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."

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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.

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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?