Pope, Sustainability, Peace

I probably neglect sustainability (or environmental issues) too often on this blog. Thankfully, Pope Benedict seems to be keeping up with the issue. His peace day message for January 1st was released to the press yesterday. His theme this year is the environment and our proper stewardship of it, which has been greatly lacking. As Catholics, we are told that we cannot sit idly by and pretend that issues of climate change, desertification, erosion of farming lands, pollution of rivers and drinking water, loss of biodiversity, and deforestation are not our responsibility. As Church, we have a responsibility to protect the environment because it is God's gift to us that needs to also sustain future generations.

The name of this document is: "If you want to cultivate peace, protect creation." Here is a link to it. It also has great terms like "intergenerational solidarity." It is really a wonderful document that stresses the special relationship between God, humanity, and the rest of God's creation. He states that the current neglect of this relationship is leading to a loss of human dignity with such things as environmental refugees and will lead to future violent conflicts if we do not change our current practices.

Good job Benedict. We need this document right now.

A Faithful Catholic

Young Catholics that Still Care about Being Catholic...

I was very surprised tonight to see a segment on Channel 6 news about a group of young Catholics, aptly naming themselves, Young Catholics for Choice, announcing that they had partnered with Wisconsin based Family Planning Health Services to make commercials stating their belief that they can be Catholic and use Emergency Contraception.

These commercials will start airing in the Milwaukee area any day. Fox 6 even had an interview with soon-to-be Milwaukee Archbishop Listecki, who stated the incompatibility of abortion with Catholic thought. He did not mention the views of Augustine and Aquinas about the soul not entering the embryo until weeks after conception. Although aborting the fetus immediately after conception was not viewed as a positive, it was not viewed as murder.

It will be interesting to see these commercials. It is also great to know that young Catholics that disagree with the Church's teaching on birth control and abortion are not simply leaving the Church or giving up religion. They are obviously passionate about their faith. I'm very proud to call these young people fellow Catholics.

A Faithful Catholic

Christ the King

Who is our King? It seems that all to often in the Catholic Church we point to the Pope or the Magisterium or a bishop or priest or nun. Our king is Jesus the Christ. Within many Protestant churches they will place kingship in the Bible, as do some Catholics. But our king is Jesus the Christ.

When we pray, we should be fostering our relationship with the Christ. When we attempt to live lives dedicated justice and peace in the world, in our country, in our city, in our home, and in our Church, we should be fostering our relationship with the Christ. Although it is an added bonus if we foster relationships with Pope, bishop, priest, friend, enemy, children, family, etc., what is most important is the Christ.

He is the pearl of great price and the treasure for which we will sell all we have to acquire him. I would hope that all reading this blog could agree on this point. If we cannot agree on this, then there are more problems within the body of Christ than I previously thought.

Let us praise our King as we prepare for his coming!!!

A Faithful Catholic

Initial Thoughts about Milwaukee Archbishop "Elect"

On Saturday morning the news was spreading: Bishop Listecki of La Crosse will be the future archbishop of Milwaukee - news conference at 10:00am. I watched to see what our future archbishop would say. He did not surprise me, much. Although I can appreciate someone who is Church-centered and Christ-centered (shouldn't we all be), it makes all the difference in the world how one interprets those terms.

Listecki constantly referred to the Church during his press conference. It was clear from the context that in almost every instance, Church = hierarchy. Not very good Vatican II theology. As to how his Christ-centered talk will come to fruition in his policies will be interesting. We did see an example of how papal infallibility can be misused. Listecki, multiple times, equated the Pope choosing him for Milwaukee with the movement of the Holy Spirit. When people think they have the Holy Spirit on their side, they think anything they do is Holy Spirit-inspired. In other words, they have a mandate to do what they want. Hopefully, I am wrong in this assessment, but I am nonetheless uncomfortable with that language.

Listecki's comments on politics were interesting. He basically stated that his involvement in politics was an involvement in our political system. Real lawyer talk, which makes sense because he is a lawyer. He did not state that his past political (abortion) comments were an attempt to address a society of death. It will be interesting to see how that plays out. I'm intrigued.

A Faithful Catholic

Random Thoughts...

Still waiting for a new archbishop for Milwaukee. Things seem at a standstill at the moment. Understandably, Bishop Callahan does not want to make major decisions that could be overturned if he is not the next archbishop. Yet the number of priests is decreasing and the number of parishes in financial trouble is increasing. The reason for the latter being mostly the current economic crisis, but not in all cases.

Although abortion is obviously an important issue, the vocal U.S. bishops seem more concerned with abortion than health care for all Americans. They seem to forget that a lack of the latter also causes death among adults, infants, and fetuses. The United States has the highest infant mortality rate among First World nations. We're number 37 among nations of the world.

Nevertheless, for the most part, our churches continue week after week. The body of Christ distributed and the Scriptures are proclaimed. It seems that if the laity want something magnificent established, they will need to turn to themselves and take seriously the body and word that has been given to them.

A Faithful Catholic

The Anglican Catholic Church

Last week, it was announced that there will be newly created ecclesiastical structures for those Anglicans wishing to come into communion with the Catholic Church. This is great news and sad news. It's great in that I have always been very supportive of allowing greater diversity in the Church. Although the details of these new structures are forthcoming, it seems that Anglican ways of prayer may be preserved in their "Catholic" liturgy, much like it is allowed in the Eastern Catholic Churches.

This is also sad news, because this is another example of posturing to a conservative group of Christians by the Vatican to make them feel more welcome, while the Vatican is incalcitrant to liberals who would like greater diversity in Church liturgy.

This announcement will also create a new dynamic locally between Catholics and Episcopalians and possibly a small exodus of Catholic priests. The Archdiocese of Milwaukee and the Episcopal diocese of Milwaukee have traditionally agreed not to accept each other's priests, meaning that priests who wish to switch denominations would need to relocate and to travel to a different diocese. With this document, all bets are off, so to speak.

A Faithful Catholic

Double Standard at Notre Dame

Doesn't it seem odd to anyone that no one batted an eye when Cardinal Mahony spoke at Notre Dame last month? If one takes Cardinal Law out of the picture, Mahony was one of the premiere bishops in moving child molesters under the radar. He even moved a molester-priest to another parish in another county after he promised the police that the priest would be moved to a monestary in a deal to avoid sexual assault charges against the priest (See 2006 documentary "Deliver Us From Evil"). Although Obama may be pro-choice and as president will have the opportunity to perform plenty of evil acts, his rap sheet at this time is pretty small compared to Mahony.

I do realize that it was a minority of bishops that did not want Obama at Notre Dame and that Mahony was not among that minority, but why weren't these same bishops protesting Mahony speaking at Notre Dame? This is clearly a double standard. The only issue that matters to these bishops is abortion, not child abuse, the economy, the war, etc.

In truth, I really do not have a problem with any public figure speaking at any university. I like to think it can promote thought and ideas, and even disagreement. Nevertheless, Mahony shouldn't even be an active bishop right now and should perhaps be in prison. He's a criminal.

A Faithful Catholic