CNA Columns: Harvesting the Fruit of Vatican II

Kermit Gosnell and the death penalty

Fri, 17 May 2013 00:00:00 -0500

By Louie Verrecchio

Imagine the scene in the Pennsylvania State House of Representatives as the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee calls the meeting to order with three decisive blows of the gavel:

A hush falls over the unusually large throng of observers as the presiding legislator greets the star witness and asks him to identify himself, stating his cause, that it may be noted in the official record.

As a barrage of flashbulbs and the rapid fire sound of clicking shutters emanates from the pool of photographers huddled in the media gallery, a voice rings out from the witness table, “I am Charles J. Chaput, Archbishop of Philadelphia, and I am here to plead for the life of Kermit Gosnell.”

A spectacle such as this, depending upon who you ask, would either be a beautiful witness to Catholic teaching, or a regrettable distortion of the same.

Thanks to a plea deal, however, Kermit Gosnell, who was convicted of three counts of first-degree murder, one count of infanticide, and one count of involuntary manslaughter (among other things) was able to avoid a sentence of death, thereby averting any possibility that the scene just described might actually take place.

That doesn’t mean that people aren’t talking about it, however. On the contrary, the heinous nature of Gosnell’s crimes has brought debate over the fittingness of capital punishment back into spotlight where it belongs.
Catholics are divided on the topic, generally falling into any number of “camps” which includes:

• Those who embrace the John Paul II opinion that short of protecting society from imminent danger the death penalty it is always an affront to human dignity

• Those who reject the death penalty with the belief that it is incompatible with the Christian duty to extend mercy and forgiveness

• Those who believe that life imprisonment, as opposed to a death sentence, is the best, or only, way to allow for the perpetrator’s repentance and conversion

• Those who support the death penalty out of anger and vengeance, sometimes expressed in judgmental fits of rage

And then there is the smallest camp of all:

• Those who have a good working knowledge and appreciation for the well-established Catholic doctrine concerning the State’s right to administer the penalty of death

With this in mind, let’s take a necessarily abbreviated look at the traditional doctrine of the Church on capital punishment, a teaching which remains entirely valid today.

The first thing one should know is that this teaching is founded upon the authority of Sacred Scripture and the witness of sacred Tradition as articulated throughout the centuries.

The Catechism of Trent offers the following concise presentation:

The power of life and death is permitted to certain civil magistrates because theirs is the responsibility under law to punish the guilty and protect the innocent. Far from being guilty of breaking this commandment [Thy shall not kill], such an execution of justice is precisely an act of obedience to it. For the purpose of the law is to protect and foster human life. This purpose is fulfilled when the legitimate authority of the State is exercised by taking the guilty lives of those who have taken innocent lives.

In the Psalms we find a vindication of this right: “Morning by morning I will destroy all the wicked in the land, cutting off all evildoers from the city of the Lord” (Ps. 101:8).

(Roman Catechism of the Council of Trent, 1566, Part III, 5, n. 4)

While the post-conciliar bishops tend to focus almost exclusively on the duty to protect human life (albeit extrapolated to include even the life of the guilty), the traditional approach charges the State also with “fostering” human life; that which cannot be confined to the purely physical alone, but also includes the spiritual life of man.

In overlooking this truth, one can easily lose sight of the reality that proportionate punishment justly rendered can have a purifying effect on the soul, thereby fostering the spiritual life of the guilty.

Also missing from the modern approach is the traditional awareness that the death penalty need not be considered an act of vengeance as so often alleged by its detractors.

The secular power can without mortal sin carry out a sentence of death, provided it proceeds in imposing the penalty not from hatred but with judgment, not carelessly, but with due solicitude. (Pope Innocent III, DS 795/425)

Even in the case of the death penalty the State does not dispose of the individual’s right to life. Rather public authority limits itself to depriving the offender of the good of life in expiation for his guilt, after he, through his crime, deprived himself of his own right to life. (Pope Pius XII, Address given September 14, 1952)

In a (highly recommended) 2001 article for First Things, Catholicism & Capital Punishment, Cardinal Avery Dulles offered an in-depth treatment of the topic in which the eminent theologian stated:

Summarizing the verdict of Scripture and tradition, we can glean some settled points of doctrine. It is agreed that crime deserves punishment in this life and not only in the next. In addition, it is agreed that the State has authority to administer appropriate punishment to those judged guilty of crimes and that this punishment may, in serious cases, include the sentence of death … The Catholic magisterium does not, and never has, advocated unqualified abolition of the death penalty.

Contrast this with the condescending comments offered by Tommaso Di Ruzza, a “desk officer” at the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, who said in a recent Catholic News Service interview, “It is not a message that is immediately understood - that there is no room for supporting the death penalty in today's world.”

This particular viewpoint, while a substantial departure from the authentic doctrine of the Church, also happens to be shared by many, including even the majority of bishops.

Archbishop Chaput, for example, wrote in a recent column:

Even when a defendant is well defended, properly tried and justly found guilty, experience shows that capital punishment simply doesn’t work as a deterrent. Nor does it heal or redress any wounds, because only forgiveness can do that. It does succeed though in answering violence with violence — a violence wrapped in the piety of state approval, which implicates all of us as citizens in the taking of more lives.

Though well in keeping with the mindset of recent popes, the archbishop’s remarks are at odds with the traditional teaching on a number of important points, including the fact that capital punishment is not best considered as an attempt by the State to deter the commission of similar crimes in the future.

Secondly, as a matter of proportionate punishment, the death penalty is properly understood in Catholic teaching as an attempt to redress and to heal spiritual wounds.

Thirdly, when the civil authority lawfully carries out the death penalty, it not a de facto act of violence, much less is it “wrapped in the piety of State approval” inasmuch as the authority to carry out such acts comes not from the State itself, nor from its people, but from God.

Lastly, “forgiveness” and capital punishment are not mutually exclusive as the archbishop implies. Forgiving those who trespass against us is indeed an occasion of healing for the forgiver, but not necessarily so for the forgiven, whereas just punishment, duly accepted by those who deserve it, is.

For instance, St. Thomas Aquinas affirmed that the death penalty, inasmuch as it is proportionate retribution justly rendered, can have a purgatorial effect on the guilty that carries with it a powerful impetus for conversion.

All of this said, one wonders what caused our churchmen to move so far away, so quickly, from well-established Catholic teaching on the matter.
The most common answer, it seems, lies in the assertion that modern man (understood as referring to those living in the age of post-conciliar enlightenment) has a deeper understanding of human dignity than did previous generations.

Cardinal Dulles, however, didn’t believe it.

Arguments from the progress of ethical consciousness have been used to promote a number of alleged human rights that the Catholic Church consistently rejects in the name of Scripture and tradition. The magisterium appeals to these authorities as grounds for repudiating divorce, abortion, homosexual relations, and the ordination of women to the priesthood. If the Church feels herself bound by Scripture and tradition in these other areas, it seems inconsistent for Catholics to proclaim a “moral revolution” on the issue of capital punishment.

So, if not the product of a moral awakening, what then accounts for this rapid journey away from the traditional Catholic position on capital punishment?
In my estimation, the answer is twofold, relatively simple, and radically disturbing.

Throughout the post-conciliar period, the hierarchy’s preaching has reflected a hyper-inflated sense of human dignity that has obscured a number of important truths that weigh heavily in the Church’s traditional understanding of capital punishment as a matter of justice. Among them, the fact that human dignity can be diminished and even lost, and the very closely related understanding that human dignity is not possessed in equal measure by all. (A principle treated in greater detail in this column.)

As such, clergy and laity alike have largely fallen into the error of believing that when the State takes the life of a murderer, it is essentially repeating his crime, and this brings us to the second factor; namely, the distorted post-conciliar view of the State.

From the time of Vatican Council II and the promulgation of Dignitatis Humanae, the Church has refrained from preaching the immutable truth that the State derives its authority neither from constitutions nor the will of the people, but from Almighty God to whom the State is beholden, regardless of the particular form of government in which it operates.

Lost in the murkiness is the Catholic understanding of the civil authority as a representative of God, and whose authority is reflective of the hierarchical order that the Lord established within creation.

As such, it is no longer clear in the minds of moderns that the death penalty can indeed be visited upon the guilty, by the State, not simply as a means of protecting others, but as a means of visiting retributive justice upon the guilty in the name of God, thereby rendering a genuine and valuable service to the common good.

Needless to say, opinions will continue to vary as to whether or not the likes of Kermit Gosnell justly deserve the death penalty. I can accept that.

What I will not accept without protest, however, are opinions that are based upon a distorted representation of Catholic doctrine, especially when such are put forth by our bishops.

Mass of Christian Burial: Ecclesial crisis on display

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0500

By Louie Verrecchio

Make no mistake about it: The Church in our day is in the midst of a terrible, and in many ways unprecedented, crisis of faith. This objective reality, however, is largely lost on the overwhelming majority of Catholics, both clerical and otherwise.

While some Catholics, with deliberate intent, actively promote the various agendas that underlie the situation, others simply choose to downplay the magnitude of the crisis out of sheer weakness, as acknowledging the problem suggests a certain responsibility for contributing to the solution.
The majority, however, simply don't know any better after having been lulled into accepting as “Catholic” the rather comfortable, undemanding, and protestantized spirituality that has been served up in so many parishes over the last several decades.

It is with this latter group in mind that I would suggest that all one needs to do in order to remove all doubt as to the extent of the current crisis is to attend, with eyes opened wide, just about any Novus Ordo Mass of Christian Burial.

While I have been to many such funeral Masses over the years, I can honestly say that I haven't experienced even one, single, solitary liturgy of this sort that is truly reflective of Catholic doctrine regarding last things, much less the very purpose of said liturgy.

Part of the problem stems from the fact that so many of our priests, and even bishops, seem incapable of resisting the urge to twist the meaning of the funeral Mass into a “celebration of the life” of the deceased that effectively serves as a quasi-canonization, particularly in the minds of those most deeply in mourning, who by tragic coincidence also just happen to be the very people upon whom the dearly departed should be able to rely for prayers of intercession going forward.

As widespread as this situation is, I am more concerned with the problems that are inherent in the actual rite itself.

Take, for instance, the text of the “Final Commendation and Farewell,” beginning with the “Invitation to Prayer” of which there are two options (a hallmark of the post-conciliar liturgy, options, options, options... but more on that later):

“Before we go our separate ways, let us take leave of our brother/sister. May our farewell express our affection for him/her; may it ease our sadness and strengthen our hope. One day we shall joyfully greet him/her again when the love of Christ, which conquers all things, destroys even death itself.” (Option 1)

So, can we really be assured that we will one day “joyfully greet” our deceased loved ones once again? Maybe we will, but then again, maybe we won’t.

Sure, those in mourning may experience a fleeting moment of comfort thanks to such reassurance, but it’s based less on the truth than on mere sentimentalism, and besides, providing comfort to mourners isn’t the primary purpose of the funeral Mass in the first place.

The bottom line is this: it is an undeniable disservice to the deceased to downplay the need to pray, and to offer sacrifice, for the repose of their souls.

Furthermore, this prayer seems to suggest that we await some future event wherein the love of Christ will “one day” destroy “even death itself,” an apparent convolution of those Catholic doctrines that concern the general resurrection, the efficacy of the Our Lord’s saving act, and the work of redemption that continues in the life of the Pilgrim Church in the present age.

Apart from sound catechesis, the likes of which would be inappropriately given in the liturgy, pastors using this text invite confusion, especially when one considers the Second Epistle of St. Paul to Timothy:

Our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath destroyed death and hath brought to light life and incorruption by the gospel (2 Tim 1:10).

Option 2 isn't any better:

Trusting in God, we have prayed together for (N.) and now we come to the last farewell. There is sadness in parting, but we take comfort in the hope that one day we shall see N. again and enjoy his/her friendship. Although this congregation will disperse in sorrow, the mercy of God will gather us together again in the joy of his kingdom. Therefore let us console one another in the faith of Jesus Christ.

Again, there is a false (and dare I say, highly protestantized) sense of confidence being expressed in the suggestion that God's mercy is such that everyone, without distinction, can be assured of one day being gathered "in the joy of His kingdom."

And yet we wring our hands wondering why so many reject the very notion of Hell!

Moving on, in the "Prayer of Commendation" (Option A) in the post-conciliar rite, we find (excerpt):

Into your hands, Father of mercies, we commend our brother/sister (N.) in the sure and certain hope that, together with all who have died in Christ, he/she will rise with him ... help us who remain to comfort one another with assurances of faith, until we all meet in Christ and are with you and with our brother/sister for ever.

“Sure and certain hope” that “we all” will rise with Christ?

Well, OK … all of us shall rise in the general resurrection; some unto glory, others unto eternal damnation, but “assurances of faith” that we will meet again in Christ for all eternity? There’s no use in sugarcoating it; this simply is not a Catholic proposition.

And please, spare me any hair splitting analysis wherein the singular word “hope” allegedly makes this prayer a plausible representation of Catholic doctrine. It does not. In fact, there isn’t even a hint of a doctrine in these prayers that a Purgatory-rejecting protestant minister wouldn’t be comfortable proclaiming.

And that, my friends, is precisely the impetus behind these tepid and only marginally Catholic texts.

Looking to the General Instruction of the Roman Missal (GIRM) we find:

Moreover, pastors should take into special account those who are present at a liturgical celebration or who hear the Gospel on the occasion of the funeral and who may be non-Catholics or Catholics who never or hardly ever participate in the Eucharist or who seem even to have lost the faith. For Priests are ministers of Christ’s Gospel for all. (cf GIRM 385)

This portion of the GIRM is often used, not surprisingly, as an excuse for watering down the Faith, as if presuming to affirm the salvation of a non-Catholic’s deceased loved one is an act of mercy.

And what exactly does it mean to take nonbelievers “into special account” anyway? Does it mean emulating St. Peter who took special account of the circumcision party in the way he treated gentiles, an act for which St. Paul rightly rebuked him? (cf Gal 2:11-12)

What’s more, one wonders in what sense a Catholic priest “ministers” to non-Catholics apart from proclaiming the fullness of the Faith (i.e., everything whatsoever that Jesus commanded) with neither ambiguity nor attenuation, ultimately with an eye toward their conversion?

In sum, the Novus Ordo Mass of Christian Burial is destined to project a less-than-Catholic image regardless of the celebrant’s mindset; i.e., the best the priest can do is perhaps offset some of the extraordinary deficiencies in the rite with an extraordinarily strong homily, a difficult position in which a priest should never be put.

Indeed, I personally know of a priest who has taken it upon himself to do just this, and it has landed him in hot water not just with the loved ones of the deceased, but with his bishop as well.

By contrast, the traditional Requiem Mass of the Roman Rite is simply the Mass, albeit with certain minor alterations and propers that are fitted to the occasion. And guess what, none of them are designed to give non-Catholics that “feel right at home” level of comfort.

For brevity’s sake, following is just a sampling of those parts of the traditional rite that stand in sharp contrast to the “once saved, always saved” overtones woven throughout the text of the post-conciliar version:

“Absolve, O Lord, the souls of all the faithful departed from every bond of sin. And by the help of Thy grace, may they be enabled to escape the judgment of punishment.” (From the Gradual)

“Day of wrath, O day of mourning, Lo, the world in ashes burning - Seer and Sibyl gave the warning. O what fear man's bosom rendeth, When from Heaven the Judge descendeth, On whose sentence all dependeth! … Guilty, now I pour my moaning, All my shame with anguish owning: Spare, O God, Thy suppliant groaning.” (From the Sequence; the thirteenth century hymn, Dies Irae)

“O Lord Jesus Christ, King of glory, deliver the souls of all the faithful departed from the pains of Hell and from the deep pit: deliver them from the mouth of the lion, that Hell may not swallow them up … Hear us, O Lord, we pray, and let the soul of Thy servant (N.) profit by this sacrifice, by the offering of which Thou didst grant that the sins of the whole world should be loosed.” (From the Offertory)

In light of all that is highlighted here, I have done my best to secure the assurances of my wife and close friends that, in the event they survive me, they will make every attempt to arrange a Traditional Requiem Mass on my behalf, and I would suggest that all would do well to do the same.

At the very least, it may be a good idea to include in one’s final will and testament the following request:

If during the course of my funeral Mass, the priest dares to give those who are mourning my passing even the slightest impression that I am enjoying the Beatific vision in Heaven at that very moment, please give him the following message from me:

Get behind me Satan!

Timid men

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0500

By Louie Verrecchio

“Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of Liberty.” – Thomas Jefferson

A recent video by Fr. Robert Barron, “Gay Marriage and the Breakdown of Moral Argument,” called to mind just how right Jefferson was.

In his commentary, Fr. Barron said:

“In his great text, After Virtue, the philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre laments not so much the bad state of morals in the west, though that’s true enough, but he laments something deeper, and more fundamental; namely, the fact that we’ve lost the capacity even to have a coherent moral conversation.”

Emblematic of this problem, according to Fr. Barron, is Justice Elena Kagan, who said in reference to the United States Supreme Court’s same-sex marriage deliberations, “Whenever a lawyer makes a moral observation in a case such as this, for me, the red flag of discrimination goes up.”

I applaud Fr. Barron for attempting to, as he said, “clear the fog” surrounding this topic, but the video leaves unanswered the million dollar question, why?

Why is this culture so incapable of conversing on moral issues?

Why does the mere suggestion of an objective moral order strike otherwise intelligent people as discriminatory?

Why are so many among us apparently willing to accept the foolish proposition that society can establish meaningful moral standards by way of surveys and polls?

I would suggest that one of the primary reasons our culture has so comfortably relegated morality to the realm of competing opinions, wherein every man’s view is as valid as the next (unless, of course, said man is a Christian) is that the voice of Christ that guides all men in the ways of objective truth has grown faint thanks to generations of timid churchmen who are no longer willing to proclaim the solitary pathway to a truly just society; namely, the Sovereignty of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

As Pope Pius XI taught, “When once men recognize, both in private and in public life, that Christ is King, society will at last receive the great blessings of real liberty, well-ordered discipline, peace and harmony.”

As for the consequences one should expect when society fails to recognize the sovereignty of the Lord, the Holy Father spoke of “manifold evils that are due to the fact Jesus Christ and His holy law have no place in either private affairs or in politics.”

This describes our society to a tee, and Pope Pius XI gave a very clear and simple exhortation concerning how such situations should be met, saying, “We must all the more loudly proclaim His Kingly dignity and power, all the more universally affirm His rights.”

And yet the hierarchs of our age do not dare, preferring instead to seek refuge on the mythical level-playing-field proposed in the Declaration of Religious Freedom of Vatican II, behaving as if it is simply a matter of humility and good manners to pretend that the Lord Jesus Christ has no more rights in society than the many false deities of the world.

With this being the case, one can safely assume that we won’t be hearing our leaders, at least in the foreseeable future, echoing the words of Pope Pius XI who said, “The State should take account of the commandments of God and of Christian principles, both in making laws and in administering justice, and also in providing for the young a sound moral education.”

The bottom line is this:

Of course our culture is unable to have “a coherent moral conversation” as this would require that one at least acknowledge the existence of an absolute moral order, the likes of which can scarcely be known apart from Christ the King, the Supreme Lawgiver who reigns over society, the same that the Catholic Church has utterly failed to proclaim for more than four decades!

I’m all in when it comes to fighting the good fight against those who are hell bent on jamming “gay marriage” down our collective throats, but while I’m certain that Christ will ultimately win the war, this is a battle that I fully expect the followers of Christ to lose.

Why?

Because presidents, legislatures and judges that serve the Evil One and the godless culture they intend to create are precisely the chastisement that our timid churchmen invited upon the children of the Church “to the third and the fourth generation” the moment they decided that it was expedient to cease calling rulers of State to account for their obligation to recognize and to serve Christ the King.

As Pope Pius XI warned, “Christ, who has been cast out of public life, despised, neglected and ignored, will most severely avenge these insults.”

NOTE: All of the quotes attributed to Pope Pius XI herein are taken from the Encyclical, Quas Primas, wherein His Holiness established the Feast of Christ the King.

We who wish to march under the banner of Our Sovereign Lord have an obligation to know and to share - as far and as wide as possible - the magnificent doctrine of our Catholic faith contained in this all-too-often ignored Encyclical. That the clergy in our day are largely unwilling to do so only lends urgency to the matter.

To that end, I offer for your consideration a new faith formation tool designed for either personal use or for use in a group study program, Traditio Faith Formation Series: Quas Primas.

The Encyclical of Pope Pius XI is reprinted therein (© Libreria Editrice Vaticana) in its entirety, along with insightful commentary, followed by three lessons with Scripture references that aid participants in coming to a firm understanding of the immutable doctrine concerning the Kingship of Jesus Christ.

The Council’s use of phenomenology

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0500

By Louie Verrecchio

Recently, I’ve been reading about the phenomenological method employed by the Council Fathers of Vatican II, as elucidated by Dr. Paul Zarowny in a review of the book, Vatican II, Theophany and the Phenomenon of Man: The Council’s Pastoral Servant Leader Theology for the Third Millennium, by Passionist priest Fr. John F. Kobler (American University Studies, Series 7, vol. 100).

Although the article is a bit dated, Dr. Zarowny’s insights seem to shed some light on the difficulties associated with interpreting and implementing the Council’ teachings.

First, a working definition is in order. According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

Phenomenology is the study of structures of consciousness as experienced from the first-person point of view. The central structure of an experience is its intentionality, its being directed toward something, as it is an experience of or about some object. An experience is directed toward an object by virtue of its content or meaning (which represents the object) together with appropriate enabling conditions.

In other words, the phenomenological approach to defining the essence of any given thing requires that one suspend all previously considered knowledge of the object, so that it may be considered anew from the standpoint of encounter and experience.

In the present case, as it relates to the Second Vatican Council, Dr. Zarowny states:

According to Kobler, the bishops set to the side all that they had previously known about the Catholic Church and looked at it as an experienced phenomenon — that is, as an object of sense perception. Previously the Church had usually been thought of as the Mystical Body of Christ, the Bride of Christ or the Kingdom. But these concepts were otherworldly, triumphal, and not perceivable as sense phenomena. Hence the bishops, adopting a suggestion made by Dom Anscar Vonier, O.S.B. in 1937, decided that what one can objectively say about the Church is that it is a group of People who are united by their belief and worship of God — a People of God.

As for what motivated the Council Fathers to take such an approach to the task given them by Pope John XXIII; namely, to impart the truths of the Catholic faith to the people of the “modern” world “with precision, in full and complete conformity to the authentic doctrine” (cf Opening Address of Pope John XXIII to the Second Vatican Council), Dr. Zarowny states:

The Council’s idea was that if Catholics renewed their lives by taking a fresh phenomenological look at the Gospel message they would set such an example of love and understanding that non-Catholics throughout the world would be amazed, think “Why don’t we act more like those Catholics?” and follow their lead. Then the Cold War would cease, the nuclear arms race would end, the gap between the haves and have-nots would narrow, materialism would wane, and humanity would be transformed. Mankind’s evolution would be advanced — not by biology, but by social action.

Apparently missing from the minds of those bishops who were inclined to entertain such wishful thinking was an abiding awareness of man’s sinfulness.

As such, the risk inadvertently invited in the process was perhaps unanticipated; namely, that the emphasis on “experience” and “example” would serve not so much to open inroads for converting the world to Christ, as to create pathways wherein the Church and her children would be overcome by the temptation to worldliness.

With the philosophical thrust of the Council’s evangelical method so intently focused on the value of experience, it is ironic indeed that those who continue to cling to the promise of a “new springtime,” while simultaneously imputing an undeserved degree of impeccability to the conciliar text, are loathe to acknowledge the undeniable witness of the near universal experience of every Catholic the world over; namely, priest shortages, empty pews, professed religious communities in ruins, rampant public dissent, parish closings, etc.

Toward the end of his review, Dr. Zarowny quotes Fr. Kobler:
Assuming for the moment that this phenomenological interpretation of Vatican II is in substance correct, we find ourselves confronted with an enormous practical problem. Our present intellectual tools for dealing with the magnitude of the Council’s religious and pastoral enterprise are woefully underdeveloped! The inadequacy of our intellectual tools suggests that we are morally ill-equipped to grapple with the contemporary crisis of mankind in a significant way. However dismaying, or even utopian, the pastoral program of Vatican II may appear, reflection on today’s dislocated world tells us it is a necessary one.

So, if I understand Fr. Kobler correctly, we are to believe that the real difficulty concerning the interpretation and implementation of the Council documents lies in the fact that the post-conciliar hierarchy has largely been devoid of men who possess the same kind of soaring intellect that it took to produce them!

This might perhaps be plausible if it weren’t the case that the brilliant minds that debated and approved the conciliar texts happen to have been the very same men who presided over the bedlam that ensued in the years immediately following the Council.

As it is, I’m not buying the suggestion that post-conciliar man simply isn’t bright enough to recognize, much less match, the Council’s brilliance.
If we’re honest we must admit, while the Emperor may not be buck naked in this case, some of his garments are stained to the point of embarrassing the entire Kingdom, and until we acknowledge and act on as much relative to the documents of the Council, the Church will remain stuck in the throes of the now decades long winter that followed it.

An inheritance stolen

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0500

By Louie Verrecchio

On Feb. 10, 2013, Pope Benedict XVI announced his intention to renounce the papacy due to his waning strength in the face of a world “subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith.”

Many, including me, understood him to mean that navigating the obstacles (some well-known, others a matter of speculation) that litter the course of renewal upon which he had set the Barque of St. Peter needed a more energetic helmsman in order to carry the mission forward.

In that sense, the Holy Father’s announcement, while certainly troubling, was also exciting, for it seemed to portend, or at the very least intend, a newly refocused “Benedictine” renewal that would forge ahead with increased vigor under his successor’s charge.

Fast forward to the present.

It goes without say that no one knows in detail how the pontificate of Pope Francis will unfold, and yet, even at this early stage, it wouldn’t seem to take a mystic to intuit what the general thrust of his papacy will be as it relates to continuing his predecessor’s efforts to restore the Church to her former glory.

I am well aware that the very notion of “former glory” is lost on many Catholics today and will therefore need to be defined before we continue. In order to do so, it is necessary to begin by addressing the increasingly contentious divisions that exist between those often labeled as “progressive, conservative” and “traditionalist.”

To some extent, labels such as these are often mere generalizations, but they still serve a purpose, within reason, when it comes to communicating certain thoughts and ideas relative to Catholic life. With that understood, I’ll begin by broadly addressing the category into which I fall, “traditionalist.”

Let it be known that “traditionalism,” as I and many others claim it, really just means “Catholic” as being so in all of its fullness necessarily includes an abiding awareness of, and proper appreciation for, tradition, both large “T” and small.

Yes, “Tradition” and “tradition” represent two different things, but traditionalists are keen to point out that disposing of the latter, as recent history amply indicates, invites grave consequences with respect to how well the former is understood, embraced and lived.

While the other two groups (“progressive” and “conservative”) are most assuredly distinct, they vary from one another mainly in the degree to which each is rooted in an impoverished notion of what it means to be “Catholic,” suffering as it does by a corruption born of some combination of ignorance (both willful and otherwise) and just plain hubris.

The progressives, for the most part, seem to be nurtured in a soil abundantly rich in hubris, while that of their conservative confreres appears to be composed of disproportionately more ignorance.

In any case, all concerned are victims, to varying extent, of the confusion that has marked Catholic life over the last four or more decades, so much so that the old saying is often true, “They don’t know what they don’t know.”

And how do I know this? I used to be one of the blissfully duped. In fact, I’m still working to recover my Catholic heritage, and in this sense perhaps I am best described, as many traditionalists presumably are, as a recovering conservative.

Analogies never quite hit on all cylinders, of course, but let’s have a go nonetheless:

Over the last several decades, those living in the House established by God, the Catholic Church, are like the heirs of a well-to-do patriarch, living on a trust. It is a privileged life indeed, and something for which to be thankful, and yet many are the days in which, facing certain challenges, it’s difficult to make ends meet.

Knowing full well that so many on the outside are suffering true poverty, they dare not complain; rather, they go about their lives trying to convince themselves and others that there is no crisis in the House, and the struggle is simply part of a grander plan.

And then it happens.

By the grace of God, certain of the heirs (the traditionalists) make the bittersweet discovery that someone has absconded with a large portion of the family fortune, a treasury of such infinite value that it not only promises to meet every single need that they themselves have ever had, it’s more than enough to satiate every last impoverished soul who dwells outside of the House of God as well, if only they were made aware and were willing to enter.

Better yet, they come to realize that the stolen inheritance is not truly gone. In fact, it can never go away; it can only be hidden, and so the newly enlightened beneficiaries of this sacred trust have only to seek and to find this great treasure that is rightfully intended for every member of the family human, redeemed at the price of our Savior’s Precious Blood.

Is there a map they might follow? You bet there is, and it is written in a language comprised of that aforementioned tradition, both large “T” and small.

Problem solved, right? Well, not exactly.

You see, the others in the House (the progressives and the conservatives) remain largely unaware, unconvinced or unconcerned, while still others slither about seeking to bury what treasure remains.

And so the traditionalists, who wish nothing more than to see the entire Household of God immersed in the lavishness of those riches that He bequeathed for their salvation, live at once in the joy of recognizing the greatness of the inheritance, and yet bitter suffering at the knowledge of countless souls, purchased at so great a price, needlessly starving.
With all of this in mind, let us return to the question of what it means to restore the Church to her former glory.

As I said at the outset, I am still in the process of determining just how much was stolen from me and my “joint heirs with Christ” (Roman 8:17), but for the time being, the following initiatives, each of which Pope Benedict lacked either the desire or the strength to carry out, will serve as a good overview of what the project of restoration must eventually entail:

• True restoration will only begin in earnest when the sacred Magisterium returns to the Sovereign Lord – by way of teaching, preaching and example – all of the rights and privileges that are properly and exclusively His own, as merited through His passion, death and resurrection. This means ceasing to treat “Christ the King” as a holy nickname to be celebrated for a mere twenty-four hours per year, embracing instead the fullness of Catholic doctrine surrounding the Kingship of Christ as intended by Pope Pius XI when he established the venerable feast in His name. (See Quas Primas.)

• Doing so will quite naturally lead to a series of much needed corrections in other areas, one of which lies in proclaiming once again those rights and prerogatives in society that belong to the Holy Roman Catholic Church alone. This means rejecting the failed conciliar approach to religious liberty as enshrined in the document Dignitatis Humanae.

• Along the way, the language of the Church with respect to the “dignity of the human person” must be amended to once again reflect humankind’s utter dependence upon the Creator who has given us but one way to develop and to perfect (lest we lose) said dignity; namely, in unity with Him, through, with and in Jesus Christ and His Holy Catholic Church.

• From there, a correction to the ecumenical movement must take place, marked by a clear and unambiguous call to conversion to everyone who dwells in religious error, including the Jews, after the example of St. Peter on the day of Pentecost.

• Needless to say, this program of restoration will require the strong and steady hand of a pope who is neither reluctant nor bashful about preaching, teaching and behaving in such way that everyone, Catholic or otherwise, will recognize that the Vicar of Christ is most assuredly the Sovereign Monarch of the one true Church on earth. This will necessarily entail restoring to use the majestic implements of papal regalia that communicate this objective truth in a visual manner for the benefit of observers both within and without.

• This must also mean plainly rejecting any hint of the false and dangerous notion that the Bishop of Rome is a “first among equals,” recognizing that collegiality as promoted over the last forty-plus years is but a stealth attempt to reorder the Church into a democracy.

• This project of restoration, however, is destined to fail unless and until it is plainly admitted by a Holy Father bold enough to lead the way that the difficulties experienced in the Church since Vatican II are not simply a matter of misinterpretation; rather, they also stem in considerable measure from the deficiency of the conciliar text itself as evidenced, for example, in the shameful amount of ambiguity that permeates certain of its proclamations.

• On the liturgical front, the single most important of all, the crisis therein will largely be left to fester like a cancer untreated until such time as the Chief Liturgist of the Church, the Holy Father, sets the prime example so desperately needed by celebrating personally and often the Traditional Mass in all of its awe inspiring majesty, both in Rome and abroad.

There are many other things that I might suggest, but limited as this overview might be, let us turn our attention back to the question initially suggested:
What will the general thrust of Pope Francis’ papacy be as it relates to continuing his predecessor’s efforts to restore the Church to her former glory?

Already it appears that the current pontificate - though I fully expect it to be a vehicle of grace as Our Lord will not be outdone in either generosity or humility - will fail to hasten the restoration just described. In fact, it would seem that barring direct intervention from above, it is more likely to delay the process begun under Pope Benedict XVI (and modestly so apart from Summorum Pontificum) far beyond its own number of days.

I have little doubt that the cardinal-electors, as they assembled in conclave, shared a similar sense for the likely trajectory of a Bergoglio papacy.

As such, the disappointment expressed by so many traditionalists over the last two weeks is directed first and foremost not so much at Pope Francis as at those Princes of the Church who collectively sent the very clear message that they are unwilling, for whatever reason, to take the next logical steps along the course laid out by his predecessor.

It’s never been a secret that a lack of support for Pope Benedict’s initiatives has existed among a large segment of the world’s episcopate, but as of this writing, all indications are that even many of Benedict’s hand-chosen cardinals have betrayed the preponderance of his vision, preferring instead to travel the more comfortable path of lesser resistance; the same that brought us to this dreadful place wherein the overwhelming majority of God’s people haven’t a blessed clue that so much of their inheritance has been stolen.

Worshiping at the altar of human dignity

Thu, 07 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0500

By Louie Verrecchio

Our first parents, endowed with every good gift and living in friendship with the benevolent Creator, yielded to the temptation to assert an autonomy that was never their own, exalting themselves over God.

Thus, as illustrated in the masterwork of St. Augustine, was the “city of men” set in conflict with the “City of God.” Yet in the fullness of time, God sent His only begotten Son to establish that Kingdom wherein He might offer to humankind infinitely more than it had lost.

Nothing under the sun is new, neither is any man able to say: Behold this is new: for it hath already gone before in the ages that were before us. (Ecclesiastes 1:10)

On December 10, 1948, the United Nations General Assembly gave witness to this Scriptural truth as it proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UHDR), an international agreement that presumes to set forth certain rights deriving not from God, but directly from the dignity of the human person.

While it is widely acknowledged that Pope Pius XII had misgivings about the declaration (as evidenced by the silence with which he greeted its enactment), many contemporary Catholic commentators applaud the agreement, claiming that the Holy Father himself set the stage for its creation, some even going so far as to say that the pope explicitly called for it. (1)

There exists in the magisterium of Pope Pius XII, however, no indication that he wished to entrust to the UN, or to any other secular institution, the task of drafting such a declaration.

Upon examination, one discovers that the Holy Father’s teaching concerning the internal ordering of nations (i.e., social life) and the matter of international relations (topics that he insisted are interrelated) clearly spells out the very reasons why the UDHR, in its failure to account for the Sovereignty of the Lord and man’s obligation to uphold His Law, is so woefully deficient as to be unacceptable, in spite of any attractive elements it may otherwise appear to contain.

A succinct summary of the centerpiece of Pius’ magisterium on the subject can be found in the Holy Father’s Christmas Address of 1942:

“The origin and the primary scope of social life is the conservation, development and perfection of the human person, helping him to realize accurately the demands and values of religion and culture set by the Creator for every man and for all mankind, both as a whole and in its natural ramifications.

A social teaching or a social reconstruction program which denies or prescinds from this internal essential relation to God of everything that regards men, is on a false course; and while it builds up with one hand, it prepares with the other the materials which sooner or later will undermine and destroy the whole fabric.”

For Pope Pius XII, just as his venerable predecessors, the germane point isn’t particularly complex:

Programs aimed at the ordering of society, and likewise those pertaining to the international order, can beneficially serve mankind only if they “conform to the demands of God's Law.” (ibid.) In other words, apart from due subjugation to the Social Reign of Jesus Christ, He who is Sovereign of the City of God, all such human endeavors are destined to end not in order, but in disorder.

With this most basic of Catholic doctrines in mind, let us now examine the deficiencies so readily apparent in the Preamble to the UDHR, wherein the foundational principles upon which its articles rest are set forth:

“Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world…”

The foundation of freedom, justice and peace is not, as this statement surely implies, a human construct that naturally results from man duly acknowledging man; rather are they founded in the Creator and made known to man in the Person of Jesus Christ, who is both King and Prince of Peace.
Indeed, apart from Christ, man has not the reference point necessary in order to properly recognize human dignity in its fullness.

In the words of Gaudium et Spes (a document not exactly known as a tour de force of Christocentric thought in its own right), “Christ, the final Adam, by the revelation of the mystery of the Father and His love, fully reveals man to man himself.”(2)

When man becomes his own reference point, by contrast, assaults against human dignity find fertile ground in which to propagate; e.g., abortion can effectively be peddled as “freedom of choice,” same-sex “marriage” can plausibly be disguised as a symbol for justice, and compromise with evil can easily be construed as a service to the cause of peace.

The Preamble goes on to suggest that adherence to the UDHR will pave the way for a Utopian ideal.
“…the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want (that) has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people.”

Needless to say, the “highest aspiration” of humankind is not a laundry list of civil rights; rather, it is communion with God, the same that constitutes the “root reason” for human dignity. (3)

The source of the UN’s unbridled hope for the future, one discovers, is none other than humanity itself.

“Whereas the peoples of the United Nations have in the Charter reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights…”

When one’s faith is in “fundamental human rights” (i.e., man) and not in the Lord, to whom should one look as the highest authority?

“Whereas Member States have pledged themselves to achieve, in co-operation with the United Nations, the promotion of universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms…”

The faithful Catholic can hardly fail to recognize as pure folly any human pursuit that promises to benefit mankind apart from cooperation with the Father’s plan of salvation revealed in Christ Jesus and entrusted to His Church. In the UDHR, however, the United Nations presumes to anoint itself as the highest authority with which one must cooperate.

“Whereas a common understanding of these rights and freedoms is of the greatest importance for the full realization of this pledge…”

What might serve as the guiding light for arriving at this proposed common understanding?

The answer is plain: It is man himself.

As one might expect, many of the articles that follow in the body of the Declaration are equally as flawed. In the interest of space, Article 21 § 3 may be considered representative:

“The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government…”

Contrast this Edenesque proclamation of human autonomy with the words of Pope Leo XIII:

“But, as no society can hold together unless some one be over all, directing all to strive earnestly for the common good, every body politic must have a ruling authority, and this authority, no less than society itself, has its source in nature, and has, consequently, God for its Author.”(4)

At this point, it should be plainly evident to the reader why Pope Pius XII could not endorse the proposals set forth in the UDHR, as ultimately it amounts to little more than the “city of man” flexing its collective muscles in the face of Christ the King.

Why then do so many of those contemporary Catholic commentators, who behave as if the UDHR is one of humanity’s crowning achievements, evidently place such high priority on the notion that its roots can be discerned in the magisterium of Pius XII?

It is for the very same reason that John Courtney Murray so often misappropriated the magisterium of this same Holy Father (and others) in his quest to radically alter the Church’s doctrine on religious freedom; namely, it is to lend credence to claims of continuity.

You see, apart from the illusion that Pope Pius XII at least implicitly desired an international agreement that set forth certain rights that derive directly from the human person, as if man himself is their source, the UDHR will most certainly be recognized for what it truly is; a radical departure from that which is laudable relative to sure Christian doctrine.

Keeping in mind all that we’ve discussed thus far, consider the following commentary (the sources of which will be addressed momentarily) suggesting that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is in no way incompatible with the City of God.

“An act of the highest importance performed by the United Nations Organization was the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, approved in the General Assembly of December 10, 1948. In the preamble of that Declaration, the recognition and respect of those rights and respective liberties is proclaimed as a goal to be achieved by all peoples and all countries … For in it, in most solemn form, the dignity of a human person is acknowledged to all human beings…” (5)

“When this eminent international assembly prepares to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Man, We want to seize the occasion once more to express our great confidence in, and at the same time our firm accord with, the consistent commitment of the United Nations in the promotion - ever more precise, more official, and more efficacious - of the respect of the fundamental rights of man. As we have affirmed elsewhere, the Declaration on the Rights of Man remains in our eyes one of the most beautiful titles of glory." (6)

"I am particularly pleased to join in the celebrations for the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights being held by the United Nations Organization, the guardian of one of the most precious and important documents in the history of law.” (7)

The comments offered above are attributable to none other than Popes John XXIII, Paul VI and John Paul II respectively.

How is it possible for one to consider the stunning progression just outlined - from the sober words of Pope Pius XII reminding the world of the “essential relation to God of everything that regards men,” to the above quoted, near breathless, praise for the naked humanism articulated in the UDHR – as anything other than a rupture of the most dangerous kind?

Missing, it seems, from the worldview of the Successors of Pope Pius XII, is an abiding awareness of, and willingness to plainly preach, the Sovereign Rights of Christ the King.

As Pope John XXIII spoke in 1963, the gap between his own inclination to form an accord with the “city of man” and the Christocentrism of his predecessors had yet to be fully bridged as it appears today, even if simply in practice, and then only by claims unsustainable.

In fact, even as he lauded the UDHR, the Holy Father acknowledged as much, albeit obliquely, saying, “We are, of course, aware that some of the points in the declaration did not meet with unqualified approval in some quarters; and there was justification for this.” (8)

On October 4, 1965, his successor, Pope Paul VI, became the first ever Roman Pontiff to appear before the United Nations General Assembly, at which time he offered the sort of obeisance that even common men of Christian faith are constrained in conscience to reserve for the Lord and His Church alone:

“The peoples of the earth turn to the United Nations as the last hope of concord and peace.”

Some two months later, the Second Vatican Council would place its own seal upon the treaty with the city of man in the form of Dignitatis Humanae, the Declaration on Religious Freedom, thereby sending a message that the world would receive as a signal that the King of kings had willingly relinquished His throne in favor of a common seat at the table of international diplomacy.
It is in this post-conciliar environment that churchmen developed the regrettable habit of incessantly invoking the “rights of the human person” while offering little to no exhortation concerning the duties of men toward God in light of the Sovereign rights that are ever His own.

And thus it remains to this very day.

Even so, a glimmer of light momentarily pierced the fog on April 18, 2008 with the arrival of Pope Benedict XVI in New York where he addressed the UN General Assembly:

“This document (UDHR) was the outcome of a convergence of different religious and cultural traditions, all of them motivated by the common desire to place the human person at the heart of institutions, laws and the workings of society, and to consider the human person essential for the world of culture, religion and science. Human rights are increasingly being presented as the common language and the ethical substratum of international relations. At the same time, the universality, indivisibility and interdependence of human rights all serve as guarantees safeguarding human dignity.” (9)

Though his hosts would have been pleased had the Holy Father stopped right there, His Holiness forged ahead, and in his own gentle way sowed what appear to be the seeds of a much needed corrective; not just in the way that Roman Pontiffs address the UN, but in the way in which the Church engages the world. He continued:

“It is evident, though, that the rights recognized and expounded in the Declaration apply to everyone by virtue of the common origin of the person, who remains the high-point of God’s creative design for the world and for history. They are based on the natural law inscribed on human hearts and present in different cultures and civilizations. Removing human rights from this context would mean restricting their range and yielding to a relativistic conception, according to which the meaning and interpretation of rights could vary and their universality would be denied in the name of different cultural, political, social and even religious outlooks. This great variety of viewpoints must not be allowed to obscure the fact that not only rights are universal, but so too is the human person, the subject of those rights. (10)

This is, of course, but one relatively modest inference that has long since been overwhelmed by the cacophony of humanist voices reverberating both within the walls of the Church and without, but it is perhaps a seminal step in the right direction just the same.

It will fall to the successor of Pope Benedict XVI to go well beyond the mere plating of seeds to the firm condemnation of humanism in all of its nefarious forms, taking up once more the sword of truth in defense of the Sovereign rights of Christ the King, restoring to Him the exalted throne that He earned by His passion, death and resurrection, calling every would be inhabitant of the City of God, including those who occupy places of civil authority, to account on His behalf.

When faced with the frightful image of the unthinkable rupture outlined in this article, surely many will choose to deny the obvious, preferring instead to imagine that the Church in our day, with its tendency to focus on the dignity of humankind apart from Him whose glory it can only hope to reflect, is simply constructing the “big tent” necessary to inaugurate that elusive New Springtime.

Even so, I take comfort in knowing that the same was true even as St. Augustine wrote, “The men against whom I have undertaken to defend the City of God laugh at all this.” (11)

Indeed, there is nothing new under the sun.

(1) One such example: “Seven years before the UN document was approved, Pope Pius XII used a radio address to push for such a universal statement.” William Donohue, Why Catholicism Matters, Random House, 2012
(2) Gaudium et Spes, 22
(3) Gaudium et Spes, 19
(4) Immortale Dei, 3
(5) Pope John XXIII, Pacem in Terris, 143, 144
(6) Pope Paul V, Message to the United Nations, Dec. 10, 1973
(7) Pope John Paul II, Message to the United Nations, Nov. 30, 1998
(8) Pope John XXIII, ibid.
(9) Pope Benedict XVI, Address to the United Nations General Assembly, April 18, 2008
(10) Pope Benedict XVI, ibid.
(11) St. Augustine, De Civitate Dei, Ch. 12

Gender-bending child abuse

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0500

By Louie Verrecchio

On February 26, 2013, the Denver Post ran an article that contained the following:

Colorado parents of transgender 1st-grader file complaint over restroom ban. The parents of a transgender 6-year-old have filed a complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights Division because Eagleside Elementary School in Fountain banned the first-grader from using the girls’ restroom. The child, Coy Mathis, was born male but identifies as female.

She (sic) had attended the school since December 2011 before being pulled out by her (sic) parents … Coy Mathis wears girls’ clothing, and students and staff used female pronouns when referring to her (sic).

Reading this article reminded me of a column I wrote back in July 2011, which read in part:

I think we can fully expect the “transgendered rights” movement to ratchet things up in the months ahead …

According to the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE), “gender” is nothing more than “the societally-determined characteristics of a particular sex.” No room for the objective truth, “male and female He created them,” here.

Perhaps the saddest thing these causes (transgender and homosexual activism) have in common, however, is the fact that the unfortunate people who consider themselves “transgendered” are largely being left to suffer as progressive do-gooders turn a blind eye to their plight while congratulating themselves for their “open-mindedness.”

According to a recent NCTE survey, “A staggering 41 percent of (transgendered) respondents reported attempting suicide compared to 1.6 percent of the general population.”

Yet, God forbid anyone should be so “intolerant” as to suggest that “transgendered” people are suffering from an illness and deserve something more substantial in the way of treatment than someone chirping in their ear about how OK they are.

So, how did this poor child, Coy Mathis, come this point in his troubled young life, and when did the problem begin to manifest itself?

According to the Post, “She (the child's mother) said that as soon as Coy began to talk, she (sic) insisted she (sic) was a girl, not a boy.”

Right.

A little boy who is just beginning to master the ability to communicate verbally just suddenly announced to the world, “I’m a girl!”

There couldn’t possibly be a history of psychological abuse at the hands of confused parents, could there?

Well, wouldn’t you know…

Parents Kathryn and Jeremy Mathis provided some telling details in a recent interview with Katie Couric:

By the age of 18 months, (when children aren’t usually stringing together complex sentences like, “Gee, mommy, I really feel like wearing a sundress with spaghetti straps today”) already it was clear to these insightful parents that their child is really a girl trapped in a boy’s body.

According to mom, Kathryn, that’s when Coy “started being drawn towards everything girl (and) some of her (sic) favorite items included a fairy flower dress with a matching tutu and a Dora the Explorer bathing suit.”

I guess it’s a good thing year-and-a-half old Coy wasn’t drawn to the shiny silver things in the cutlery drawer (for very specific reasons, in addition to the obvious ones, that will be readily apparent in the next paragraph) since it never occurred to these folks that dressing their little boy up like a china doll wasn’t in his best interest.

At age four, according to the parents, “He wanted to know when we were going to take him to the doctor so that they would give him girl parts so that his body would be a girl.”

What four year old child, at a time in life when he should be lost in the innocent world of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and Dr. Seuss, has any idea whatsoever that deeply disturbed human beings are having their genitals surgically mutilated?

I wonder who the sick and twisted adults are that gave him that idea.

“It reached breaking-point when Coy refused to leave the house because she didn’t want to change into boys’ clothes.”

Imagine the parents’ shock at this sudden turn of events. All they did was dress their little boy up in girl’s clothes since he was 18 months old, and wham, here comes a breaking point!

Seriously, what would motivate adults to manipulate their child’s psyche this way?

The de facto head and spokesperson for the Mathis family, Kathryn, told the Post, “We want to help create a society where it's OK to be who you are.”

As for the kind of worldview that inspires this lofty desire, Kathryn’s Facebook page says, “I don't have time for bigotry, hate, and discrimination; particularly in the name of Jesus.”

So there you have it.

Mathis and her husband have a bone to pick with that judgmental Jesus of Nazareth guy, and they’re going to show Him a thing or two about who’s in charge around here, even if it means saddling their own kid with psychological baggage that he’ll probably carry for the rest of his life.

In a sane world, the newspaper headline would read:

Kathryn and Jeremy Mathis of Colorado charged with child abuse.

A hermeneutic without history

Thu, 21 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0500

By Louie Verrecchio

Last summer, I had a conversation on the topic of religious liberty with a dear priest friend who is a very accomplished moral theologian and seminary professor. He’s one of very few people I know whose rock-solid orthodoxy, knowledge and insight make him a reliable guide in all matters Catholic.

That being the case, I was surprised to discover how little familiarity he had with the relevant papal magisterium of the centuries prior to Vatican II, and how comfortably he repeated the well-worn and utterly unsustainable mantra suggesting that the Church’s traditional approach to church-state relations was somehow pigeonholed to a specific, and long since passed, moment in history.

The reality is, however, it is far more unusual to encounter any Catholic, clergyman or otherwise, regardless of background, education and relative orthodoxy, who possesses any meaningful awareness of the pre-conciliar magisterium on this subject, or most any other for that matter.
This, I suspect, is the case for a number of reasons.

Firstly, for as often as we hear about the need to apply a “hermeneutic of continuity” to the conciliar text, there is very little in the way of faith formation resources, or even basic instruction, available to the average Catholic who wishes to explore the magisterium of the centuries prior to Vatican II.

As a result, most Catholics content themselves with pondering the Council’s place in the life of the Church with nothing more than a “hermeneutic without history.” (This is precisely why I am soon to unveil a new faith formation series that will aid in rectifying this problem. Stay tuned.)

This lack of foundation is arguably just as evident in many seminaries, as a disproportionately small amount of time is spent imparting the magisterial treasure of the centuries predating the Council.

Lastly, it is perhaps a predictably American mindset to consider anything other than the very familiar, pluralistic, U.S. Constitutional approach to religious freedom (the same that was adopted by the Second Vatican Council) as outdated and irrelevant.

This brand of shortsightedness isn’t limited simply to those living in the United States, however.

For instance, Catholic News Service recently posted a video on its blog wherein Bishop Athanasius Schneider, the auxiliary bishop of Astana, Kazakhstan, who has become a globally respected champion for the restoration of reverence before the Most Holy Eucharist, discusses the Declaration on Religious Freedom of Vatican II, Dignitatis Humanae.
I have a great deal of respect for His Excellency and applaud his efforts with regard to Holy Communion, but in this case, he’s well off the mark.

First, Bishop Schneider speaks of the traditional approach to church-state relations by pointing to the 19th century as the exemplar of that model; a time during which, he maintains, the papal magisterium on this subject confined itself to “Catholic countries like France or Italy” and attempts on the part of non-believers to make them, as he stated, “not Catholic, and therefore the popes wanted to reject this form of religious liberty.”

This simply is not correct.

Yes, the popes of that time did intend to refute those who sought to eliminate the Catholic State (whereas today we discourage the very notion of the Catholic confessional state), but their teaching was not so narrowly focused as this; rather, it was directed toward every nation and every people.

For example:

“Thus the empire of our Redeemer embraces all men. To use the words of Our immortal predecessor, Pope Leo XIII: ‘His empire includes not only Catholic nations, not only baptized persons who, though of right belonging to the Church, have been led astray by error, or have been cut off from her by schism, but also all those who are outside the Christian faith; so that truly the whole of mankind is subject to the power of Jesus Christ.’” (Pope Pius XI, Quas Primas 18)

Secondly, Bishop Schneider goes on to address “religious liberty in the 20th century” with a similarly narrow focus; one that is equally as inaccurate.
He speaks of the approach taken at Vatican II as being aimed directly, if not exclusively, at atheistic regimes such as “the former Soviet Union” wherein “all society was not Catholic … and religion itself was prohibited.”
Dignitatis Humanae, Bishop Schneider maintains, can be correctly understood as addressing the question, “How can I argue with a government who is atheistic … I have to argue with them on the level of reason only … on the natural level.”

He goes on to say that one cannot simply demand that such nations embrace Catholicism, since it is the one true faith (even though, as he affirms, this is the truth), because “they will not understand this.”

“So, I have to argue,” he continues, “‘Give us religion, because this is the demand of human dignity.’ And so what we have in common with the atheist is at least to save the human dignity.”

This, according to the Bishop Schneider, is how we should understand the “intention of the Council” and the aim of Dignitatis Humanae.

There are a number of major problems with this kind of thinking. For one, we most certainly do not have saving human dignity in common with the atheist. An atheist, by definition, is an enemy of human dignity, even if only by ignorance. What we have in common with the atheist is the fact that we are subjects of Christ the King, in spite of the unbelievers’ inability (or unwillingness) to recognize as much.

Secondly, it is an affront to truth to even suggest that human dignity is in some manner upheld, expressed or developed through the practice of just any religion. The “demand” of human dignity in this regard is better understood in light of the first demand of justice; to render unto God the worship that He is due; not as we see fit, but in truth as He Himself has established. There is only one way.

Lastly, a cursory reading of Dignitatis Humanae is enough for one to discover that its exhortations are directed to all the nations of the world, not just atheistic, communist regimes. Beyond that, simple observation alone indicates that the decree has been largely understood by the popes of the last fifty years as a mandate to eschew mission in favor of a highly secularized version of religious diplomacy.

In short, religious freedom as conceived at Vatican II is, and ever has been, far more than just a program for evangelizing the Eastern Bloc nations of the Cold War era.

Furthermore, the intentions of John Courtney Murray, the architect of Dignitatis Humanae, were not at all motivated by a concern for the Church in Communist lands; rather, he was very much obsessed with the marginalization of Catholics living in the United States, a country whose electorate and political power structure were dominated by Protestants.

Murray, in other words, mistook the blessed persecution that Jesus promised His Church with a crisis to be averted by compromise.

According to Fr. Joseph A. Komonchak, “The defense of the ideal of (state) intolerance (of false religions, as was the case in the traditional teaching) led many American Protestants to be wary of any kind of cooperation with a church which in theory maintained that one day they might be deprived of their religious freedom, and it was this impediment to cooperation in the temporal sphere that led Murray to undertake a study of the classic Catholic doctrine and to propose a development of it that would permit Catholics to endorse the First Amendment on grounds other than simple expedience.” (The Review of Politics, Vol. 61, No. 4, Christianity and Politics: Millennial Issue I. - Autumn, 1999)

In any case, the results of the program put in place by Dignitatus Humanae are plainly evident.

The prelates of the Church have voluntarily relinquished those unique claims that are properly her own based on the Social Kingship of Christ, relegating “Thy Kingdom come” to the realm of the strictly escatological, teaching and preaching as though the Catholic State is no longer even desirable, and it is entirely inaccurate to suggest that a simple misunderstanding of the intention of Dignitatis Humanae is to blame. Indeed, the exact opposite is true.

Until the leading voices in the Church cease paying lip-service to the notion of “continuity” and ground their own understanding of the conciliar text in the papal magisterium predating Vatican Council II, rest assured, apart from Divine intervention, the Bark of St. Peter will continue to get tossed about on the stormy seas of modernism, just as it has for lo these past forty years.

Spiritual warfare and the Pope’s resignation

Fri, 15 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0500

By Louie Verrecchio

Pope Benedict XVI has tendered his resignation effective 28 February, 2013.
In making this stunning announcement before the College of Cardinals, the Holy Father cited “advanced age” and a lack of “strength of mind and body” as the factors that led him to conclude that he is incapable of “adequately fulfilling” the Petrine ministry.

At first blush, the Holy Father’s statement seems to say little more than, “I’m old and I’m tired,” and while I’ve no doubt that he is both, I do not for a moment believe that he is concerned only with matters purely physical.

So what exactly is moving Pope Benedict XVI to abdicate?

The answer is suggested in the book, Light of the World, wherein the Holy Father said that a pope “has a right and, under some circumstances, also an obligation to resign” if and when he "clearly realizes that he is no longer physically, psychologically, and spiritually capable of handling the duties of his office."

In spite of the Holy Father’s reference to “strength of mind and body,” there’s no indication that he lacks either mental acuity or psychological health, and while he is clearly suffering the effects of old age, if the final years of his predecessor’s papacy demonstrated anything it’s that even severe physical weakness doesn’t render one “incapable” of filling the duties of the Office.

This leaves just one thing; the spiritual realities of serving the Church as pope.

The Holy Father’s statement refers to the Church in our day as being “shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith.”

What are these questions if not those that are begged by the content of Vatican Council II?

In his now famous Christmas Address to the Roman Curia dated December 22, 2005, Pope Benedict set forth the agenda for his papacy; promoting a conciliar interpretation that is based upon a “hermeneutic of renewal in continuity with the one subject Church the Lord has given us.”

Two and half years later, the Holy Father issued Summorum Pontificum, his single boldest attempt to leverage the power of his exalted office to establish said continuity as it relates to the “source from which all of the Church’s power flows;” the sacred liturgy.

Almost immediately, the modernists decried the Holy Father’s decision to make the so-called Tridentine Mass more widely available. Progressive icon Cardinal Carlo Martini even publically stated his consternation and his adamant refusal to celebrate the venerable rite.

While the situation has improved in many places, it is largely unchanged in others.

As I write today from the Premier See of the United States, the Archdiocese of Baltimore boasts a grand total of two regularly scheduled “Extraordinary Form” Sunday Masses.

“There's no question that there remains in certain places a resistance to what the Holy Father has asked, and that's sad," said Cardinal Raymond Burke, Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura in 2012. “It's sometimes even an expression of disagreement with the Holy Father's discipline and even an expression that this is harmful for the Church.”

In 2009, the Holy Father made yet another bold move toward establishing continuity in a decree lifting the excommunications from the bishops of the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX).

Once again, the modernists, in a partnership of convenience with largely secular Jews, pilloried the pope with impunity.

In a letter to the world’s bishops, the Holy Father expressed sincere shock at the lack of fraternal charity on the part of those whom he naively assumed had reverence for his office and for himself.

“I was saddened by the fact that even Catholics who, after all, might have had a better knowledge of the situation, thought they had to attack me with open hostility,” Pope Benedict wrote.

Then, last year, even as all signs seemed to indicate that the Holy Father was prepared to take steps to canonically regularize the SSPX, the process came to an abrupt and unexpected halt.

While the extent to which the derailment can be attributed to the efforts of those aforementioned modernists who have opposed this pope at every turn is unknown, what did emerge from the process is the Holy See’s acknowledgement that there still exists a lack of clarity with regard to “individual expressions and formulations contained in the documents of Vatican Council II and later Magisterium.”

In other words, more than seven years after Pope Benedict’s seminal address of 2005, the guiding proposition of his papacy (namely, that “continuity” is necessarily present for the finding in all that the Council proposed) remains but an unproven hypothesis.

What’s more, every attempt on his part to rule in such way as to suggest that “what was sacred before the Council is sacred today,” has proven to guarantee that the forces of hell will be unleashed, not just from without, but from within the very walls of the Church.

So, when the Holy Father speaks of being “no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry,” I would suggest that he is referring to the work of leveraging the Sovereign authority vested in Peter’s Successor, to meet out the firm discipline that is necessary to protect the faithful from those who openly resist the corrections that are needed to avert the present day crisis.

In short, the Holy Father knows from bitter experience how ready and able the enemy is, and he believes that his minions will remain powerful enough to succeed in undermining the good of the Church from within, at least until such time as his successor arrives on the scene, and so he is making room for this to happen sooner rather than later.

I think the Holy Father is suggesting that the Church desperately needs another Pope St. Pius X, and he has decided, rightly or wrongly, that he cannot be that man. That said, there is no guarantee whatsoever that he is to emerge from the next conclave. Yes, the Holy Ghost will be present to guide the proceedings, but even He can be trumped by the hubris of men should they so choose.

Mark my words: We will know what the immediate future holds for the Church based upon just one observation; namely, the liturgical mindset of Pope Benedict’s successor.

If the man who is chosen has a distaste for the Traditional Mass, then rest assured, regardless of any apparent orthodox bona fides the new pope may have, the modernists will succeed in making Catholic life difficult.

If, however, they elect a man who loves the Tridentine Rite, celebrates it often, and continues to do so as pope, know for a fact that while tribulation is most certainly coming, we are moving in the right direction.

Fr. Ratzinger's vision and the Pontificate of Paul VI

Thu, 24 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0500

By Louie Verrecchio

Pope Benedict XVI (more accurately, Fr. Joseph Ratzinger) is often quoted as saying that he envisions a day when there will be a “smaller, more faithful Church.”

Though not precisely verbatim, the quote is derived from a series of radio addresses given by the future Holy Father in 1969-1970, a print version of which is available in the book, Faith and the Future (Ignatius Press).

According to Ignatius Press, Fr. Ratzinger said that the church “will become small and will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning. She will no longer be able to inhabit many of the edifices she built in prosperity. As the number of her adherents diminishes … she will lose many of her social privileges. …As a small society, (the Church) will make much bigger demands on the initiative of her individual members.”

In that day, the 42 year old priest-theologian predicted, ours “will be a more spiritual Church, not presuming upon a political mandate… It will be hard-going for the Church, for the process of crystallization and clarification will cost her much valuable energy. It will make her poor and cause her to become the Church of the meek …”

Ignatius Press describes Fr. Ratzinger’s commentary as “surprisingly prophetic,” but if his vision for the future belongs in the category of prophecy at all, one would perhaps do well to add the qualifier “self-inflicted.”
Let’s be honest, the current crisis in the Church, wherein priest shortages, empty pews, parish closings and bankrupt dioceses are commonplace, was all but guaranteed as Fr. Ratzinger wrote for a number of internal reasons, including, but certainly not limited to, the following:

• The Second Vatican Council had five years hence adopted a church-state policy modeled after the U.S. Constitution’s pluralistic approach to religious freedom, thereby setting in motion an Apostolic ceasefire wherein the Church relinquished any positive claim to its unique rights and privileges, effectively transforming the body Apostolic into a corps diplomatic.

• In 1964, a faction among the Fathers of this very same ecumenical council had surreptitiously declared mutiny through a contrived notion of “collegiality” so deliberately ambiguous that the pope had to take the unprecedented step of inserting in Lumen Gentium an explanatory note; though it ultimately did little to stem the rebellious tide going forward.

• The 1967 Land-O-Lakes Statement , after meeting with little meaningful resistance from the Holy See, quickly became a manifesto for so-called Catholic institutions of higher learning that were determined to assert “freedom in the face of authority of whatever kind;” read, freedom from the pope and whatever sanctions he may, or may not, impose.

• The Novus Ordo Missae had just been pressed upon the faithful of the Latin Rite, in spite of the strident objections of honorable churchmen like Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani who warned of the ill effects it was likely to have on the children of the Church.

What do all of these unfortunate episodes in the life of the Church, each of which played a part in practically inviting the firestorm of which Fr. Ratzinger forewarned, have in common?

They happened on the watch of Pope Paul VI, who, in no small twist of irony, was recently recognized for a life of “heroic virtue” by Pope Benedict XVI (making him a Venerable) on December 20, 2012.

News of Paul VI being “raised to the altar” sparked mixed reactions, about which the inimitable Fr. John Zuhlsdorf (better known simply as Fr. Z) posted some useful very insights on his excellent blog "What Does the Prayer Really Say."

For instance, he points out that “heroic virtue” and “doing heroic things” are not exactly the same thing, and yet, “some people… are saying things such as ‘Paul issued Humanae vitae! That sure was heroic! I’d canonize him for that!’”

Excellent observation, and I would go a step further.

While many Catholics simply accept the proposition that Humanae Vitae is a great achievement on the part of Paul VI, a more sober assessment is that the circumstances surrounding its promulgation is far more a “black eye” on his pontificate than it is a crowning glory.

There are several modes, or organs, of infallibility; e.g., ex cathedra statements given by the pope, de fide teachings issued by an ecumenical council, and the universal ordinary magisterium of the Church. This latter mode refers to those doctrines that have been taught constantly and definitively over a period of many centuries by the bishops of the world, in union with the Roman pontiffs.

As an example of the latter, consider:

When a Dubium was sent to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 1994, asking whether or not the teaching given by Pope John Paul II in the Apostolic Letter, Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, concerning the restriction of the priesthood to males only, is infallible, Cardinal Ratzinger replied in the affirmative by virtue of the Universal Ordinary Magisterium of the Church.

According to numerous theologians, not the least of whom is the eminent moral theologian Dr. Germain Grisez, who also happens to have been a member of the commission appointed by Pope Paul VI to study the so-called “question of contraception,” the doctrine at hand had long since belonged in that very same category.

Furthermore, the Second Vatican Council, in the document Gaudium et Spes, stated in 1965, two years before Humanae Vitae:

“Sons of the Church may not undertake methods of birth control which are found blameworthy by the teaching authority of the Church in its unfolding of the divine law. All should be persuaded that human life and the task of transmitting it are not realities bound up with this world alone. Hence they cannot be measured or perceived only in terms of it, but always have a bearing on the eternal destiny of men (GS 51).

This being the case, it would seem that in giving Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI wasn’t so much pressing the limits of Christian fortitude as simply reiterating that which was already infallibly taught, a doctrine ever moored to Tradition as evidenced by the Universal Ordinary Magisterium.

As such, I cannot help but ask an important question that few, to my knowledge, seem to be asking:

What exactly moved the Holy Father to appoint a commission to study a doctrine that was already part of the Universal Ordinary Magisterium?

When one considers how much the simple fact of the commission’s creation contributed to the atmosphere of anticipation that existed before Humanae Vitae, and therefore also contributed in no small measure to the havoc that ensued in its aftermath (to say nothing of the Holy Father’s handling of the rebellion), the answer to this question would seem highly relevant.

Fr. Z states, “Some will scratch their heads saying, ‘But Father! Maybe Paul was personally holy, and he prayed and was sincere, but can he have lived a life of heroic virtue if he wasn’t a very good Pope?’”

“In trying to make sense of this, in connection with Paul VI and what seems to many to be a lack of positive accomplishments according to his state in life, perhaps we have to take more and more seriously the circumstances in which he was Bishop of Rome,” he continued. “I don’t have an answer to this difficulty right now.”

I don’t have an answer either, but as I sit here today, it certainly seems to me that a sober assessment of the pontificate of Paul VI gives the children of the Church far more to lament than to celebrate.

As for Humanae Vitae specifically, rather than viewing it as an achievement of Paul VI, it is perhaps more appropriate to recognize it as solid evidence of the protection of the Holy Ghost who would allow no other outcome.