While being on the mission band, my friend Dr. Germain Grisez was writing his book, The Way of the Lord Jesus, General Moral Principles and asked me to comment on it from which I became very interested in moral theology. I also kept up my reading of medical moral theology or bioethics as I is now called, which blossomed into courses I taught at the Dominican House of Studies from 1998 until this year.

Some of my writings are:

The Moral and Psychological Effects of Music: A Theological Appraisal, Rome 1992; Music and Morals: A Theological Appraisal Of The Moral And Psychological Effects Of Music, Alba house, Staten Island, NY 1993.

Consecrated Life: Contributions of Vatican II, dominic Hoffman, O.P. (+) with Basil Cole, O.P. (Ed) (Bombay, India: Saint Paul’s Publications, 2005)

The Hidden Enemies of the Priesthood: The Contribution of Saint Thomas Aquinas, (Staten Island: Alba House, 2007); also published by saint Paul’s in Mumbai, India and Maki City, Philippines.

Catholic Bioethics: Three Recent Studies, The Thomist, January, 2002, 132-147.

Prospects for Xenotransplantation: A Brief Commentary in National Bioethical Quarterly, Autumn 2002, 399-405.

Cycle C

Noon Mass

Saint Catherine of Siena Church

Peace be with you.

“Peace” is the idee fix that permeates the Liturgy of the Word and our entire celebration this morning. Our country celebrates the anniversary of our Independence that we might live, worship and flourish in peace. Jesus sends out the seventy - two, and the first word he tells them to utter is peace. This is the same peace sung by the angels in Bethlehem; the same peace Christ offers the sinful women; the same peace Christ gives to the women suffering from a hemorrhage; and the same peace Christ offers in his resurrection to the fearful eleven in the locked room. When we listen and meditate upon the sweet maternal vision given to us by Isaiah we are filled with a sense of peace. And, Paul, even at the cross and bearing the marks of Jesus in his body, is filled with peace. But around this idee fix, this melodic pedal point of peace, there are several other melodies that make peace a reality.

The first melody that we must learn to sing with conviction and great hope is the reality of the cross. Paul boasts that he never wants to glory in anything but the cross of Christ, because through the cross he has learned how and what it means to be a new creation in Christ. Through the cross Paul has learned that he, and each one of us here, are called, consecrated and chosen for Christ. The crosses you and I bear are not signs of divine displeasure or punishments from God. They are invitations to become more and more like Christ as we accept what is our in this life, that we might be completely His in the next.

The second melody we must learn to sing is the melody of our lives that sings with fortitude and gusto that we, you and I are the witnesses of Christ. The offer of peace given by the seventy - two is an invitation to divine friendship which yields redemption, forgiveness, and healing. The world must see that our lives have been radically transformed by our acceptance of Christ’s invitation to divine friendship with Him. The melody of this friendship is neither sweet, saccharine or banal. It is a tune that is strong yet gentle; serene yet agitated; loud yet whisperingly soft on the ear. It is a melody, which in spite of the many wolves we may encounter in our society, is fixed within our hearts: it is the melody that soars with the truth that sin, death and hell shall never o’er us final triumph gain.  If there is anything we shake from our feet it is this lie! The lie that good will not triumph over evil; the lie that peace cannot triumph over war; and the lie that the Gospel is not for every man, women and child on the face of this earth; the lie that the plan of God in Jesus Christ will be thwarted by confused humanity! Very simply, our song reminds us that for those who follow Jesus, who are His friends, for us who are called, consecrated and chosen the glass is always half full and never empty. In fact our cup, the chalice of salvation, is always FULL.

The chalice of salvation, the glass of human and divine friendship is raised high around the table. The table that is this altar and the tables that fill our homes and this weekend our picnic tables. It was around such tables and in such meal - fellowship, that Jesus revealed the peace that filled his life: the salvation of sinners - people just like you and me. It was around a table that Jesus taught the connection between forgiveness and love; humility and selflessness; and that mercy is the utter fulfillment and perfection of justice. When we gather around this table and every table we encounter the presence of Divine Providence that reveals the redemptive initiative, compassion, integrity and tenderness of Jesus Christ. It is at the table that we rejoice that we have been called, consecrated and chosen!

How can we sing this song of peace? Where do we find the melody? Only in Jesus Christ and in each other. May we sing this song until eternity dawns and until we rejoice forever around the table of the banquet hall of heaven which we find in part at this altar.

May this peace be given anew to our country and to each of us!

Part I of III

Forty years ago, the term “bioethics” was rarely, if ever, used. Today it is commonplace, and yet the term is often poorly defined and misunderstood. This is certainly true for our young people in high school who may have heard the term but haven’t been exposed to its real meaning or to the profound impact of the choices they make, and in some cases are made for them, where bioethical issues are concerned.

At Pope John Paul the Great Catholic High School in northern Virginia, a unique four-year curriculum has been developed to address fundamental bioethical issues, thus enabling students to think clearly about serious medical and ethical questions. The need is great. The good news is that an attempt is being made to address it.

The Term and the Need

The term “bioethics puts together two different ideas: bio, a prefix which means “life”, and ethics, the science that studies human acts in order to determine whether they are good or evil. Bioethics is the science which determines the moral quality of our practices in the life sciences and health care. In other words, bioethics tries to figure out whether our use of scientific knowledge dealing with the physical life of human beings is in keeping with human dignity. Perhaps, then, the reason why the term bioethics is more commonly known today is because of the many scientific advances that have taken place in the past few decades. The fact that today we can scientifically do many more things requires that we wrestle with the questions, Should we do them? Are they truly for our well being?

According to a recent survey, 82 percent of Americans ages eighteen to twenty-nine who identified themselves as Catholic agree with the statement that “morals are relative; that is, there is no definite right and wrong for everybody.”¹ This same survey shows that only 33 percent of these young Americans realize that human embryonic stem cell research immoral, while 65 percent of them consider medical testing on animals to be morally wrong. Only 20 percent of these young Catholics realize that premarital sex is immoral, and only 37 percent understand that gay and lesbian marriage is disordered.²

Young Catholics today have grown up in a country where it is a woman’s legal right to kill her unwanted or diseased unborn child. They are living in a society where it is generally accepted that approximately 80 percent of their fellow Catholics have either been sterilized or are using contraception or abortifacients.

 In this society, over four hundred thousand human embryos are frozen and stored in embryo banks, waiting to be needed some day for reproduction or for research. Others have been “custom made” to satisfy the desires of their makers. Young people today have heard of the “right” to doctor-assisted euthanasia, have seen their parents’ tax dollars fund destructive human embryo stem cell research, and have been bombarded with propaganda advocating the redefinition of marriage. They are living in a society that spent an estimated forty-one billion dollars on the health and happiness of their pets in 2007, while homeless and poor human beings abound. If ever there has been a generation in need of an education in bioethics, it is the present one.

Sister Teresa Auer, O.P. Sister Auer is a Dominican Sister of Saint Cecilia Congregation , Nashville, Tennessee. She is currently teaching bioethics at Pope Paul the Great Catholic High School in Dumfries, Virginia.

¹Knights of Columbus/Marist Poll, “American Millennials: Generations Apart,”February2010,12, http://www.kofc.org/un/cmf/resources/Communications/documents/poll_mil_religion.pdf.

²Ibid., 17

³Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Instruction Dignitas personae on Certain Bioethical Questions(September 8,2008).

⁴ Benedict XVI, papal address to members of the Pontifical Academy for Life, February 14, 2010.

©Reprinted with permission

DEDICATION OF STATUE OF SAINT PEREGRINE

                        MAY 5, 2010

The following homily was given by the Very Reverend Gabriel B. O’Donnell, O.P.. Father O’Donnell is the Dean of our Dominican Seminary in Washington, D. C. and serves as the Postulator for the Causes of Canonization of Father Michael McGivney and Mother Mary Alphonsa, O.P.(Rose Hawthorne).

Tonight we gather to acknowledge the grace of God made visible in one parish community.  Sacred Heart, like all communities of faith, is a group of Christian people bound together by the triumph of the cross of Christ and the glory of his resurrection.  And, in Christ, we are also bound together with those who have gone before us into eternity, the holy ones who are part of the heavenly court, the saints.  Our devotion to St. Peregrine, celebrates the compassion and healing power of risen Christ and the hope that comes from our saint’s intercession before the throne of God.

The Gospel passage we have just heard, is one of those mysterious moments we frequently encounter in St. John -- mysterious because Jesus Christ is speaking, not to his disciples, not to his enemies, not even to us.  He is speaking to his Father.  And he is talking about us.  Together they, as it were, talk behind our backs.  Christ speaks of you and me to his Father.  It is not, of course, a gossipy newsy chatter that sometimes marks our conversations and days.  This is no idle water cooler exchange.  Rather, Christ speaks to his Father about his favorite subject:  those whom the Father has given into his care for redemption and salvation.  We, ordinary folks of this world, are the subject of his intimate exchange with the Father because we are the primary purpose and focus of his having assumed a human nature and having come into the world.

The truth is that the Father and the Son are preoccupied with us; with our lives, our worries, our joys and sorrows, our ups and downs, our successes and failures, our laughter and our tears.

 “Father, they are your gift to me. I wish that where I am they also may be with me, that they may see my glory that you gave me, because you loved me before the foundation of the world.”

More mysterious still, is the truth that in the face of God’s intense interest in us, there are some among us who draw God down like an enormous magnet:  who?  The saints, you say?  No, those who are poor, broken, sick and suffering.  These are God’s favorites.  Yes, God has favorites.  He prefers those who know that they need him and are willing to depend on him.  He is drawn to those who bear the marks of the pain and suffering of his Son’s redemptive passion and death…

So much is this so that even those who are not heavily burdened with poverty and pain, will have to go the way of the cross if they are to eventually wear the crown of eternal gladness.  “Take up your cross and follow me,” is not simply a quotable dictum from the Gospel.  It is a central principle of Christian life.  God draws us to himself through the mystery of the cross just as he drew his Son to himself through his agony of the passion which culminated in being nailed to the cross and suffering death at the hands of sinful men.

Make no mistake:  sickness and pain, suffering and the agony of diseases which steal lives and separate families – these are not God’s work.  They are the consequence of our sin and folly.  They come from the misuse of freedom and the abuse of the gifts that gives in creation.  Nonetheless, once Christ takes upon himself the agony of the cross, all agony and misery, all suffering and pain, all separation and loss have new meaning.  In lifting the Cross to his shoulder, Christ took to himself the suffering of the whole human race.  When you accept the cross laid upon your life, you have Christ at your side and in your heart.

“I in them and you in me, that they may be brought to perfection as one, that the world may know that you sent me, and that you loved them even as you loved me.”

St. Peregrine knew the burden of cancer, a terminal illness without a definitive remedy even to our own time and striking down men and women every day.  But Peregrine also knew the wonder of healing, the miracle of being cured.  And so we gather to seek his intercession for those who are cancer-ridden, for those whose life is ebbing away from this horrible sickness. We pray for their families, their loved ones and those who care for them.  We hope for a cure, we dare to pray for miracles.

by Father Jordan J. Kelly, O.P.

On Friday, June 11, 2010, the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Dominican Friars of the province of Saint Joseph elected The Very Reverend Brian Martin Mulcahy, O.P., as the their new Provincial. Many Saint Catherine Parishioners will remember Father Brian from his time here between 1994 and 1997.

Father Mulcahy is uniquely qualified for his new position. The son of the late Edward and Kathleen Mulcahy, Father Brian is the youngest of five children. His father was a member of the Diplomatic Corps and was on assignment in Africa at the time of Father Brian’s birth. Father Mulcahy was born in Harare Zimbabwe, Africa. Educated both in the United States and Rome, Father is a man of great compassion; a breath of knowledge and culture; and, a very dry sense of humor! His family back ground, education and natural abilities make Father Mulcahy a great choice to be our Provincial and the Dominican Friars are greatly blessed by his election.

Father entered the Dominican Order in 1985 and was ordained a priest in 1990. Father has served as a pastor, university chaplain and superior during his priesthood. His last assignment before being elected Provincial, was serving as the Socius and Vicar Provincial to Father Dominic Izzo. Most notably in his priestly assignments is an early assignment in Father Mulcahy’s priesthood. A real scholar, Father Mulcahy’s superiors recommended him for service as a secretary within the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith which was headed at that time by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI. Father Brian and the Holy Father remain in contact today.

Please join the Dominican Friars at Saint Catherine’s in their happiness over Father Brian’s election as Provincial. Please join us in praying for him as his begins his term of leadership. May God give him every grace and blessing to bring to completion what God has begun in him.

 Infertility is one of the most painful conditions a couple can face.  Struggling with the hidden suffering of being unable to have a child and longing for a child to love, many couples are told that invasive procedures, such as in vitro fertilization (IVF) or intrauterine insemination (IUI), are their only hope for success.  Yet these procedures have many drawbacks.  They are costly – thousands of dollars per cycle – with the success rate per cycle around 30% for women under age 40, dropping to less than 10% for women over age 40.  In addition, the IVF approach requires the woman to take powerful hormones to “shut down” her reproductive cycle, then additional hormones to over-stimulate her ovaries in order to “harvest” her eggs.  Husbands report feeling degraded, as they are asked to give a “sample” through an act of masturbation.  And conception occurs, not through a loving, intimate act of intercourse between husband and wife, but rather through a surgical procedure that replaces the marital act.  Finally, extra embryos are often created, leading to multiple pregnancies, pressure to abort some of the babies if multiple embryos implant, and later questions about what do to with frozen embryos, often kept perpetually in storage when a couple cannot afford more cycles of IVF.

Because of the creation and destruction of embryos that occurs, and because many procedures used to treat infertility – such as in vitro fertilization; separate love-making from procreation, the Catholic Church teaches that these procedures are morally wrong.  With all of these drawbacks, and with clear teaching from the church, Catholic couples are left wondering, “What can we do?  Are there no alternatives available to us?  Doesn’t God want us to have a child?”.  And in the midst of a struggle that only infertile couples can truly appreciate, many men and women feel that they have nowhere to turn for help.

Now, however, couples struggling with infertility have new reasons to hope.  For the past 35 years, physicians looking for alternatives to IVF and IUI have been conducting research into diagnosing and correcting the underlying causes of infertility.  The result --  NaProTECHNOLOGY™ -- a highly effective approach to treating infertility which allows up to 70% of couples to conceive through a natural act of intercourse.  And now, for the first time, NaProTECHNOLOGY™ is available in the greater New York area at the Gianna Catholic Healthcare Center for Women in midtown Manhattan.

NaProTECHNOLOGY™ (short for “Natural Procreative Technology”) is a systematic approach to identifying the reasons a woman cannot conceive, correcting underlying abnormalities, and restoring the normal functioning of her reproductive system.  By correcting the underlying causes of a woman’s infertility – from subtle hormonal abnormalities and disorders of ovulation to endometriosis and problems with the woman’s anatomy -- couples are able to conceive with success rates that are as good or better than in vitro fertilization, even when couples also have infertility due to male factors.

In addition, because NaProTECHNOLOGY™ allows a couple to conceive naturally through a loving act of intercourse and because embryos are not created or destroyed, it is an approach that is completely in line with Catholic teaching and is morally acceptable to people of all faiths.  Who wouldn’t want to conceive naturally, if this was a viable, effective option?

The longing to have a child is one of the deepest longings in the human heart.  It can draw couples closer together or tear them apart.  It can lead to the birth of new life – or it can lead couples into a situation where they are pressured to actually choose death.  Now couples have a life-giving alternative which gives life, without destroying it, and upholds marriage without denigrating it.

For more information about NaProTECHNOLOGY™ or the Gianna Catholic Healthcare Center for Women, visit www.giannahealth.org or call (212) 481-1219.