"Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand"

Maranatha

On this Second Sunday of Advent we hear the unvarnished words of the one who, according our Lord, is greatest of the prophets: John the Baptizer:

"In those days John the Baptist appeared, preaching in the desert of Judea (and) saying, 'Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!' It was of him that the prophet Isaiah had spoken when he said: 'A voice of one crying out in the desert, "Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths".' John wore clothing made of camel's hair and had a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey. At that time Jerusalem, all Judea, and the whole region around the Jordan were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the Jordan River as they acknowledged their sins.

"When he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them,

'You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce good fruit as evidence of your repentance. And do not presume to say to yourselves, "We have Abraham as our father." For I tell you, God can raise up children to Abraham from these stones. Even now the ax lies at the root of the trees. Therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. I am baptizing you with water, for repentance, but the one who is coming after me is mightier than I. I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the holy Spirit and fire.His winnowing fan is in his hand. He will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.' (Matt. 3:1-12)

(Sarcasm alert) Remember, Advent is not a penitential season! (Okay, I feel better). I readily concede that it is not only,  perhaps even not primarily, a penitential season, but I remain puzzled by efforts to rid Advent of its penitential dimension altogether. So, let's not water down the radicality or urgency of the Baptist's message, for which what we heard last week from Paul's Letter to the Romans, namely "our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed; the night is advanced, the day is at hand. Let us then throw off the works of darkness (and) put on the armor of light" (v. 11b-12), was but a segue.

As the Holy Father said to Seewald in his response to a question posed to him about the sexual abuse crisis in the Church:

"The concept of penance, which is one of the fundamental elements of the Old Testament message, is something we have increasingly lost. People somehow wanted to say only positive things. The fact that one can change and allow oneself to be change through penance is a positive gift. The early Church viewed it in this way also."

The need that I am

Yesterday, as I got into my car and pulled out of the parking lot at work, I needed to pray. I didn't feel like I needed to pray. I needed to pray. This need did not arise from a bad day at work, which I rarely have thanks to a great job and terrific colleagues, nor from a personal or family crisis (Deo gratias). It was a gray, cold, drizzly day. I was tired and I wanted to go home, but I had pastoral duties to attend to, thus requiring me to go straight from work to the Cathedral. Of course, this is something I do a minimum of two times per week and I generally look forward to it.

I needed to pray yesterday afternoon like I need a drink of water when I am really thirsty, like when I am so thirsty that the only thing I want is water. In short, I needed to pray because not only do I have a need for God, but I am a need that only He can satisfy. I count this experience as a great consolation, the greatest one for me of this still new Advent season, which began for me a few weeks earlier with the beginning of the Nativity Fast. I experienced the added consolation of being able to meet my lovely wife for a quiet, if all too quick, supper at a local eatery on my way home from the Cathedral.

My response to this need was that I took in hand the rosary made by a friend and prayed the Sorrowful Mysteries, adding an act of contrition after invoking each of the five mysteries. I had no trouble determining who and what to pray for, my intentions came easily. It was a profound experience of living the dialectical tension between the already and the not yet, an experience of joyful waiting. How else, except by way of a pathology, can coming away from contemplating the Sorrowful mysteries of Christ's passion and death being joyful possibly be explained?

In speaking of his own prayer life, the Holy Father told Peter Seewald, in his gracious and always understated manner, "the Mother of God is... always a major point of reference." Indeed, she is: Remember, O most blessed Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protection, implored thy help, or sought thy intercession was left unaided..."

Maranatha

Faith and morals; the Church and the world

In order to bring my posting about the great condom conflagration of 2010 to a close (I anticipate one more post mid-week next on the pastoral application of what I am suggesting), I want to point out that arguing over the morality of using condoms to reduce the risk of HIV infection, especially whether it is moral for a married couple to do so in light of what Pope Benedict said to Peter Seewald about the possibility of permitting such use by those engaging in extra-marital or pre-marital relations, it is necessary to point out two things:

1) In order to justify the use of condoms to reduce the risk of HIV infection between people engaging in pre- or extra-marital relations one employs the moral argument of the lesser of two evils. This argument goes something like this- Engaging in such relations is already gravely sinful and so using a condom to prevent the risk of contracting or infecting someone else with a STD is the lesser of the two evils. When seeking to justify such use within marriage, one is forced to employ a variant of the principle of double effect. As I previously noted, in order to apply the principle of double effect, which allows you to do something that has a double effect, something that can achieve at the same time a good and a bad effect, it is not enough to merely intend the good effect, the bad effect must not be the means by which the good effect is achieved. By my reckoning, using a condom prevents the transmission of HIV precisely through the bad effect (i.e., contraceptive effect) of depriving that act of its procreative meaning.

2) Additionally, it is necssary to respond to the argument made, even by several prominent Catholic commentators, that permitting the use of condoms in one case and not the other is unfair to married couples and in fact favors people who engage in sex outside of marriage. In no do the Holy Father's remarks indicate a retreat from the gravely sinful nature of sex outside of marriage. He bestows no moral legitimacy on such actions, but insists on their intrinsic and objective wrongness, if you will. Such activity remains gravely sinful, or at least constitutes a sin with grave matter, whereas sex within marriage is not sinful, especially when it is not distorted by the use of contraceptives and retains both its unitive and procreative meanings. So, to argue such a point is to reveal how very secular and even hedonistic our view of human sexuality has become, even the view of many Christians.

In a post back in October I referred to an article by Stuart Reid in the U.K.'s Catholic Herald in which he wrote about Mel Gibson's Catholicism, defending it even in the face of Mel's public failures and against longstanding accusations that Mel shares his father's sedevacantist views. Reid writes that as far as he knows Gibson "has never questioned, far less rejected, any part of Catholic teaching." He notes that such cannot be said of many Catholics, including many priests. Reid uses the example of the mass rejection of Catholics in what he calls "the comfortable West" of the Church's teaching as set forth most recently and comprehensively by Pope Paul VI in Humanae Vitae and bolstered by Pope John Paul II's Theology of the Body, noting that the vast majority of Catholics not only ignore this teaching- "the way we all ignore moral teaching from time to time," which active ignoring we call sin, but "they believe the Church is in error." This grave situation gives rise to a certain moral relativity even among Catholics.

At the root of this view is the increasingly unreasonable way we approach sex, seeing it exclusively as a form of recreation and not at all, or only minimally about procreation. According to this way of seeing sex, pregnancy is what occurs when something goes wrong, when there has a been a contraceptive failure. In a speech he delivered in May 2008 to a conference at the Pontifical Lateran University to mark the fortieth anniversary of Humanae Vitae, the Holy Father warned that "[i]f the practice of sexuality becomes a drug that seeks to enslave one's partner to one's own desires and interests, without respecting the cycle of the beloved, then what must be defended is no longer solely the true concept of love but in the first place the dignity of the person. As believers, we could never let the domination of technology invalidate the quality of love and the sacredness of life."

He echoes his words from that speech in his interview with Seewald by pointing out that if we concentrate exclusively on condoms as the primary way to stem the spread of HIV then we risk trivializing human sexuality "and this trivialization represents precisely the dangerous reason why so many people no longer see sexuality as an expression of their love, but only as a sort of drug, which one administers on one's own."

This is the 1,700th post on Καθολικός διάκονος.

Maranatha

"I've been lonely. I've been waiting for you"

I have been thinking about posting a Heart song for our Friday traditio since early last summer. I also had ideas about posting two other songs for this week, but David, who is something of blogging a haiku master, whose short bursts over on Unashamedly Human I always find deeply insightful, encouraged me to go with the sisters Wilson:

After all the heavy-lifting this week here on Καθολικός διάκονος I am exhausted. So, What About Love?, then, is our first Advent traditio. So, thanks, David, for your friendship and your willingness to be unashamedly human, and for a traditio that arises from experience. Besides, I can't resist the early 80s feel of this video! I think the message is, Love is hard work, though work not exclusively reserved to attractive female foundry laborers.

I can't tell you what you're feeling inside/
I can't sell you what you don't want to buy/
Something's missing and you got to
Look back on your life/
You know something here just ain't right

Maranatha

Faith and reason; morals and ethics

Sandro Magister, author of Chiesa and one of the foremost Vaticanisti, today posted a comprehensive guide to the great condom conflagration of 2010 sparked by the Holy Father’s answer to a question posed to him by journalist Peter Seewald for a book-length interview, published under the title The Light of the Word: The Pope, the Church and the Signs of the Time. I think Magister quite right when he writes that by addressing this disputed and controversial question “Benedict XVI has brought this dispute into the sunlight, encouraging everyone to take part in it.” I weighed in previously on this question, taking what amounts to what I would call a compassionate traditional view by invoking a version of the lesser of two evils argument, which amounted to writing that if you are already engaging in gravely immoral sexual behavior, then using a condom both to protect yourself and others does not add to the gravity of your sinful behavior.

The argument I used does not extend to legitimizing the use of condoms within marriage. However, it is the clear teaching of the Church, as Luke Gormally, a member of the Pontifical Academy of Life writes in a letter to Magister, that even "[t]he prophylactic use of condoms within marriage is objectively a grave sin against the marriage covenant." He bases his position on Humanae Vitae §12, which reiterates the "unbreakable connection" between the unitive and the procreative meanings of the marital act. In short, sexual intercourse within marriage "is not truly unitive if the behaviour engaged in is not of the generative/procreative type."

I stand by my argument, despite the argument Magister and several others make in this on-going controversy that "[i]f this loving understanding applies to a sinner, it could apply all the more to the classic case encountered in Africa and elsewhere by pastors and missionaries: that of two spouses, one of whom is sick with AIDS and uses a condom to avoid endangering the life of the other." A position he notes that, with certain variations, has been taught by "[n]umerous moral theologians and authoritative ecclesiastical figures," but remains something "we have not heard… from the mouth of the Pope, even… in a[n] informal and not magisterial form."

Instead of relying on lesser of two evils arguments, those who would extend condom use to marital relations in cases in which one partner is HIV-positive seek to apply what is known as the principle of double effect. My objection to applying this principle to these cases is that legitimate application of this principle stipulates that the bad effect must not be the means by which the good effect is achieved. My formal objection is articulated well by Gormally in the citation above. By breaking the connection between the unitive and procreative meaning of marital intercourse it contributes to what Pope Benedict goes on to call "the trivializing of sexuality," which results in the mass confusion, bordering on insanity, we currently experience with regard to human sexuality. Another concern about condom use, which I stated in my initial reply, is that while it significantly reduces the risk of HIV infection, it does not eliminate it, even when the prophylactic is used correctly (so-called prophylactic failure- using them improperly- obviously heightens the risk).

I have to admit that Gormally’s argument that intercourse between a male "john" and "a female prostitute is made into a sexual perversion by the use of a condom" takes me by surprise. In effect, he argues what is already a sin with grave matter is compounded by the use of a condom. While I agree to some extent with this assertion, I think given that the behavior, even prior to the introduction of a condom, is gravely sinful, it lacks significance. I was taken more aback by Gormally’s straightforward critique of the Holy Father, whom he criticizes for continuing "to function as a private theologian, even in areas in which he possesses no particular competence (moral theology)." He goes on to say that such functioning "is both irresponsible (because it creates confusion in the general populace about the exercise of the papal magisterium) and self-indulgent; self indulgent because it is a case of the Pope retreating to his 'comfort zone' of writing and talking while neglecting urgent tasks of governance."

It is important to contextualize what the Holy Father said: "Concentrating only on the condom means trivializing sexuality," he insists. He goes on to say that "the struggle against the trivialization of sexuality is also part of the great effort so that sexuality may be valued positively, and may exercise its positive effect on the human being in his totality." Further, Pope Benedict explicitly states that distributing and using condoms "is not really the way to deal with the evil of HIV infection. That can really lie only in a humanization of sexuality." To that end, I could not agree more with Fr. Martin Rhonheimer, a Swiss philosopher and priest of Opus Dei, who, in an article written for The Tablet regarding the Holy Father’s comment, said that "[t]he teaching of the Church is not about condoms or similar physical or chemical devices, but about marital love and the essentially marital meaning of human sexuality. It affirms that, if married people have a serious reason not to have children, they should modify their sexual behaviour by – at least periodic – abstinence from sexual acts. To avoid destroying both the unitive and the procreative meaning of sexual acts and therefore the fullness of mutual self-giving, they must not prevent the sexual act from being fertile while carrying on having sex."

Maranatha

"Jesus sweet memory, that gives true joy to the heart"

Courtesy of Getting Used To Seeing This in Everything, composed by my dear friend Suzanne, comes the message sent by the Holy Father for Maria Camagni's funeral:

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

I would willingly have presided over the funeral of dear Manuela Camagni, but -- as you can imagine -- it was not possible for me. However, communion in Christ allows us Christians a real spiritual closeness, in which we share the prayer and affection of the heart. In this profound bond I greet all of you, in particular Manuela's family, the diocesan bishop, the priests, the Memores Domini, and her friends.

I would like to give here very briefly my testimony of our sister, who has gone to heaven. Many of you knew Manuela for a long time. I was able to benefit from her presence and her service in the papal apartment, in the last five years, in a family dimension. Because of this I wish to thank the Lord for the gift of Manuela's life, for her faith, for her generous response to her vocation. Divine Providence led her to a discreet but precious service in the Pope's house. She was happy about this and took part joyfully in family moments: at Holy Mass in the morning, at vespers, at meals in common and in the various and significant happenings of the house.

Pope Benedict praying at Maria's coffin

Her departure, so sudden, and also the way in which she was taken, have given us great grief, which only faith can console. I find much support in thinking of the words that form the name of her community: Memores Domini. Meditating on these words, on the meaning, I find a sense of peace, because they call to a profound relationship that is stronger than death. Memores Domini means: "those who remember the Lord," namely, persons who live in the memory of God and Jesus, and in this daily remembrance, full of faith and love, they find the meaning of everything, from small actions to great choices, of work, study and fraternity. The memory of the Lord fills the heart with profound joy, as an ancient hymn of the Church says: "Jesu dulcis memoria, dans vera cordis gaudia" [Jesus sweet memory, that gives true joy to the heart].

Hence, because of this it gives me peace to think that Manuela is a "memor Domini," a person who lived in the memory of the Lord. This relationship with him is more profound than the abyss of death. It is a bond that nothing and no one can break, as St. Paul says: "[Nothing] can separate us from the love of God, in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:39). Yes, if we remember the Lord, it is because he first remembers us. We are "memores Domini" because he is "memor nostri," he remembers us with love of a parent, a brother, a friend, also at the moment of death. If at times it seems that at that moment he is absent, that he forgets us, in reality we are always present to him, we are in his heart. Wherever we fall, we fall into his hands. Precisely there, where no one can accompany us, God awaits us: He is our Life.

Dear brothers and sisters, in this faith full of hope, which is Mary's faith near the cross of Jesus, I celebrated the Mass for Manuela's soul the very morning of her death. And while I accompany with prayer the Christian rite of her burial, I impart with affection to her family, her fellow sisters and all of you my blessing.

Maranatha

What matters? The way we manage our lives together, part 2

While I am on the subject of what I think should matter in politics, I also oppose extending the Bush tax cuts. I agree with Pres. Obama on this and so favor extending the tax cuts for middle income people, but not for the very rich. Like many who favor such an extension, I think extending the cuts all the way up to those making $200,000 is too high. Dropping it down to somewhere around $100,000 seems more reasonable to me. It seems to me, especially given the Republican insistence on extending all the Bush-era cuts, that this is an issue the Democrats can seize upon and return, at least on one issue for one fleeting moment, to their proud roots of looking out for regular people- the kind of Democratic leaders revered in my house when I was growing up.

My reason for opposing the extension is two-fold. My first reason is the politico-philosophical reason of favoring less regressive taxation, which serves the common good and rejects such rationales as those employed today by Sen. McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate, who insists, that “[w]e ought to treat all taxpayers the same.” Don’t get me wrong, I am not in favor of punishing people for being successful, but this is not what a fair tax policy does. Rather, it seeks the common good, which is not a mass redistribution of income, but a way of living together in a society that recognizes, at least to some extent, that I am my brother’s keeper, a society that, while recognizing the need for a social safety-net, must always safeguard against the tendency to foster dependence.

My second reason for opposing the extension of all the cuts, which the Democrats are only considering because they think doing so will do what their massive non-stimulating stimulus failed to do, namely stimulate the economy, is that giving tax cuts to the uber-rich does not have a stimulus effect, like giving cuts to middle income people does. Extending the cuts up to $200,000 a year, or $250,000 a year, would also result in the loss of $700 billion in revenue. I agree with Pres. Obama when he says it would “be unwise and unfair, particularly at a time when we're contemplating deep budget cuts that require broad sacrifice” to extend the cuts up that far. George H.W. Bush was quite correct to describe supply-side economic theory as “Voo-doo economics” while running against Ronald Reagan for the Republican nomination way back in 1980, which is not to say that a strong vibrant economy doesn’t produce more revenue at lower tax rates, it obviously does, but Arthur Laffer’s prognostications ultimately proved illusory. Besides, extending the tax cuts across-the-board, even to those making more than $200,000 per year, as the Republicans, who remain, even after the Tea Party uprising, the party of the very rich, will deprive us of revenue we’ll need to dig out of the hole we’re in, even with massive spending cuts, which are also needed.

It is in mentioning tax increases and spending cuts that complexity comes into play again. It is not either/or but both/and. The question becomes arriving at a mutually agreeable solution, which means compromise on both sides, something that implies nobody gets everything they want. Holding your breath until get everything you want, in addition to being infantile, is precisely what reduces our politics to net loss/net gain. In this era marked not only by ideology, but overly-simplistic ideology, we should all lament the collapse of the political center, those leaders capable of brokering compromise. Here in Utah the best example of this kind of leader, Sen. Bennett, was denied re-election for being, not a liberal, not even for failing to be a conservative, but for refusing to buy into the very narrow vision of politics now sweeping the country.

Maranatha