Important Headlines You Shouldn't Miss

Memorial of Mary, Mother of the Church, added to Roman Calendar

Operation Rescue Defends the Red Rose Rescues from "Friendly Fire" anti-rescue Video: 

History shows that in direct response to the [past] rescues, sidewalk counseling ministries and pregnancy help centers exploded in number across the nation. In addition, the Rescue Movement motivated pro-life Christians to seek public office in record numbers and engage in other spheres of influence where their advocacy on behalf of the pre-born would have lasting impact.

Canadian Doctors Being Forced to Kill Their Patients or Face Punishment:

Earth to Pope Francis: "Woe to Those Who Call Good Evil and Evil Good."

Get this straight you stinky sheep: If you're married, you're
not really married;  but if you're living together you're married
and have all the graces of the sacrament you rejected. Got it?

"Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil, who change darkness into light, and light into darkness, who change bitter into sweet, and sweet into bitter!" (Isaiah 5:20)

Let's see if I've got this right. Pope Francis said the other day during a Q & A session that the "great part of our sacramental marriages are null.”  On the other hand, he declared himself "sure that cohabitating couples are in a true marriage having the grace of marriage.”

So...to sum up...most of those who marry in the Church aren't really married after all; but those who live together without benefit of marriage are the one's who are really married. Huh? All I can say, is that sure sounds like a modernist Jesuit -- one who is busy as a termite undermining the faith.

Good Grief, Charlie Brown: Pope Francis Imitates Lucy Once Again...

...pulling that football out from under us!

Pope Francis Suggests Most Catholic Marriages are Invalid! 

Once again the pope, in an impromptu comment, throws the faithful for a loop with his confusion and ambiguity. Here's what he said yesterday during a Q & A session:

I heard a bishop say some months ago that he met a boy that had finished his university studies, and said ‘I want to become a priest, but only for 10 years.’ It’s the culture of the provisional. And this happens everywhere, also in priestly life, in religious life,” he said. 

Traditional Marriage: An Endangered Species

Somebody emailed me today about an article I wrote several years ago which is on the Les Femmes website. Rereading the article, I realized it is as relevant today, especially with the Synod on the Family coming up, as it was when I wrote it in 2010. And so I post some of it here with a link back to the original:

In the past century the relentless attack on the institution of marriage has made it an endangered species. Individuals like Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, John Rock and Gregory Pincus, inventors of the pill, feminist leaders like Betty Friedan, gay activists and liberal politicians have all worked diligently to relegate traditional marriage to the ash heap of history. Unfortunately, some ostensibly Catholic laity and even priests and religious have joined them. In light of this, can the institution survive or is it in danger of extinction? Statistics paint a grim picture with more than 43% of first marriages failing.1Failures rise with multiple marriages. And many cohabitating couples never marry at all. It’s not surprising that this should happen in the century which, according to a vision of Pope Leo XIII, God gave Satan free reign to do his worst.2 But statistics never tell the entire story and, for the Christian, anthropology is incomplete without recognizing God’s intervention. He always gives hope.  (Read More...)

On Catholic Marriage and Faithful Witness

One of the reasons the family is in such a mess can be laid at the feet of wimpy Catholics who simply would rather pay respect to human feelings than honor God's laws. Some people fear the wrath of their children and friends more than they fear the Lord. And so they go along with what their children want rather than speak the truth in charity and let the children experience the consequences.

As our oldest children were reaching high school age we saw friends whose adult children were marrying outside the Church. We observed the dilemma and the heartbreak that accompanied it, and also saw many parents supporting their children's sinful decisions saying, "What are we supposed to do -- alienate our children?" The nagging thought in my mind was always, "Would you rather alienate God?"

Our response to this

The Cafeteria Catholic and the Cafeteria Husband: Arnie and Maria Call it Quits

Betrayal -- that's what living a cafeteria lifestyle means, so it's hard to feel too sorry for proud, self-proclaimed "cafeteria Catholic" Maria Shriver who is experiencing the reality of betrayal from her cafeteria husband. In 2008, Shriver told the world, via the Washington Post's religion blog, that she chooses what she wants from Church teaching:

"Even though I consider myself a Catholic in good standing, I disagree with a lot of the teachings of the Church....I don’t believe that if someone’s divorced they shouldn’t get Communion; I don’t believe that people who are gay shouldn’t be accepted into the Church… I’m pro-choice, I believe women should have that right....women should have a larger role in the Catholic Church."

In other words, "I do it my way!" God's way be damned!

Shriver called herself a cafeteria Catholic at the time and, while claiming to pray every day and to love her parish priest, it's clear she wasn't praying for her conscience to conform to the teachings of Christ articulated through the Church He founded on "the rock" of Peter. Why has Shriver stayed in the Church? She likes the social justice teachings (and maybe the stained glass windows and the bingo). Among the Church teachings she was willing to throw out are the pesky ones about the indissolubility of marriage. After all, she wanted the divorced who attempt new marriages without a declaration of nullity to receive the Eucharist -- so much for respecting sacramental marriage!

So how can Shriver, the cafeteria Catholic, complain about Arnie, the cafeteria husband? Schwarzenegger  was also a cafeteria Catholic who promised his faith would never interfere with his decisions as governor. It's obvious he also didn't believe in those pesky vows he took on his wedding day -- or he changed his mind along the way when they interfered with his "right to choose" a little whoopy on the side.

Maria and Arnie both betrayed Christ and the Church as cafeteria Catholics by picking and choosing the doctrines they would follow and those they would reject. Arnie just took the betrayal a step farther by being a cafeteria husband who played fast and loose with the vows he made to Maria on their wedding day. But if you don't respect your obligations to Christ and His Church, why would you respect your obligations to another person?

The pain and damage Schwarzenegger has caused his family (His son Patrick changed his name to Shriver on his facebook page.) mirrors the pain sin causes to Jesus Christ. The reality is that the cafeteria lifestyle is a betrayal. Once you accept it, you have no grounds for complaining about the cafeteria choices made by others. Just as Maria felt she could be a Catholic "in good standing" while she cheated on the faith, Arnie may have felt he could be a husband "in good standing" while he cheated on Maria. Those who live the cafeteria lifestyle need to realize some of the choices available on the food bar are poison. The only healthy response is to close the cafeteria and return to the solid food offered at the banquet table of the Church. Let's pray that Maria and Arnie make that choice, for the sake of their own souls and the example they leave for their children.

See more here....

Christopher West and Theology of the Body

If you saw the Nightline interview with Christopher West speaking on Theology of the Body, you may have been surprised to see him compare Pope John Paul II with Hugh Hefner. Not only was I surprised (shocked might be more accurate), but I was thoroughly disgusted. Watching another video elaborating on what he meant didn't help. West read from Hefner's biography that blamed his parents, particularly his mom, because she didn't hug him enough when he was a child. (She probably did a bad job toilet training as well.)

Don't get me wrong. I admire the zeal of Christopher West. I believe he sincerely loves the Church and wants to promote John Paul II's Theology of the Body accurately. But somehow, he's gotten off track and that's a problem. If you're going to Philadelphia and the train is on the track heading to Harrisburg, no matter how sincere the engineer is, you won't end up at your destination.

A number of people have criticized West's approach and I'm going to summarize the opinion of one. David L. Schindler is Provost/Dean and Gagnon Professor of Fundamental Theology at the Pontifical Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family at Catholic University. He knows both John Paul's theology and Christopher West's presentation of it. In his article, Christopher West's Theology of the Body, he points out some serious problems:

West’s work has involved suggesting that a man and woman bless their genitals before making love; blessing the ovaries of women in his classes; advising young men in college and the seminary to look at their naked bodies in the mirror daily in order to overcome shame; using phallic symbolism to describe the Easter candle; criticizing “flat-chested” images of Mary in art while encouraging Catholics to “rediscover Mary’s ... abundant breasts” (Crisis, March 2002); referring to the “bloodied membrane” of the placenta as a "tabernacle" (Colorado Catholic Herald, 12/22/06); stating that, while “there are some important health and aesthetic considerations that can’t be overlooked,” “there's nothing inherently wrong with anal penetration as foreplay to normal intercourse," (Good News About Sex and Marriage, 1st ed., emphasis in original), though qualifying this in the revised edition and stressing the subjective dangers of lust in such activity; and, on Nightline, praising Hugh Hefner for helping rescue sex from prudish Victorian attitudes, saying that there are “very profound historical connections between Hefner and John Paul II,” while emphasizing that John Paul II took the sexual revolution further and in the right direction.

I offer these examples not merely because they are vulgar and in bad taste, not to mention sometimes bordering on the just plain silly, but because they indicate a disordered approach to human sexuality. An objective distortion in approaching sexuality does not cease to be such simply because it is theologized. West to be sure will point toward the “orthodox” intentions and context of the examples, but my criticism bears on the substance of his preoccupation as reflected in the examples. (As a Thomist friend of mine used to say: pay attention to a man's subjects, not his predicates.)

Specific criticisms include:

1. West ignores the reality and validity of concupiscence as though it can be overcome by intentions toward holiness

2. His analogy between God's love and sex is too simplistic and puts a "disproportianate emphasis" on sex.

3. His treatment of shame and reverence is "too male," i.e., "not only too much maleness but distorted maleness." In other words he doesn't recognize a modesty that is not mere prudishness. Schindler attributes this to his work not being well-formed in "Mary’s archetypal feminine-human sensibility." Mary, of course, is the model of modesty and prudence, the woman who "ponders all things in her heart."

4. West's teaching style which becomes part of his theology treats disagreement as resistance to the Holy Spirit. Schindler says, "Well-balanced persons have spoken of how West makes them feel a sense of guilt, of resistance to the Holy Spirit, if they experience uneasiness about what he is saying."

Schindler summarizes by saying:

West presents a problem for the Church, not because he lacks orthodox intentions, but because his unquestionably orthodox intentions render his theology, a priori, all the more credible. His work often deflects people from the beauty and depth of what is the authentic meaning of John Paul II's anthropology of love, and thus of what was wrought in and through the Second Vatican Council. It is scarcely the first time in the history of the Church that abundant good will did not suffice to make one's theology and vision of reality altogether true.

Pray for Christopher West. He has the capacity to do great good for the Church. He also has the capacity to create much confusion.