![First Christmas Without Them]()
by Catherine | Dec 21, 2011 | Faith, Family
As beautiful and joyous as Christmastime can be, it can be equally painful for those still suffering from the loss of a loved one–especially if this is their first Christmas without them.
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| James Ferdinand Irwin’s family singing carols at early family reunion Christmas celebration marking safe return of sons fr. WWII (L-R) Mr. Irwin, Scotty, Carolyn, Betty Roush, Jim, Myra Lee Love, Jack, Jeanne Haney, Mrs. Irwin, Jeff Haney, Levern Love, Beth Love.© Time Inc. Myron Davis (Photo found on: http://kcmeesha.com/2009/12/06/old-photos-old-timey-christmas/) |
The EWTN online Advent devotional I’ve been reading throughout Advent suggests sending a letter to someone you know who has lost a loved one this last year. Today’s blog post “A Different Kind of Christmas List” by Jennifer Fulwiler suggests doing the same.
It’s so easy in the hustle, bustle, and excitement of the season to forget about those who are feeling alone and in pain. In her blog post, Fulwiler shares the words of two people who recently lost a loved one. They said that they felt alone in their pain during Christmas and that those who gave them a phone call, sent an e-mail, or wrote a card lifted them up.
Fulwiler took the idea of writing the letter further. She says this is what she’s going to do:
I’m going to write a list of the contact information of people I know who may be aching for lost loved ones, and bring it with me to my Christmas celebrations. And in the midst of the hustle and bustle of Christmas day, I’ll carve out time to send an email or make a quick phone call to let them know I’m thinking of them, and that they’re in my prayers.
I love that she’s keeping the physical list of people with her as she runs errands, goes to Christmas parties, attends Mass, etc. It’s a tangible reminder to keep those people and their deceased loved ones in prayer.
I’m stealing this idea. Since I’m at home more than I’m out and about, I’m posting these people’s names on my bathroom medicine cabinet and kitchen counter. That way, after the letters are written, I am still reminded to continue to lift them up in prayer.
The corporal and spiritual works of mercy are on my brain since my 8th grade religious education students are learning them. In addition to comforting your loved one, this simple action lives out two spiritual works of mercy: comforting the afflicted and praying for the living and the dead.
Do you know someone who could use a phone call, e-mail, or letter?
by Catherine | Dec 21, 2011 | Faith
Philip gave me an iPod Nano for our first Christmas together. He had it engraved, “I love you, Catherine.” That extravagant gift quite literally changed my life. I know I have a tendency to exaggerate, but this time I’m not kidding. I enjoyed listening to music, but I quickly discovered the world of podcasting, and I became addicted to a podcast called Catholic Answers Live. This radio show put me on fire for my Catholic Faith in a way I had never experienced before.
I’d describe the show myself, but the show’s website does a much better job of describing it:
Catholic Answers Live, hosted by Patrick Coffin, is a daily, two-hour radio program dedicated to Catholic apologetics and evangelization. According to listener surveys, it is a runaway favorite on Catholic stations across America.
As a call-in program, Catholic Answers Live connects listeners to prominent leaders in the Church today—including scholars, nuns, priests, bishops, and cardinals—and touches on every aspect of our lives as Christians. You’ll hear discussions on just about everything relating to the Church: doctrinal controversies, family concerns, social issues, evangelization, ethics…you name it!
Catholic Answers Live airs every Monday through Friday from 6-8 PM Eastern (3-4 PM Pacific) on over 160 AM and FM stations in the United States, Sirius Satellite Radio channel 130, and through the Internet at catholic.com. If you can’t listen live, you can subscribe to our podcast or download individual shows from our MP3 archive.
Call in with your question at 1-888-31-TRUTH!
I will be forever indebted to the show for tackling the most difficult issues and common objections to the Catholic faith. The show’s host, Patrick Coffin, is not only funny, but he does a great job of making sure the callers stay on topic, clarifications are made, and as many callers as possible get on each hour to speak with the guest. Typically, the show has a different guest and topic for each hour.
Regular features on the show include:
- Q&A Open Forums. Tuesdays and Thursdays are typically “Q&A Open Forums” where anyone can call in with any question so long as it’s faith-related. Q&A guests are usually apologists like Tim Staples, Jimmy Akin, Jim Blackburn, Karl Keating, or Patrick Madrid.
- Q&A Open Forums for Non-Catholics. On these days, anyone other than practicing Catholics can call in with a question.
- The Chaplain is In. Fr. Vincent Serpa, O.P. answers chaplain-related questions.
- From the Heart with Mother Miriam of the Lamb of God (formerly known as Rosalind Moss). Mother Miriam answers questions with a mother’s care and her obvious heart knowledge of God.
- Pro-Life Open Forum with Dr. George Delgado. Callers ask questions about anything related to pro-life issues.
- Bioethics for the Rest of Us with Fr. Tad Pacholczyk from the National Catholic Bioethics Center. Callers ask questions about anything related to bioethical issues.
- Scriptural Apologetics with John Martignoni. John Martignoni uses Sacred Scripture to reveal truths about the Catholic Faith and debate these truths with non-Catholics.
- Reel Life: Movies Reviewed with Steven D. Greydanus. Callers ask questions about movies and Greydanus gives his review of the movie in light of the Catholic Faith.
- The New Age Deception with Sharon Lee Giganti. Sharon Lee discusses anything related to the New-Age movement, and callers ask her related questions.
If you are interested in listening to the show, you have a few options:
- Listen via podcast by downloading it on iTunes or on the Catholic.com website under “podcasts.”
- Find a local radio station that broadcasts the show. The show broadcasts live 3-5 p.m. Pacific. Click here for a list of stations carrying the show.
- Tune in to Sirius Satellite Radio’s EWTN station on channel 130.
- If you are using a satellite dish, tune your dish to satellite G-1, transponder 11. An analog feed is at 5.4 audio and a digital feed is at 951 audio.
As a cradle Catholic, it was easy for me to take my faith for granted. It wasn’t until I discovered Catholic Answers Live in college that I started to view the Church as a vibrant, exciting, fulfilling place where I could find peace and meaning as a young woman.
Now that I’m a stay-at-home mom, I listen to Catholic radio while I work on things around the house. Catholic Answers Live is still my favorite. I’m able to listen on my iPhone, and I carry it around the house with me as I lug loads of laundry up and down stairs, change diapers, dust, do the dishes, etc. I learn at least one new thing each time I listen to the show.
In addition to the fabulous radio show, Catholic Answers offers:
- A growing collection of books, tracts, booklets, CDs, and DVDs published by the apostolate and designed to bring the public the best in Catholic apologetics and evangelization. These may be ordered through Catholic Answers’ on-line shop, along with hundreds of solid, faith-building resources by other top-notch Catholic publishers.
- Catholic Answers Magazine, the premier periodical on apologetics and evangelization;
- A Correspondence Department that provides answers to the pressing questions of thousands of people who contact Catholic Answers each year.
- Multiple web resources that present a broad range of information about Scripture and the teachings of the Church and that assist visitors in tapping into the various branches of the apostolate.
I regularly visit the online forums and post questions to fellow Catholics.
Patrick Coffin, the Catholic Answers Live radio show host, is fond of quoting Bishop Fulton J. Sheen. One of his favorite quotes is, “There are not more than 100 people in the world who truly hate the Catholic Church, but there are millions who hate what they perceive to be the Catholic Church.” I use this quote to sum up the work of the Catholic Answers apostolate. Even as a cradle Catholic, I had a lot of the common misconceptions about the Church before listening to the show–and I went through 12 years of Catholic education! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been listening to the show and said to myself, “Oh! So that’s why…” (fill in the blank with something dealing with Catholicism). Catholic Answers made me a better Catholic because it show
ed me what the Church really is and untaught the untruths the world had given me. I know it’s had an impact on countless others, too. One of my favorite parts about listening to the show is hearing a militant atheist or self-proclaimed “Sola Scriptura” protestant call, ready to tear apart some aspect of Catholicism, but they end up thanking the host for their answers and for being so charitable in their response.
Maybe you’re struggling with some aspect about Catholicism. Maybe you hate the Church! Give the show a call, and pose your objections or questions. Listen for an hour. I dare you not to walk away with a new perspective or a deeper appreciation for the beauty of Christ’s Church.
Do yourself a favor and check out the
Catholic Answers website where you’ll find more information about the Catholic Answers Live show, online forums, the magazine, and many other resources.
Enjoy!
![Thank You, Duggar Family]()
by Catherine | Dec 20, 2011 | Faith
Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar became household names thanks to their TLC reality show “19 Kids and Counting.” The family made headlines this fall when the family announced they were expecting another child in April 2012. Public opinion swirled around whether or not Michelle was too old, if they had too many children, what kind of parents they must be, whether they were exploiting their children for monetary gain, etc.
Michelle went to her routine 19-week ultrasound to find out the baby’s gender on December 8th, and a heartbeat could not be found. Michelle miscarried the baby naturally on December 11th. The Duggars named the baby Jubilee Shalom. In a video message Michelle recorded for Jubilee, she says that her name means “joyful celebration of peace.”
Unfortunately, this time of loss did not escape public scrutiny. After the Duggars learned at their ultrasound that their baby had died, they decided to have portraits of Jubilee taken through Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep. Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep (NILMDTS) was created in 2005. According to their website,
“The Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep mission is to introduce remembrance photography to parents suffering the loss of a baby with the free gift of professional portraiture. Thousands of families from many different backgrounds and faiths have received services as a way to capture these precious images of their baby. Many families are unprepared for the loss they will suffer. Sometimes having only moments with their child, these images provide tangible proof that their child was real. For many, this is an important part of their healing process. NILMDTS has a network of 7,000 photographers worldwide.”
The photos, leaked somehow to the media, have become the center of a controversy. Some seem to think that the photos are too graphic, that the family is disgusting for posting images of their dead baby, and that this is all part of some publicity stunt. (How someone can post such hateful and ignorant comments about a family suffering the loss of their baby is beyond me, but that’s another post.) My impression is that those troubled by the images are troubled with the reality of the images. Jubilee Duggar’s little hands and feet are those of a baby, not a mere blob of tissue.
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| Image from TMZ |
Regardless of how the media came upon the pictures of Jubilee (which were intended for the memorial service and family use), Jubilee’s little 19-week-old hands and feet are giving the world a beautiful pro-life message. A photo of Michelle holding Jubilee’s little feet on the family blog has the caption, “There is no foot too small that it cannot leave an imprint on this world.”
The stories in the secular media exclusively talk about the Duggar family losing their “baby,” not a “fetus.” Almost overwhelmingly, the online news story comment boxes are full of support for the Duggar family and the loss of their baby. Here’s an LA Times story, and here’s a People Magazine article. Unlike previous news stories about the family, the comments generally say that regardless of their personal opinions of the number of children the Duggars have or how they raise their children, they are sad for the family’s loss. The vitriolic and hateful posts are refreshingly few and far between.
Thank you, Duggar family.
Thank you for being unapologetic in your love for your baby and your celebration of her.
Thank you for giving your baby a name that we now associate with those pictures.
Thank you for showing all of us that Jubilee’s life was not too short to be commemorated in a beautiful memorial service.
Thank you for showing us that taking pictures of the children lost in the womb or shortly after birth is a beautiful, healthy, and special treasure for grieving families. Thank you for indirectly bringing about awareness of Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep and other bereavement resources through the images of Jubilee.
Thank you, Michelle, for reminding us to always count the babies here and in heaven. In her audio message to Jubilee, Michelle says that from now one when someone asks her how many children she has, she will respond by saying 21, explaining “19 here, and 2 in heaven.”
![Give Teenagers More Credit]()
by Catherine | Dec 15, 2011 | Faith
I started teaching an eighth grade religious education class at my parish this fall. In my archdiocese, students receive the Sacrament of Confirmation as eighth graders. Knowing that Confirmation is on the horizon, combined with my students’ apathy for their spiritual development, has been the source of a lot of anxiety and doubt.
I started the year with high hopes and high expectations. I expected that my students would be familiar with the Bible, be able to look up Scripture verses, know basic tenets of the Catholic faith, be able to recite common prayers, regularly attend Mass with their families, and have a basic understanding of what the Mass actually is.
Throughout the course of the semester, I have had to revisit my class goals and expectations. Slowly but surely, I developed a course of action appropriate for my students that would prepare them for their Confirmation in March.
I had more than my fair share of classes that I would call “epic fails.” Fortunately, I had several weeks in November where we had guest speakers and Thanksgiving break to afford me the opportunity to take it to prayer. God humbled me and taught me a lot: I need to be okay with meeting my students where they are, answer their questions, reassure them that it is okay to have doubts, and to show them that the Catholic Church loves them and wants them to call it Home.
In preparation for my lesson last night, I decided the topic would be making a New Year’s Prayer Resolution.
I started the class by having them take an inventory of the activities they do each day, how much time they spend on each activity, and how they prioritize these activities in their lives.
Then we discussed the results of their inventory using these questions:
- Which 3 activities, other than school, do I spend the most time on? How did I say I prioritize these activities (1-14)?
- Do my priorities and how I spend my time line up? (In other words, am I spending the most time on things that I say are my top priorities?)
- If my priorities and how I spend my time are out of sync, what changes do I need to make? Are there any activities I need to cut or limit in my life?
After that brief discussion, we talked about the different kinds of prayer.
First, we talked about having a “healthy prayer diet.” I briefly introduced the “ACTS” model of using Adoration, Contrition, Thanksgiving, and Supplication to format prayer.
Second, we talked about the differences between formulaic and spontaneous prayer. We talked about how beautiful the formulaic prayers are. We talked about the “Our Father” being given to us directly from Christ, the Scriptural sources of the “Hail Mary,” and the beautiful other devotions such as the Rosary. I emphasized the importance of praying the words rather than merely saying them. I introduced spontaneous prayer as being a kind of conversation with God where the words are not prepared ahead of time. I emphasized here that it is important to remember that this should not sound like any other conversation we have with a good friend, and to remember that it is God we are talking to. It doesn’t have to be formal,
but it does need to be prayerful.
I introduced meditation by encouraging them to close their eyes and use their imagination to make them present at the birth of Christ, using a Scripture reading as our guide. I read through the passage and asked them to imagine being different participants in the story–even the silent ones like the animals. They absolutely loved being exposed to this new way of experiencing Scripture! One of my regularly “too cool” male students said to his neighbor, “That was actually cool!” I love how teenagers don’t think we can hear their conversations. It makes these comments all the more moving.
I briefly discussed contemplation as being a “heart to heart” conversation with God, where we just sit with Him and ask Him to speak to us. I said how blessed we are as Catholics to be able to go to the “real deal” in the Blessed Sacrament–that we can sit and literally gaze upon Him.
I told my students about my sister and brother-in-law’s awesome tradition of sharing a weekly holy hour. They asked what you actually do at a holy hour. I told them that everyone does something a little different–some people bring devotional readings, some people journal, some people pray the Rosary, some people sit in complete silence. The basic idea, I said, is to spend time with Christ.
“Could you not keep watch with me for one hour?” Matthew 26:40
Leave all other distractions at the door, open your heart up to Christ, and allow His presence in the Blessed Sacrament to penetrate your soul.
A student who usually zones out, doodles, and makes smart-alek remarks was completely focused on this part of the class. After I described a holy hour, his mouth was wide open, and he said, “That sounds like the coolest thing you could ever do! Awesome!” The skeptic in me thought he was being sarcastic, and so did the other students, so they started to laugh. He said, “No, no, seriously. That is, like, amazing. Jesus is really there!” All I could do was tear up and say, “Yeah, isn’t it awesome?”
Then we talked about how to practically establish a prayer habit:
Step 1: Create Your Own Prayer Station Arsenal.
Place a star next to the items that you would include in your own prayer station. List any other items that you would like to have in your prayer station.
Helpful Tools Include:
– Books of lives of the saints
– Catechism of the Catholic Church
– Bible (New American Bible or Revised Standard Version)
– Rosary
– Holy Cards
– Daily Missal
– Other devotional books by Catholic authors (see Catholic.com for ideas)
– Journal
– Candle
– Other items:
Step 2: Make a Daily “Date With God”
1. Find a time that you can spend at least 10 minutes of interrupted time in prayer. My time is: _____________________________________________________________
2. Where will you have this “Date With God”?
____________________________________________________________________________________
3. I will do this to remind myself to have my “Date With God”:
____________________________________________________________________________________
4. Find other times throughout the day that you can offer up prayers to God. Examples include:
a. When you hear an ambulance
b. Every time you walk up or down a flight of stairs
c. When you are waiting for a web page to open or for your computer to start up
d. Doing chores
e. Random times throughout the day when I can offer prayer are:
I brought my prayer box that I wrote about in my previous post on creating a prayer routine. I picked out all of my devotional items, flipped through my journal, told them that I pray for them by name, and de
scribed my individual prayer routine as well as how we pray with our children and how Philip and I pray together before bed.
I concluded the lesson by asking them to journal for five minutes on their New Year’s Prayer Resolution. Usually, I struggle to get them to do much of anything for one minute, let alone five. I don’t know what it was, but they stayed focus for those five minutes, writing and writing. When the time was up, I asked them if they had any questions about prayer and if the lesson was helpful. They asked a few questions, and one of my female students said, “Wow, I didn’t know you could just talk to God. That’s really cool. I’m starting a journal.” Several of them echoed, “Yeah.”
I told them I’d like to close the lesson with a prayer before we had a little Christmas party. The student who was really excited about holy hours said, “Oh, good! I really like your prayers.” Who were these kids, and what had they done with my old students??? After saying a spontaneous prayer to God asking for the safety and rest of my students over their Christmas vacation, I opened it up for petitions. They volunteered very deep, personal, and thoughtful prayers, which showed me that they were beginning to trust more in God and one another. We closed with an “Our Father.”
We spent the last ten minutes of class munching on cookies, drinking pop, and discussing our plans over Christmas break. They all thanked me (another welcome change), several wished me a Merry Christmas, and one gave me a box of cookies she baked all by herself.
I was in the depths of despair with this group prior to bringing my concerns to prayer. Unfortunately, I’m not exaggerating! Only after humbling myself and figuring out that it’s not up to me to make this class a success, God took over. He will never cease to amaze me with what He can do. I can actually see many of the students coming on fire for Christ. Now, I really look forward to the rest of this year with these students, and I know I am going to be sad when the year comes to an end.
by Catherine | Dec 11, 2011 | Everything Else, Faith
Here are the issues addressed in the CBS report “The Catholic Church: A House Divided?”:
- The excommunication of Sr. Margaret Mary McBride, R.S.M. in the Diocese of Phoenix, Arizona.
- “Power-obsessed” Bishops
- Vatican II
- New Translation of the Roman Missal
- Apostolic Visitation to Religious Orders
- Current status of St. Margaret Mary McBride and St. Joseph’s Catholic Hospital
I covered issues 1-2 in Part 1. Here was my summary:
- Sr. McBride automatically excommunicated herself by counseling the medical staff at St. Joseph Catholic Hospital to perform an abortion.
- Bishop Olmsted acted charitably in acting as messenger in bringing this to Sr. McBride’s attention.
- Bishops who work to ensure that the faithful in their area are acting in accord to the laws of the church are not “power-obsessed”; they are exercising their office in the Church that Christ created.
Now, onto issues 3-6.
Issue 3: Vatican II
Not surprisingly, the report tries to make the case through interviews that, “They’re just trying to reverse the changes of Vatican II” argument.
I wonder how many Catholics, let alone non-Catholics, have actually read all of the documents from Vatican II to see what we’re actually talking about. To get the “real deal,” click on the above link to access the documents directly from the Vatican Website. Don’t count on the media to interpret these documents for you.
Remember in Part One how the story tried to turn the bishops into “cruel,” “power-obsessed” men? The story goes on to try drawing a connection between “these events” and Vatican II.
Some see these events – taken together – as symptomatic of a larger effort to reverse reforms set down by the 1960s advisory council that came to be known as Vatican II – reforms which, back then, were seen as an effort to bring the church closer to modern times.
Be wary of any attempts to sum up an entire Church council in a few sentences, let alone from Gary Macy.
“There was a sense that we should try to bring Catholicism up to the 20th and then the 21st century,” said Gary Macy, a professor of theology at California’s Jesuit Santa Clara University. “In all kinds of ways – in scholarship, how do we relate to psychology? How do we relate to political science? How do we relate to modern ethics? All of those questions were opened up. There was much more involvement of the laity in the liturgy, so people felt much more involved. There were less spectators and more participants.”
A few concerns about Gary Macy:
- He wrote this book: The Hidden History of Women’s Ordination: Female Clergy in the Medieval West
- He is mentioned in Karl Keating’s article “The Long Way Home: Can Losing Your Faith Be a Step in the Right Direction?“ from Catholic Answers Magazine. (Karl Keating is the founder of Catholic Answers) Keating writes, “Gary Macy, who teaches theology at the University of San Diego, a nominally Catholic school, gives a similar argument. He thinks the use of wheat bread and wine is merely a tradition, and traditions can be changed—or, at least, exceptions can be made: ‘All kinds of things have been dispensed with in the history of the Church.'”
Did I mention Gary Macy is the current chair of the Religious Studies department at Santa Clara University?
Issue 4: New Translation of the Roman Missal
On November 27, 2011 (the first Sunday of Advent), Catholic churches across the United States started using the 3rd Edition of the Roman Missal.
The Vatican has now directed American churches to institute a new mass featuring an English translation more faithful to the original Latin – a mass critics say is harder to understand, less English-speaker friendly.
A few things on the new translation:
- It’s just that–a new translation, not a “new mass.”
- The new translation is a more accurate translation of the original Latin. Altogether, these changes create a more sacred language more fitting of worship, helping us to life our hearts and minds up to the Lord.
- The older translation was created using what is called dynamic equivalence (translating with the goal of creating the same effect in the new language that the words had in the original language).
- The new translation was created using formal equivalence (translating word for word to replicate the same meaning).
- CBS says the “new mass” is “harder to understand, less English-speaker friendly”
- Latin’s grammatical structure is different than English, so it is to be expected that there are marked differences (i.e., use of several subordinate clauses).
- The entire process creates an opportunity for the faithful to learn more about the Mass, its origins, and the words we say.
- Having to slow down as we learn the new prayers is an opportunity to reflect on what it is we are actually saying.
Iss
ue 5: Apostolic Visitation to Religious Orders
In yet another attempt to paint “the Vatican” as a secretive, power-hungry empire, the story moves on to the Apostolic Visitation of the Religious Orders across the United States.
And not long ago, the church in Rome exercised that control – launching what’s called an apostolic visitation, a process shrouded in mystery allowing it to investigate orders of nuns here in the United States.
One need do no more than a Google search to find out basic information about the Apostolic Visitation and get in touch with those actually performing the visitation. Here’s what the official Apostolic Visitation website says about the visitation:
An Apostolic Visitation is a formal but personal process, initiated at the highest levels of the Catholic Church, to look into the welfare of a particular aspect of the Church. Cardinal Franc Rodé, C.M., Prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, in a December 22, 2008 decree, initiated the Visitation of apostolic institutes of women religious in the United States and appointed Mother Clare Millea, A.S.C.J., Superior General of the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, to serve as the Apostolic Visitator.
Mother Clare is a Connecticut native who has served as superior general of her religious community since 2004. She has complete administrative authority of the Apostolic Visitation and will personally conduct many inquiries and visits. Mother Clare will prepare a confidential report of her findings and observations for Cardinal Rodé at the conclusion of the Visitation.
Cardinal Rodé, a Slovenian, is a member of the Congregation of the Mission, an apostolic community of men commonly called the Vincentians. He has served as prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life since 2004.
So, lo and behold, it is a woman religious sister named Mother Clare Millea, Superior General of the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, who is serving as the official Apostolic Visitator. She will be the one to write and file the report of her observations of the religious orders across the country.
The Apostolic Visitation seeks to listen to and affirm the dignity of all women religious who serve the Church with exemplary love.
In addition, as Cardinal Rodé recently stated, “this Apostolic Visitation hopes to encourage vocations and assure a better future for women religious.” It offers women religious a valuable opportunity for prayerful and thoughtful self-examination to discern and foster avenues of growth and vitality in their congregations.
Do you have some questions about the visitation? Lucky for you, there is a special FAQ site on the page. Perhaps you want to know, “What has prompted this Visitation?”
The Congregation for Consecrated Life is aware that many new congregations have emerged in the United States while many others have decreased in membership or have an increased median age. Apostolic works have also changed significantly because of societal changes. These and other areas need to be better understood and assessed in order to safeguard and promote consecrated life in the United States.
Maybe you want to know, “Why are the congregations of male religious not included in this Visitation?”
Various congregations of male religious were interviewed during the recent United States Seminary Study. In addition, this Visitation is guided by the scope of the mandate given to the Visitator.
Maybe you want to know, “Where is all of the information going and with whom will it be shared?”
The Apostolic Visitator will use the data gathered to prepare her report for Cardinal Rodé, Prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated life and Societies of Apostolic Life. The Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) will prepare an aggregate report of the quantitative data collected from all reporting institutes in Part A of the Questionnaire. Individual Congregations will not be identified in any way. Cardinal Rodé has authorized the public release of this report (emphasis mine).
That’s a lot of sound information straight from the source actually performing the Visitation. Wouldn’t someone actually conducting the Visitation be a logical source to interview on the topic? Instead, CBS reporter Petersen says this:
We reached out to many orders of nuns across the country hoping to get their viewpoints about all of this.
In most cases someone would agree to be interviewed. But when the interview was imminent we would be called and it would be canceled.
In the end, Sister Mary Ann Hinsdale agreed to speak with us – partly, she said, out of concern that if she didn’t, no one would.
CBS tries to make it sound like the sisters they contacted were somehow silenced and that Sr. Mary Hinsdale was a brave, sacrificial lamb, speaking on behalf of the mistreated female religious congregations.
Sr. Mary Ann Hinsdale has authored and co-authored several books, including: What’s Left? Liberal American Catholics. You can search through the book on Amazon. That’s how I found this quote:
…the experience of women with vocations [to the priesthood] and the experience of a Church with a severe priest shortage push toward changes in Church teaching.
A female religious contributing to a book like this and writing on the topic of women’s ordination is not a likely candidate to be a faithful defender of the faith. Sister Mary Ann is a member of the order of the Sisters Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. She’s also a professor of theology at Boston College.
“Do you think this apostolic visitation is something that nuns like yourself, who are out there in the world, should be worried about?” asked Petersen.
“I really don’t know,” she replied. “But I think the most problematic aspect of it is that we are not going to see a report, and w
e don’t know what is going to be done with this.”
Please see above. The Visitation website says a public report of the findings of the Visitation will be made available.
“We were never told what was going to be done with this. And while we think this is, you know, a travesty, really, and insulting even about who we are in the church, because we think we’re trying to be loyal to the church. We’re trying to make, you know, plausible explanations where people are saying, ‘Well, why is the church doing this? Why are they excommunicating people who are, you know, seem to be wanting good for the church?'”
So, Sr. Hinsdale is trying to connect the excommunication of Sr. McBride and the Apostolic Visitation of women religious orders to paint the bishops and Church hierarchy as out to get the sisters. Let’s re-summarize why this is silly:
- Sr. McBride excommunicated herself. Archbishop Olmsted was merely the charitable messenger. Also, please continue reading to find out about Sr. McBride’s current status in the Church.
- The Apostolic Visitation’s goal is to strengthen and protect women’s religious orders in the United States. A female religious herself (Mother Clare Millea, Superior General of the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus) is the Apostolic Visitator.
Petersen decided he wanted another voice on the issue, so he returned to Gary Macy. Remember him from above? (The Religious Studies department chair at Santa Clara University and author of The Hidden History of Women’s Ordination: Female Clergy in the Medieval West). Gary Macy chimes in with why he thinks the Apostolic Visitation of women religious is taking place.
“Why the nuns?” asked theologian Gary Macy. “This is my suspicion: They can.”
“It’s interesting that they would take the women’s religious order, and not the men’s religious orders,” Macy said. “Although, you know, for so many centuries and centuries and centuries in Christianity, women have taken a hit first.”
It looks like Gary Macy needs to look at the Apostolic Visitation website as well. Remember the Q&A quote from above? The site says that several of the men’s religious orders were examined in a recent seminary study.
The report cuts back to Sr. Mary Hinsdale after Macy’s comment about women in Christianity always taking the hit first.
When asked why she stays with the Church, Sister Mary Ann Hinsdale said, “Because it’s my church. I have a responsibility to speak the truth that’s been given to me.
Last time I checked, the Catholic Church was Christ’s Church.
“There’s a lot of pain and suffering, I think, in belonging to the Catholic Church today. But I think I’m following as best I can what I think God is asking me to do today in this church as we have it.”
Imagine how differently the interview would look had Petersen interviewed Mother Miriam of the Lamb of God, O.S.B., prioress of Daughters of Mary, Mother of Israel’s Hope (formerly Rosalind Moss). When asked about the charism of her community in a recent National Catholic Register article, this was her response:
What thrills me most, apart from being signs to God in the world and the freedom people have in approaching us, is the sense they have that they “own” us, so to speak. That is, they believe that they have free access to us, that we exist for them, that they have a right to expect us to pray for them, to help them, to be God’s arms to them in their need. It is a beautiful expectation on their part, and, to my mind, that is as it should be.
Contrast the two:
- Sr. Hinsdale says the Catholic Church is “my church,” and that “there’s a lot of pain and suffering…in belonging to the Catholic Church today.”
- Mother Miriam says other people “have a right to expect us to pray for them, to help them, to be God’s arms to them in their need.”
It comes as no surprise to me that Mother Miriam’s order is flourishing with vocations and that orders that have adopted Sr. Hinsdale’s attitude toward the Catholic Church are the orders that are dying out.
Issue 6: Current status of (1) St. Margaret Mary McBride and (2) St. Joseph’s Catholic Hospital
(1) Current Status of Sr. McBride
Sr. McBride’s excommunication was lifted by Bishop Olmsted, and she resigned as member of St. Joseph’s Catholic Hospital ethics committee. This is a part of the story that deserves more attention. Excommunication is not necessarily a permanent condition! This is the beauty of forgiveness and reconciliation. When a member of the Church is excommunicated, the onus is on that person to come back into communion with the Church. To do this, the individual must repent of their sins in the sacrament of reconciliation directly to the bishop or a priest appointed by the bishop to lift the excommunication. Like all individuals going to the sacrament of reconciliation, the sacrament does not “work” unless the individual is truly repentant of the sin. By all outward appearances, Sr. McBride is back in communion with the Catholic Church. Hooray!
(2) Current Status of St. Joseph’s Catholic Hospital
The CBS report says,
To regain its “Catholic” status, the bishop insists that it must say the medical procedure that resulted in the abortion and saved the mother of four was in violation of religious and ethical policies, and will never happen again.
So far, the hospital has refused to do so.
It still cannot call itself Catholic.
This seems pretty straightforward to me. An institution calling itself “Catholic” needs to operate in line with Church Teaching. When it does not operate as a Catholic hospital by performing an abortion, why is it offensive to take this title away?
Summing it all up:
- Issue 3: The Second Vatican Council
- Don’t count on a secular media source like CBS to sum up an entire Church Council for you.
- Read the Council documents for yourself here.
- Issue 4: New Translation of the Roman Missal
- The “critics” in the new translation think it is a “new mass” and are consequently troubled by the changes
- Issue 5: Apostolic Visitation to Religious Orders
- The actual Visitation is being conducted by a religious sister, and a public report will be made available when the Visitation concludes
- Issue 6: Current Status of Sr. Margaret Mary McBride and St. Joseph’s Catholic Hospital
- Sr. McBride is, by all outward appearances, back in communion with the Catholic Church
- St. Joseph’s Hospital can no longer call itself “Catholic” because:
- it refuses to admit that the abortion counseled by Sr. McBride was immoral
- St. Joseph’s refuses to guarantee that another abortion will not take place at the hospital
by Catherine | Dec 11, 2011 | Everything Else, Faith
Here are the issues addressed in the CBS report “The Catholic Church: A House Divided?”:
- The excommunication of Sr. Margaret Mary McBride, R.S.M. in the Diocese of Phoenix, Arizona.
- “Power-obsessed” Bishops
- Vatican II
- New Translation of the Roman Missal
- Apostolic Visitation to Religious Orders
- Current status of St. Margaret Mary McBride and St. Joseph’s Catholic Hospital
I covered issues 1-2 in Part 1. Here was my summary:
- Sr. McBride automatically excommunicated herself by counseling the medical staff at St. Joseph Catholic Hospital to perform an abortion.
- Bishop Olmsted acted charitably in acting as messenger in bringing this to Sr. McBride’s attention.
- Bishops who work to ensure that the faithful in their area are acting in accord to the laws of the church are not “power-obsessed”; they are exercising their office in the Church that Christ created.
Now, onto issues 3-6.
Issue 3: Vatican II
Not surprisingly, the report tries to make the case through interviews that, “They’re just trying to reverse the changes of Vatican II” argument.
I wonder how many Catholics, let alone non-Catholics, have actually read all of the documents from Vatican II to see what we’re actually talking about. To get the “real deal,” click on the above link to access the documents directly from the Vatican Website. Don’t count on the media to interpret these documents for you.
Remember in Part One how the story tried to turn the bishops into “cruel,” “power-obsessed” men? The story goes on to try drawing a connection between “these events” and Vatican II.
Some see these events – taken together – as symptomatic of a larger effort to reverse reforms set down by the 1960s advisory council that came to be known as Vatican II – reforms which, back then, were seen as an effort to bring the church closer to modern times.
Be wary of any attempts to sum up an entire Church council in a few sentences, let alone from Gary Macy.
“There was a sense that we should try to bring Catholicism up to the 20th and then the 21st century,” said Gary Macy, a professor of theology at California’s Jesuit Santa Clara University. “In all kinds of ways – in scholarship, how do we relate to psychology? How do we relate to political science? How do we relate to modern ethics? All of those questions were opened up. There was much more involvement of the laity in the liturgy, so people felt much more involved. There were less spectators and more participants.”
A few concerns about Gary Macy:
- He wrote this book: The Hidden History of Women’s Ordination: Female Clergy in the Medieval West
- He is mentioned in Karl Keating’s article “The Long Way Home: Can Losing Your Faith Be a Step in the Right Direction?“ from Catholic Answers Magazine. (Karl Keating is the founder of Catholic Answers) Keating writes, “Gary Macy, who teaches theology at the University of San Diego, a nominally Catholic school, gives a similar argument. He thinks the use of wheat bread and wine is merely a tradition, and traditions can be changed—or, at least, exceptions can be made: ‘All kinds of things have been dispensed with in the history of the Church.'”
Did I mention Gary Macy is the current chair of the Religious Studies department at Santa Clara University?
Issue 4: New Translation of the Roman Missal
On November 27, 2011 (the first Sunday of Advent), Catholic churches across the United States started using the 3rd Edition of the Roman Missal.
The Vatican has now directed American churches to institute a new mass featuring an English translation more faithful to the original Latin – a mass critics say is harder to understand, less English-speaker friendly.
A few things on the new translation:
- It’s just that–a new translation, not a “new mass.”
- The new translation is a more accurate translation of the original Latin. Altogether, these changes create a more sacred language more fitting of worship, helping us to life our hearts and minds up to the Lord.
- The older translation was created using what is called dynamic equivalence (translating with the goal of creating the same effect in the new language that the words had in the original language).
- The new translation was created using formal equivalence (translating word for word to replicate the same meaning).
- CBS says the “new mass” is “harder to understand, less English-speaker friendly”
- Latin’s grammatical structure is different than English, so it is to be expected that there are marked differences (i.e., use of several subordinate clauses).
- The entire process creates an opportunity for the faithful to learn more about the Mass, its origins, and the words we say.
- Having to slow down as we learn the new prayers is an opportunity to reflect on what it is we are actually saying.
Issue 5: Apostolic Visitation to Religious Orders
In yet another attempt to paint “the Vatican” as a secretive, power-hungry empire, the story moves on to the Apostolic Visitation of the Religious Orders across the United States.
And not long ago, the church in Rome exercised that control – launching what’s called an apostolic visitation, a process shrouded in mystery allowing it to investigate orders of nuns here in the United States.
One need do no more than a Google search to find out basic information about the Apostolic Visitation and get in touch with those actually performing the visitation. Here’s what the official Apostolic Visitation website says about the visitation:
An Apostolic Visitation is a formal but personal process, initiated at the highest levels of the Catholic Church, to look into the welfare of a particular aspect of the Church. Cardinal Franc Rodé, C.M., Prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, in a December 22, 2008 decree, initiated the Visitation of apostolic institutes of women religious in the United States and appointed Mother Clare Millea, A.S.C.J., Superior General of the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, to serve as the Apostolic Visitator.
Mother Clare is a Connecticut native who has served as superior general of her religious community since 2004. She has complete administrative authority of the Apostolic Visitation and will personally conduct many inquiries and visits. Mother Clare will prepare a confidential report of her findings and observations for Cardinal Rodé at the conclusion of the Visitation.
Cardinal Rodé, a Slovenian, is a member of the Congregation of the Mission, an apostolic community of men commonly called the Vincentians. He has served as prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life since 2004.
So, lo and behold, it is a woman religious sister named Mother Clare Millea, Superior General of the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, who is serving as the official Apostolic Visitator. She will be the one to write and file the report of her observations of the religious orders across the country.
The Apostolic Visitation seeks to listen to and affirm the dignity of all women religious who serve the Church with exemplary love.
In addition, as Cardinal Rodé recently stated, “this Apostolic Visitation hopes to encourage vocations and assure a better future for women religious.” It offers women religious a valuable opportunity for prayerful and thoughtful self-examination to discern and foster avenues of growth and vitality in their congregations.
Do you have some questions about the visitation? Lucky for you, there is a special FAQ site on the page. Perhaps you want to know, “What has prompted this Visitation?”
The Congregation for Consecrated Life is aware that many new congregations have emerged in the United States while many others have decreased in membership or have an increased median age. Apostolic works have also changed significantly because of societal changes. These and other areas need to be better understood and assessed in order to safeguard and promote consecrated life in the United States.
Maybe you want to know, “Why are the congregations of male religious not included in this Visitation?”
Various congregations of male religious were interviewed during the recent United States Seminary Study. In addition, this Visitation is guided by the scope of the mandate given to the Visitator.
Maybe you want to know, “Where is all of the information going and with whom will it be shared?”
The Apostolic Visitator will use the data gathered to prepare her report for Cardinal Rodé, Prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated life and Societies of Apostolic Life. The Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) will prepare an aggregate report of the quantitative data collected from all reporting institutes in Part A of the Questionnaire. Individual Congregations will not be identified in any way. Cardinal Rodé has authorized the public release of this report (emphasis mine).
That’s a lot of sound information straight from the source actually performing the Visitation. Wouldn’t someone actually conducting the Visitation be a logical source to interview on the topic? Instead, CBS reporter Petersen says this:
We reached out to many orders of nuns across the country hoping to get their viewpoints about all of this.
In most cases someone would agree to be interviewed. But when the interview was imminent we would be called and it would be canceled.
In the end, Sister Mary Ann Hinsdale agreed to speak with us – partly, she said, out of concern that if she didn’t, no one would.
CBS tries to make it sound like the sisters they contacted were somehow silenced and that Sr. Mary Hinsdale was a brave, sacrificial lamb, speaking on behalf of the mistreated female religious congregations.
Sr. Mary Ann Hinsdale has authored and co-authored several books, including: What’s Left? Liberal American Catholics. You can search through the book on Amazon. That’s how I found this quote:
…the experience of women with vocations [to the priesthood] and the experience of a Church with a severe priest shortage push toward changes in Church teaching.
A female religious contributing to a book like this and writing on the topic of women’s ordination is not a likely candidate to be a faithful defender of the faith. Sister Mary Ann is a member of the order of the Sisters Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. She’s also a professor of theology at Boston College.
“Do you think this apostolic visitation is something that nuns like yourself, who are out there in the world, should be worried about?” asked Petersen.
“I really don’t know,” she replied. “But I think the most problematic aspect of it is that we are not going to see a report, and we don’t know what is going to be done with this.”
Please see above. The Visitation website says a public report of the findings of the Visitation will be made available.
“We were never told what was going to be done with this. And while we think this is, you know, a travesty, really, and insulting even about who we are in the church, because we think we’re trying to be loyal to the church. We’re trying to make, you know, plausible explanations where people are saying, ‘Well, why is the church doing this? Why are they excommunicating people who are, you know, seem to be wanting good for the church?'”
So, Sr. Hinsdale is trying to connect the excommunication of Sr. McBride and the Apostolic Visitation of women religious orders to paint the bishops and Church hierarchy as out to get the sisters. Let’s re-summarize why this is silly:
- Sr. McBride excommunicated herself. Archbishop Olmsted was merely the charitable messenger. Also, please continue reading to find out about Sr. McBride’s current status in the Church.
- The Apostolic Visitation’s goal is to strengthen and protect women’s religious orders in the United States. A female religious herself (Mother Clare Millea, Superior General of the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus) is the Apostolic Visitator.
Petersen decided he wanted another voice on the issue, so he returned to Gary Macy. Remember him from above? (The Religious Studies department chair at Santa Clara University and author of The Hidden History of Women’s Ordination: Female Clergy in the Medieval West). Gary Macy chimes in with why he thinks the Apostolic Visitation of women religious is taking place.
“Why the nuns?” asked theologian Gary Macy. “This is my suspicion: They can.”
“It’s interesting that they would take the women’s religious order, and not the men’s religious orders,” Macy said. “Although, you know, for so many centuries and centuries and centuries in Christianity, women have taken a hit first.”
It looks like Gary Macy needs to look at the Apostolic Visitation website as well. Remember the Q&A quote from above? The site says that several of the men’s religious orders were examined in a recent seminary study.
The report cuts back to Sr. Mary Hinsdale after Macy’s comment about women in Christianity always taking the hit first.
When asked why she stays with the Church, Sister Mary Ann Hinsdale said, “Because it’s my church. I have a responsibility to speak the truth that’s been given to me.
Last time I checked, the Catholic Church was Christ’s Church.
“There’s a lot of pain and suffering, I think, in belonging to the Catholic Church today. But I think I’m following as best I can what I think God is asking me to do today in this church as we have it.”
Imagine how differently the interview would look had Petersen interviewed Mother Miriam of the Lamb of God, O.S.B., prioress of Daughters of Mary, Mother of Israel’s Hope (formerly Rosalind Moss). When asked about the charism of her community in a recent National Catholic Register article, this was her response:
What thrills me most, apart from being signs to God in the world and the freedom people have in approaching us, is the sense they have that they “own” us, so to speak. That is, they believe that they have free access to us, that we exist for them, that they have a right to expect us to pray for them, to help them, to be God’s arms to them in their need. It is a beautiful expectation on their part, and, to my mind, that is as it should be.
Contrast the two:
- Sr. Hinsdale says the Catholic Church is “my church,” and that “there’s a lot of pain and suffering…in belonging to the Catholic Church today.”
- Mother Miriam says other people “have a right to expect us to pray for them, to help them, to be God’s arms to them in their need.”
It comes as no surprise to me that Mother Miriam’s order is flourishing with vocations and that orders that have adopted Sr. Hinsdale’s attitude toward the Catholic Church are the orders that are dying out.
Issue 6: Current status of (1) St. Margaret Mary McBride and (2) St. Joseph’s Catholic Hospital
(1) Current Status of Sr. McBride
Sr. McBride’s excommunication was lifted by Bishop Olmsted, and she resigned as member of St. Joseph’s Catholic Hospital ethics committee. This is a part of the story that deserves more attention. Excommunication is not necessarily a permanent condition! This is the beauty of forgiveness and reconciliation. When a member of the Church is excommunicated, the onus is on that person to come back into communion with the Church. To do this, the individual must repent of their sins in the sacrament of reconciliation directly to the bishop or a priest appointed by the bishop to lift the excommunication. Like all individuals going to the sacrament of reconciliation, the sacrament does not “work” unless the individual is truly repentant of the sin. By all outward appearances, Sr. McBride is back in communion with the Catholic Church. Hooray!
(2) Current Status of St. Joseph’s Catholic Hospital
The CBS report says,
To regain its “Catholic” status, the bishop insists that it must say the medical procedure that resulted in the abortion and saved the mother of four was in violation of religious and ethical policies, and will never happen again.
So far, the hospital has refused to do so.
It still cannot call itself Catholic.
This seems pretty straightforward to me. An institution calling itself “Catholic” needs to operate in line with Church Teaching. When it does not operate as a Catholic hospital by performing an abortion, why is it offensive to take this title away?
Summing it all up:
- Issue 3: The Second Vatican Council
- Don’t count on a secular media source like CBS to sum up an entire Church Council for you.
- Read the Council documents for yourself here.
- Issue 4: New Translation of the Roman Missal
- The “critics” in the new translation think it is a “new mass” and are consequently troubled by the changes
- Issue 5: Apostolic Visitation to Religious Orders
- The actual Visitation is being conducted by a religious sister, and a public report will be made available when the Visitation concludes
- Issue 6: Current Status of Sr. Margaret Mary McBride and St. Joseph’s Catholic Hospital
- Sr. McBride is, by all outward appearances, back in communion with the Catholic Church
- St. Joseph’s Hospital can no longer call itself “Catholic” because:
- it refuses to admit that the abortion counseled by Sr. McBride was immoral
- St. Joseph’s refuses to guarantee that another abortion will not take place at the hospital
