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Checking the Facts: The New York Times on Pope Benedict

In the midst of a rush to judgment, with the media focused intently on Pope Benedict XVI and writing stories that cast him in a less than favorable light, canon lawyer Father Thomas Brundage – the judge of the canonical trial at the center of the controversy – took the time to give everyone a refresher course in journalism – and then set the facts straight.

“As a college freshman at the Marquette University School of Journalism, we were told to check, recheck, and triple check our quotes if necessary… Discerning truth takes time and it is apparent that the New York Times, the Associated Press and others did not take the time to get the facts correct,” he wrote, in a piece in which he went through the evidence that sheds the light of truth on Pope Benedict XVI’s record regarding the case of disgraced priest Father Lawrence Murphy.

Quick recap: On March 24th, the New York Times published a front page article accusing Vatican officials, namely Pope Benedict, of refusing to defrock Father Murphy (Murphy is accused of molesting as many as 200 deaf boys at St. John's School for the Deaf just outside Milwaukee between 1950 and 1974).
The Times sources cited church files that provide “evidence” to the claim in the form of correspondences from the bishops in Wisconsin to then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.

This week, Church leaders, journalists and especially those closest to the case have come to Pope Benedict’s defense revealing significant gaps in the media evidence, as well as unfair and shoddy reporting.

Even a cursory review of the emerging evidence indicates that the media’s rush to attempt to implicate Pope Benedict XVI in scandal represents as Cardinal Levada – Cardinal Ratzinger’s successor at CDF – puts it, “a deficiency of any reasonable standard of fairness that Americans have every right to expect from their major media.”

What is becoming increasingly clear as the media smokescreen lifts, is that far from being complicit with wrong doing, Pope Benedict has done an incredible amount to combat and root out what he once described as the scandal causing “filth” in the Church.

In the words of Cardinal Levada, “we owe Pope Benedict a great debt of gratitude for introducing the procedures that have helped the Church to take action in the face of the scandal of priestly sexual abuse of minors.”

Most disturbing in the mistakes made in reporting on the Murphy case is this. The man who knew the most about it, the man who served as the judge in that case, never got a call from the media. But now, Father Brundage – presiding judge for the Archdiocese of Milwakee from 1995-2003 and the man closest to the facts in the Murphy case – has spoken out, and what he has to say bears listening to.

In response to being inaccurately quoted in the NYT and in more than 100 other newspapers and on-line periodicals (yet, ironically, never once contacted by any news organization for comment), Fr. Brundage gives a first-person account of the local church trial found here.

In his piece, Fr Brundage explains that the October 31, 1997 handwritten document attributed to him by the media, and presented as “evidence” against the pope was not in fact written by him, that it doesn’t even resemble his handwriting.

With regard to the role of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in the matter, Father Brundage writes that there is no reason to believe that Cardinal Ratzinger was ever involved, and that to believe that he was is a huge leap of logic.

Futhermore, Brundage explains that the movement of oversight of such abuse cases from the Roman Rota to the CDF occurred in 2001 (five years after the Vatican was first made aware of the Fr Murphy case).
Fr Brundage explains: “Until that time, most appeal cases went to the Rota and it was our experience that cases could languish for years in this court.”

And what did that mean? In comments reminiscent of those of bishops and cardinals nationwide,  he says: “When the competency was changed to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in my observation as well as many of my canonical colleagues, sexual abuse cases were handled expeditiously, fairly, and with due regard to the rights of all the parties involved. I have no doubt that this was the work of then Cardinal Ratzinger.”

In a pastoral letter sent to all of Calgary Alberta’s Catholic parishes, Bishop Fred Henry further clarifies that under canon law at the time, the principal responsibility for sexual abuse cases lay with the local bishop. Archbishop Rembert Weakland had from 1977 onward the responsibility of administering penalties to Father Murphy. He did nothing until 1996. It was at that point that the CDF became involved, and subsequently never impeded the local process, and when notified of Murphy’s failing health even suggested means more expeditious than a trial of removing himfrom ministry.

On Tuesday night Archbishop Jerome Listecki of Milwaukee, Wisconsin publicly apologized for the way his archdiocese handled the case prior to 1996. He presented his defense of the Vatican by stating that "the mistakes were not made in Rome in 1996, 1997 and 1998. The mistakes were made here, in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, in the 1970s, the 1980s and the 1990s, by the local Church, by civil authorities…by medical professionals -- even reporters who helped bring initial stories to light and grappled with how to deal with perpetrators."

As Cardinal Levada concludes in his response, all evidence points to a rush in judgment by the media and a lack of fairness in their coverage of Pope Benedict, a man whose pro-active work to help the Church deal effectively with the sexual abuse of minors seems to deserve praise rather than blame.

What should we, the Catholics in the pew do as this swirls around us? Simple, we should pray. We should pray for our pope, for our bishops, for our Church, and for those reporters covering this story.
Today, the Knights of Columbus have launched a prayer campaign for Pope Benedict XVI, inviting all to pray a novena beginning on Divine Mercy Sunday, April 11, and concluding on Monday April 19, the fifth anniversary of the Holy Father’s election.

As we pray this Holy Week, let us include in our intentions a special prayer for healing for all of those affected by the scandal, all those who have had to deal with addressing it, and especially for the pope, who needs our prayers more than ever at this time.

Overthrowing the "Dictatorship of Relativism"

In his latest column for Zenit, Supreme Knight Carl Anderson took the occasion of the Pope’s Palm Sunday World Youth Day message in St. Peter’s Square to address one of the most pressing philosophical challenges the Church faces in the 21 century: the culture’s drift into moral relativism, particularly among youth.

As Anderson points out, a consistent theme of Pope Benedict XVI’s pontificate has been confronting this ill-fated philosophy – what the Holy Father has termed the “dictatorship of relativism.” In a special way, this has included continuing Pope John Paul II’s engagement with youth, and on Sunday he exhorted “the new generations to bear witness, with the mild but luminous power of truth, that the men and women of the third millennium may not lack their most authentic model: Jesus Christ.”

The Supreme Knight’s column shared some facts about these members of the “new” generation:

There is certainly a problem with relativism among young people today. A recent Knights of Columbus/Marist poll found that 82% of 18-29 year old Catholics see morals as "relative."

That's a shocking number, but fortunately there is more to that statistic than meets the eye. First, the majority of "practicing Catholics" disagreed, and second, the 82% who see themselves as relativists nevertheless don’t consistently apply relativism to moral issues.
 
When confronted with a series of moral issues, those same Catholic young people who saw themselves as relativistic chose overwhelmingly to categorize issues such as abortion or euthanasia as "morally wrong" -- despite being given the option of classifying each as "not a moral issue" -- which one would assume would be the logical choice of a true relativist.

Relativism, unlike truth, leads to exactly such inconsistent thinking, and so ultimately is not a fulfilling philosophy of life.

So despite the troubling relativistic outlook, there is still much to build on and much hope for the future, considering many fundamental moral truths have been internalized by young Catholics.

Besides Popes Benedict and John Paul II, the Church abounds with exemplars whose life have been devoted to standing against the culture of relativism. This year in particular, if there is a singular example of one who has lived out this truth with a life devoted to that very call of serving the “weakest and most disadvantaged people,” it is certainly Mother Teresa of Calcutta, whose centenary birthday celebration will be celebrated this summer on August 26.

 In 1979, Mother Teresa accepted the Nobel Peace Prize for her work founding and leading the Missionaries of Charity in serving the poor. In her acceptance speech, she spoke at length on the most fundamental moral issues, an abortion particular, knowing full well her address would not be happily received by all in the audience. In so doing, her address was informed by the same focus on the dangers of moral relativism, of allowing contemporary culture to determine right and wrong. She argued forcefully that any abrogation of the moral law which undermines human life and dignity is a threat to peace and justice: 

I feel the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion … Many people are very, very concerned with the children in India, with the children in Africa where quite a number die, maybe of malnutrition, of hunger and so on, but millions are dying deliberately by the will of the mother. And this is what is the greatest destroyer of peace today. Because if a mother can kill her own child - what is left for me to kill you and you kill me - there is nothing between.

In 1977, the Knights of Columbus awarded Mother Teresa the Gaudium et Spes Award, the Order’s highest honor.  Currently, the Knights of Columbus Museum in New Haven, Conn. is featuring an exhibit devoted to her life and work. You can read more about the exhibit here.

Figures such as Mother Teresa and Popes Benedict XVI and John Paul II lend a powerful example to future generations of the antidote to relativism: love grounded in truth.

A Palm Sunday exhortation

Unfortunately, most media attention on the Vatican’s Palm Sunday celebrations was hinged upon one angle: clergy sex abuse, with one line in Pope Benedict’s 2,500+ word homily fueling headlines on how the “defiant” Holy Father is not “intimidated” by accusations of how the Church has handled the situation. 

In New York, Archbishop Timothy Dolan added his own remarks to the end of Mass, urging Catholics to lift up their shepherd in prayer, especially as his time in the crucible reaches new intensity during Holy Week.

“No one has been more vigorous in cleansing the Church of the effects of this sickening sin than the man we now call Pope Benedict XVI,” Archbishop Dolan said. “The dramatic progress that the Catholic Church in the United States has made ... could never have happened without the insistence and support of the very man now being daily crowned with thorns by groundless innuendo.”

The rest of the Palm Sunday story in Rome, though, is worth a deeper look than what the mainstream media gave it. For one, Pope Benedict’s homily gives a stirring vision of a pilgrim Church that can choose complacency or even “descend to what is lower ... lies and dishonesty,” or, it can follow Christ – clearly an applicable image today.

“Jesus goes ahead of us, and he goes up to what is above,” the Holy Father said, commenting on Christ’s ascent into Jerusalem. He continued:

He leads us to what is great, pure, he leads us to the healthy air of the heights: to life according to truth; to the courage that does not let itself be intimidated by the gossip of dominant opinions; to the patience that stands up for and supports the other. He leads us to availability to the suffering, to the abandoned; to the loyalty that stands with the other even when the situation makes it difficult.

He leads us to availability to bring help; to the goodness that does not let itself be disarmed not even by ingratitude. He leads us to love – he leads us to God.

In its immediate context, Pope Benedict’s words certainly have relevance to a Church buffeted by accusations – some wildly off base (like those seeking to no end to pin then-Cardinal Ratzinger as complicit in covering up abuse), and others painfully reminding us of the need for purification among our own members (a topic that the pope’s own preacher took up last week). On one hand, the pope is saying, the Church’s mission will not let itself be swayed by the chatter of popular opinion. On the other hand, when a member of the Church, whether priest or layman, does descend into the path of “lies and dishonesty,” one thing is clear: he is not following Christ.

In general, though, the description of the Church in pursuit of Christ is a description of the Church of the Good Samaritan: the body of believers envisioned in Pope Benedict’s recent encyclical, Caritas in Veritate. In leading us to God the Father, Christ is leading us to love – in particular, love of our neighbor, even when that selflessness is unappreciated. Despite the images painted by media reports the past couple weeks, this is not a Church retreating to a bunker mentality. Rather, it’s moving forward, seeking to purify itself and to breathe “the healthy air of the heights.” Along the way, it opens its arms to those in need and to all who wish to join in the journey.

Fittingly, then, Palm Sunday also coincided with the 25th World Youth Day celebration: an international phenomenon in itself that Michele Nuzzo-Naglieri commented on recently.

As Catholic author Amy Welborn writes in this month’s Columbia magazine, Pope Benedict “never talks down to his listeners; he addresses them not as the future of the Church to be entertained or coddled, but as a vital part of the Body of Christ with an important mission.”

She continues, “He invites them to look honestly at the yearnings of their heart, to open themselves to Christ as the answer to those yearnings, and to find that for which all people ache – true freedom.”

Those themes Welborn mentions are all over Pope Benedict’s message for this year’s World Youth Day.

“Dear young friends, I urge you to keep this perspective in developing your life plan,” the Holy Father said – “We are called to eternity.”

Returning to the theme of the Christian’s ascent, he quoted a phrase from the young, mountain-climbing Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassatti: “To the heights.”

In reminding believers of our heavenly goal, and exhorting young adults to lend their energy in spurring us there, Pope Benedict offers us hope amid the coming darkness of the events of Holy Week.

“It is moving to climb the steps up to Calvary to the place where Jesus died on the Cross,” the pope said in his homily. “And then standing before the empty tomb, praying there where his holy corpse lay and where on the third day the Resurrection occurred.”

He continued, “Following the material paths of Jesus should help us to walk more joyously and with a new certainty along the interior paths that Jesus himself points out to us.” For a Church that strives to follow Her Lord amid external attacks and internal pain, those will surely be paths of repentance, purification and ever deeper conversion.

-- Elizabeth Hansen, Headline Bistro editor

The Lessons of Martyrdom

Yesterday marked the 30th anniversary of the martyrdom of Archbishop Oscar Romero. On March 24, 1980, an assassin shot and killed the Archbishop as he celebrated Mass in San Salvador. The government sanctioned murder was aimed at silencing Romero, a fearless defender of the impoverished victims of political violence and injustice in El Salvador.

This year the annual commemoration of Archbishop Romero’s martyrdom was recognized in a special way by the government of El Salvador. For the first time in thirty years the political establishment admitted its complicity in Romero’s murder, and asked for forgiveness. This is a dramatic and powerful example of the need to speak “truth to power,” and should serve as an inspiration to the many Christians who are victims of state-sponsored persecutions around the world.

El Salvador’s president Mauricio Funes asked for pardon during an airport ceremony unveiling a mural honoring Archbishop Romero. "This is something that should have been done a long time ago," Funes said.”It is my greatest wish that this act in the name of Msgr. Romero can serve to bring consolation and that we no longer live with resentments."

History is littered with examples of great men and women who endured hardships, hatred and even bloodshed for their moral stand--only to be later embraced by those who persecuted them. Christ stands as the paramount example. This is why the lesson of the martyrs serves as an inspiration to all Christians, but especially to those who continue to confront this persecution at the hands of government authorities. 

The Catholic Church in China is one example of a community in need of the inspiring example of martyrs. This week in Rome Catholic leaders from China gathered at the Vatican for meetings which focused on the condition of the Church in the Communist country. This was the third meeting of this commission which was established by Pope Benedict XVI in 2007. In China the government has sought to control the Catholic Church by imposing a “Patriotic” church structure that chooses its own bishops and seeks to separate Chinese Catholics from the universal church. This has led to the flowering of an “underground church” that is loyal to the Pope.  

A press release issued by the commission called for Chinese Bishops to reject government efforts to divide the church. It urged them to avoid "making gestures (ie, celebrating the sacraments, ordinations of bishops, attending meetings) that contradict communion with the Pope, who appointed them shepherds, and creating sometimes agonizing difficulties within their ecclesial communities."

Cardinal Zen, the retired Archbishop of Hong Kong, and perpetual thorn in the side of Communist authorities, was pleased with the commission’s report. He said, “The clarity of the statement allows many more Catholics in China to understand the current and most essential issues.” In the past, Zen has urged Catholic Bishops associated with the Patriotic Church to avoid government sponsored meetings that seek to impose pastoral guidelines on China’s Catholi community.

Currently there are three underground bishops in China who remain under arrest, dozens of priests are in prison or forced labour camps, and many bishops loyal to the Holy Father have been prevented from carrying out their ministry. In recent days the government has also sought to tighten financial constraints placed on churches. 

These days, its hard to avoid reading newspaper articles or hearing commentaries on China’s emerging status as a world super power. However, China’s real test will not be its military prowess or economic might, but its ability to respect and protect the individual freedoms of its citizens.

Persecuted Chinese Catholics can stand strong knowing this truth will eventually triumph. And perhaps the best reminder of that is the colorful mural of Archbishop Oscar Romero that now stands in San Salvador’s International airport. Thirty years after his brutal murder, truth has finally won out. 

David Naglieri

Learning to love

Today is the Feast of the Annunciation – one of the most important, holiest days on the Church’s calendar, when the liturgy re-presents to us the turning point of salvation history: God becoming Man.

“As of today, Christmas is exactly nine months away,” Father Dominic Legge, OP, writes in today’s column on Headline Bistro. “Don’t rush to the mall – instead, go to church to celebrate the Feast of the Annunciation – the moment when the Angel Gabriel appeared to Mary, a young virgin in Nazareth, and announced that she would conceive by the Power of the Holy Spirit.  With her ‘fiat,’ the world gained its savior.”

That image of Mary’s “yes” – her openness and willing acceptance of God’s invitation to participate in his plan of salvation – is a fitting one to bear in mind when reading Pope Benedict XVI’s latest exhortation to young Catholics this week. 

“Learning to Love” is the theme of a gathering of about 300 Catholic youth in the Italian town of Rocca di Papa. The event, organized by the Pontifical Council for the Laity, is a forum of young adults representing various bishops’ conferences as well as lay movements and associations from around the world.

In his message to the gathering, Pope Benedict urged young Catholics to give themselves over to a life of love.

“Man is made to love; his life is fully realized only if he lives in love,” he said. “I exhort the young people present in this forum to search with all their heart to discover their vocation to love, as persons and as baptized. This is the key to the whole of existence.”

He raised the example of the rich young man who came to Jesus with the question, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”

“Jesus answers with a look of love and an invitation to total self-giving for love of God,” the Holy Father explained. Like that young man, and like Mary at the Annunciation, we’re each presented with the opportunity to respond to God’s offer.

In particular, Pope Benedict encouraged the young delegates “to discover the grandeur and beauty of marriage,” amid a culture that considers the bond to be temporary and easily broken.

“It is of vital importance to understand that true love is [a] faithful, definitive gift of self,” he stressed. “Given that Christ consecrates the love of Christian spouses and commits himself to them, this fidelity not only is possible, but is the way to enter into an ever greater charity. Thus, in the daily life of the couple and of the family, spouses learn to love as Christ loves.” 

Priests, he said, likewise practice “love of the heart of Jesus,” and consecrated singles are “a sign of the love of God for the world and of the vocation to love God above all.”

Whatever our calling, how often are our lives an example of this? And how often do we echo Mary’s “yes” to bringing God’s love to those around us – our families, friends, classmates and coworkers – and to open ourselves to the transforming power of His love?

“This is the key to the whole of existence,” Pope Benedict tells us, as much as he reminds a gathering of youth who fresh in their eager faith and desire to bring renewal to the Church.  Those are words to ponder today, as step briefly out of Lent, and also as we prepare to enter into the events of Holy Week this Sunday: the greatest sign of love of all time.

-- Elizabeth Hansen, Headline Bistro editor

Bridging the Gap

In mid-February, when Team Canada beat the U.S. with an historic overtime goal, many Americans made the mistake of believing that hockey gold in 2010 was no longer within reach.

Yet not only would the opportunity present itself once more but the US would also claim an unexpected victory on the world scale ... just one month later. Same Olympic ice, same roaring crowd, same game played with the same amount of heart ... only on a sledge instead of skates.

On March 21, the curtain closed on what is being called the breakthrough Paralympic Games in Vancouver, British Colombia. Not only were these Games record-setting with Canada placing third overall and the U.S. finishing fifth, but they also achieved something that appeared far out of reach just a few years ago: recognition.

The focus of this year’s Games was inclusion and acceptance of athletes with disabilities. Success in that venture came early on as members of the Olympic committee decided to jointly promote the Olympic and Paralympic Games for the first time in history.  The idea was to try to increase awareness for the latter and begin bridging the gap between both international sporting events.

Daniel Girard of the Star comments on the outcome: “Typically relegated to the fringes of international sports and watched only by family and friends, if at all, this was the time for these 1,350 athletes to compete before capacity crowds of flag-waving fans and national television audiences. They didn't disappoint. Blind. Amputee. Paraplegic. They not only battled for medals, they demonstrated that the Paralympics are more about ability than disability.”

This couldn’t be truer. Thanks to a U.S. digital channel that was rebroadcasting the Paralympics, I was able to catch some of the events this week, one of them being downhill skiing. As I watched the first blind alpine skiers hit the track full speed, it didn’t take long for me to realize that I was witnessing something short of a miracle. Watching these athletes perform in ways that my able-bodied self could never imagine certainly left a mark. It also brought a whole new meaning to the Games’ theme: One Inspires Many.

During the Winter Olympics, we looked for inspiration. What surprised us is that we found it in unexpected places. We found heroes in those who had stirred our hearts. Who will ever forget Joannie Rochette’s bronze medal skate just days after losing her mother? Or Alexandre Bilodeau rushing to hug his handicapped brother whom he credits for his moguls win?

At the Paralympic games, inspiration was at all times overflowing.

The first skier I caught was the U.S. ski team’s Caitlin Sarubbi. Caitlin was born with Ablepharon Macrostomia Syndrome, a developmental disorder documented only a dozen times throughout the world. At birth she had no eyelids, tiny ears and small, curled fingers, which left her legally blind and hearing impaired. Fast forward twenty years later; she is now on leave from her freshman year at Harvard in order to race at the 2010 Paralympics.

Her journey to the Winter Games involved 57 reconstructive surgeries and an incomprehensible amount of hard work. Caitlin discovered skiing at the age of 11 through the Disabled Sports USA foundation. Racing down a hill at 60 mph, she relies on information relayed through a headset from a guide racing ahead of her.

“It changed my life forever…for me to be able to find skiing, it was a new feeling with no limits and no disability,” she says.

Because Caitlin greatly admires the many surgeons that have worked with her, he career goal is to become a surgeon herself -- on top of being a ski racer. Throughout her adolescence she was able to maintain a high grade point average which allowed her Ivy League dream to come true.

Caitlin finished eighth in the Games, an amazing feat for one who has just begun her journey. And to think: this is only one skier’s story!

Just a few years ago, none of these athletes could have imagined that the stadium would be at capacity for the Opening Ceremonies of the 2010 Paralympic games, that tickets to their competitions would be sold out and that an international audience would be cheering them on and watching them via national television broadcasts and Internet streaming.

Interest for the Games has certainly peaked and it appears as though a rigorous advertising campaign created pro bono by BBDO Toronto was one of the large players behind the effort. Prior to the Games, a series of print and television ads were created aimed at raising the profile of Paralympic athletes and sparking interest in both the summer and winter Paralympic Games. The ads portray the athletes as aggressive, competitive and determined as their able-bodied counterparts. Creative director Peter Ignazi was quoted in the Star saying: “We [wanted] to make sure everyone understood that it’s not over with the Crosby goal — there’s still a lot more excitement, a lot more passion and a lot more athletic thrill coming.”

“Paralympians don’t want your sympathy” was the message, and its result was telling. There was no pity to be found anywhere in Vancouver from March 12 to March 21. What was felt instead was an overwhelming sense of awe. Between the volunteers who struggled to hang on after the exhausting February Games, the thousands who flocked to buy tickets for the events and those who by sheer curiosity tuned in for the first time with little knowledge of what to expect, the response was consistent: Wow.

The 2010 Paralympic Games marked a true element of change in social attitudes towards those with disabilities and it was accomplished by simply introducing the world to a whole new rank of heroes. Just when we thought nothing could move us more than watching key Olympians overcome incredible obstacles to reach the podium....we hadn’t yet witnessed the half of it. John Furlong, chief executive officer of the 2010 Olympics and Paralympics said it best during the March 21 closing ceremonies: "When you come to an event like this and you stand back for a moment and allow yourself to think about what you're looking at, if you're not inspired, it's not possible to inspire you."

Michèle Nuzzo-Naglieri

Images By Getty

The passing of Father Paul Marx, the "Apostle of Life"

Over the weekend, while the Church and pro-life community had all eyes focused on pending legislation in Washington, D.C., Father Paul Marx O.S.B., the “great pro-life warrior,” as Father John Zuhlsdorf refers to him in his blog, passed away.

Here is but one anectdote:

Fr. Marx used to go right into abortion mills and start counseling the moms in the waiting rooms. When the abortion staffers would ask, "Who are you?" he would reply, “I’m the chaplain.”

These and many other stories pepper the fond recollections from people involved in the pro-life movement in and out of the Church who crossed paths with Father Marx. 

Father Marx, a Ph.D. and prolific writer whom John Paul II called the “Apostle of Life,” always saw the pro-life movement not simply about abortion, but about the entire culture of life and sexual dignity. For Father Marx, the scourge of abortion was always linked to the cultural acceptance of contraception. Marx wrote the following in the Wanderer:  

Any group or movement - especially one attempting to form priests to be totally pro-life - which does not attempt to bring home the all-embracing evil of contraception is futilely beating the air. In saying this, I see nothing divisive. I have said and written this for almost 40 years. No true-blue pro-lifer, no bishop, no priest, no religious, no layman has ever been able to point out a contraceptive country with a viable birthrate and a healthy family life.
By preaching and promoting the whole pro-life message, you are most certainly going to be perceived as being divisive to those who don't want to face the facts or live by the truth.

The perception of divisiveness often became literal: Father Marx was once thrown out of a rectory he was visiting in Syracuse for refusing to accommodate a request from the local pastor to avoid speaking about contraception in his homily the next day.

Father Marx was a strong proponent of the encyclical Humane Vitae and its message. “In my opinion,” he wrote in the Warehouse Priest,  “HV [Humanae Vitae] will go down in history as the most important one of all, or surely at least a pivotal one, because it dealt with basic morality, marital love, sexuality, parental rights, marriage and the family, demography, the origins of human life, and God's very plan for humanity.”

Father Marx had been a sociology professor at St. John’s University before founding the Human Life Center there in 1972. Later, this would expand into what's now Human Life International, a pro-life advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C., with missions  in 160 countries. Since its founding, HLI has likewise given birth to the Magdalene Rescue and Rehabilitation Program, the China Orphanage Program, Seminarians for Life, the Population Research Institute and the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute.

The current President of HLI, Father Thomas Euteneur offered his own reflections on HLI’s founder:

Like his namesake, St. Paul of old, he went about the entire known world preaching the Gospel of Christ from the 60s through the 90s and establishing apostolic groups and pro-life organizations of faith to carry on the mission. Father was very much like the sower who went out sowing the good seed of life in 91 nations, personally, and motivating scores of others around the world to do the same. We estimate that Father Marx travelled something on the order of 3 million miles in his 40+ year career of pro-life activism, and ever after that, his spiritual children have done the same.

In 1979, during the first of Father Marx’s two meetings with Pope John Paul II, the two discussed the problem of contraception and abortion, and the importance of natural family planning. The pope exhorted Marx to continue his work saying “You must bring this pro-life, pro-family movement all over the earth; and if you do that, you will be doing the most important work on earth.”

Those words of Pope John Paul II expressing support for his mission, the “most important work on earth,” stayed with Father Marx for some time, as he fondly repeated them to HLI in his final public speech in 2007. Hopefully they will remain in the minds and hearts of those in pro-life community today, as they face the mounting challenges of the present. 

Paul Ciarcia

Photo Courtesy St. John's Abbey, Collegeville, MN 

Weighing the executive order

What next for pro-lifers and the American health care system?

In the past 24 hours, much ink has been spilled over President Obama’s executive order hashed out at the eleventh hour with Rep. Bart Stupak – much of it criticism from the pro-life community, saying the order falls short of comprehensively addressing the health care legislation’s serious moral flaws on the life issues.

The Americans United for Life legal team has a helpful post on their blog explaining how the executive order “fails to describe accurately and to mirror the scope of the Hyde Amendment.”

A statement from the National Right to Life Committee was blunt: “The executive order promised by President Obama was issued for political effect. It changes nothing. It does not correct any of the serious pro-abortion provisions in the bill. The president cannot amend a bill by issuing an order, and the federal courts will enforce what the law says.”

Indeed, an executive order’s legal weight is tenuous when compared to that of a legislative statute – something that a court would bear in mind if and when the order is challenged, regardless of Stupak’s claim of assurance that Obama won’t rescind it.

“The statutory mandate construed by the courts would override any executive order or regulation,” wrote Richard Doerflinger, associate director of the U.S. bishops’ Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities, in a memo to congressional staffers yesterday.

“This is the unanimous view of our legal advisers and of the experts we have consulted on abortion jurisprudence,” he continued. “Only a change in the law enacted by Congress, not an executive order, can begin to address this very serious problem in the legislation.” 

Stupak himself admitted that stronger language on abortion restrictions in the actual legislation would have been ideal, but that such an option was long past viable.

“The bishops are right – a statutory law is better than an executive order. But we can’t get there,” he said on Sunday. “So what do you have – nothing? Or do you want the same executive order that has the force of law?” 

He concluded that Obama’s offer was thus “the best, most enforceable” option available.

“I would like statutory language on abortion,” he stressed. “The reality is, I have 45 votes in the Senate. I need 60.” He added that he would continue to push for the pro-life language that the bishops had wanted as statutory law – “Don’t think we’re done,” he said.

The president is expected to sign the health care bill into law tomorrow, along with the executive order on abortion. What’s done is done – meaning one of the most important battles for pro-lifers to gear up for will be this fall’s appropriations legislation, which renews the Hyde Amendment every year.

As Slate columnist Tim Noah points out, the Obama executive order rests solely on the current language of the Hyde Amendment – its reach and enforcement, then, is conditional on whether that amendment is renewed.

“Once the Hyde Amendment restrictions [are] no longer current, the insurance exchanges would be free to use federal funds to pay for abortion,” Noah writes.

One thing is clear: Between ensuring the renewal of the Hyde Amendment and following up on whether Stupak will pursue additional pro-life legislation to apply to the health care overhaul, the pro-life community will have its hands full in the coming months.

-- Elizabeth Hansen, Headline Bistro editor

The eleventh hour

Over the past couple days, the U.S. bishops have pushed back – hard – against accusations that they are being obstructionists to health care reform and that their reasons for opposition are based on either mere technicalities or outright falsehoods.

First there was the statement from Cardinal Francis George, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which Paul summarized on Tuesday.

“[The Hyde Amendment’s] absence in the Senate bill and the resulting impasse are not an accident. Those in the Senate who wanted to purge the Hyde amendment from this national legislation are obstructing the reform of health care,” Cardinal George asserted after laying out the reasons why the bishops find the Senate bill morally deficient. “This is not quibbling over technicalities.” 

The USCCB website’s section on health care, in the meanwhile, has posted a host of resources backing up the bishops’ claims that the Senate bill will expand abortion funding – “a lot more than some their critics have done,” commented John Norton of Our Sunday Visitor.

Then there’s the dustup involving the two conferences of women religious in the United States – the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (which earlier this week endorsed the Senate bill along with the social justice lobby Network), and the Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious, which responded with a clear statement of support for the bishops’ position. By far, most of the media attention went to the first statement, which claimed to represent 59,000 women religious in America.

According to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, there are 59,601 religious sisters total in the United States. Considering the fact that the CMSWR has at least 10,000 members, the LCWR math was immediately considered suspect by many in Catholic media.

The sisters “grossly overstated whom they represent,” said Sister Mary Ann Walsh, director of media relations for the USCCB. She pointed out that the letter had 55 signatories, including one who signed twice.

“There are 793 religious communities in the United States,” Sister Walsh said. “The math is clear. Network is far off the mark.”

Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver was likewise blunt in his column today in First Things.

“However the national debate on health care reform ends this week, the struggle has shown the worst side of a certain kind of ‘Catholic’ witness,” he wrote. “People who claim to be Catholic and then publicly undercut the teaching and leadership of their bishops spread confusion, cause grave damage to the believing community and give the illusion of moral cover to a version of health care ‘reform’ that is not simply bad, but dangerous.”

Earlier this week, the Washington Post ran an editorial by three key prelates in the Church in the U.S. – the chairs of the USCCB’s committees on Domestic Justice and Human Development, Pro-life Activities and Migration.

“We are bishops, not politicians, policy experts or legislative tacticians,” Bishop William Murphy, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo and Bishop John Wester wrote. “At this point of decision, we cannot compromise on basic moral principles. We can only urge – and hope and pray – that the House of Representatives will find the will and the means to adopt health care reform that protects the life, dignity, conscience and health of all.”

Is that too much to ask? Unfortunately, whether you’re a spiritual leader or pro-life politician, it seems that the worth of those “basic moral principles” and the courage to live and act by one’s conscience has been seriously devalued these days.

-- Elizabeth Hansen, Headline Bistro editor

St. Patrick's Day: A day for renewal?

St. Patrick’s Day 2010 has come and gone. For many, the day’s significance is best captured by grand city parades, a million manifestations of green, and washing down corned beef and cabbage with a pint at an Irish pub. While all those cultural elements are true and good it is important to remember that St. Patrick’s Day has a rich history of faith. The day also had a heightened significance this year as the Church in Ireland seeks forgiveness for past abuse, and looks to St. Patrick as a source for renewal.

March 17 is usually the day Ireland celebrates its Catholic identity with trademark Irish charm and exuberance.  This year the mood was slightly different. The nation has been shaken in recent months by a growing sex abuse crisis that has rocked the church to its core. Cardinal Sean Brady, himself facing claims that he improperly handled allegations against an accused priest-offender in 1975, delivered an impassioned St. Patrick’s Day homily in Armagh, Ireland. Cardinal Brady apologized for any personal errors in handling incidents of clergy sex abuse. He said, "Looking back I am ashamed that I have not always upheld the values that I profess and believe in."

Cardinal Brady went on to speak openly about the need for the church in Ireland to confront its failures and sins in an open and transparent way.

“Ireland and its people have much to be proud of. Yet every land and its people have moments of shame. Dealing with the failures of our past, as a country, as a church, or as an individual is never easy. Our struggle to heal the wounds of decades of violence, injury and painful memory in Northern Ireland are more than ample evidence of this. There is always tension between the possibilities we aspire to and our wounded memories and past mistakes.”

Despite the Church’s current difficulties, Cardinal Brady expressed a spirit of hope for the future. He called the next two years, as Ireland prepares to host the 50th International Eucharistic Congress in 2012, an urgent time for church renewal and the most critical period “since the time of St. Patrick.”

Cardinal Brady also made reference to Pope Benedict XVI’s upcoming pastoral letter on the sexual abuse crisis. Indeed, during Wednesday’s General Audience address the pope announced that his letter would be signed Friday and released soon afterwards. Today the Vatican announced that the letter will be released this Saturday.  The Holy Father expressed his hope that his letter would reach many of the faithful who were negatively impacted by the scandal. “I ask all of you to read it for yourselves, with an open heart and in a spirit of faith. My hope is that it will help in the process of repentance, healing and renewal.”

Father James Martin, S.J., editor of America Magazine, had an excellent article on the significance of St. Patrick’s Day published in the Huffington Post.  Martin traced St. Patrick’s life story and asked some intriguing questions for spiritual reflection. He pointed out that Patrick was born in Britain, but was kidnapped at the age of 16 and brought to Ireland where he worked as a slave for 6 years. He eventually escaped and returned home to pursue a religious vocation. Years later he would once again travel to Ireland, only this time under his own will and to serve as a slave for Christ. Father Martin sees an important lesson in this irony:

For the Christian, Patrick poses an important question: would you be willing to serve a place where you had known heartache? And how much is the Gospel worth to you? For everyone, he offers a challenge: can you forgive the people who have wronged you? Could you even love them?

Finally, New York’s Archbishop Timonthy Dolan offered another excellent reflection in his St. Patrick Day Letter to the Archdiocese of New York. Archbishop Dolan asked Catholics to use St. Patrick’s Day as an occasion to restore Sunday Mass to its proper place in the Christian home. He posed the questions:

Do we Catholics think that Sunday is the “climax of living”? Do we look forward to Sunday as a day dedicated to the Lord which gives meaning and purpose to our whole week? Or have we become accustomed to a weekend mentality, wherein we sleep late, catch up on chores around the house, run errands, drive the kids to sports, do a little recreation and then fit Sunday Mass in between everything else, if at all?

If that description sounds like you, I highly recommend giving the full letter a read. It is an excellent analysis of the many distractions in our high-tech age, and how easy it is to let our priorities fall by the wayside. Also, Archbishop Dolan (as only an Irishman can) humorously crafts responses to all the classic excuses for skipping Sunday mass.

Between the historic homily of Cardinal Brady, the poignant reflection of Father Martin and the proposed resolution of Archbishop Dolan -- St. Patrick’s Day 2010 did not end when the parades shut down and the last green beer was poured. For St. Patrick’s work as an intercessor and model of Christian evangelization is needed now more than ever.

-- David Naglieri