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Defending a Memorial Day Prayer

As our nation prepares Memorial Day observations from coast to coast, one Houston pastor is celebrating a court victory that will allow him to utter ‘Jesus Christ” in a Memorial Day invocation.
Rev. Scott Rainey, lead pastor at the Living Word Church of the Nazarene, was informed by the Department of Veterans Affairs, that a prayer he had prepared for a public observation of Memorial Day needed to be edited because of his use of Jesus’ name. Rainey’s prayer included a recitation of the Lord's Prayer and closes with one reference to Jesus. It was to be delivered at the Houston National Cemetery.

Rainey appealed for a restraining order that would allow the prayer to go forward as planned. U.S. District Judge Lynn Hughes sided with Rainey. Hughes issued the restraining order, providing this justification:

"The government cannot gag citizens when it says it is in the interest of national security, and it cannot do it in some bureaucrat's notion of cultural homogeneity...the right to free expression ranges from the dignity of Abraham Lincoln's speeches to Charlie Sheen's rants."

Our nation’s cemeteries are filled with rows upon rows of crosses that pay tribute to fallen heroes. It is only just that Christ’s name, forever linked to the cross and the virtue of sacrifice, can be safely proclaimed on a day when we commemorate those who gave their lives for us.

--David Naglieri

Are Americans Really Split Evenly on Abortion?

At first glance, Gallup's latest polling data on Americans' attitudes on abortions says yes -- and might even deal a slight blow to pro-lifers, whose numbers have fallen in the minority since last year. (49% of Americans say they are pro-choice, and 45% say they are pro-life -- just two years ago, pro-lifers were in the majority, with nearly a 10 percentage-point difference between the two).

Over on his blog at CatholicVote.org, however, Thomas Peters spells out three lessons from the poll -- and what talking points pro-lifers in the U.S. can pull from it.

For instance, beyond the simple question asking Americans to self-identify as either pro-life or pro-choice, it's clear that the vast majority of the country yet believes abortion should be legal only under certain -- if any -- circumstances. Just about a quarter (27%) of Americans say othewise, essentially arguing for a woman's unfettered access to abortion. The rest of the country disagrees with them.

Those who fell in the middle category -- that abortion should be legal only under circumstances -- were asked to further define their views: should the practice be legal under most, or few, circumstances? 61% answered "few," if any. Only 37% said "any," or "most."

Finally, despite their tolerance for the practice, most Americans still believe abortion is morally wrong, 51%-39%. Peters interprets the seeming disconnect this way:

Those who believe in their heart abortion is wrong but still support it as public policy are the most open to our arguments – and to be swayed to the side of life. The critical question becomes, for this audience, how to translate their moral sense about abortion into a public stand.

The practical arguments Peters puts forward at the end of his post should be reasonable to anyone willing to look at our national conversation on abortion with an open mind. (As a side note, Carl Anderson develops a very similar argument for America's consensus against abortion on demand in Beyond a House Divided, released last summer). It's all too simplistic to say that Americans are split evenly on abortion. The truth is far more encouraging -- and gives pro-lifers the impetus to work so that our nation's laws on abortion follow the lead of what its citizens actually believe.

Read more.

-- Elizabeth Hansen

'Dear Astronauts...'

In a historic link-up last weekend from the Vatican to the International Space Station, Pope Benedict XVI and the astronauts discussed exploration, science's role in seeking peace, and the beauty of the Earth when viewed from space. The pope's question-and-answer sessions with various groups -- priests, children, members of a church movement, for instance -- are always fascinating, but this one was unique in that it was Benedict, this time, who asked the questions.

Rocco Palmo has the video and transcript of the encounter.

-- Elizabeth Hansen

March for Life Canada Makes Huge Strides

The pro-life cause is gaining momentum in Canada, and the youth are leading the way. This month’s 14th annual Canadian National March for Life saw a record breaking 15,000 participants, most of whom were highschoolers, college students and young professionals. Organizers estimated that 80% of the crowd consisted of students.

The annual event marks the 42nd anniversary of the passage of Prime Minister Trudeau’s 1969 “Omnibus Bill,” which paved the way for abortion-on-demand in Canada.

Among the event speakers was Campaign Life Coalition Youth Director Alissa Golob who spoke to Zenit News explaining that the younger generations are becoming increasingly pro-life. "They ask their teachers, ‘Can we go to this,’ and they do what they need to do to get there,” she said.

Jim Hughes, president of Campaign Life Coalition and vice president of the International Right to Life Federation, also commented on the increase in youth involvement, observing that many of them are educating themselves on the issue and assuming roles in the movement.

LifeSiteNews remarked how, for the second year in a row, the march caught the attention of national news outlets including the CBC, CTV, Toronto Star, Globe and Mail, National Post, Metro, and Global, “reversing a long-standing trend in the mainstream media of diligently ignoring the largest annual rally on Parliament Hill.” The march made its first major breakthrough into the media spotlight last year when the controversy arose over the Conservative government’s decision to exclude abortion funding from its G8 maternal health initiative.

Significantly positive coverage came from the Sun News Network, indicating how the new station will likely be a game-changer for national media coverage of pro-life issues. LifeSiteNews reports:

[Sun News’] top story Thursday morning was a poll they had commissioned in advance of the March showing that 59% of Canadians want legal restrictions on abortion and more than a quarter want protections for the unborn from conception.  They also ran an internet poll on abortion throughout the day.

Brian Lilley, the host of Sun News’ Byline, dedicated his show Thursday evening to abortion, with an opening call for Canadians to build a culture of life.  “We need to speak openly about what an abortion is.  It’s the killing of an unborn child,” said Lilley…

“Not only do these abortions end a human life, they hurt the women involved.  We need to help these women,” he added.

Lilley also engaged in a dialogue with Abacus pollster David Caletto, debunking the myth that it would be political suicide for Canadian politicians to enshrine in law some legal protections for the unborn.

This year’s march also had significant publicity in the days leading up to the event, after Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson proclaimed May 12 “Respect for Life Day.” In addition, the Globe and Mail – one of Canada’s most left-leaning papers − announced the pro-life event in advance.  The Ottawa Citizen also publicized the event beforehand, promising coverage, photos and links to the Parliament’s webcam.

For highlight reels of the 2011 National March for Life, check out: The Power of Youth by DunnMedia Productions.

Michele Nuzzo-Naglieri

5 Signs the Pro-Life Cause Is Winning

Writing in Patheos' Evangelical Portal, Trevin Wax recounts five telling signs that the culture of life has a very real foothold in American society.

Wax notes that despite attempts by abortion advocates to "normalize" the practice, the painful reality of abortion has even made its way into the entertainment industry -- and in doing so, leaving reverberations less-than-favorable to supporters. (Take, for instance, rocker Steven Tyler's recent, autobiographical description of a girlfriend's abortion -- it left him "devastated" -- or tween heartthrob Justin Bieber's candid remark that abortion is "like killing a baby.")

"Bieber, ironically enough, was castigated by Barbara Walters for answering questions inappropriate for a person of his age -- even though girls can actually receive abortions, and not merely opine on them, at ages younger than 16," Wax writes. "That a veteran journalist like Walters fails to see the inconsistency in her position is a testament to how entrenched are the ideas among the older generation of abortion advocates."

Read more.

-- Elizabeth Hansen

An update from Egypt

Contributing to the Washington Post's "On Faith" section, a fellow of the University of Warwick and the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding tries to make sense of the recent sectarian violence in Egypt.

At least 12 Egyptians have died -- and dozens more left wounded -- in the spate of violent clashes between Muslims and Coptic Christians over the past week. From on-going protests and sit-ins by thousands of disaffected, mostly young Coptics, to rumors perpetuated by fundamentalist Muslims of the Coptic Church kidnapping Christian women who've allegedly converted to Islam, the volatile situation stands in stark contrast to the images from Tahrir Square that dominated the news only a few months ago -- that of Christians and Muslims standing hand in hand against Mubarak's government.

But was that solidarity really only an illusion?

Last weekend, the Los Angeles Times blogged that thousands of Christians and Muslims participated in a rally in Cairo's Tahrir Square on Friday, which, like the protests of earlier this year, included both a Mass and Muslims' Friday prayers. From "Babylon and Beyond":

Cleric Mazhar Shahin, who delivered the Friday prayer speech, said Islam and Christianity do not teach hatred or incitement of violence.

“Such strife is intended by a group of people who are neither Muslims nor Christians,” Shahin said as he warned Egyptians not to let extremists divide them.

Both Muslim and Coptic Christian protesters joined the demonstration, chanting, “Muslims and Copts are one hand” and carrying banners that said, “Egypt is for all Egyptians.”

“We need to have constitutional guarantees securing equal citizenship rights and respecting all religions without discrimination between Muslims and Copts,” Adel Mahmoud, who is Muslim, told Babylon and Beyond.

In his piece for the Washington Post, Dr. H.A. Hellyer notes that counter-revolutionary forces likely had some role in last week's violence. He concludes:

Yet, it is also clear that the unity of Egyptian is far stronger – and that the sense of Egyptian patriotism is more mainstream than the sense of Egyptian sectarianism. Egyptians can drain the swamp – and they can remove the fuel for those forces to use. Tahrir Square, Egyptians were reminded time and time again, brought out the best of what it meant to be an Egyptian. Now all Egyptians must find the best within themselves, and together, they must confront the worst – and defeat it.

-- Elizabeth Hansen

 

How the Sacraments can Combat the Mob

Should Mafia members receive church funerals? Sounds like an excellent topic for an ethics class or lunch table discussion topic for a group of seminarians. However, for Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe, the Archbishop of Naples, this question is the new front in the Church’s efforts to combat organized crime.

In a new directive issued to all the priests of Naples, Sepe announced that Camorristi (members of the Camorra, the Neapolitan brand of the Sicilian Mafia) will no longer be allowed church funerals or be accepted as godfathers or mothers at baptisms. "How can an anti-Christ present himself before Christians,” said Sepe.

This is an important step in the Church’s efforts to thwart the general acceptance of organized crime as a way of life in southern Italy. Many gangsters wear crucifixes, remain devoted to certain patron saints, and carry out their criminal activities with a thin veneer of catholic piety. By stripping these figures of the legitimacy and familiarity offered by Catholicism, one hopes that the cultural acceptance of their activities will similarly wane.

Sepe’s ground-breaking decision is also a postmortem tribute to the courageous Fr. Giuseppe Diana. In the early 1990’s Fr. Diana led a single-handed crusade against the Camorra’s negative influence on society. On Christmas Day 1991, Diana distributed a letter entitled "For the love of my people I will not stay silent,” calling on the church to resist the Camorra's powerful rule, which he likened to "a form of terrorism.” Three years later Fr. Diana was shot to death while preparing to celebrate mass. One of the reasons he was killed was that he had threatened to stop administering the sacraments to Camorra members, and had urged other pastors to do likewise.

Gomorrah, the gritty, best-selling expose of the Camorra by writer Roberto Saviano, has a chapter dedicated to the priest. He describes Diana’s motives in fighting the Camorra:

“He didn’t want merely to clean the wound but to understand the mechanisms of the metastasis, to prevent the cancer from spreading, to block the source of whatever was turning his home into a gold mine of capital with an abundance of cadavers.”

In one of Diana’s last letters he wrote “time has come to stop being a Gomorrah.” Cardinal Sepe’s courageous decision is a step in that direction. However, prayers are needed for the priests of Naples who now must enforce it.

--David Naglieri

30 years ago today....

...was the foundation of the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family.

Columbia has a series of articles commemorating the anniversary, including an exclusive reflection by Dr. Stanisław Grygiel and his wife,  Ludmiła -- longtime, personal friends of the late pontiff -- on the young Karol Wojtyła's dedication to serving marriages and families as a pastor in Poland. (Dr. Grygiel holds the Karol Wojtyła chair in philosophical anthropology at the John Paul II Institute in Rome).

"Wojtyła shared with families their joys and sorrows, which we frequently experienced ourselves," the Grygiels remember:

When our family was allocated a 400-square-foot cooperative apartment in 1970, the cardinal found time to bless it and would often come for a family dinner or to meet with a group of friends. We discussed the problems of philosophy, but also talked about the troubles of everyday life under a communist regime. Cardinal Wojtyła listened attentively, asked questions, gave advice, and tried to help in different ways. He knew how difficult it was for young married couples to get their own apartment, waiting many years while living in government cooperatives. Even the size of the apartments was regulated by the state: Each family member was entitled to 75 square feet.

Earlier, when Father Wojtyła was appointed auxiliary bishop of Kraków, he received a car made in the Soviet Union — a GAZ-M20 "Pobeda" — as a gift from his colleagues. He decided to sell it and use the money to build a house for the most needy young couples among his friends. But it turned out that the money received from selling the car would only cover the house's foundation.

Yet 30 years ago, the foundation of a papal institute was overshadowed by graver news: an assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II, himself.

Fr. Raymond de Souza recounts the shock of the event -- and the subsequent example the Holy Father gave the world of the "enduring power of forgiveness" when he later met with and forgave his would-be assassin.

"[T]he photograph of him in Agca’s cell, offering him a word of mercy, made an indelible impression," Fr. de Souza writes in the National Post. "Justice is a rare enough commodity in this world; mercy rarer still."

-- Elizabeth Hansen

Just how dedicated were Poland's pilgrims to making their way to JPII's beatification?

Very. Very. Dedicated.

As if the sea of red and white flags waving above the crowd gathered for Pope John Paul II's beatification wasn't enough of an indication that roughly a quarter of the country had temporarily relocated to Rome for the event (I joke -- slightly --) ... this Polish photographer's account of his own sleepless, 27-hour trip from Warsaw to St. Peter's Square simply blows me away.

Especially moving to me are the images of priests saying Mass on a train that brought 800 pilgrims from Warsaw to Rome, as well as his shots of the pilgrims themselves kneeling in the crowded aisles before the Eucharist.

It's one thing to make a once-in-a-lifetime, grueling trek to witness your country's favorite son be beatified by the pope. But to maintain such joy along the way -- a sense of spiritual purpose, and above all an attitude of prayer and thanksgiving -- that is the essence of a true pilgrimage.

-- Elizabeth Hansen

Love in the face of evil

After last week's events in Rome, other upcoming beatifications probably don't figure prominantly on many Catholics' radars. (After all, how do you top a crowd twice the size of Krakow's population?)

But next Sunday's beatification of Fr. Georg Häfner, a Carmelite priest who was martyred in the Dachau concentration camp in 1942, in my opinion deserves special attention. With a sensibility of practicing the faith and living out one's vocation in the midst of persecution that reminds me of St. Thomas More, Fr. Häfner never sought to confront the Nazi regime of his home country, according to his postulator, Andrea Ambrosi.

Still, his dedication to his duties as a priest -- particularly in ensuring his parishioners' continuous faith formation -- "coincided with the period of the Nationalist dictatorship," said Ambrosi. "[I]t was inevitable that his pastoral zeal would put him in conflict with the Nationalists, to the point that a priest as good and truly available to all as he was became a political 'enemy.'"

The tension with the Nazis came to a head in October 1941, when he was briefly detained then eventually sent to Dachau. Branded prisoner number 28 876, he was killed in August the following year.

Before his death, he said, "We do not want to condemn a human being, or sow rancor against anyone. Rather, we want to be good to all." Clearly, Fr. Häfner knew the evil he was facing. His words weren't wishful, romantic thinking --the priest who never set out to be martyred, but rather was sent to his death through following his call to serve Christ and the Church, was clearly grounded in reality. All the more reason for his words and example of fidelity and forgiveness to resonate in our modern ears.

His postulator sums up Fr. Häfner's aim in life this way -- and in turn gives us a beautifully succint description of the essence of Christianity: "to be love, to reveal love, to give love, so that men will have life and have it in abundance."

-- Elizabeth Hansen