds of waste paper collected from offices in "spring cleaning days."
• A company give-away to employees of used computers and monitors.
• Introduction of an Xclerator air hand dryer in bathrooms to conserve paper towels.
• Display in the cafeteria of biodegradable plateware and silverware made from cornstarch, reed grass and sugar cane fiber.

Care for and stewardship of the environment is a key part of the Catholic worldview. One of its most famous practitioners was St. Francis of Assisi, whose order is celebrating its 800th anniversary this year (see Page 14).

You or your neighbors may even have a statue of St. Francis watching over the flora and fauna in your yard. If so, be sure not to miss Mary DeTurris Poust's reflection on the radical, Christ-centered love St. Francis lived and represents (see Page 8).

The Franciscan emphasis on the correlation between God's creation and care for the poor has found life in a new organization called the Catholic Coalition on Climate Change. ...

Clericalism, ideologies

The online edition of the Catholic Telegraph of Cincinnati features a CNS account of a talk on cultural diversity and parish evangelization at the national meeting of the National Federation of Priests' Councils. The talk was delivered by Jesuit Father Allan Figueroa Deck, executive director of the U.S. bishops' Secretariat of Cultural Diversity in the Church, and Xavier University's Edward Hahnenberg was among the other speakers. The opening quote captures the thrust of Fr. Deck's remarks:

SAN ANTONIO — A "lingering clericalism that distracts and discourages laity in their God-given calling to serve" and the presence of ideological extremes can hinder parishes' efforts to evangelize, said a speaker at the national meeting of the National Federation of Priests' Councils. ..

My $.02. To the extent there is clericalism in the Church, it's the reverse kind, whereby we've laicized the clergy and clericalized the laity. You need only look to your parish's crowded sanctuary for evidence. No organization can thrive without clearly defined and distinct roles for its members. As to "ideological extremes," the most yawning gap tends to be between parish staff, who in most places are reflexively progressive (if not heterodox), and parishioners, who after thirty years of catechesis from John Paul II and Benedict XVI are trending more orthodox.

Ninety and Sixth

An article by the Catholic News Agency describes Dr. Alice von Hildebrand's considerable angst over Christopher West's recent statements about Hugh Hefner and the sexual revolution during an interview with ABC television. In fact, she is critical of his entire approach, which seems prone to the sort of glibness on display in the interview. "My feeling is that his vocabulary and his way of approaching it totally lacks reverence," she states. One of her observations really stood out, however -- not so much because it's surprising per se, but because it is surprisingly frank:

She reported that a priest friend of hers had told her 90 percent of the sins that men accuse themselves of involve the Sixth Commandment against adultery.

Milestones and turning points

The Catholic Courier of Rochester has devoted a series of articles to priestly vocations this month. Some of them are quite good. One marks the milestones and anniversary dates of local priests, including Fr. John Rosse's 55th year! Fr. Rosse is the weekend celebrant at my sister's parish, St. Margaret Mary, a fairly healthy place. When we visited a few years ago, Fr. Rosse delivered one of the finest homilies on the evils of abortion and worthiness to receive the Eucharist that I have ever heard. (Come to think of it, it's one of the only homilies on those subjects I have ever heard.) Another article is focused on two men currently discerning for the priesthood. It mentions that there will be no priestly ordinations after this June until 2013, a year that is revealingly called "a turning point."

Peter Van Lieshout was in college when he told his mother he was seriously considering becoming a priest. He wasn't sure how she'd respond, but he was more surprised by her reaction than she was by his news.

"She said she wasn't surprised, that she thought, even when I was a little kid ... that I had a vocation to the priesthood, and she never told that to me before," recalled Van Lieshout, who will travel to Rome in July to begin his seminary studies.

He will be joined there by Greg Rupik, who had a similar experience when he told his family about his future vocation.

"When I told my parents, I think they were both a little bit surprised, but when I told my sisters that was the kicker. One of my sisters turned to my youngest sister and said, 'I told you so,'" Rupik said.

Van Lieshout and Rupik are the newest of the Diocese of Rochester's current crop of seminarians. One of those seminarians, transitional Deacon Brian Carpenter, currently is wrapping up his studies at Mundelein Seminary in Mundelein, Ill., and will be ordained by Bishop Matthew H. Clark at Sacred Heart Cathedral June 6.

But Deacon Carpenter will be the last priest ordained for the diocese until at least 2013, according to Carol Dady, coordinator of the diocesan Office of Priestly Vocation Awareness. Although this four-year gap between ordinations is the longest in recent years, officials say they're hopeful that 2013 might represent a turning point in terms of the volume of priestly vocations in the Diocese of Rochester. ...

Dead heat

There is a virtual tie for the Crescat's Best Armchair Theologian Award.

You can nudge things "Rich-ward" here.

Eight-sided, prayerful

Rochester's St. Pius X parish, one of the diocese's largest, was our family parish in the 1980s. Despite its size, it is currently without a pastor and to date no priest has thrown his hat in the ring, which means it will probably be under the care of a Pastoral Administrator in the near future. (It's hard to imagine this will alter the parish's current trajectory, given that its outgoing pastor advocated women's ordination in the parish bulletin.) During a trip home a few years ago, I picked up a copy of "A Work in Progress," a surprisingly good and thorough history of the parish. The section covering the early 1970s describes how the church's curious shape took form:

Father Murphy had for some years searched for the "perfect church" for our congregation. He looked at churches in Holland, Hawaii, Australia, the U.S. from New York to California, France, and Italy. He was specifically looking for a round or octagonal one, economical to build. It had to keep the people close to the altar and the tabernacle had to be visible to all in the church. In Yesterday, he says: "The Holy Spirit led me to a church outside Buffalo, New York. It had many of the qualities I was searching for. It was eight-sided, prayerful and could seat at least eight hundred."

Later in the book, a Mass concelebrated with then-Bishop Hogan in 1973 is described. It featured a Kyrie in Greek and a Gloria in Latin. That jibes with my very early recollections of the place (we sometimes visited during the 70s); I have a distinct memory of a priest chanting the Eucharistic prayer and of hearing Latin.

Read about the fate of the parish's marble altar in a previous excerpt here.

Update. Too funny. Just a moment ago we read "tomorrow's saint today," as is our family custom, and began discussing Our Lady of Fatima. And then I remembered. In the early to mid-seventies -- certainly no later than 1975 -- I played Francisco Marto in some sort of Fatima procession at St. Pius X. My mother then as now knew everyone in town and seemed to be involved in most worthwhile Catholic endeavors for miles around. At some point a mom from St. Pius asked her if I'd be interested, and she of course said yes. The fact that it's my birthday may have had something to do with it.

And speaking of the parish's outgoing dissident pastor, there's a profile of him in the Catholic Courier of Rochester. It reveals he once ran the diocese's CCD program.

As Father Daniel F. Holland prepares to retire as pastor of St. Pius Tenth Parish in Chili, he has helped his parishioners draft a road map for a future without a priest-pastor.

In June, Father Holland will be replaced by pastoral administrator William Rabjohn, who has been the parish’s pastoral associate.

Over the past few months, the parish has identified ways to strengthen its ministries.

"The whole staff has been involved in this sustainability and growth of the parish," Father Holland said.

The priest is no stranger to change; he spent the beginning of his ministry trying to help parishioners accept and adopt changes brought about by the Second Vatican Council.

"I remember being wildly enthusiastic about that council and what it was opening up for our church," Father Holland recalled.

For example, one priority identified in the wake of Vatican II was the need to provide religious education for public-school students, he said. To that end, as assistant director and later director of the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine Religious Education Office (1966-72), Father Holland worked on organizing a team of volunteers to provide 30 hours of training to more than 800 lay catechists. ...

Pathetic

On countless occasions, and especially before and during his trip to the Holy Land, Pope Benedict has condemned anti-Semitism and the Holocaust in no uncertain terms. Yesterday, the man came close to tears as he delivered an address at Israel's holocaust memorial and reportedly walked out of gathering of speakers when one of them, a Moslem cleric, slandered Israel. Yet according to some of the Holy Father's hosts, anything short of a personal apology for an event that took place when he was sixteen years old is woefully insufficient. Meanwhile, the defamation continues of Pope Pius XII, a man who probably saved more Jews from the gas chamber than anyone save allied forces. Pathetic. If these folks are trying to feed the paranoia and anti-Semitism of Catholicism's far right fringe, this is a great way to do it. Someone sensible in the Jewish community ought to step forward and bring some sanity to this discussion.

Jewish leaders are criticizing Pope Benedict’s address at Jerusalem’s Yad Vashem Memorial to victims of the Holocaust. Charlotte Knobloch, the president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, called the speeech “half hearted.”

While calling the speech “moving,” Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, chairman of the Yad Vashem Council, said it lacked “an expression of empathy with the sorrow” and that “there certainly was no apology expressed here.” He continued, “Something was missing. There was no mention of the Germans or the Nazis who participated in the butchery, nor a word of regret.”

The former chief rabbi of Israel added on Israeli television, “There is a clear difference between ‘killed’ and ‘murdered’. There is a difference between saying millions in the Holocaust and saying six million. The word six was not said.” Six hours earlier, during the welcoming ceremony at Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv, Pope Benedict had said, “It is right and fitting that, during my stay in Israel, I will have the opportunity to honor the memory of the six million Jewish victims of the Shoah, and to pray that humanity will never again witness a crime of such magnitude.”

Rabbi Lau, a Holocaust survivor, also told Voice of America that many believe Pope Pius XII and Catholic bishops should have entered the concentration camps. “For many Jews, the fact that the Holy Father, that the bishops did not leave their churches and join the Jews there where they were, in the camps, being slaughtered, being burnt, only that would have been enough.”

Pop quiz

What is the oldest diocese in the United States?

Bonus question: In what year was it founded?

(I've been listening to audio tracks for Fr. Charles Connor's "History of the Catholic Church in the United States" series for EWTN via my iPod.)

No Googling.

Here's a hint:

Post-catechism blues

We finished our tour of the United States Catholic Catechism for Adults on the Son Rise Morning Show last Friday, and I confess to feeling blue. This is my "second tour" of the book, the first being with last year's Monday morning catechism group at my parish. I've gotten rather attached to it and do hope we were able to popularize this useful resource.

Which leaves us with a new course to pursue on our occasional Fridays. Two leading candidates are (1) a review of major encyclicals and (2) a "sticky subjects" curriculum. In the latter, we would cover the most common and challenging objections to the Faith, e.g., the pelvic issues, the all-male priesthood, divorce, etc.

For grins, we might consider "Bats#%t Crazy Friday." We'd take all of the rejected proposals sent to the show from the fringes of Catholicism and give them a twenty minute hearing. There'd be lots of stuff on Masons, Zionists, St. Louis Jesuits, private revelations, Tri-state appearances by Our Lady -- that sort of thing.

What say you to our next course of study? Encyclicals? Sticky subjects? Something else entirely?

Make straight ... for Steubenville

This summer you can take coursework at area parishes designed to earn you some form of "Catechist Certification" from the Archdiocese of Cincinnati.

Among the offerings is the tantalizingly labeled "The Catechetical Process."

But if catechesis really interests you, you're better off attending the St. John Bosco Conference at Franciscan University of Steubenville this July.

Or you could always read the Catechism.

Pretty in pink

Gene at Rochester Catholic has a short post about the DOR's dance fixation:

As you may recall, the Cathedral featured a liturgical dancer at its Chrism Mass several weeks ago. The dancer is a board member of the Rochester Gay Men’s Chorus and a public advocate for the legalization of same-sex marriage in New York State. I have come across a photo of his performance at the Cathedral. Follow this link for more.

Investigating a miracle

The Enquirer's Dan Horn reports on the the Archdiocese of Cincinnati's first-ever investigation into a possible miracle attributed to someone under consideration for sainthood:

Tom Siemers' doctor pulled him aside 20 years ago and told him he should be dead.

The doctor, a neurosurgeon, said every attempt he'd made to fix a massive hemorrhage in Siemers' brain in 1989 had failed. Surgery. Drugs. Cutting-edge technology.

Nothing seemed to work.

Despite his grim prognosis, Siemers not only survived but fully recovered.

"So what happened?" Siemers asked.

The doctor just shook his head and pointed heavenward.

A team of investigators from the Catholic Church now is trying to determine whether divine intervention is indeed the most likely explanation for Siemers' recovery from a ruptured aneurysm, which left him unconscious and near death for more than a month.

Siemers, the chairman of Franklin Savings, is the star witness in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati's first-ever investigation into a possible miracle attributed to someone under consideration for sainthood.

The prospective saint is Blessed Sister Frances Schervier, founder of the Franciscan Sisters of the Poor and the person Siemers' family credits for his survival.

"It's just a strange sensation," said Siemers, who is convinced a miracle saved his life. "It's spooky when I think about it."

The challenge to church investigators is to gather evidence, listen to testimony and review medical records that may or may not support the family's claim.

Their mandate is not to debate whether miracles happen, because the Catholic Church presumes that they do. The task before them is to find out whether a miracle occurred in this case and, if so, whether Frances Schervier, who died almost 133 years ago, is responsible for it.

The investigators will turn for answers to doctors grounded in the scientific world, and to true believers convinced the hand of God touches lives every day.

They then will send their findings to Rome, where a small group of religious scholars at the Vatican will try to answer a question that is daunting even to the faithful:

Did a 19th century German nun intervene with God to save the life of a middle-aged businessman from Cincinnati?

"The faithful have a right to know the truth," said the Rev. Chris Armstrong, a Cincinnati priest and a member of the tribunal investigating the claim. "As far as humanly possible, we have to be sure." ...

Kudos to Dan Horn for another informative, respectful story on the Church.

There's also a poll on belief in miracles; so far believers lead skeptics 75%-25%.

You can read Peter Kreeft's chapter on miracles in his Fundamentals of the Faith here.

Gloria

What a ... glorious way to mark Mother's Day. The kids and I made breakfast for Mrs. Leonardi this morning -- goetta and eggs, coffee, and cinnamon rolls with orange frosting -- and then we all assisted at the 10:30 Mass at St. Rose. The interior of the church has just been restored, and what used to be a single shade of pale blue is now several shades of rich gold; in the morning light it looked gorgeous. The overflow crowd just about spilled onto Eastern Avenue. The Mass itself was celebrated with the dignity and beauty worshipers have come to expect, with the Gloria chanted entirely in Latin (Mass VIII.) And while St. Rose's jovial pastor is part of the draw, he does not make himself the center of the liturgical action, unlike the city's other affinity parish. After Mass, a handful of members of the Knights of Columbus distributed literature to promote next Sunday's open house for a new council. Gloria in excelsis deo!

Dueling Irish

In this morning's Cincinnati Enquirer, two Notre Dame alumni respond to a column by a fellow 'Domer that professed full-throated support for honoring Obama. Here's an excerpt from the first:

This debate is not about free speech, or civil rights, or about one's general policies regarding health care. The point of contention that I have, along with at least 62 U.S. bishops, over 350,000 others (notredamescandal.com), and 62 percent of Catholics nationally in a recent survey, is that it is fundamentally wrong for a university founded upon Catholic doctrine and principles - dedicated to the Blessed Mother of Christ, a university which repeatedly espouses to develop graduates who will "be of service to the Church" - to openly defy the guidelines of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, published in 2004. These guidelines clearly state that "the Catholic community and Catholic institutions should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles. They should not be given awards, honors, or platforms which suggest support for their actions."

And now the second:

While Mr. Obama's positions on racial equality, poverty, health care, immigration rights, education, and the environment offer the prospect of connection with Catholic social teaching and could be advanced in discussion with Mr. Obama in other forums, these policies must not come at the price of the unborn, destroy the right of conscience of Catholic health care workers who wish to desist in participating in their destruction, or advance research involving human subjects that does not represent authentic progress but - as articulated by Cardinal Rigali, Chairman of the U.S. Catholic bishops' Committee on Pro-Life Activities - "becomes another way for some human beings to use and mistreat others for their own goals."