Creation: God's Gift

Blog Rules of Conduct

  • Truth spoken here, with love (or at least I try; Eph. 4:15). This blog is for the purpose of sharing the beauty of Catholicism and how it relates to life and culture, for those who are sincerely interested in it. Commenters are asked to be courteous and thoughtful toward each other and toward the blog author. Comments out of keeping may be removed without warning rather than responded to.

Reflective Mood

Our Mother, Reflecting

The Most Reflective One

A Couple Orthodox Friends

Favorite Journals

Beauty

Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

Visitors July 08-09

Last Year's Total

StatCounter


Another Student Reports In

Another distance student just emailed me.  A little more than a month ago, not long after starting my Understanding the Catholic Gospel course, he emailed to say this:

Currently I'm using your material and guidance with my sister, who began intently questioning me just about the same day I began your course. In these Godly matters there are no coincidences, eh? Pray for us, and God bless.


Today, course concluded, I received this from him:

I'm pleased to tell you that my sister attended Mass last week, the Twelfth Sunday, for the first time in -- she thinks -- 52 years.  Surely there is still much ground to cover, but this is a huge step, thanks be to God.


Wow.  Again, as I said in my last post,
this is why I teach.  It really makes it all worthwhile!  I love stories like this!  Thanks be to God, indeed!

This is Why I Teach

Whew.  I have not blogged in a long time.  I've been so busy with teaching, caught up in handing on everything I've worked so hard to develop.  Interest in my program has really grown, and I already have people inquiring and signing up for fall classes.

I concluded my spring Understanding the Catholic Gospel classes a week ago, and they went very well.  Over 100 students locally and by distance.  People were challenged, inspired, had their eyes opened.  We had some good discussions and debates.  What excites me the most: seeing people really catch on fire, grasp much more deeply than they did before what their Faith is really about, begin to grow and change and deepen spiritually in front of my eyes. 

What I did not anticipate: people going out and sharing the gospel as they're learning in my class, without having to go through the door to door training!  People using the material, sharing it with others, reporting good results. That is the most exciting thing - I can reach a lot more people that way, everywhere, just by having students in my classes!  Because they take it and use it.

Here's an example.  I got this from one of my distance students - a woman from Papua New Guinea, an island nation of 800 tribes and languages, only recently independent and struggling to modernize.  She is blessed with a good job in the capital city that gives her access to a computer, where she downloads the class material.  She writes,

I had two more opportunities to share what I've learnt from you this week.  And both incidents happened here in my office:  With a colleague yesterday, and then with a client this morning. 

God is good, Aimee!  God is so very, very good! 

What you are teaching has awakened me to my very serious shortcomings as a Catholic.  I am challenged at my core as to whether or not I am worthy to even say, "I am Catholic".  When I would answer the question, "And what religion are you?" with a quick "Catholic", I now hesitate.  And so I should.  I have not been practicing diligently, I have missed out on the Sacraments, and I have taken my Faith half-heartedly, or even less.  With my [difficult personal situation omitted], I have found all reasons to not attend Mass regularly.  But I am trying to change this now, very conscious of the risk of missing out on the opportunity for God to use me completely for Him and His purposes unless I give myself to Him entirely. 

Instead of just keeping all of this within, I have found myself openly sharing the questions that I am being confronted with daily as I journey to a closer, more meaningful relation with God.  I find myself, sharing things like, "The truth I am finding is that I haven't yet filled every aspect of my life with God.  There are still areas that I hold back on - my comfortable job, my choices, etc."  And "I cannot call myself Catholic if I haven't observed Confession/haven't received Communion".  And "Yes, I've always said that 'I love the Lord God with all my heart', but with what I have actually practiced, I can only honestly say, "I love the Lord God, but only with part of my heart."  I am changing this Aimee.  With what you are teaching, I know I will succeed.  I want all others around me to succeed too.


If she really does this, she will be a saint.  This is why I teach; this is what gives me joy: to see other souls opening up to the Lord, all the way, letting Him in - because then not only will they be changed, but then He can work through them to reach the world around them, the world He made for Himself, the world He loves and wants to enter into, through us.

Denver Catholic Register Article: Effectively sharing the Catholic Gospel

I'm very pleased to announce that our local Denver Catholic Register has an article about me and my evangelization program.  Roxanne King, the editor of the DCR, interviewed me at length a couple of weeks ago, and I have to say she did a very nice job, really captured it!  Full text is below.  Enjoy!

_____________________________________


Effectively sharing the Catholic Gospel

Convert teaches Catholics how to evangelize
By Roxanne King
Denver Catholic Register
May 13, 2009

For those Catholics who want to evangelize but don’t know how to share the essence of Catholicism in a brief encounter, convert Aimee M. Cooper has the answer.

Cooper, a Catholic theology instructor, is a former Protestant who was once involved with a highly successful door-to-door evangelization program.  Four years ago, at a Theology on Tap lecture where several in the audience expressed frustration at their inability to share their faith quickly yet clearly, Cooper was inspired to put her former training to use and developed an evangelization program for Catholics.

Originally a 12-week door-to-door training program, through the Denver Archdiocese’s Office of Evangelization and Catechesis Cooper now offers the training program and an eight-week preparatory class based on the underlying theology of the Catholic message called “Understanding the Catholic Gospel.”

“’Understanding the Catholic Gospel’ is preliminary training for door-to-door work,” said Cooper who has a master’s in theology. “But people can use it as a stand-alone class. … It’s for Catholics ourselves; we need to be evangelized first.”

The class emphasizes the history of salvation from the authentic, Catholic Christian perspective, which differs significantly from the Protestant version, the instructor said.

“The Catholic Gospel is based on sacramental theology,” explained Cooper. “In the Eucharist, which we believe is the body and blood of Christ … we experience union with God here on earth, which is both physical and spiritual.  It’s sacramental theology—it’s infused grace, which is different from Protestant imputed grace, which is only external.”

Martin Luther, initiator of the Protestant Reformation, reportedly likened Christians to “snow-covered dung heaps,” Cooper said, explaining the snow is God’s grace, which covers the exterior but leaves people unchanged inside. This is opposed to the Catholic Gospel, she said, which asserts God enters humans through the sacraments, especially the Eucharist, to bring about interior transformation.

“He actually lives and grows in us. We are meant to be changed into Christ in our lifetimes,” Cooper said.  “It’s what the early Christians believed in the beginning and what the Church has always believed. The Eucharist was the center of life for the early Christians—they protected it, they celebrated it. It’s what changed them and gave them power to witness, to evangelize, to suffer and be martyrs.”

The Catholic Gospel explains the meaning of life, Cooper said.

“Understanding the Catholic Gospel makes it possible to understand why we are alive at all, what we should be doing and where we are headed,” Cooper asserts on her blog HistoricalChristian.com.  “We Catholics need to know … what our story is and how to tell it to others.”

Every baptized Christian is called to evangelize, Cooper said.

“In the early Church it was mainly the apostles and their successors, the bishops, who spread the faith,” Cooper said. “After the barbarian invasions and fall of the Roman civilization, as the Church grew into the Middle Ages, it was primarily the monks and religious orders who went out and evangelized culture and rebuilt Christian civilization.”

Since the Protestant Reformation and the Enlightenment, which saw the rise of science and a “false dichotomy between science and faith,” the world has become increasingly secularized, noted Cooper. Now, more than ever, it’s vital that the lay faithful fulfill their call to evangelize, she said, adding that Popes Paul VI, John Paul II and Benedict XVI are among the recent pontiffs who have urged the Church to evangelize the modern world.

“I sense that the moment has come to commit all of the Church’s energies to a new evangelization and to the mission ad gentes (mission to the nations),” wrote Pope John Paul II, in his 1990 encyclical Redemptoris Missio (Mission of the Redeemer). “No believer in Christ, no institution of the Church can avoid this supreme duty—to proclaim Christ to all peoples.”

Catholics are responding. Currently offering “Understanding the Catholic Gospel” for the first time online as distance education, Cooper has more than 70 students from the United States, the United Kingdom, Africa, Papua New Guinea and United Arab Emirates.

“This response … just amazes me,” she said.

In 2006, the Protestant evangelical program Cooper once promoted, Evangelism Explosion, trained some 200,000 lay people worldwide and their witness resulted in nearly 5 million conversions to Christianity.

“If they can do that well with partial truth, we can do it 100 times better with the fullness of the truth,” declared Cooper.

Cooper offered several tips for successful door-to-door evangelization:

• Dialogue; never be forceful or coercive. Ask people what they think.

• Use the phrase, “We believe …,” as in the creed. Never say, “This is what you should believe.”

• Speak the truth clearly and let the power of the truth speak for itself.

• Know your faith and live it.

“It’s the witness of your life that gives power to your words,” Cooper stressed. “The Church documents on evangelization talk about this in depth. We are supposed to have words and witness of life, neither is effective enough alone.

“We need to be changed ourselves,” she said. “It’s Christ in us witnessing and evangelizing. On our own we can do nothing; we can do all things through Him, who strengthens us.”

Tears of Joy: The Catholic Gospel in the UK

I am crying while I write this.  I have worked so hard to develop this course on "Understanding the Catholic Gospel," sometimes during extreme discouragement, feeling so overwhelmed at the shape the world is in.  And yet feeling so strongly convinced, convicted, deep down, that we must learn to articulate the core meaning of our faith to people, in words and images they can understand.

And I am offering the course widely now, to the world, so soon after developing it (and continuing to develop it, in truth) because people keep writing and asking for it.  And I am just hoping and praying that it is making sense to people, that people can use it, that I am not just overwhelming people with too much (because the Catholic gospel, the authentic gospel message, is very, very deep).

And now I receive this, from one of my students in the UK, who writes:

Hi Aimee

Loving the course!  I feel blessed to have found it and already I want to share it with people. 

Last Friday I had to give a eulogy at my Uncle's memorial service to a about 100 people.  Even though this was at a Catholic church I would have not felt able to talk about my Uncle's life in the context of leading a good Catholic life and how we should give thanks to God for his life.  I reflected on a life of Love, Service and Suffering and tied this into the Passion of Christ and I bought in the Catholic Gospel of life having a meaning and purpose and the more we fill ourselves with God the happier we feel.

It went down very well.  The priest came afterwards and thanked me for the wisdom.  Relatives came up.  Strangers came up.  Members of the choir came up to thank me.  I can take no credit because I could not of said the things I said 3 weeks ago.

I am very keen to share my experience with my local Diocese. 

God Bless,

(name withheld)

This in the United Kingdom, where, you may know, the Church and Christianity in general is in so much worse shape even than here in the US.  People asked, and so I began to record my little class - and now 100 people in the UK have heard, and been moved by, the beautiful message of Catholicism, the real message of the gospel.  And I can trust that more will hear it.  I hope they all go out and share it with everyone they can.

Bless the Lord.  This is why I teach.  And pass the Kleenex, please!

Hello, World

Well.  Blogging has been light to non-existent for some time now, because my classes have just exploded.  I’m offering three now, two local classes and one by distance – and between the three I have over 100 students registered.  Over 70 of them are distance students, from all around the country and internationally, including Canada, the UK, Africa, the UAE, and Papua New Guinea.  I am amazed.

And I hope I do well.  It’s a bit intimidating to have so many people relying on you – and I want to make the Archdiocese look good, of course!  It’s thanks to them I even have this opportunity in the first place.

Of course I’ve also been working for the Augustine Institute, TA’ing one of their distance courses, and that is now wrapping up.  In another week I’ll have their papers and exams to grade (wonderful group of student there, by the way, also spread out all over the country), and that should free up at least a little time for writing.

And writing I plan to do.  This evangelization project of mine has turned out to be so much bigger, and deeper, than I ever imagined it would be when I started out on it in the fall of 2007.  Developing a way to articulate the core message of Catholicism, with faithfulness to the full Catholic Tradition, including scripture, Fathers, great theologians from all ages of the Church, Magisterial statements, and writings of great saints and mystics, has so deepened and, well, not so much changed as re-oriented, for the better, my own understanding of our Faith that I can hardly put pen to paper anymore to formulate a coherent thought.  I just want to sit around gaping – agape – at the wonder of it all, the wonder of our creation, the wonder of our destiny in God.

But put pen to paper I must, folks.  Our Catholic Faith is profound – and I think it is exactly what our world needs today to answer the many problems of our world.  We are so blind, because we lack the one thing that can truly open our eyes to see: God, in us, deeply, consciously, in all the different ways He intends to enter into us and change us, the reason why He created us in the first place.

But I’ll have to write more about that later.  For now I just wanted to say hello, and let you all know what’s been going on.  Yep, I’ve been busy.  But doing good things – things that will, I hope and pray, make a real difference in this word that so truly needs something, something, to help it out of the hole it seems to just keep digging itself deeper into day by day.

Have a Good Weekend

I'm away for the weekend, so comment moderation is turned on.

Sharing the Catholic Gospel Message

Registration is going great for my new distance ed course on the Catholic Gospel message, and I am so pleased!  Thank you everyone for your interest - and registrations continue to come in.  I think it will be a great class!

For those just hearing about this, I'm offering a new distance ed class through the Archdiocese of Denver's John Paul II Center for the New Evangelization, Understanding the Catholic Gospel, in which you will be immersed in a beautiful way of understanding and sharing your Catholic Faith.  Course information is here; please take a look!

And I am teaching local Denver classes as well beginning tonight and tomorrow, in two locations, the JPII Center and in Lakewood.  Contact me if you are interested.  It's not too late to sign up even if you miss the first class, because I can give you the recordings to get caught up.

Also, Amy Welborn wrote about the class here, in a larger very nice post on evangelization.  I am very grateful to her and everyone who has helped publicize this on the web!  God bless you all!

Got to run get ready for teaching . . .

New Distance Education Class at Archdiocese of Denver: Understanding the Catholic Gospel

Class begins: April 27, 2009 (accepting registrations through the end of the week)
Eight weekly two-hour classes
Hosted by the Archdiocese of Denver
John Paul II Center for the New Evangelization
Office of Evangelization and Catechesis
Registration: $40

It's not too late to register!  We will be accepting registrations through the end of the week of April 27.

Download flyer:  Download Distance Ed flyer spring 09  Put it up in your parish!  Send it around to people!

To register email Tess.Stone@archden.org
Or call 303-715-3260

Background 

What is the Catholic gospel?  Did you know that it is not the same as the Protestant gospel, that there are key – and profound – differences, and that the Catholic gospel is the authentic gospel?  If someone were to ask you, could you explain it to them?  Could you explain the differences?

In part, it is the difference between imputed and infused grace, between sanctifying and fully sacramental grace, between simply believing in Jesus to go to heaven, and truly becoming the dwelling place of God, here and now, during this life, through union with Christ in the sacraments.

Picture1 But to really understand it means telling a story.  It means going back to God Himself, before creation even, and understanding something about who God is.  It means looking at why He is making creation, what it is for, and why He made man, what our destiny is.  It means looking at what the Fall is, why it happened – the very beautiful, profound reasons why God in His love allowed it.  It means looking at who Jesus is, why He came, what He really did on the cross – not a matter of simple payment for sin, but something so much more profound!  It means looking at the Church, looking deeply into what it is that is really taking place in the Church, beyond the surface appearances, and why.  And it means looking into the future, at what our future destiny is, the whole reason why we were created in the first place, which is glorious. 

It means telling the story, the whole story of life, where it came from, why it exists in the first place, what it is for, where it is going – so that we can understand how we got where we are, and then know what to do, how to proceed.  

In short, the Catholic gospel is the meaning of life.  Understanding the Catholic gospel makes it possible to understand why we are alive at all, and what we should be doing, where we are headed.  And we Catholics need to know it – need to know what our story is, and how to tell it to others.

For those of you who’ve been reading this blog for some time, you know that I’ve been working on an evangelization project, begun as a thesis project while I was a student at the Augustine Institute (I've written about it here and here).  I'm doing so because I've heard so many Catholics say "I know we're supposed to share our faith, but I don't know how! Catholicism is too big!"  I've even been asked by a couple of very prominent Catholic leaders, "What is the Catholic gospel?  How can we explain it to people?"  We need a starting place, a foundation, an articulation of the core Catholic gospel message itself, and that is the basis for my program.  Originally a door-to-door training program, I now offer two components: the training program itself, and now an eight-week class based on the underlying theology of the Catholic gospel message, called Understanding the Catholic Gospel

I’ve been developing and teaching the class in parishes and at the Archdiocese of Denver’s John Paul II Center for the New Evangelization (thanks to the generosity of Archbishop Chaput and James Cavanagh, the Director of Evangelization and Catechesis for Denver, to whom I owe a great debt of gratitude).  Due to requests from around the country (even Canada), I am now for the first time offering it as a distance education class.  Classes each week will be recorded in .mp3 format, and uploaded along with typed reading handouts to the web for downloading.  Someday I’d like to have the class videotaped – but this is at least a start!

What to Expect

Designed as a stand-alone class, it is first of all for Catholics ourselves, meant to teach us the deep, core meaning of our own faith from which all doctrine grows.  Before we can evangelize others, we ourselves must be evangelized first.  The class also is designed to precede the training program, to thoroughly ground future trainees in the theology of the Catholic gospel message, because we cannot share it with others before first understanding it clearly ourselves.

The class begins with a walk-through of the Catholic gospel message, a unique presentation that I’ve been developing and testing with Protestants, Jews, Muslims, New Agers, atheists, college students, feminists, and cradle Catholics, both door-to-door and in talks to various groups.  It follows the storyline of God, creation, Man, Fall, Jesus Christ, Church, and New Creation.  In the field we’ve come to hear the same responses to it over and over: “Profound.  Beautiful.  Moving.  I never knew that’s what Catholicism was about.”  Subsequent classes embark on a deep immersion in readings on each point in the story, ranging from Sacred Scripture, Church Fathers, saints and mystics and Doctors of the Church to spiritual theology, Magisterial documents, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and the thought of great theologians of the 20th century, including John Paul II and Benedict XVI.

This is not a course on apologetics, explaining and defending particular doctrines of the Faith, but something much more fundamental and enriching: understanding the core meaning of Catholicism itself, which, as we’ve experienced when sharing it with people out in the field, has a way of undercutting all the other arguments and disagreements about this or that doctrine or practice, and in the context of which doctrine is better understood.  Catholicism is beautiful!  And when we know how to really explain it to someone else, they find it really inspiring!  We’ve experienced that over and over.

The class is designed to be intellectually challenging, and personally inspiring.  It will cause you to reflect and ponder more deeply on the meaning of your faith than you probably ever have before.  Students who’ve gone through my classes tell me they have changed and deepened their understanding of their faith profoundly, what it means and how to live it out, and as a result have made many changes in their lives in order to live the Catholic gospel more fully.  It is a unique way of approaching our Faith, builds a unique foundation, and I've found over and over that understanding the foundational story of our Faith makes everything else about it a lot easier to understand!

And I can see it with my own eyes:  students blossoming spiritually, developing their prayer lives, their experience of the sacraments, their involvement in their parishes, seeking out spiritual directors, truly seeking to grow in union with Christ here and now, so as to truly be able to carry Him into the world, and give Him to the world.  And knowing the story, having a way to share it, beautifully, with others.  Students saying to me, "I'm realizing that I've got to make some changes in my life, things I've taken for granted actually need to change."  An older student saying to me, "I've been a Catholic all my life, and I've never heard any of this stuff before."  (And I responded: "That's why I teach!  People need to know this stuff.")

So I am very happy to be able to offer this class more widely now, to start sharing the message, so we can learn our own story, how profoundly beautiful it really is, be changed by it, and then turn and share it with others.  I've poured my heart and soul into developing this course, this way of explaining the beauty of the Catholic gospel message, and now want to pour it out and share it with the world.  I believe that the world desperately needs this – the world today is lost, having moved so far away from God.  We Catholics can help the world - but we need to recover our story, and re-learn how to tell it to the world.

Class Information

Class begins: April 27, 2009 (registrations taken through end of week)
Eight weekly two-hour classes
Hosted by the Archdiocese of Denver
John Paul II Center for the New Evangelization
Office of Evangelization and Catechesis
Registration: $40

Lectures of live weekly 2-hour classes will be recorded and uploaded in .mp3 format from week to week; once uploaded, you can download and listen to them at your convenience.  Each lecture is recorded in two parts, 50-60 minutes each.  Typed reading excerpts for each class will also be uploaded, 10-20 typed pages per class in Word format.  There are no other assignments, and no books to buy (though you might want to buy some, after reading the excerpts!).  Please note: high speed internet connection is required to download the .mp3 recordings.

Download flyer:  Download Distance Ed flyer spring 09  Put it up in your parish!  Send it around to people!

To register email Tess.Stone@archden.org
Or call 303-715-3260

For more information email aimee@historicalchristian.com

PS: I'm also offering the class live in two different locations beginning the week of April 20th.  Email me if you want information about that!

Quotes from People who've taken Aimee's classes:

"I have found Aimee's work on Evangelizing the Catholic Gospel Story, along with her foundational theological work, to be brilliant and eloquent.  The theological insights that she brings to bear truly emphasizes the splendor and symphony of our Catholic faith." 
          -Barry, convert from Mormonism, Parish Director of Adult and Youth Ministry and Catechesis

"The Theology of the Basic Catholic Gospel class has helped me immensely in my work with youth and their parents.  I have come to a better understanding and most especially an improved method of explaining the basics of our Catholic believe in terms that transcend age and understanding." 
          -Cherie, cradle Catholic, Parish Confirmation/Youth Minister

"Aimee's class has given me new perspective. I have entered an incredible story, or perhaps the story has entered me, and my personal journey has increased meaning. With this deeper love and understanding of the Catholic Gospel, I have a greater freedom to share it with others. Aimee's gentle teaching style has been personal and engaging." 
          -Susan, cradle Catholic, Parishioner and family apostolate organizer

"I wanted to tell you the materials and the classes I have attended have really helped me in discussing the faith as it bridged a few things--my own voluminous reading materials, Barry's great [RCIA] class and your brilliant interpretation and communication style.  In fact, I recalled some things that assisted me in discussing the faith with a major yoga/buddha old boyfriend of mine and we had the best conversation to date."
          -Brooke, RCIA student from a Baptist background

Limbo: A Poem for Easter

A friend sends this around every year - and it brings tears to my eyes every time.  Enjoy!

Limbo
by Sister Mary Ada

The ancient greyness shifted
Suddenly and thinned
Like mist upon the moors
Before a wind.
An old, old prophet lifted
A shining face and said:
“He will be coming soon.
The Son of God is dead;
He died this afternoon.”

A murmurous excitement stirred
All souls.
They wondered if they dreamed –
Save one old man who seemed
Not even to have heard.

And Moses, standing,
Hushed them all to ask
If any had a welcome song prepared.
If not, would David take the task?
And if they cared
Could not the three young children sing
The Benedicite, the canticle of praise
They made when God kept them from perishing
In the fiery blaze?

A breath of spring surprised them,
Stilling Moses’ words.
No one could speak, remembering
The first fresh flowers,
The little singing birds.
Still others thought of fields new ploughed
Or apple trees
All blossom-boughed.
Or some, the way a dried bed fills
With water
Laughing down green hills.
The fisherfolk dreamed of the foam
On bright blue seas.
The one old man who had not stirred
Remembered home.

And there He was
Splendid as the morning sun and fair
As only God is fair.
And they, confused with joy,
Knelt to adore
Seeing that He wore
Five crimson stars
He never had before.

No canticle at all was sung
None toned a psalm, or raised a greeting song,
A silent man alone
Of all that throng
Found tongue –
Not any other.
Close to His heart
When the embrace was done,
Old Joseph said,
“How is Your Mother,
How is Your Mother, Son?”

Confronting the President of Notre Dame

I admire the courage of this bishop.  "For a bishop, as God's steward . . . must hold firm to the sure word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to confute those who contradict it." (Titus 1:7,9)  From the website of the Cardinal Newman Society.

March 31, 2009

Reverend John I. Jenkins, C.S.C.
President
University of Notre Dame
400 Main Building
Notre Dame, IN 46556

Dear President Jenkins:

    I wish to express in my own name and on behalf of the Catholic community of this Diocese, my dismay and outrage at your decision to invite the current President of the United States to address the 2009 graduates of the University of Notre Dame and to receive an honorary degree.

This decision of your flies in the face of the expressed directive of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in the year 2004, that Catholic institutions not so honor those who profess opposition to the Church’s doctrine on abortion and embryonic stem cell research.

    I would ask that you rescind this unfortunate decision and so avoid dishonoring the practicing Catholics of the United States, including those of this Diocese. Failing that, please have the decency to change the name of the University to something like, “The Fighting Irish College” or “Northwestern Indiana Humanist University.” Though promotion of the obscene is not foreign to you, I would point out that it is truly obscene for you to take such decisions as you have done in a university named for our Blessed Lady, whom the Second Vatican Council called the Mother of the Church.

I sign myself

Very truly yours,
The Most Reverend Thomas G. Doran, D.D., J.C.D.
Bishop of Rockford

Pope Benedict: A Deep and Reasonable Thinker, Unjustly Attacked

It's difficult to see someone you love attacked.  Difficult, even angering, when the attacks are unjust and increase in vociferousness day by day.  So it is with Pope Benedict today.  He can hardly open his mouth in public without getting jumped on and shouted down by world media, even by many in the Church, without real consideration of the meaning or basis of his statements. 

For those of us close to his thought, who have taken time to read and study his thinking, we know that he is a deeply rational, and reasonable, thinker, basing his thought on an extraordinarily wide-ranging consideration of theology, philosophy, anthropology and biology, physics - in fact I am not certain that there is any field left unconsidered in his study and articulation of the human condition, and what contributes to authentic human happiness.  This is testified to by the months-long remodeling of the Papal apartments when he was made Pope: they had to build shelves to accommodate his personal library of 20,000 books. 
He is the epitome of what is truly meant by the phrase "Catholic intellectual."

The following article about the Pope, in defense of his thought, is so good, I decided to post it in entirety here - if only so that I will always have access to it.  Read, and enjoy!

Assault Upon the Sexes: Fostering the Papal Defence
Editorial FAITH Magazine March-April 2009

'This at last is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh" (Genesis, 2:23)

Pope Benedict has been the object of fierce attacks over the past couple of months. Now, that a Pope is attacked for being a Catholic should not surprise us too much. After all, at the Last Supper, the Lord said plainly to His Apostles, "If the world hates you, remember that it hated me before you. If you belonged to the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you do not belong to the world, because my choice withdrew you from the world, therefore the world hates you." (Jn 15:18-19) Then Jesus goes on to say that if those who belong to Him do suffer persecution and difficulties from others "it will be on my account that they will do all this." (Jn 15:21)

The ferocious attacks on Pope Benedict have worn the mask of rational outrage, but when analysed carefully there seems to be very little rationality in the anger. Joan Bakewell, in the February 6th edition of The Times, decided that the Pope's decision to lift decrees of excommunication from four Lefebvrist bishops, one of whom absurdly denies the historical veracity of the mass extermination of Jews during the Second World War, should be linked to his Regensburg Address: in her view this was a sign of an increased antagonism on the part of the Vatican towards other religions. Pope Benedict was for her the villain of the piece. What is sad is that such a view could be taken seriously, let alone published: it is based on speculation, supposition of the motives of others and no serious attempt to look at the evidence of the Pope's writings, addresses and actions both before his election to the Papacy and afterwards. Any serious thinker would acknowledge that he has shown a remarkable commitment not only to relations with Jews but also to dialogue with other religions. At the same time, he has reaffirmed the uniqueness of the Church and the universal significance of Jesus Christ as Saviour and Redeemer (see our Road from Regensburg column).

Indeed, there has been little attempt even in Catholic circles to give a public and sustained support of Pope Benedict throughout these difficulties. The fact that even Bishops and Cardinals have not just criticised the Pope but have also kept silence, giving him little support, speaks volumes about those august bodies. Many have sat back and watched; others have made statements reaffirming the Church's commitment to working with the other religions and with the Jews; but few have stood up and robustly supported the Pope at a time when he needed them. In Gethsemane too the Apostles ran away and hid, or at best looked on, when the Lord was taken prisoner. We are all weak - but it is a weakness and their silence has not been a virtue. There is a reason why Cardinals sport the colour of red and it is not on account of their own dignity.

The personalised nature of the criticisms of the Pope, the inability to look at hard evidence and the unwillingness to ascribe anything but evil intent to the Pope's motives make one suspect that it is not one decision that is the real problem: it is really about the fact that the nature of Catholicism and the role of the Pope have at their core a claim so audacious as to provoke outrage. In modern secular Britain - indeed, in the modern secular West - any claim that there is anything like a real and absolute Truth is viewed with suspicion at the very least and most of the time with a sustained antagonism. This is what the Catholic Church does claim, however: that there is an absolute truth about Man, about the world, and about God, and that all this has been revealed and articulated in the Person of Jesus of Nazareth. This means that the identity, the mission, indeed the life of Jesus Christ makes a fundamental and absolute claim upon every human life. It means that no human life is complete if it is not a life lived in union with Christ.

It is here that we hit the central problem and it is something that has recurred not just during the Pontificate of Benedict XVI but also in that of John Paul II, Paul VI and beyond. The idea that someone's life is lacking something if it is not lived in Jesus Christ, smacks to the modern world as a denial of liberty. For many it seems that the Church is an oppressive force that wishes to squeeze out human freedom and impose on everyone its own vision of what it means to be human. Now, within the modern notion of human freedom there is a central thesis: every human being is an individual who should be allowed the maximum amount of freedom to do what they like with their lives and to get the most that they can out of it. This radical individualism is reflected in every aspect of modern living; in education, politics, economics, relationships and the media. In nearly every sphere what counts is the autonomy of the individual.

Continue reading "Pope Benedict: A Deep and Reasonable Thinker, Unjustly Attacked" »

Saddest Irony: Family of Abortion Provider Dies in Plane Crash Next to "Tomb of the Unborn"

You've all heard about the small plane that crashed in a cemetery in Montana that killed seven children and seven adults.   What the news reports don't tell you: most of the children and adults on board were family members of the owner of the nation's largest private abortion provider, Family Planning Associates of California. 

They also don't tell you that the cemetery is the Catholic Holy Cross Cemetery, which contains a "Tomb of the Unborn" - a memorial to unborn babies killed by abortion, where local residents pray the rosary for the unborn and to end abortion.

They also don't tell you that the home of the owner, Irving Moore "Bud" Feldkamp III, has been the site of many abortion protests, where the main message to him has been "think of your children" - and he has now lost nine children, including two daughters, two sons-in-law, and five grandchildren. 

Oh, saddest irony of ironies.  I don't wish this on him.  But I pray that somehow the grace of God will get through to him - that the loss of his own children will open his eyes to the loss of all the children that he has profited from, and break and change his heart.

The whole story is here.  Read it, and pray for the soul of this man, his wife, their children, and the souls of all children killed by abortion.

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

UPDATE:  I just learned something else: my husband used to go to Butte, the site of the crash, on business.  He is familiar with the little town and the cemetery where the crash occurred.  He just told me that it is a very devout Irish Catholic community - and also the site of Our Lady of the Rockies, a giant statue of Mary, at 90 feet the largest Madonna statue in the US and the second largest statue of any kind, on top of a mountain overlooking the town.

It was built by volunteers, to honor women, above all mothers.  What can I say.  The irony, and the tragedy, only deepens.  I pray that Mary was there to gather them all up - especially the children.  Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.

On the Economy and Catholics who Don’t Give

A reader from Los Angeles has written to express her outrage over the fact that a majority of Catholics – a greater percentage than the general population, even – voted for Obama, who is now ushering in an unprecedented tax-and-spend era.  She makes a connection between those Catholics who call for ever more taxes and government programs, but fail to give to the Church or to charity (charities, by the way, tend to do a much better job at delivering needed services than government does).  She explicitly names Vice President Joe Biden, a Catholic who last year despite his wealth made only $400 in charitable contributions. 

[As an aside, I’ve always seen the irony of those who loudly criticize the Church for being so “oppressive,” when they themselves rarely or never actually give to charity – but the Church is the biggest charitable giver in the world.]

Her real outrage is here: she and her husband are small business owners, tithing to the Church and bearing an increasingly unbearable burden of taxes – and they are putting the blame on Catholics - including teachers and pastors of the Faith - who put all the emphasis on a “social justice” which focuses more on government solutions to problems and leads people to regard government programs as our salvation and vote for politicians who often undermine Church moral teaching, rather than relying on Church, charity, and family first, before government.

She makes a radical proposal: since she and her husband are increasingly bled dry by taxes, and will be more so thanks to the majority of Catholics who voted for Obama, they are now going to withhold contributions to the Church as a form of protest, and instead contribute to parachurch organizations that they know for certain uphold Church teaching, as a way of waking up the Church’s pastors and holding them accountable for properly teaching the people (note: in a subsequent email she clarified that they will still support their parish – she in fact belongs to her parish’s finance council - but not the Archdiocese, which in the wake of huge sex-abuse settlements has begun pressuring the parishes for more contributions).

I’m not sure how much I agree with her idea, but her frustration is clear – and the underlying message I do agree with: Catholics must be held accountable for their failures to live by and uphold Church teaching, not only in moral areas such as abortion and sexuality, but also in charitable areas such as tithing.  Is this not also a moral issue?  But one thing our pastors rarely do is preach about or emphasize the need to tithe, to contribute to Church and charity.  In fact, I’ve heard it’s one of the things they truly hate to do.

But consider this:  If all Catholics were actually tithing, and tithing (or at least honestly attempting) the full 10% required by scripture (and which scripture makes clear belongs to God, not to us, for all things come from God, so to withhold it is to actually steal from God), they’d be a lot less likely to vote for tax-and spend politicians – because they literally couldn’t afford it.  And then charities, businesses, and the economy would thrive, because there would be less need for taxation. (This in turn makes me wonder how many Catholics who voted for Obama also tithe the full 10% to the Church.)

But when we don’t tithe, and then rely on excessive taxation, faithful Catholics who do tithe are left shouldering a disproportionate burden compared to everyone else, which is destructive to both their families and their businesses.  And it can have a reverse effect on the Church: even those of us who want to tithe can wind up not being able to afford to, because we are being bled dry by taxation.

Priests are not economists, and it can be easy to approach our faith in terms of purely spiritual issues.  But our faith is incarnational, meant to be carried into and have an impact on the world.  I wonder how well priests understand the economics of charity and taxation – or perhaps I should say the spirituality of charity and taxation. 

I think this is one area where we laity can be of real assistance to priests, in helping priests understand the real need for accurate teaching, even exhorting, on the need to tithe, because the failure to do so could be a hidden contributor to the real economic problems we are facing.  One thing that is clear from the Old Testament: when the people do not obey God, God does not reward the people, but rather brings great distress upon the nation.  We tend to focus on more serious issues such as abortion, but tithing, among other failures, is another thing Catholics in large numbers fail to do.  And we are clearly a nation in distress.

Here is her letter, unedited.  What do you think?  Is her anger displaced?  Or do you agree?  Take into consideration her unique position in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, by all accounts a troubled place, and in the very financially challenged state of California (she writes later that record revenues were collected last year there, but the state ended up $15 billion in debt and has now increased taxes instead of cutting non-essential programs).  I’d be very interested to hear from readers what you think about this.

Our Catholic brethren (by a measure of  60% to 40%) voted for the present administration, a Democratic Congress & President, thereby agreeing to further confiscatory taxes, etc. being implemented.  I believe that many of our fellow Christians believe that the government (both state and federal) are the savior and that resource and provision are go to and come from that body.  My understanding is that God instituted the family and established the Church and civil government as supports to the family.  Charity and assistance are to come from first the family and then the Church.  The Church's ignorance about these matters has resulted in a theft of resource (HARD-EARNED money) from the faithful, going into the coffers of a secular body instead of the Church or to individuals directly.   For those in our country not disposed to religion there are many private organizations to give to and receive from in lieu of the Church.

I've always said I would gladly compare our household's charitable giving, adjusted for income, with any of the politicians constantly carping about the need for higher taxes and more government programs.  Sure enough...every time there has been disclosure on these matters, I was correct in my assessment.  The most blatant case of greed would have to be our new Vice-President, and Catholic brother, Joe Biden....under $400 in charitable contributions last year.

Until the faithful wake up (and the priests are chief among those needing to open their eyes), we intend to reduce our giving to the Catholic Church commensurate with the increases in levies we experience.  We have been small business owners and have had an open vein into the tax system for years.  It is as though we are slaves, working hard and then allowed to keep an allowance from our profits while the bureaucracy takes the king's portion.  Until this election, I didn't realize the disparity between our "contribution" to the system and those of our fellow citizens many of whom apparently determined that WE don't give enough. We will continue to be generous with our time and money....but we will not be taken advantage of by our Church community.  As long as the priests, nuns, and our brothers and sisters in the majority determine that we should continue to be pillaged in support of  a system that makes millionaires out of our of  "civil servants" and has a set of rules for them and another set of rules for us we will move more of our support to parachurch organizations that we believe in (namely the pro-life cause). 

Taking something that belongs to someone and giving it to someone else in the name of compassion or fairness is neither.  It is theft and therefore immoral.  The secular government that is at enmity with the teachings of the Church knows exactly what it is doing.  That so many in the Church (especially our leaders) are blindly going along with this program, thereby impoverishing the vessels (family and Church) that God constructed is exasperating.  I wish the Church would open it's eyes to this truth.

Letter to President Obama

I just sent the following letter to President Obama, using his White House contact page.  I hope others will also write.

Dear President Obama,

My husband is a licensed health care professional and supervisor of a number of medical professionals in a large health care provider.  We are writing to express our opposition to any coercive measures that would violate the conscience of medical professionals with regard to life or death issues.  This would include measures that would force them against their will to participate in, support, refer for, or in any way encourage practices such as abortion, use of embryonic stem cells or medical treatment derived from embryonic stem cells, euthanasia, abortifacient methods of contraception, and other such practices.

Further, we reserve the right as citizens to seek out ethical medical professionals who share our same concern for life and death issues, and who practice in accord with those concerns.

For these reasons, we oppose FOCA and any other legislation that would violate the rights of United States citizens with regard to life or death issues.  As the prime representative of the people, we expect you to honor and uphold these rights, both for medical care providers and for those who seek ethical medical care. 

Furthermore, as a woman and a former prochoice feminist now turned prolife feminist, I strongly encourage you to realize that "prochoice" feminists, despite their claims, do not speak for all or even a majority of women.  Rather their numbers are shrinking, and the numbers of prolife women are growing and are now in the majority.  Yet prochoice feminists continue to reject, exclude, marginalize and discriminate against prolife women by silencing and ignoring our voices and refusing to represent our views, despite the fact that our reasons for embracing the prolife position are solidly supported by a diverse range of scientific and sociological studies.  Such women emphatically do not speak for the majority of women.  Rather they engage in the most insidious form of misogynist, paternalistic behavior by claiming to speak for “all women,” while insulting our intelligence, deriding our beliefs, and refusing even basic consideration of our views.

As President of the United States, we expect you to transcend such blatantly discriminatory behavior and take all points of view into consideration.  We expect you to seriously examine all well-grounded reasons for upholding life, and allow them to inform your policy decisions regarding life or death issues apart from any “lifestyle” pressure brought to bear on your decisions, for “lifestyle” issues are of secondary importance to the issue of life and death itself.

Therefore, should you pass, sign, or in any way encourage legislation such as FOCA, we will conclude that you have violated the office of President by violating the rights guaranteed to us by the United States Constitution that you are sworn to uphold, and will do everything possible to fight your legislation and oppose your reelection to public office, along with opposing any other public servants who join with you in supporting such legislation.  We strongly encourage you not to embark on such a divisive course, for people of conscience will not tolerate to be so imposed upon by the State.  Rather your action will only result in even greater discord in society and increased polarization of an American people already badly polarized and divided.

Respectfully,
---------------

The Economic Collapse: A Collapse of Virtue, and a Call to Grace

I’m no economist, but though I’m distressed, I’m not terribly surprised by the current economic collapse.  That’s because it’s been clear to me that fundamental attitudes underlying business practices of the past couple decades have been so clearly wrong, which is plain for any normal person to see.  And eventually what is wrong comes crashing down, because of all the bad consequences and effects of the wrong.

Fortunately, I am not the only one who sees what is wrong, and some in a position to speak up are speaking up.  I just found one such person, Henry Mintzberg of McGill University, doing so in an excellent article in the Globe and Mail.  For starters, he says,

American management is still revered across much of the globe for what it used to be. Now, a great deal of it is just plain rotten - detached and hubristic. Instead of rolling up their sleeves and getting engaged, too many CEOs sit in their offices and deem: They pronounce targets for others to meet, or else get fired.

. . . Executive compensation, the most evident manifestation of this legal corruption of management, was labelled scandalous by Fortune magazine more than 20 years ago, and repeatedly ever since, to no avail. While America escalated its love affair with leadership, its corporate leaders singled themselves out for increasingly obscene pay packages, all the while extolling the virtues of teamwork and sustainable enterprise.


That is so true.  My husband worked for a long time for a large corporation – and as the years went by saw them go increasingly in the direction of demanding profits at the expense of good business practices and the welfare of the actual people they employ. 

When I met him four years ago, he was running a large division of the company, struggling to keep up with the constant demands of the higher-ups to increase profits, while still running a good ship and treating his several hundred employees fairly.  He routinely worked 70 hours a week, brought work home, was up and on the road before dawn and home after dark.  His division was one of the most profitable in the company.  And yet still they made demands – and as I got to know him, it became clear to me that the demands were unreasonable, all out of bounds, driven by sheer greed, not by love for the company product or care for their employees or the people they served.

After we got engaged, he left the company, and sought a better, less stressful job for the sake of our marriage.  And just in time.  The company it turns out is now going down, driven down by its own greed and heedless concern for actual good business practices.  I am so glad my husband is out of there – and his physical health and state of mind have improved drastically since he got out.

The article continues,

Alongside this came all that "downsizing": Fail to make the targets, no matter how profitable the company remained, and out the door went thousands of employees, those "human resources." So conveniently called, in fact, because while managers have to be careful about human beings, they can dispose of human resources like any other resources.

But at what cost? Rather high, because these people carried out much of the critical knowledge of their companies, as well as those companies' hearts and souls. A robust enterprise is a community of human beings, not a collection of human resources.

I’ve been alive long enough to remember when the term “human resources” was first coined – and what the world was like before working people came to be considered “resources,” and how drastically and quickly the world changed afterward. 

As a kid growing up, my dad ran his own small business as an architect, employing a secretary and several young architects in a small downtown office.  He worked a normal 40-hour work week, and so did all of his employees.  No one was expected to work more than 40 hours a week, unless there was some sort of emergency.  No one got rich, and neither did my dad, but everyone received decent pay.

Dad got to work at 8:00 in the morning and left at 5:00, was home by 5:30 every day, in time to roll on the floor and play with us kids while mom finished making dinner.  Then we all sat down and ate together and talked about our days.  After dinner we went off to do homework or watch TV or read, and we were all in bed by 9 or 9:30, mom and dad by 10:00.  No one was ever overly tired, we got plenty of rest, and spent our weekends hiking, skiing, camping, picnicking, or just relaxing around the house.  Mom worked too off and on, but mostly took care of us and the house – and neither she nor dad ever brought work home.  When they were home, they were home, with us as a family.

How different things became after people became “human resources.”  “Resource” sounds like a thing, an object – and the term “human resource” had the effect of reducing people, the people doing the work, to objects.  And as objects, they became expendable.  Since, as the saying went, the “human resource is the most expensive resource,” because, you know, you actually have to pay them and provide benefits for them, then the way to cut costs and increase profits is to cut the most expensive cost – but while ensuring that productivity remains high.  The result?  Read on:

We have been told how productive the American economy has been. Well, check the way productively is calculated: Firing great numbers of people, and expecting those left behind to carry the load before they burn out, is productive, indeed - until the longer-term consequences show up. They have been partly showing up in the massive U.S. trade deficits. The U.S. economy is collapsing because the American enterprises - and worse still, the country's legendary sense of enterprise - have been collapsing.


Yes, we have been productive – by engaging in a kind of economic slavery, cutting human “resources” and expecting the rest to carry much too large a load, damaging their health, families, and home life, while those cut out are forced into lower-paying jobs, because so many jobs have been shipped overseas, where the “human resource” is a lot cheaper.  And so the American people are slowly strangled and impoverished, while the rich enrich themselves on our suffering.

Yes, people, we have been scammed, turned into objects and used for the pleasure of the very few.  But why?  Why did this happen?  Where did these attitudes come from, and how did they become so quickly entrenched?

Here’s another great article on the same subject, also in the Globe and Mail, this one an interview by Gordon Pitts with Peggy Cunningham of Dalhousie University:

Business schools stand guilty as charged for creating the mess we're in, Peggy Cunningham says. That's a pretty common sentiment these days, but it carries particular weight because Dr. Cunningham is the new director of the School of Business Administration at Dalhousie University. A pioneering academic in corporate social responsibility, she recently left Queen's University for the chance, she says, to build a new kind of business school around the core concept of responsible leadership.

". . . I have a colleague in a very large bank in Australia. She was doing work on responsible leadership with a group of us who are senior people in business schools. She looked us in the eye and said: 'You have graduated a generation of monsters.'

". . . It's been too much focus on individualism - not only of individual success but individualism of one business pitted against another. Also there are businesses and individuals who don't believe they are embedded in a wider social system and are accountable to this wider system.

"Competitive models and individualistic models have taken us a very long way. But we have forgotten some of the grounding that we are part of a much larger whole and we have to be accountable to that whole."


The larger whole.  What used to be called the common good.  In others words, what we do matters, because it affects others.  In a single word, virtue.  Virtue, understood in the ancient world as being that which not only makes a person good, but contributes to the good of the community, the good of the whole – it was a matter of survival for ancient people surrounded by barbarians in a budding civilization.

How we lack virtue in the world today.  Many college campuses, where MBA’s are educated, are not just individualistic, they’re licentious, hedonistic – breeding the opposite of virtue in students.  Anyone who’s gone to college in the past 40 years knows that, and in recent years I lived in a student neighborhood of a very large university, and witnessed first hand the hedonistic behavior of the students.  They behaved as if the world existed to be their party place – and if we complained, we were intruding on what was rightfully theirs.  No one, it seemed, was actually teaching them how to be grown ups, and get along in the world with other people – how to be virtuous, and so be prepared to be a good part of the community, and contribute to the good of the community.  We have made a cult of youth, and no longer require youth to grow up by the time they’re grown up.  Frederica Matthews Greene wrote about that very thing some time ago, in a very interesting First Things article.

So they graduate and enter the work force unprepared – and then people like my husband have to deal with them, have to teach them basic rules of behavior just to get along in the workplace, such as iron your shirt, show up on time, and don’t call in sick every time you want to go skiing.  They don’t like it – but some of them learn to play the rules, get promoted, and wind up in high places where the world once again becomes their party place. 

Is that not exactly how the heads of our corporations have behaved?  They are monsters – monsters of selfishness and hedonism and utter lack of care for anyone other than themselves.  In other words, they lack virtue.  And with a majority of them at the helm, we have just all been given a massive lesson in the need for virtue, by the very magnitude of its absence and the effects its absence is having on our economy.  We don’t live in a vacuum, and our behavior affects others.  Freedom, in other words, is not licentiousness, not freedom to do anything you please, but freedom to do that which leads to authentic happiness for everyone involved.  For real freedom, the kind that leads to real good for everyone, you need virtue.

Which brings me to the main point: what is the purpose of work?  Our country has a really skewed understanding of work: that it is simply to make money, profit, or to seek self-fulfillment in a career.  That is not what work actually is for.

F. Carolyn Graglia summed it up well in her book, Domestic Tranquility: A Brief Against Feminism.  She asserts that prior to feminism, not even men for the most part understood work as a means to self-fulfillment, or solely for the purpose of profiteering (though there have always been profiteers in history).  Most men understood work as a means to have a family, to support a family, and so to have a community and contribute to the community.  She was writing a critique of contemporary feminism, but her insights have a wider application.

Specifically, work did not exist for its own sake.  It was a selfless activity, self-sacrificing, subservient and in support of family, community and relationships.  Family and relationships were what was important – like my family, my dad making sure all his employees got off on time so they could all go home and be with their families.  So he could come home and be with us, roll around and play on the floor with us.  If his job had demanded he give that up, he would have simply quit, and found something else to do, because his family came first.  But how many of us in the world today even have that choice?

In the Catholic view, work, the economy, is meant to reflect the work, the economy, of God, which is selfless love, love for others, looking out for the welfare of others.  Catholic workers and business people have a responsibility to bring their Catholic values – virtues - into the workplace and insist on them.  Catholic corporate heads especially have a responsibility to use ethical, virtuous business practices that ensure the welfare of all the people who work for them, and all the people they serve.  It’s not just about profit, and not all about the shareholders.  It’s about everyone affected in any way by your business practices – because whatever you do affects everyone, affects the culture itself, affects the well-being, directly or indirectly, of everyone on the planet. 

And if you are making obscene profits while people are getting laid off or losing their retirements, do you really not believe that God will hold you accountable?  Do you not realize that you cannot take your profits with you – but only your soul, the state of your soul, which God sees nakedly, through and through?

The Catholic Church is not an economics institute.  But it does understand the value of people, and knows what work is for.  I hope that Catholic business people will speak up, and assert a stronger role in ensuring sound business practices that place work in its proper perspective: in service of people, families, relationships, and community - rather than subjugating people, and the good of the community, to itself.

Here’s one more reason why Catholic business people must speak up: because we believe in grace, and that without grace, we are blind.  We actually need grace in order to see and understand reality clearly, correctly – so if we have grace, and can see, we are bound to share it with others.  Because others, you see, cannot see.  They need someone to help lead them out of the mess we’re in – and only a person in a state of grace can see clearly enough to do that. 

So if you are a Catholic business man or woman, especially if you are in a position of power, you must pray, go to confession, receive communion, and study and apply, live, the teachings of your Faith.  Correct yourself, if you have been living incorrectly.  Then you will be able to see clearly enough to go out into the world and help lead us out of the mess we’re in.  The government can only do so much - but grace is capable of doing all, if we would only lend ourselves to it.

Come, Let Us Adore Him

In Union with Benedict

  • "In the human being, heaven and earth touch one another. In the human being God enters into his creation; the human being is directly related to God." - Ratzinger, In the Beginning

Reflections

Reflective Man

Food for the Soul

Food for the Mind

Gentle Waves

I'm a Featured Blogger on ParishWorld.net!

  • parishworld.net
Blog powered by TypePad
Member since 06/2006