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

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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.