I got a new job, and what that means for this blog

So I've recently been hired by The Catholic Telegraph. The Catholic Telegraph was established in 1831 and is the oldest continuously-published Catholic diocesan newspaper in the United States.

Its a great job and I'm excited to be using my talents to serve the Lord and his Church.

But I don't yet know whether I will be able to continue this blog. As an employee of the Arch Diocese of Cincinnati, I work at the pleasure of the Arch Bishop, and I do not wish any opinion of mine to be confused as speaking for him or for the Church in Cincinnati.

Whether I continue to blog or not, thanks for everything so far, readers.

Though my position is of far less importance and infinitely less note than His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI, I will close with his words upon his election to the papacy.

I am but "a simple, humble worker in the vineyard of the Lord... The fact that the Lord can work and act even with insufficient means consoles me."

How I wasted my vote for the presidency, and why I did it

So all the voter guides and all the all the yard signs and all the ads and all the Facebook messages are almost in the rear view mirror.

This morning I left a little early for work and headed to my local polling place to cast my vote. The four old women running the polls were cheerful and helpful, the electronic machine was annoying, but effective.

I walked in and stared at the presidential tickets longer than I  thought I would. See, I had decided some time ago that I could not vote for Barack Obama/Joe Biden or for Mitt Romney/Paul Ryan. A little research told me I couldn't vote for Gary Johnson, or for Jill Stein or for Randall Terry. I intended only to abstain.

The sign outside the voting booth reminded me that write-in votes will only be counted if they are for candidates who have declared their intent to run, and Lord knows I didn't know who fit that criteria anyway. Still, with the full knowledge that my vote wouldn't count I selected write-in and used the complex wheel system to type the following name.

JULIA STEGEMAN.

Julia Stegeman is a 90-year-old woman from Cincinnati, Ohio. Well, she lives in Cincinnati but if you asked her where she's from she'd say Fayettville, Ohio. She's probably a Democrat. She was born on the heels of World War I. She witnessed, from Ohio, Pearl Harbor, WW2, Korea, Vietnam, 9-11, Afghanistan and Iraq. Her husband, who died in 1996, was a veteran.

Julia Stegeman lived through the Great Depression, the civil rights movement, the counter-culture revolution, hippies, Woodstock, Nixon, JFK etc.

She's been daughter, wife, mother, grandma and great grandmother.

While Julia Stegeman supports many liberal seeming policies that I do not personally agree with, I voted for her anyway, because I trust her. She's brilliant. She's measured. She's not reactionary. She has infinite faith in the potential good of people and the good of this nation. Still, she's not naive. Thanks to her age, she's also got a great sense of perspective.

She plays a mean game of Scrabble.

In case you you haven't figured it out, Julia is my grandmother, or Mema as I call her. She's 90. She's never missed a bill payment. She still balances her own checkbook and lives alone under her own care. She's part of what we've dubbed the "Greatest Generation" but unlike so many in her age bracket, she believes that my generation and the one after it have even more potential for greatness.

Alas, Julia won't win, and in fact history won't even record that she got a vote. But I looked over the options they gave me to choose a president, and found them wanting. I saw an incumbent who doesn't respect my freedom of religion. I saw a challenger who doesn't know what he stands for. I saw a trio of third party candidates that just didn't seem like someone I could support.

So I took my vote and cast it for someone I believed in. Officially, it doesn't count. Maybe even in the objective sense all I've done (as a conservative) waste a vote against Obama. Maybe it doesn't matter either way.

I voted for an amendment to Kentucky's Constitution, I voted in the House and State House race for established candidates. I abstained from all the local races I didn't follow well enough to know.

But I voted my conscience on the presidency. I believe in Julia Stegeman, and she believes this country can be better than it is. So do I, and that's why I voted for her.

Who gets to call themselves Catholic?

I'm one of those people that simply doesn't mind getting into discussions about all the things they teach you not to talk about in polite company. Politics is fun to discuss, religion even more so. And because I so enjoy having these little debates I'll have them in person, online, on the phone, anywhere.

Recently I was commenting on an article on Yahoo News. The article concerned the possible ordination of female bishops in the Anglican church, and since it reference Pope Benedict XVI's offer to Anglicans to keep their traditions and rejoin the fullness of truth in the Catholic faith, I was compelled to comment.

Someone, presumably Anglican, posted their concern that the ordination of women bishops would cause further schisms in the already divided religion. I responded:

"The gates of Rome swing wide open my Anglican brothers and sisters. End your self-imposed exile and come home.
In the words of of the Catholics Come Home commercial, "And in this world filled with chaos, hardship and pain, it’s comforting to know that some things remain consistent, true, and strong, our Catholic faith, and the eternal love that God has for all creation."

We are Catholic.
Welcome home."

As internet comments often do things got off topic and long story a person complained that the Catholics he's known were cohabitators/ other sins etc. Essentially, he/she complained that the Church is full of sinners, and was asking "Who gets to call themselves Catholic?"

There was a time, not that long ago, when I'd have sympathized a bit more with this person. I used to say things like "If you're going to believe xyz instead of what the Church teaches, then you aren't a Catholic and you're welcome to leave."

While I still believe that to be in full communion with the Church one must share its beliefs, or at least endeavor to do so, I no longer believe that the presence of so-called "Bad Catholics" is a knock against us. In fact, its the opposite. Christ didn't send away the tax collectors and other sinners, he ate with them. He spoke with them and he loved them. He didn't approve of their sin, but he loved them still.

How then can his Church do anything else? When we meet a Catholic who denies Church teaching, we must of course correct them in a spirit of charity, but we must not exclude or ostracize them. The sinner is the target audience of the Church, not the saved. We should have both in the pews on Sunday as we all endeavor to become saints.

Who gets to call themselves Catholic?

The answer isn't as important as the question. When a Catholic gets asked this question, I submit they answer with the following.

"In a perfect world, everyone."

The Year of Faith is upon us. The New Evangelization calls on us to look inward at our friends within the Church before bringing the faith out again. Its a good ol' fashioned revival, if you will. We need it.

I need it.

I'm a little late in writing this, but please accept my prayers that you and all the Church grows in faith and charity during the year of faith, and pray for me that I do the same.

God bless.

Some liberals don't seem to understand what we mean when we say "Biblical definition of marriage"

So as you know I'm a Catholic and that carries with the sterotype that I don't know the Bible. Well, I'll admit I can't quote you much in the line of chapter and verse as many can, but I've read the good book and I've got 9 years of Catholic school and my own scholarship on the matter. I'm not an expert or a minister or any kind, but I'm not totally ignorant of the subject.


So what do I know?

I know that Samuel, Kings and Chronicles all say that a man can take concubines. I know that Genesis, Numbers and Ezra forbid the marriage between a believer and a non-believer. I know that Genesis and Deuteronomy say that bit about a woman having to marry her brother in law if her husband dies.

BUT....

I know that for a whooooole host of reasons, the marriage laws I reference above do not apply to Christians. If you know your Bible and you know Christianity, you know why, if you don't, feel free to look into it. But trust me, they don't. The point of this post isn't to defend that statement, but to show that many are misrepresenting the Christian belief.

The idea that "biblical definition of marriage" means marrying your brother in law when your husband dies, or that a man should be able to take concubines is not a Christian one.

If you're being honest, you know that when a Christian says "biblical definition of marriage" he means the sacrament of marriage that Jesus describes as in the Gospel of Mark: “But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’^[a] 7 ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife,^[b] 8 and the two will become one flesh.’^[c] So they are no longer two, but one flesh. ⁹ Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

We believe that this plan was evident in the beginning, when God created one man and one woman to start us off, not one man, one woman and his concubines or any other combination, and fulfilled in Christ's teaching.

So stop pretending we don't know the Bible. We do....and one step better that what many online are saying, we actually know what it means.

Trending down, which sucks but might be good for us

I read an article today about Evangelicals gaining steam in still-nominally Catholic Brazil. I've read a lot lately on the sad state of the Church in Ireland. I also just read that even the Vatican can't seem to balance the budget, ending the year with more than 15 million in debt.

Yes, there are places the Church is growing. In many places around Africa it grows, but slower than Islam, and sometimes even slower than Mormonism. In the U.S., the northeast has been declining though once having been a strong hold, but in Texas and the south there's a bit of an uptick.

Overall, and I don't believe you'll read this in Osservatore Romano, I think its clear to anyone trying to be objective that the Church's influence and size are trending downward.

Of course at first this seems a terrible thing. As Catholics, we believe that our faith is the one true Church established by Christ and administered by apostolic succession. It is the pathway to salvation and serving God. If that is trending down, isn't that terrible?

Maybe I'm being callous, but I'm not sure that it is so bad. In the short term, for many it is of course bad. Shortages of priests and funds have seen parishes close, restricting or for some even causing them to lose, access to the sacraments.

Many who could be hearing the fullness of truth are now hearing only parts of it, or none at all. And yes, those are bad things.

But our God has created a world where our actions and inaction have consequences and bad things can and do happen. As a result of complacency, cultural change and a host of other issues (not the least of which is the appalling global sex abuse scandal) the Church doesn't have the position it once did. It doesn't have the numbers and it doesn't have the zeal.

It is an ancient faith, and when a faith is old as this, there are many who are Catholic by culture (Church festivals, Bingo, showing up at Christmas and Easter only) and not filled with the faith. This happens, but perhaps we let it happen too much.

Point is, this down trend could spawn so much more. Our leader, Pope Benedict, has taken it upon himself to work to expose scandals, rather than hide them. He aims to rejuvenate those in the pews, before taking our message back to the rest of the world. He aims to consolidate the teaching authority and make sure we're all on the same page again.

In short, he sees it too. He sees that we're not in a good place globally. He sees where the Church has failed and he sees, at least in part, why we've lost so many good people.

He also knows what all good Catholics know. That Christ will preserve his Church. A difference between this era and the past, between this pontiff and those before, is that despite that knowledge, we're seeing that we have to play our part in that better.

A decisively NOT Catholic writer, Hunter S. Thompson, once explained a bit of his own theology by saying "Call on God, but row away from the rocks." He's not wrong in that regard. We must have faith that God will be there to preserve the Church, but he acts through us, and if we don't act, things will only spiral.

Christ promised the gates of hell will not prevail against the Church. He didn't say they wouldn't get the upperhand from time to time. He didn't say the Church wouldn't dwindle and lose influence. He simply said the enemy wouldn't prevail. I believe that. I believe we all must believe that.

But that said, we must take this downward trend for what it is. A failure on our parts. A failure to live the faith by example. A failure to make our Church the light for the world based on THE Light of the World himself.

But what comes from failure, or what should rather, is learning. As a Church we learn slowly sometimes. It took until last month for the Vatican to really ever hire a PR person. It took the way too long for the Church to learn how to handle the sex abuse issue, and again too long to deal with what had happened already. We took a while to learn that violence isn't the best way to stop heresy and it will take a while to learn how to exist in a world that doesn't see us anymore as top dog in the religion category.

To many, we're a symbol of the old world they've left behind. We're a relic. We're dated. We're part of a system that seeks to control.

We know better, yes. But it's our job to make others know better too.

It's ok to be discouraged, but we don't get to despair. Failure or losing is like fire on steel. It can make us stronger.

I'm not saying accept the trend, by all means let's buck it if we can. But even if we can't, let's make the best of it by becoming something better and stronger — by becoming what we're meant to be in the first place.

A breif note on the state of things

My fellow bloggers have the right of it. It is hard to keep blogging during the summer months, but alas I will try to keep up.

Two things I want to reflect on today.

1. Atheist blogger converts to Catholocism

Conversion stories aren't of much use in apologetics if we're being honest.  They can make for good PR sure, but that's about it. You can't show one atheist blogger that another became Catholic and expect it to mean anything, because it doesn't, not really.

But where it does matter, where that PR can be put to good use, is in the trenches pews. Every day Catholics see our once overwhelming influence on society weaken. To be clear, the victim identity we try to take on is usually a false one, but the feeling is very real.

It feels like we're slipping. Like every day less people care. Like every Sunday less people show. The numbers back up some of that.

We try to take comfort in truth, in knowing that we're on the right side, but sometimes that's not really tangible enough to keep us going because of our own weaknesses. So we need a lift.

That story is a lift. I don't think that the self-identifying bisexual former atheist Leah Libresco is going to be leading the parish council anytime soon, and it seems she's got a long way to go to really get in lock step with the faith, but she's made a terribly difficult decision to dive headfirst into the Tiber and swim to the other side.

It's hard to be Catholic. We take a lot of gruff, but for cradle Catholic like me, people tend to let us slide, giving us a break because we're culturally born into it (Though wrongly assuming that's why we're still here.)

It's harder, I believe, to become Catholic, with people questioning how you can join such a maligned institution.

Hardest though, must be what Libresco is going through. Her identity was that of a public, outspoken atheist looking for truth. She found it, and had the courage to follow through. I'll pray for her, and hope anyone reading this will do the same.

2. I've been doing some freelance work
I've written two stories now for The Catholic Telegraph, the diocesan newspaper of Cincinnati, Ohio.

I've learned a lot through both stories, and I've discovered something I assumed to be true really is. I love applying my penchant for writing and experience and skills in journalism to the Church. I'm not volunteering here or being some kind of altruist.

I'm a freelance writer, and I'm paid for my work. But when I'm being paid to cover a high school football game, I'm not sure I can feel like what I'm doing is that important.

But when I'm covering, something like high school football games, I feel often that it isn't something important, or worse, that I'm contributing to the culture's obsession with prep sports.

When, on the other hand, I'm covering a rally for religious freedom, or a World Refugee Day celebration, I feel I'm doing something more important.

I hope these opportunities continue.

Catholic Charities: Why I now care even more about the HHS mandate

Under the HHS mandate, to qualify for the exemption provided to religious institutions, an organization must employ primarily people of its own religion and must serve people primarily of its own religion.

I've thought a lot about Catholic hospitals as it pertains to this... But at least in my personal dealings with them, I've come away unimpressed with their Catholicity. I know I don't get to be the judge on this, but I know they put your bills in collections same as their secular counterparts and they seem to operate mostly the same way...at least the 3 or 4 I've been around do.  I hope there are some serving as a ministry instead of as a business.

For the ones that operate same as their secular counterparts (save contraception and abortion), I have little pity for them as it pertains to the HHS Mandate. It may still force them to violate their conscience, but I don't see them holding the line to Christ's commands anyway.

Catholic Charities, that's different....again, at least to me.

This past weekend I was covering a World Refugee Day event. I was working as a freelance writer for a diocesan newspaper.

There were nearly 300 resettled refugees present at the event, and not one without a smile on. I talked to many of them, some through an interpreter. They all said the same thing.

Without Catholic Charities, they don't know where they'd be, but they know it wouldn't be somewhere better than they are. And most of them, for the record, were not Catholic.

Most of the ones I spoke too were Muslim, or Hindu. A couple were of a faith I never did properly understand the name of but it wasn't Christian.

And Catholic Charities serves them all.

That branch of the Charity had six employees in its division...three were Catholic, three (former refugees) I was led to believe were not.

So here is an organization, doing what it does at the commands of Christ, serving all people without question. It does what it does BECAUSE of it's faith... and under the HHS mandate, it will have to go against its faith by providing (or by proxy providing) contraceptive services for its employees.

While the issue of the contraceptives can be debated many ways, the point is the government is (may be) telling this organization that exists because of its faith, that it isn't religious enough to be called a religious institution.

Catholic Charities handles 24 percent of all refugee resettlement in the United States. They work with numerous federal departments, including Health and Human Services. They do it because they're trying to serve.

And they should have a right to do it according to their conscience.

On the issue with the nuns

I had a very busy weekend of writing assignments and I don't have much time this week either so consider this a possible preview of a forthcoming post, or series of posts

The nun thing.

If you don't know, many hard working devout American nuns are under an umbrella group of sorts, and that group is fairly liberal, the Leadership Conference of Women's Religious. Sometimes, it's too liberal and it opposes core Church teachings.

As Americans, a group certainly has that legal right, but this is a Catholic group under the authority of the Church and as such, their deviance from the Church on these matters is a problem.

Faithful Catholics will see that these nuns, good people most and devout, are teaching contrary to the Church. This creates a confusion that is not good for spiritual health, and at worst could lead others away from the truth.

The Church has seen these problems, and it has sent someone to clean up the mess.

But if you've read about it in the news, you know it as the following:

Nuns: Vatican reprimand causing pain in church

American Nuns Vow to Fight Harsh Criticism From the Vatican

US nuns crack back at Vatican crackdown

American nuns likely to continue ignoring Pope

Sounds like Vatican is threatened by nuns

‎

So as you can see...to the media, this is all about the big bad Vatican overlord men coming to America to smite and control the Little Sisters of the Poor....which is a gross misrepresentation.

Nuns are great. They do a lot. They care for the sick and dying. They really are the front lines of the Church's social mission, and they're quite good at it.

That is their great role, and no matter what these articles say, many priests and other men are in those trenches with them.

Cardinals and bishops however aren't usually in those trenches. They're busy running the day-to-day. Someone has to do that too. While I don't deny that sometimes a Cardinal/bishop may end up a little too detached, the pope and the bishops remain as Christ instituted the teaching authority of our Church.

The Church doesn't handle many things well. The Vatican needs to hire an actual capable PR team. That PR team should NOT have final say on anything, but they could at least prep the pope and others on the backlash they can expect when they announce things.

Moreover, the Church could do more to recognize all the good nuns do. But the Holy Father has spoken plenty on the topic, and I don't know exactly what else could be done.

The nuns and others up in arms need to see this as an opportunity to come back into the fold fully. To realize that, if we claim to be Catholic, we also claim the validity of apostolic succession and the authority of the Bishops and Church.

But again, this is America. And if you don't believe something you don't have to do it...but if you're looking to recreate the Church in your own image sisters, you should realize that what you are doing is creating a schism.

So I pray for the nuns, even the one who just wrote a book promoting homosexuality, divorce and masturbation. I pray also for the confused ones who think limbo is or was official doctrine and the ones responsible for my parent's generation thinking they all just like hitting kids with rulers.

I also pray for the other (what I hope is) 90 percent, who are good, God-fearing, faithful Catholics doing the work of God on Earth that they will submit to review and revision in compliance with the Church.


 

When to break the seal?

So to answer the question posed by the title of this blog, I'll go back to some old logic I learned in college. 

Not until after your third drink.

I kid of course, because we're not talking about breaking the seal on one's bladder before a night of binge drinking, rather we're talking about the far more important issue of breaking the seal of the confessional.

So under what circumstance should a priest reveal something told to him in confession?

Never. Never ever.

To understand why this is something I and other Catholics take so seriously requires a bit more explanation.

First why does this matter?

The Church believes based on scripture and sacred tradition that confession of sins is needed for one to be absolved and to remain in a state of grace. To go to heaven when you die, you must be in a state of grace. Hence, it's important to confess your sins, because you don't know when you'll die.

The Church teaches that it has the authority to forgive sins based on John 20:23 (If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.)

This is again in Matthew. (If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.  

The earliest confessions of the Church were usually between sinner and bishop, though sometimes sins were confessed publicly if the sinner chose to do so. The sins were absolved when one did their prescribed penance.

By the Church's authority, this process has changed over the centuries and somewhere between the 9th and 11th century, we started down the road to get to the form we see now. One sinner, one priest. Confession, and absolution, followed by penance.

Ok, so, what we see from the earliest years of the Church, the allowed practice of private confession. This is important, because if one knows that a priest may betray their sins, it might deter them from an essential sacrament. If they do not get this sacrament and they die, they may go to hell.

So to the Catholic, this is non-negotiable. It's too important to who we are as a people. It's too important to our souls. As Catholics we want to be good citizens of the world and nations we live in, but when push comes to shove, we serve God, not the government.

The Church confirms this in Canon Law, 983 , "The sacramental seal is inviolable; therefore it is absolutely forbidden for a confessor to betray in any way a penitent in words or in any manner and for any reason."

------------

Changing gears a little. 

Clearly a government has a right to run its country within reason. There are laws on the books that require people to let authority's know if they're aware of a crime. But governments like ours have noted an exception.

Doctor-Patient privilege, Attorney-client privilege.  

The United State is a nation that recognizes this as an essential right, granting Confessional Privilege. {See wikipedia: Confessional privilege (United States)}

This flows out of the first amendment's "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

Allowing, or as Ireland suggests, compelling a priest to share information from confession would be prohibiting the FREE exercise thereof.

I think it is interesting to read this now. I'm reminded that the first amendment's establishment clause doesn't mean the banishment from faith in the public square, but the protection of the faithful and non-faithful alike to be able to practice. 

And in the case of the confessional, US law is on the side of faith, even though there are civil gains to be made by making priests confess what was confessed. 

I'm having one of those proud to be an American moments.

----------

But back to Ireland, their motivations make sense. Their goals are more than laudable. They're trying to protect kids. 

And they should. But not this way. This is bigger than the government of Ireland and the Church will not stand for it. Priest will go to prison and pay fines and do what must be done, but we will never obey this unjust law, no matter how noble its purpose.

I should note, that when someone confesses a crime, the priest can and should (and does) urge the offender to go to the police and turn themselves in. If someone comes to them with information outside of the sacrament of confession, I'm all for that being fair game.

But within the seal. Within the sacrament. No.

I hope that a law like this never comes to the United States. I'd hope we're better than that. But Ireland was once practically Vatican West, and now this. It can happen here, but I'll pray that it doesn't.

What's everyone think about this?

Seal of Confession threatened in Ireland

Catholic News Agency reports this story in response to the Irish considering a law to force priest to violate the seal of the confessional. I will blog my thoughts on this soon, but I wanted to put the story out there first.

Rome, Italy, Aug 1, 2011 / 05:56 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The regent of the apostolic penitentiary, Archbishop Gianfranco Girotti, firmly stated that the Catholic Church will never divulge the confession of a penitent.

“Ireland can pass whatever laws it wants, but it must know that the Church will never submit to forcing confessors to inform civil officials,” said Archbishop Girotti in July 27 statements to Il Foglio.

On July 14, Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny promised to introduce a new law that would establish a prison sentence of five years for priests who do not inform civil authorities about cases of sexual abuse revealed to them in confession.

The proposed law contradicts Canon Law, which defends the inviolability of the seal of confession and prohibits confessors from breaking it.

Archbishop Girotti said, “A confessor who breaks the seal of confession is subject to ‘latae sententiae’ excommunication—which is automatic—by the Church,” and therefore the proposed measure is “absurd and unacceptable.”

“Confession is a private affair that allows the penitent to amend and purify himself. The seal is a necessary condition,” he said. “This does not mean that bishops should not guard against pedophiles and, once appropriate investigations have taken place, ask these individuals to pay for their crimes,” he added.

“If they want to violate confession, the Church’s answer will always be no.”

“All criminals have the duty to render an account of justice for the crimes they have committed, but this does not involve the confessor violating the seal. Confession is meant to cleanse the soul before God,” he recalled.

Archbishop Girotti said confessors “have the duty to absolve sins, assuming that there is sincere repentance,” and that informing civil officials, prison sentences or sanctions established by the laws of the state are another matter.

A reflection on the saints

One of the things I love about the Church, and note I'm only describing something I love, not a proof or an argument, is the communion of saints.

As Catholics, we believe that those who have died and gone on to heaven are partaking in the fruits of salvation. As such, they can pray for those of us still on our journey to (hopefully) join them one day. We don't know how a saint can hear us, we don't know why they'd chose to join their prayers to ours. We do know that saints do not "do" anything, but rather intercede with God for us.

Time was, most Christians were named after a saint. For Catholics, they'd later choose a saint for their confirmation name as well. As such, a Catholic like me ends up with the name of John Michael George Stegeman.

I, for example, am named for John of the Cross, Michael the Archangel, St. George and then of course my surname.

My folks picked the first two names and I chose the St. George more in honor of the name of my father than out of any devotion to the saint, which isn't the way to go, and someone should have probably advised me better in that regard. But I'm off topic.

Today I'm writing about St. Jude the Apostle (Fun fact: Tradition states the Jude was likely the son of the Virgin Mary's sister, making his a first cousin to Jesus).

I've had a special devotion to St. Jude for years. The Church invokes him as the patron saint of desperate cases, and I'm a little prone to despair, fair or not.

But since I first ended up with one of his prayer cards more than 5 years ago (don't remember how) I've not been without for more than a few days. I "lose" my cards every so often when I come across a person in a desperate situation, and I give them the card.

Anyways, recent family health and other issues have led to me giving away a card again, and blessed me with the opportunity to buy a new one. But the store was out of the regular cards, and only had the slightly more expensive ones that come with a medal, so I got that, and now I wear a medal with a depiction of St. Jude and the engraving "St. Jude pray for us."

Knowing that we have access at our disposal to the ones who went before us ties us as a Church to our past. It connects us personally to the great men and women of faith that have come before. It lets us know that real men and women, normal folks, have attained, through the merits of Christ, what we all seek.

As we read in James "The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective." And who can be more righteous than one already living in glory with God in heaven?

Thank God for the Saints, thank the Church for letting us know who they are, and thanks to the saints for their constant intercession on behalf of those of us still on the path.

I leave this shoddy reflection with the prayer for the intercession of St. Jude the Apostle, edited down a little bit for clarity. There are many versions out there.

"O most holy apostle, Saint Jude, faithful servant and friend of Jesus, the Church honors and invokes you universally, as the patron of hopeless cases, and of things almost despaired of. Pray for me, who am so miserable. Make use, I implore you, of that particular privilege accorded to you, to bring visible and speedy help where help was almost despaired of. Come to my assistance in this great need, that I may receive the consolation and succor of Heaven in all my necessities, tribulations, and sufferings, particularly (here make your request) and that I may praise God with you and all the elect throughout eternity.
Amen."

A thought that keeps coming back

This is more journal entry for public viewing that it is anything else, but I have something I want to share.

I've had this thought for a while now, about the Church and how we can revitalize ourselves as a faith, globally and locally.

I have this thought a lot, but I talk myself down. I feel like maybe it is too unloving or too harsh to follow through with. I feel like it might do more harm than good. But for more than five years I've been having it and it keeps coming back.

So here it is.

I would like every priest at every mass this Sunday to stand up during the homily and tell the people what the Church really believes as best he can in 45 minutes to an hour. And when he's finished, I'd like him to, with as much charity as possible, tell people who don't believe those things that they shouldn't receive communion and that they should take a long hard look as to whether they should be in those pews.

I'm not saying to kick folks out. Part of the role of a Church is for those strong in faith to keep bringing along those who aren't, but there are within the Church those who hold views totally contrary to the Church's incontrovertible teachings.

Say someone is opposed to priestly celibacy, that's not a problem, as that practice is a discipline the Church has, not some kind of eternal doctrine or truth.

But say someone else doesn't believe in the trinity. That's a deal breaker. Or say someone believes firmly in the sacramental equivalence between marriage and a homosexual union. Also a deal breaker. (Which to be clear, that's not the same as supporting it's legalization, which is a different issue, and technically, probably not a deal breaker).

We are not a religion that is trying to figure out what it believes. We know. We have creed and catechism. Generations of poor catechesis has created a HUGE number of cultural Catholics.

I know the Church is probably thinking practically. Were they to do this, a lot of people would walk out, collections would plummet, they'd get even more bad press. But I'd like to see the Church, at least the one that I know, the American Church, to do something like this.

I want to reignite the faith of all the drones I see around me on Sundays, but I don't know if I or anyone else can. Don't think that I believe we're all drones at mass though, it's not that bad.

For every couple of drones, I see the young mother singing loudly while holding her kid. I see the 20-something college guy who didn't bring his buddies, but at least he made it to pass. I see people who really believe and know what's going on dotted all throughout the church.

Let me stop here.....Again I've talked myself down. I don't think that would be a good idea to give that speech and send them packing. The Church, ever wise, probably realizes that as it is now, we have a way to reach those people. They'll be back next Sunday

The priests do need to do a better job of catechizing from the pulpit, but to revitalize the Church, we don't need to send anyone away.

Those of us believers who are really into it though. The ones better than me, and even the ones like me, have an obligation to do more to bring the others around.

Keeping them coming back matters, but we need to make sure that when they come back, we do our parts to teach the faith, preach the faith and live the faith.

We must be examples, but we must also teach. I feel bad asking more of an already taxed priesthood, so maybe this role really belongs to the laity. I can't reignite a parish alone, but I'm sitting here blogging to a group of less than 10 readers.

If I want change, I need to get involved in my parish. So that's what I'm going to do. If you want change in yours, friends, don't pass the buck. Become that change.

I don't know what real good I can do, but I take solace in the words of Pope Benedict XVI on the day of his election.

"I am consoled by the fact that the Lord knows how to work and how to act, even with insufficient tools, and I especially trust in your prayers."

The Million Dollar Question

Leslie Wolf recently asked me to explain some of my complaints about protestants, which while a completely fair question, is not easy to answer. So if you will, settle in, this will be a long one.

So for background, I'm a so-called Cradle Catholic, but not the kind that only shows up at mass on Christmas and Easter. I don't make it every Sunday like I should, and I don't get to confession but once a year or so, but I am a to-the-core-of-my-being Catholic.

Before anyone thinks I'm placing my identity with a groups above the faith itself, I am not. I believe this group, the Roman Catholic Church and those in communion with it, to be the one, holy and apostolic Church established by Jesus Christ himself and preserved by the power of the Holy Spirit through God the Father.

I believe this for several reasons. One, I think being raised in it, I'm inclined to it. Pure psychology I guess, but it should be acknowledged.

Two, I drifted for a time away from the Church, but never from Christianity at large. What I found in my limited experience in the non-Catholic Christian world was limited and in many ways felt empty to me. Certainly I didn't see a representative sample of protestantism, but I saw some of it.
In the process of drifting I started to read. I started to learn about what different groups believes. I started to read my Bible more (mostly just the gospels at that point). The more I read and the more I learned, the more it made sense to me to be Catholic. There is no way I can explain it all here, but there's one important factor.

Third, while I don't believe that sensory experiences should be a defining measure of how one chooses what is a true faith, I do believe it can be corroborating evidence. Just so, I've had one or two experiences in church after receiving the Real Presence in the Eucharist that really sealed the deal for me.

The one that really did it was back during all that drifting I did. I was really praying to God for guidance on the matter but going to mass mostly out of habit with my family. Before communion, I prayed again that God would help me out in this matter. As I prayed after communion, with music playing and people still walking around, I experienced a strange inner silence. It wasn't so supernatural as to call it a miracle, but I took it to mean that God was saying my question had been answered. I was where he wanted me to be.

Again, I didn't base the whole shebang on that, but all the reading was pointing me that way, and the experience sealed it.

Knowing that, I say that if I am correct in my view on the Church, then all others who are not with communion in the Church are risking their souls, and less importantly, spreading false information about Christ and his Church.


While the early schismatics could rightly be called heretics, I don't hold this generation in such contempt. They're not really protesting Rome anymore as much as they are living out the faith handed down to them. Nevertheless, that doesn't change the fact that if I'm right, they're not.

And if I'm right, and I firmly believe I am, then I have an obligation to share this truth with others.

So that's who I am and an oversimplified version of how I got there.

So, what are my complaints about protestants? We'll break this into some categories.

<h2>Intellectual</h2>
I believe it is inconsistent to believe in the divine origin of the Bible while simultaneously declaring the apostasy of the Church that put those books together. Surely, the spirit could have acted to assemble the right books with an evil Church doing the work, but I believe it makes more sense to say the Spirit guided the true Church through the process.

I believe the idea of Sola Scriptura to be a bad idea. Any written sentence can be interpreted several ways. The establishment of a Church to guide in these interpretations would be needed. The protestant model of not having an established worldwide hierarchy doesn't cut it, as different denominations come up with different views.

Moreover on that point, the Bible contains all the info we need for salvation, but how blessed are we to have a Church? When Acts of the Apostles ends, the story doesn't. The Church went on. If not for the existence of the Church, we'd likely know very little about the early Church and we'd be without many great teachings.

I believe that there are too many theological differences between me and the hundreds of protestant varieties to bother going into all of those at this time, but suffice it to say, I hold with Rome.

<h2>Supernatural</h2>
This is more a reason why I believe in the Church, than a problem I have with Protestantism.
I believe the Church's continuation is a sign of it's protection by God. Despite being run by sinful men, and at times even led by arguably evil men, the Church has continued on, teaching the truth. That such a massive organization could even exist for 100 years, but for 2,000+, or 1,500 according to some, is nothing short of a miracle. And it hasn't just existed, it thrived. Nearly 1/6 of the world's population is Catholic...That's proof of nothing, I know, but it's impressive.

I believe the miracle of the sun and the miracles at Lourdes to be further evidence of the Church being the true faith.

With all those things considered, I believe the never-ending division within protestantism is a sign that it is not protected by Christ's promise that the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it. As such, it cannot be the true Church.

On that note, it may have been GK Chesterton that said one of the greatest signs of the Church's divinity is that it has survived it's churchmen. lol.

<h2>Historical</h2>
The Church traces it's unbroken history from our current pope to St. Peter, and we all know who his direct boss was. Admittedly, historical evidence is sketchy from 0-100 or so (estimating), but once history shows up, there is The Church, not a bunch of unaffiliated Christian communities.

That's not to say there weren't dissenters, but they existed even in the time of Paul and just as he worked to correct those who were wrong, so too did the early Church exercise it's authority to do the same.

The Church survived the dark ages, almost singlehandedly preserving western culture in the process. Guess this could go as supernatural too, but that has to count for something.

<h2>The Random</h2>
I can't help but just feel the truth in the Church. I feel God's presence at mass and I feel his spirit working in my life as a Catholic. I believe he works elsewhere too of course, but I believe he gave us one Church. I believe he intended it to be a real, earthly organization, and I believe it is Rome.

I can't help but feel I haven't addressed the full scope of this issue, but I don't think I'm up for it. Lately I'm not feeling it when it comes to writing blogs this long. Nevertheless, a question was asked and I've endeavored to answer it. I hope I did so well.

Let me also add that I consider protestants to be brothers and sisters in Christ, though they reject the fullness of his truth. I believe God works through so many people, not just his Church. That said, the means to salvation are primarily through the Church and it is my goal that one day everyone come to see that.

Again, I don't mean to seem overbearing, but I want to make my views understood.

On Protestants

I didn't give up on this topic FYI, I'm working on day two of the draft. Stay tuned. Hopefully I finish this week.

Been thinking, on Love and Doctrine

So I've been reading some other blogs lately, and I've been reading the news as always and I've come across a thing that I'm having a hard time with.

Background
A blogger by the username Leslie Wolf, by all accounts and educated and faith-filled individual, has recently written about problems in the "Reformed Church" that center around, if I may cruelly shorten his point, Christians not having enough love.

He was talking in the blog about a smugness of doctrine that he has experienced in some churches and some meanness with pastors and teachers saying inaccurate or just mean things about Christians in other groups.

Also, I was reading about a recent meeting of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI with the Anglican patriarch, and some other news surrounding that, which you can google if you want. Short story, a while back there were some Anglicans ticked that the Catholic Church was making it easier for Anglicans to convert.

Anyways, all this has me thinking. Are we too obsessed with who is right, and not concerned enough with loving our neighbors as the Lord commanded?

Well the short answer is yes, I can agree with that. But I'm afraid of the pendulum swinging to far the other way.

I guess one can ask if one can follow the Lord's commands "too much," but I would say yes to that.

The line from Luke 10:27 reads "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind: and thy neighbour as thyself."

So yes that love of neighbor is so important, but the man speaking to Jesus in this line, which Jesus affirms as true, doesn't start off with the bit about his neighbor. He starts it off with God.

We have tremendous duty to love and care for each other, all of us, no matter the denomination or faith or lack of it. We are called to love all God's people. This is true, and critical.

But our first duty is to God, who is truth. If we were to deny any truth out of a misguided attempt to love, we would be in the wrong. We would be disrespecting the Lord.

I believe most people make this distinction OK. But some in these days seem to feel that to show love means to grant acceptance, either blatant acceptance, or acceptance by silence, or things that are not true, and of ways that are not right.

Members of the Church are seen as intolerant to rightly proclaim the belief that while all persons are made in God's image and have the dignity there associated, those who participate in sinful activities such as premarital sex, or abortions or anything else, are in the wrong.

Who are you to judge, they ask. Who indeed.

But we are called to judge actions. Not rashly. Not harshly. To quote John "Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.”

I've gone and rambled again.

But my point is, that truth, and that truth which is preserved by right doctrine, is something that believers have a responsibility too.

We are to love God first. And to love God is to be faithful to his commands. One of his commands is to love one another, and so the key is strike the right balance in this regard.

I don't believe I do this very well, and I pray that God gives me the wherewithal to get better at it. In practice and in person, I believe I show acceptable charity to those who engage me in spiritual debates, but online, I often do not.

I often lump all Protestants, or an even more frequent target of mine in non-denominationalists, into one groups with straw-man ideologies.

This is bad, and for it, I'm sorry, and I'll try to do better.

I can do a better job of being a loving member of Christ's Church, and I will. I bet most of us can do better, and should.

In the process, let's try to remember that we can be loving, without giving ground on the truth.

To Christian politicians

The following is an expanded version of a post I made to facebook the other day.

This is a message to Rick Santorum, and any politician that claims to be Catholic or Christian.

You do all the rest of us believers a disservice when you fail to recognize the call to compassion. An integral part of our theology and beliefs is service and care to one another, regardless of our feelings toward them. We are called to love our enemies, but we don't have to agree with them.

We share beliefs that are unpopular. To you and I, human life should be protected from conception til natural death. We believe that marriage is not just whatever the state defines it to be. If we're really Christians, we believe that war isn't always the answer and we believe that immigrants and the poor need our help.

We believe that right and wrong are real and objective. We stand up together for what we feel is right. For much of that, I thank you.

But you, Rick Santorum, and others like you fail to realize something.

The people on the other side of the aisle, the people on the other side of the sexual orientation line, the people who will never, ever vote for you, are all made in the image and likeness of the same God as you, and have dignity. 

We can say they're wrong. We can say their ideas aren't best for this nation. We can say we find some of their thoughts outright insane (they feel the same about us BTW). But we need to do it all in a spirit of love and compassion for them as fellow human beings first and foremost, and also as fellow Americans.

They deserve your respect, and when they're wrong, your RESPECTFUL disagreement. Whether they reciprocate it or not.

This isn't just aimed at republicans. The left has politicians that claim to be Christian, but oppose Christian ideals at almost every legislative turn. They want other Christians to be forced to keep their ideas totally out of the public square. They're all for helping the poor, but not for protecting the unborn. They're half in.


On the right, we say get a job to the poor, but at least we care for the innocent unborn. We're also only half in.


We cannot have it both ways, fellow Christians. We do not fit into the two party system. I know we must work within it for now, however.


As we do so, I simply ask that we all remember that to be a Christian is to be all in. 


Love they neighbor on the other side of the aisle. Separate the viewpoint from the person. We don't need to be jackasses to each other. We can do better.


Sincerely,
John Stegeman 
and others like me

The Telos 5000

As my last entry noted, I've been thinking a lot about telos lately. Telos by the way is smart-folk philosophical speak for purpose or end.

I think, and google confirms, that the Catholic faith is very much a teleological system of philosophy. It's very much about purpose.

It's this, I think, that makes us more than blind slaves, following our lord and master without thought. There is nothing wrong with obeying the will of God because it comes from God. You don't NEED to know any more than that, per se.

But unless you've been blessed with a more direct line to the Father than the rest of us, you need a way to know what is his will. You need a way to form your conscience.

Certainly, we all have some internal moral sensor. This is part of our humanity and, I speculate here, an example of our likeness to God. But our sensor doesn't always work right, which I suspect is the result of original sin.

For example, because we love God, and know that he loves us, we sometimes try to impose our human sense of a loving relationship on him. I love my wife, and she loves me. So it follows in my mind that since she loves me, she wants me to be happy. As such, she may modify her own wants from time to time to conform to mine, making me happy. I do the same.

We often do that, but we must not when thinking about God. God wants us to be happy, this is true, but happiness comes in our submission and obedience, and, I argue, in our understanding. Happiness comes in remaining in his grace.

In the Gospel of John 15:15 we read "No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you."

We are still to be obedient, we are not egalitarian friends, like we are with our neighbors and buddies. God is still above us. But he has chosen to let us know what he is doing. No longer, with the advent of Jesus, are we forced to simply obey blindly. Surely we still must obey, but we know the long plan. We're involved in the process now, and we have a role to play.

We have a purpose.

And in our life, as we strive to do God's will, we can do it better by understanding the purpose of things.

Here's an exercise.
Fact: I shouldn't have sex outside of marriage.
Why: God says so.
Why: Because the purpose of sex is to be open to conception. The place worthy of conception, is within a marriage. The purpose of a marriage is to have and raise children.

So if all you know is the first why, you'll be alright. But if you know the second, all the better.

If you start to understand how things should be, as opposed to how things are, it will help you to discern God's will all the better.

The question is, though, how can we determine a things purpose ourselves. And in the grand scheme, I'm not sure we can by ourselves. But in conjunction with the Word of God, the Holy Church and our own reason, we can.

It takes time and study, and I'm certainly not there yet, but I can tell anyone else seeking to follow Christ, that I've managed to reach a point where my own judgement more often than not matches up correctly. My actions on the other hand are a different story... but we're working on that too.

So how do we do this?

Pray. Study. Think. Pray.

At the risk of sounding like Patch from the movie Dodgeball I'll repeat that.

Pray. Study. Think. Pray.

Pray, to put yourself in the right frame of mind. Ask God to help you conform your will to His.

Study. Read the scriptures, the Gospels are a great starting point for newbies. But don't stop there. Study the teachings of the Church fathers (Aquinas is a favorite) and study the teachings of the Church. Remember that from the time of Jesus until 1530 or thereabouts, there was only one type of Christianity. It was the Church. Even if you disagree with where it is now, study it's earlier teachings. They are the history of all Christians. It is also not a bad idea to read some of the classical philosophers as well.

Think. God gave us our reason for a reason. Our purpose is to use it. If we use it right, and form ourselves right, our reason will only lead us to Him.

Pray. Pray that you will stay on this path. Pray that you will remember your purpose. If you are a Christian, remember, at least a part of your purpose is to go and spread the word. Pray for the strength to do that. And thank God in prayer as well.

I wanted to get into more specifics here, but I'm out of time for the day.

Take care folks and have and continue to have a blessed Lent.

The Purpose Driven drive

Some time ago I found myself having been unable to gain a career foothold in Cincinnati, my hometown.

I had returned there after finishing college and holding a nice little job as a sports writer in my adopted home of Portsmouth, Ohio but when my seasonal job expired, I was unemployed.

The Portsmouth newspaper I had left had fallen on some harder times and had an opening for sports editor. I negotiated a pretty decent situation, packed literally everything I owned into my car, and began the 2.5 hour drive from the place I always wanted to be to the place I thought I had left behind.

I was moving down there to live (somewhat illegally) on a buddy's couch in campus housing while I looked for an apartment.

All that back story is to tell you about that drive.

I like to think I'm a fairly introspective person, but never before, or since, have I focused for more than two hours on who I was, what I was going to do with my life, or who I should be than on that drive.

And I didn't come up with a whole lot. I knew I was a good reporter, a solid writer, a fan of sports and an acceptable editor. Seemed to me I was doing what I was born for. But it just didn't feel like it was enough.

I was using my God given talents for what seemed to be their God-given purpose. But on reflection, God didn't likely have a major interest in small town college and high school sports.

Over the next couple of years I stayed in sports but drifted in my interests toward the political or crime news, even serving as interim co-managing editor of the paper for a spell. I was drifting toward a sense of meaning.

I wanted to use my talents for something more than entertainment (sports) and was moving toward educating/informing (news). In the time since I left the paper for essentially a sports pagination/editing job, I've thought that maybe I didn't follow that path as far as I could.

If I had, the next step I think, would be working in the Catholic media. There's no more money (perhaps less even) in that than in traditional media, but there is a purpose. Those in Catholic media, be it print, radio, TV or the internet are a force for the culture of life against the culture of death.

Every day they go to work, whether they're on air talent, a blogger or a call screener, they're doing something active for the Kingdom of God.

I've noticed this more and more since moving to Lexington, Ky. and finding a local catholic station (locals reading this, tune into 1380 AM or 94.9 FM) to listen to. Every day I listen I learn more and grow a little in faith. And for the record most of it's pretty entertaining too.

That's what I want to do. That's who I want to be.

I've not heard a boom voice from heaven tell me what to do. I've not seen a sign in the sky that says what direction to take.

But I don't need that. I need only look to the example seen in Isaiah 6:8

"And I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: Whom shall I send? and who shall go for us? And I said: Lo, here am I, send me."

This is not my only blog. I have another where I argue in a never-ending cycle with an atheist and an agnostic. That's fun, and enlightening in it's own way. But this blog, One from the Pews, will be for Catholics by a Catholic.

I don't know if my contribution to Catholic media will ever be more than just a blog in a dark corner of the internet. If it is, that's fine. I'll just try to shine a little light when and where I can.