Archive for May, 2014
Pope emphasizes ‘indissolubility of Christian matrimony’
Vatican City, Apr 25, 2014 / 02:48 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis on April 25 stressed the need for bishops and priests to give a “consistent witness” to Christian moral teaching, including the lifelong nature of Christian marriage, and to teach these truths “with great compassion.”
“The holiness and indissolubility of Christian matrimony, often disintegrating under tremendous pressure from the secular world, must be deepened by clear doctrine and supported by the witness of committed married couples,” Pope Francis said.
“Christian matrimony is a lifelong covenant of love between one man and one woman; it entails real sacrifices in order to turn away from illusory notions of sexual freedom and in order to foster conjugal fidelity.”
The Pope’s remarks came in a meeting with bishops from South Africa, Zimbabwe and Swaziland, who were making their routine ad limina visit to the Holy Father, Vatican Radio reports.
Pope Francis noted the pastoral challenges presented by marital separation and divorce, even in Christian families, and the lack of a stable home for many children.
“We also observe with great concern, and can only deplore, an increase in violence against women and children,” he continued. “All these realities threaten the sanctity of marriage, the stability of life in the home and consequently the life of society as a whole.”
He stressed the need to continue “indispensable” marriage preparation programs that give “new hope” to young people for their futures as husbands, wives, fathers and mothers.
Pope Francis’ comments follow media reports about the contents of a recent phone call he allegedly made to a remarried divorced woman in Argentina. The woman claimed that the Pope told her she could receive Holy Communion.
Catholic teaching recognizes the nature of matrimony as indissoluble, so a new marriage can only be contracted if the first union was found to be invalid. Those who have entered a new union without a recognition of annulment may not be admitted to Communion.
On April 24, Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said that the media coverage of the woman cannot be confirmed as reliable and is “a source of misunderstanding and confusion.”
In his comments to the southern African bishops, Pope Francis also noted the damage caused by abortion and an attitude of disrespect for life.
“Abortion compounds the grief of many women who now carry with them deep physical and spiritual wounds after succumbing to the pressures of a secular culture which devalues God’s gift of sexuality and the right to life of the unborn,” he said.
In addition, the Holy Father acknowledged the bishops’ reports that some Catholics are turning away from the Church to other groups, as well as a decline in family size that is affecting the number of vocations to the priesthood and religious life.
“In this sea of difficulties, we bishops and priests must give a consistent witness to the moral teaching of the Gospel,” he said. “I am confident that you will not weaken in your resolve to teach the truth ‘in season and out of season’ (2 Tim 4), sustained by prayer and discernment, and always with great compassion.”
The Pope also recognized several other concerns of the southern Africa bishops, including the plight of refugees and migrants, dishonesty and corruption in society, and unemployment.
“Most of your people can identify at once with Jesus who was poor and marginalized, who had no place to lay his head,” he observed. “In addressing these pastoral needs, I ask you to offer, in addition to the material support which you provide, the greater support of spiritual assistance and sound moral guidance, remembering that the absence of Christ is the greatest poverty of all.”
Despite the challenges facing the bishops, the Pope praised their “flourishing parishes” and their efforts to train permanent deacons and lay catechists. He praised African clergy and vowed religious who served “God’s most vulnerable sons and daughters,” including widows, single mothers, the divorced, children at risk, and the region’s several million AIDS orphans.
“Truly the richness and joy of the Gospel is being lived and shared by Catholics with others around them,” the Pope said. “I pray that they will continue to persevere in building up the Lord’s Kingdom with their lives that testify to the truth, and with the work of their hands that ease the sufferings of so many.”
He encouraged the bishops to “rekindle the precious gift of faith so as to renew your dedicated service to God’s people!”
“May the saints of Africa sustain you by their intercession. May Our Lady of Africa be always at your side, and may she guide you as you share in the teaching, sanctifying and governing mission of Christ,” he concluded.”
Pope Calls on U.N. Leaders to Resist Culture of Death
by Edward Pentin Friday, May 09, 2014
Aware of the U.N.’s contrary positions on many life issues, Pope Francis today challenged 29 heads of U.N. agencies to resist the “throwaway culture” and the “culture of death” which, he said, “nowadays sadly risk becoming passively accepted.”
It is one of the few times – if not the first – that Francis has used the term “culture of death” which was first coined by St. John Paul II in his 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae. John Paul defined the term as the “war of the powerful against the weak”, characterized by a society that lacks solidarity, and fostered by “powerful cultural, economic and political currents which encourage an idea of society excessively concerned with efficiency.” He included within this culture many current social evils such as procured abortion, modern slaveries such as pornography and drug addiction, disdain for the poor, and euthanasia.
In today’s private audience at the Vatican with the United Nations Chief Executives Board and Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, the Pope said that “an awareness of the dignity of each of our brothers and sisters whose life is sacred and inviolable from conception to natural death must lead us to share with complete freedom the goods which God’s providence has placed in our hands.”
As in his speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos earlier this year, the Holy Father also underlined the “indispensable” cooperation of the private sector in working alongside state initiatives for the common good.
Quoting St. John Paul II’s encyclicals Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, Centesimus Annus, and Benedict XVI’s Caritas in Veritate, he stressed that “equitable economic and social progress can only be attained by joining scientific and technical abilities with an unfailing commitment to solidarity accompanied by a generous and disinterested spirit of gratuitousness at every level.
“A contribution to this equitable development will also be made both by international activity aimed at the integral human development of all the world’s peoples and by the legitimate redistribution of economic benefits by the State, as well as indispensable cooperation between the private sector and civil society,” he added.
He closed by urging the UN leaders to “work together in promoting a true, worldwide ethical mobilization which, beyond all differences of religious or political convictions, will spread and put into practice a shared ideal of fraternity and solidarity, especially with regard to the poorest and those most excluded.”
Here below is his speech in full:
***
Mr Secretary General,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am pleased to welcome you, Mr Secretary-General and the leading executive officers of the Agencies, Funds and Programmes of the United Nations and specialized Organizations, as you gather in Rome for the biannual meeting for strategic coordination of the United Nations System Chief Executives Board.
It is significant that today’s meeting takes place shortly after the solemn canonization of my predecessors, Popes John XXIII and John Paul II. The new saints inspire us by their passionate concern for integral human development and for understanding between peoples. This concern was concretely expressed by the numerous visits of John Paul II to the Organizations headquartered in Rome and by his travels to New York, Geneva, Vienna, Nairobi and The Hague.
I thank you, Mr Secretary-General, for your cordial words of introduction. I thank all of you, who are primarily responsible for the international system, for the great efforts being made to ensure world peace, respect for human dignity, the protection of persons, especially the poorest and most vulnerable, and harmonious economic and social development.
The results of the Millennium Development Goals, especially in terms of education and the decrease in extreme poverty, confirm the value of the work of coordination carried out by this Chief Executives Board. At the same time, it must be kept in mind that the world’s peoples deserve and expect even greater results.
An essential principle of management is the refusal to be satisfied with current results and to press forward, in the conviction that those gains are only consolidated by working to achieve even more. In the case of global political and economic organization, much more needs to be achieved, since an important part of humanity does not share in the benefits of progress and is in fact relegated to the status of second-class citizens. Future Sustainable Development Goals must therefore be formulated and carried out with generosity and courage, so that they can have a real impact on the structural causes of poverty and hunger, attain more substantial results in protecting the environment, ensure dignified and productive labor for all, and provide appropriate protection for the family, which is an essential element in sustainable human and social development. Specifically, this involves challenging all forms of injustice and resisting the “economy of exclusion”, the “throwaway culture” and the “culture of death” which nowadays sadly risk becoming passively accepted.
With this in mind, I would like to remind you, as representatives of the chief agencies of global cooperation, of an incident which took place two thousand years ago and is recounted in the Gospel of Saint Luke (19:1-10). It is the encounter between Jesus Christ and the rich tax collector Zacchaeus, as a result of which Zacchaeus made a radical decision of sharing and justice, because his conscience had been awakened by the gaze of Jesus. This same spirit should be at the beginning and end of all political and economic activity. The gaze, often silent, of that part of the human family which is cast off, left behind, ought to awaken the conscience of political and economic agents and lead them to generous and courageous decisions with immediate results, like the decision of Zacchaeus. Does this spirit of solidarity and sharing guide all our thoughts and actions?
Today, in concrete terms, an awareness of the dignity of each of our brothers and sisters whose life is sacred and inviolable from conception to natural death must lead us to share with complete freedom the goods which God’s providence has placed in our hands, material goods but also intellectual and spiritual ones, and to give back generously and lavishly whatever we may have earlier unjustly refused to others.
The account of Jesus and Zacchaeus teaches us that above and beyond economic and social systems and theories, there will always be a need to promote generous, effective and practical openness to the needs of others. Jesus does not ask Zacchaeus to change jobs nor does he condemn his financial activity; he simply inspires him to put everything, freely yet immediately and indisputably, at the service of others. Consequently, I do not hesitate to state, as did my predecessors (cf. JOHN PAUL II, Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, 42-43; Centesimus Annus, 43; BENEDICT XVI, Caritas in Veritate, 6; 24-40), that equitable economic and social progress can only be attained by joining scientific and technical abilities with an unfailing commitment to solidarity accompanied by a generous and disinterested spirit of gratuitousness at every level. A contribution to this equitable development will also be made both by international activity aimed at the integral human development of all the world’s peoples and by the legitimate redistribution of economic benefits by the State, as well as indispensable cooperation between the private sector and civil society.
Consequently, while encouraging you in your continuing efforts to coordinate the activity of the international agencies, which represents a service to all humanity, I urge you to work together in promoting a true, worldwide ethical mobilization which, beyond all differences of religious or political convictions, will spread and put into practice a shared ideal of fraternity and solidarity, especially with regard to the poorest and those most excluded.
Invoking divine guidance on the work of your Board, I also implore God’s special blessing for you, Mr Secretary-General, for the Presidents, Directors and Secretaries General present among us, and for all the personnel of the United Nations and the other international Agencies and Bodies, and their respective families.
Read more: http://www.ncregister.com/blog/edward-pentin/pope-calls-on-u.n.-leaders-to-resist-culture-of-death#ixzz31wU1LR2Y
A Healthy Baby :)
by KC Schnitker, Monday, April 28, 2014
My Dear Auntie,
You know what a weirdo I am! Here again is another case where I am afraid you might find me weird, weird, weird!! You asked if I plan to have the prenatal bunch of tests and I replied, “no”. I am sure that sounded strange.
Being pregnant at 46 is a little out of fashion, that is unless I focused on a career first and waited to have children until later- which many women do these days.
I do not plan to have the recommended invasive, expensive and dangerous barrage of tests because there is not much they can do if they discover a problem. An ultrasound and blood test would give us any heads up we or the baby would need at delivery if a medical issue was discovered. I also know that if they do discover something wrong, they will likely counsel us to have an abortion, which, of course, we would not do (reminds me of Nazi Germany- this whole contemporary, neurotic emphasis on perfection). If they did counsel us for an abortion, things might get very ugly and I am certain some regretful strong and pointed words would come out of my mouth.
From the time I was 35, the medical community (and society) has tried to instill terror into me (not only in me but in others as well) about having more children. Consider this though, since time immemorial women were having babies into their 40’s. They had babies until their biological clock stopped ticking, until their fertility came to it’s end and God shut the door. The door opens and it shuts—very big fact of life. There was never a time when we had to artificially determine, “Ok, I am X age, so therefore we should not have any more children”.
Anyway, in regards to a healthy baby- you will think me even weirder now—I actually told God that if He wanted to bless us with a baby with Down’s (for example), we would be very pleased and blessed. Children with Down’s are such a blessing to everyone. They are innocent and sweet and walking saints among us. They teach us to love and to give more freely, joyfully and sacrificially.
If we did have a baby with extraordinary health challenges, of course like anyone, I would be frightened. I would be frightened that I could not get over my own selfishness enough to really give our child all the love and attention needed. For this, I would have to pray and ask God who, I know (but have to learn over and over) would give me the necessary Graces.
The Church teaches that every life is worth living. God is especially close to the poor and the suffering and what would it matter ultimately if a person suffered due to ill health, lack of beauty, poverty if in the end they won the happiness of eternal life? I do not think they would remember it in eternity with God. I see people with perfect health, beauty and wealth suffer in ways harder to treat than illness or disfigurement; they suffer from greed, selfishness, lust, depression, boredom, dissatisfaction, etc., etc. Shoot, I suffer from some of those too at times.
I have a childhood friend who is married and very successful in her career—both she and her husband each earn 6 figures. She told me she does not want to have children because of the way she sees teens behave these days, the turbulent political climate and because of the general lowering of morality so apparent in the media. I was very sad to hear this and did not have a good way to answer her concerns. In my work teaching about God’s thrilling plan for love and marriage (aka moral family planning and NFP), I am always seeking ways to more effectively communicate this plan to couples who have mostly been catechized by the world and hold its values. It’s tough because it is a very counter-cultural message- but one that brings true happiness and satisfaction. I often go to the encyclicals and Church teaching pertaining to marriage and family for help and inspiration: Humanae Vitae (ever read this? It’s really good!), Evangelium Vitae, Familiaris Consortio and Theology of the Body.
I stumbled upon a quote that gave me the answer I needed to encourage my friend in Familiaris Consortio:
“Scientific and technical progress…not only offers the hope of creating a new and better humanity, but also causes ever greater anxiety regarding the future. Some ask themselves if it is a good thing to be alive or if it would be better never to have been born; they doubt therefore if it is right to bring others into life when perhaps they will curse their existence in a cruel world with unforeseeable terrors.
But the Church firmly believes that human life, even if weak and suffering is always a splendid gift of God’s goodness. Against the pessimism and selfishness which cast a shadow over the world, the Church stands for life: in each human life she sees the splendor of that “Yes,” that “Amen,” who is Christ Himself.”(84) (emphasis mine)
A very beautiful attitude!! And also VERY counter-cultural. Our culture tells us the only lives worth living are those that have health, wealth and beauty and that these hold the keys to happiness. Of course, it’s not true. Some of the most miserable people I have known have ‘it all’. I understand that we are all constantly bombarded by this ‘culture of death’, as Saint JPII put it, and it’s eugenic mania and also by the population control freaks who would like us to believe that the solution to the world’s ills is found in the elimination of human beings. These erroneous philosophies and ideas continually bombard us. It’s no wonder we fall prey. Without the Church we are rather helpless.
I am not making assumptions about your views (which were not out of the ordinary), but rather addressing modern trends I notice, especially because I am the mother of 7. The comments I receive are interesting- you might imagine- and I find it fun to think up loving one liner comebacks to hopefully induce a change in perspective. My husband, Ed, also has some good ones- In response to a co worker’s sarcastic, “Don’t you know what causes that?” He in good humor has replied, “Yeah, but can I help it if we are good at it!?”
Anyway, I hope this letter sheds some light on my decisions and choices. And hopefully takes away at least a little of my ‘weirdness’ :)
Thanks for your love and support and interest. Muah!!!!!
Happiest of Easters!!!
Love,
Your Little Niece
KC Schnitker is the Executive Director of
Family of the Americas Foundation and a
speaker and instructor of natural family planning
for the Archdiocese of Washington.
info@FamilyNFP.com
The Theology of the Body According to St. John Paul II
By Professor John S. Grabowski, Department of Theology, Catholic University of America
http://www.foryourmarriage.org/
When John Paul II was elevated to the papacy, he unveiled a series of reflections on which he had worked for some time. He gave these in the form of weekly general audiences between 1979 and 1984. These talks became known as “The Theology of the Body” and have had a growing impact on Christian thinking about what it means to be embodied as male or female.
Reflecting on the Genesis accounts of creation, Pope John Paul II underscored the way in which the body reflects or expresses the person. The human person discovers his dignity through his body and its capacity to express his ability to think and to choose, unlike the animals, who lack this ability. (See Genesis 2:19-21.)
Yet humanity is radically lacking in its expression in only one sex. The full meaning of the body and hence the human person is revealed only when the man stands over against another unique way of being human–woman. This distinctive way of being a person and a gift for others, male and female, reflects what the late pope called “the nuptial meaning of the body.” Coming together in the profound partnership of marriage, man and woman live for the other in mutual love and deference. This union is expressed concretely in the couple’s bodily gift of themselves to one another in sexual intercourse. Here they speak a profound language of total self-gift and unconditional fidelity.
The late pope understood the impact of sin on the human person. The Fall brings about a series of ruptures within the person, radically diminishing the body’s capacity to express reason and freedom. It introduces alienation and a struggle for control into the relationship of male and female, distorting their relationships in marriage and in human society (cf. Genesis 3:16). And it devastates the human sexual drive, redirecting it from an impulse toward life-giving interpersonal union between covenantal partners to a desire to use and exploit others for personal satisfaction.
Yet with the death and resurrection of Christ, sin does not have the last word on the condition of the body. The grace that flows from the cross and resurrection effects a “redemption of the body,” not just in heaven but here and now. Through the healing effects of Christian prayer and sacramental worship, the body is enabled to express the person and his or her ability to think and freely choose.
The grace of Christ also enables men and women to overcome their mutual conflict and live together in marriage in the exercise of “mutual submission out of reverence for Christ” (cf. Ephesians 5:21; Mulieris Dignitatem, no. 24). This transforming grace enables the body in its maleness and femaleness to be offered as the expression of the “sincere gift of self” in a way reflective of the person’s vocation– as single, married, or a consecrated celibate.
The human person as a unique embodied subject is thus understood through the three panels (or triptych) of the Christian mysteries of creation, sin, and redemption. The result is what John Paul II himself modestly referred to as an “adequate” understanding of the person. This vision enables us to recognize and affirm that the body and the gift of sexuality are good. At the same time it highlights why this gift is falsified by extramarital or contraceptive sex that sever sexual union from its inherent meanings of unconditional fidelity and life-giving fruitfulness.
The mystery of the human person is continually confronted by new issues and challenges. For example, much of the reflection on the body and its relation to the person within Christian tradition has been undertaken by men. During his pontificate John Paul II called for a “new feminism” that would better account for the distinctive insights, experiences, and gifts of women.
In addition, issues of the relationship between the body and the person take on new urgency in light of expanding scientific and medical technology that has raised questions at both the beginning of life (reproductive technologies, the status of cryo-preserved embryos, stem cell research, and attempts to clone human beings) and its end (the personhood of the persistently comatose, the meaning of suffering, and how to define the moment of death). To continue to affirm the fundamental biblical conviction of the goodness of the embodied person created in the image of God while addressing such pressing questions is the task for the further refinement of the “adequate anthropology” of John Paul II’s “Theology of the Body.”
Yasmin Lawsuit Nets $14 Million Award
Original article from:http://www.lawyersandsettlements.com
Chicago, IL: Women who claim they have suffered from Beyaz side effects might be watching Yasmin litigation closely, especially after a jury awarded a plaintiff $14 million in her lawsuit concerning Yasmin. Beyaz birth control is similar to Yasmin and carries similar warnings. So far, however, the focus of litigation has been on Yasmin and Yaz.
Yasmin Lawsuit Nets Million Award; Will It Affect Beyaz Lawsuits?In Yasmin litigation, a jury in Chicago recently awarded a woman $14 million in her lawsuit against her doctor, who recommended she take Yasmin. Thirteen days after she started the medication, Mariola Zapalski suffered a stroke. She survived, but was paralyzed on her left side and has a permanent brain injury, and requires round-the-clock care from her husband, who had to quit his job, according to The Associated Press (4/20/14).
The medical malpractice lawsuit against the doctor alleged that the physician did not tell Zapalski about the risks associated with Yasmin and should not have placed her on the drug because Zapalski had underlying risk factors. A lawsuit filed against Resurrection Medical Center, which referred Zapalski to her doctor, was reportedly settled for $2.5 million.
Many lawsuits concerning fourth-generation birth control such as Yasmin and Yaz allege that the drugs’ manufacturer knew or should have known about the risk of blood clot and stroke but did not adequately warm women about those risks. Zapalski’s lawsuit is different because it alleged the doctor did not inform her of the risks.
Yasmin, Yaz and Beyaz all contain drospirenone, a synthetic progestin. Beyaz is slightly different from the other fourth-generation birth control pills because it also contains folate. Drospirenone has been linked in studies to an increased risk of blood clots and stroke. In 2011, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a warning that birth control medications containing drospirenone could potentially carry a higher risk of blood clots than other forms of birth control.
Preliminary results of an FDA study into drospirenone-containing birth control suggests that women who take such birth control are at 1.5 times the risk of blood clots as women who take other hormonal birth control. Despite critics arguing that there are safer forms of birth control that are just as effective, the FDA has not removed Yasmin, Yaz or Beyaz from the market.
Bayer, maker of Yasmin, Yaz and Beyaz, has settled some lawsuits involving allegations about Yasmin and Yaz.
The Days of Socially Acceptable Christianity Are Over
5/19/2014 11:41:00 AM
By Laurie Higgins -Illinois Family Institute
Last week, Princeton University law professor Robert P. George delivered the following speech titled “Ashamed of the Gospel?” at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast. Every faithful follower of Christ-Catholic and Protestant-should read this speech. Pastors and priests should read it from the pulpit. Adult, college, high school, and middle school Sunday school classes should read and discuss it. Give copies of it to your pastors, priests, elders-even if doing so is uncomfortable.
Anyone who claims they don’t have time to read it, should give up one television program, skip reading one newspaper, or abbreviate one workout session this week to read it. It is that important.
After reading it, think deeply and talk about what you are prepared to give up in order to be a servant of Christ who willingly chose a brutal death so that you could have eternal life.
Ashamed of the Gospel?
By Robert P George
The days of socially acceptable Christianity are over. The days of comfortable Catholicism are past. It is no longer easy to be a faithful Christian, a good Catholic, an authentic witness to the truths of the Gospel. A price is demanded and must be paid. There are costs of discipleship-heavy costs, costs that are burdensome and painful to bear.
Of course, one can still safely identify oneself as a “Catholic,” and even be seen going to mass. That is because the guardians of those norms of cultural orthodoxy that we have come to call “political correctness” do not assume that identifying as “Catholic” or going to mass necessarily means that one actually believes what the Church teaches on issues such as marriage and sexual morality and the sanctity of human life.
And if one in fact does not believe what the Church teaches, or, for now at least, even if one does believe those teachings but is prepared to be completely silent about them, one is safe-one can still be a comfortable Catholic. In other words, a tame Catholic, a Catholic who is ashamed of the Gospel-or who is willing to act publicly as if he or she were ashamed-is still socially acceptable. But a Catholic who makes it clear that he or she is not ashamed is in for a rough go-he or she must be prepared to take risks and make sacrifices. “If,” Jesus said, “anyone wants to be my disciple, let him take up his cross and follow me.” We American Catholics, having become comfortable, had forgotten, or ignored, that timeless Gospel truth. There will be no ignoring it now.
The question we face
The question each of us today must face is this: Am I ashamed of the Gospel?And that question opens others: Am I prepared to pay the price that will be demanded if I refuse to be ashamed, if, in other words, I am prepared to give public witness to the massive politically incorrect truths of the Gospel, truths that the mandarins of an elite culture shaped by the dogmas of expressive individualism and me-generation liberalism do not wish to hear spoken? Or, put more simply, am I willing, or am I, in the end, unwilling, to take up my cross and follow Christ?
Powerful forces and currents in our society press us to be ashamed of the Gospel-ashamed of the good, ashamed of our faith’s teachings on the sanctity of human life in all stages and conditions, ashamed of our faith’s teachings on marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife. These forces insist that the Church’s teachings are out of date, retrograde, insensitive, uncompassionate, illiberal, bigoted-even hateful. These currents bring pressure on all of us-and on young Catholics in particular-to yield to this insistence. They threaten us with consequences if we refuse to call what is good evil, and what is evil good. They command us to conform our thinking to their orthodoxy, or else say nothing at all.
Do you believe, as I believe, that every member of the human family, irrespective of age or size or stage of development or condition of dependency, is the bearer of inherent dignity and an equal right to life? Do you hold that the precious child in the womb, as a creature made in the very image and likeness of God, deserves respect and protection? Then, powerful people and institutions say, you are a misogynist-a hater of women, someone who poses a threat to people’s privacy, an enemy of women’s “reproductive freedom.” You ought to be ashamed!
Do you believe, as I believe, that the core social function of marriage is to unite a man and woman as husband and wife to be mother and father to children born of their union? Do you hold, as I hold, that the norms that shape marriage as a truly conjugal partnership are grounded in its procreative nature-its singular aptness for the project of child-rearing? Do you understand marriage as the uniquely comprehensive type of bond-comprehensive in that it unites spouses in a bodily way and not merely at the level of hearts and minds-that is oriented to and would naturally be fulfilled by their conceiving and rearing children together? Then these same forces say you are a homophobe, a bigot, someone who doesn’t believe in equality. You even represent a threat to people’s safety. You ought to be ashamed!
But, of course, what you believe, if you believe these things, is a crucial part of the Gospel. You believe the truth-in its fullness-about the dignity of the human person and the nature of marriage and sexual morality as proclaimed by the Church-our only secure source of understanding the Gospel message. So when you are invited to distance yourself from these teachings or go silent about them, when you are threatened with opprobrium or the loss of professional opportunities or social standing if you do not, you are being pressured to be ashamed of the Gospel-which means to give up faith in the Lordship of Christ and hope in the triumph of goodness, righteousness, and love in and through Him.
Heavy costs
To be a witness to the Gospel today is to make oneself a marked man or woman. It is to expose oneself to scorn and reproach. To unashamedly proclaim the Gospel in its fullness is to place in jeopardy one’s security, one’s personal aspirations and ambitions, the peace and tranquility one enjoys, one’s standing in polite society. One may in consequence of one’s public witness be discriminated against and denied educational opportunities and the prestigious credentials they may offer; one may lose valuable opportunities for employment and professional advancement; one may be excluded from worldly recognition and honors of various sorts; one’s witness may even cost one treasured friendships. It may produce familial discord and even alienation from family members. Yes, there are costs of discipleship-heavy costs.
There was a time, not long ago, when things were quite different….Biblical and natural law beliefs about morality were culturally normative; they were not challenges to cultural norms. But those days are gone. What was once normative is now regarded as heretical-the moral and cultural equivalent of treason. And so, here we are.
You see, for us, as for our faithful Evangelical friends, it is now Good Friday. The memory of Jesus’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem has faded. Yes, he had been greeted-and not long ago-by throngs of people waving palm branches and shouting “Hosanna to the Son of David.” He rode into the Jerusalem of Europe and the Jerusalem of the Americas and was proclaimed Lord and King. But all that is now in the past. Friday has come. The love affair with Jesus and his Gospel and his Church is over. Elite sectors of the cultures of Europe and North America no longer welcome his message. “Away with him,” they shout. “Give us Barabbas!”
The days of comfortable Catholicism are past
So for us there is no avoiding the question: Am I ashamed of the Gospel? Am I unwilling to stand with Christ by proclaiming His truths? Oh, things were easy on Palm Sunday. Standing with Jesus and His truths was the in thing to do. Everybody was shouting “Hosanna.” But now it’s Friday, and the days of acceptable Christianity are over. The days of comfortable Catholicism are past. Jesus is before Pilate. The crowds are shouting “crucify him.” The Lord is being led to Calvary. Jesus is being nailed to the cross.
And where are we? Where are you and I? Are we afraid to be known as his disciples? Are we ashamed of the Gospel?
Will we muster the strength, the courage, the faith to be like Mary the Mother of Jesus, and like John, the apostle whom Jesus loved, and stand faithfully at the foot of the cross? Or will we, like all the other disciples, flee in terror? Fearing to place in jeopardy the wealth we have piled up, the businesses we have built, the professional and social standing we have earned, the security and tranquility we enjoy, the opportunities for worldly advancement we cherish, the connections we have cultivated, the relationships we treasure, will we silently acquiesce to the destruction of innocent human lives or the demolition of marriage? Will we seek to “fit in,” to be accepted, to live comfortably in the new Babylon? If so, our silence will speak. Its words will be the words of Peter, warming himself by the fire: “Jesus the Nazorean? I tell you, I do not know the man.”
Perhaps I should make explicit what you have no doubt perceived as implicit in my remarks. The saving message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ includes, integrally, the teachings of His church on the profound and inherent dignity of the human person and the nature of marriage as a conjugal bond-a one-flesh union. The question of faith and fidelity that is put to us today is not in the form it was put to Peter-“surely you are you this man’s disciple”-it is, rather, do you stand for the sanctity of human life and the dignity of marriage as the union of husband and wife? These teachings are not the whole Gospel-Christianity requires much more than their affirmation. But they are integral to the Gospel-they are not optional or dispensable. To be an authentic witness to the Gospel is to proclaim these truths among the rest. The Gospel is, as St. John Paul the Great said, a Gospel of Life. And it is a Gospel of family life, too. And it is these integral dimensions of the Gospel that powerful cultural forces and currents today demand that we deny or suppress.
History is not our judge
These forces tell us that our defeat in the causes of marriage and human life are inevitable. They warn us that we are on the “wrong side of history.” They insist that we will be judged by future generations the way we today judge those who championed racial injustice in the Jim Crow South. But history does not have sides. It is an impersonal and contingent sequence of events, events that are determined in decisive ways by human deliberation, judgment, choice, and action. The future of marriage and of countless human lives can and will be determined by our judgments and choices-our willingness or unwillingness to bear faithful witness, our acts of courage or cowardice. Nor is history, or future generations, a judge invested with god-like powers to decide, much less dictate, who was right and who was wrong. The idea of a “judgment of history” is secularism’s vain, meaningless, hopeless, and pathetic attempt to devise a substitute for what the great Abrahamic traditions of faith know is the final judgment of Almighty God. History is not God. God is God. History is not our judge. God is our judge.
One day we will give an account of all we have done and failed to do. Let no one suppose that we will make this accounting to some impersonal sequence of events possessing no more power to judge than a golden calf or a carved and painted totem pole. It is before God-the God of truth, the Lord of history-that we will stand. And as we tremble in His presence it will be no use for any of us to claim that we did everything in our power to put ourselves on “the right side of history.”
One thing alone will matter: Was I a faithful witness to the Gospel? Did I do everything in my power to place myself on the side of truth? The one whose only begotten Son tells us that he, and he alone, is “the way, the truth, and the life” will want to know from each of us whether we sought the truth with a pure and sincere heart, whether we sought to live by the truth authentically and with integrity, and-let me say this with maximum clarity-whether we stood up for the truth, speaking it out loud and in public, bearing the costs of discipleship that are inevitably imposed on faithful witnesses to truth by cultures that turn away from God and his law. Or were we ashamed of the Gospel?
The Gospel is true. The whole Gospel is true. Its teachings about life and marriage are true-even its hardest sayings, such as Christ’s clear teaching about the indissolubility of what God has united and about the adulterous nature of any sexual relation outside that bond.
“I do not know the man”
If we deny truths of the Gospel, we really are like Peter, avowing that “I do not know the man.” If we go silent about them, we really are like the other apostles, fleeing in fear. But when we proclaim the truths of the Gospel, we really do stand at the foot of the cross with Mary the Mother of Jesus and John the disciple whom Jesus loved. We show by our faithfulness that we are notashamed of the Gospel. We prove that we are truly Jesus’s disciples, willing to take up his cross and follow him-even to Calvary.
And we bear witness by our fidelity to the greatest truth of all, namely, that the story does not end at Golgotha. Evil and death do not triumph. Yes, it is Good Friday, but the one who became like us in all things but sin conquers death to redeem us from our transgressions and give us a full share in eternal life-the divine life of the most blessed Trinity. The cross cannot defeat him. The sepulcher cannot hold him. His heavenly Father will not abandon him. The psalm that begins in despair, Eloi, Eloi lama sabachtani, ends in hope and joy. Easter is coming. The crucified Christ will be raised from the dead. The chains of sin will be broken. “Oh death, where is thy victory? Oh death, where is thy sting?”
I grew up as a Catholic in a Protestant culture. The Protestants of my boyhood were what we today call Evangelicals. In those days, the religious differences between us seemed vast, though today the personal and spiritual bonds we have formed in bearing common witness to marriage and the sanctity of human life have relativized, though, of course, not eliminated, those differences. We now know that Evangelical Protestants are truly our brothers and sisters in Christ-separated from us in certain ways, to be sure, but bound together with us nevertheless in spiritual fellowship. Growing up, I admired the strength of their faith, and their willingness openly to profess it. And I loved their hymns. One of the most familiar ones contains a vital message for us Catholics today. You will recognize the first verse:
On a hill faraway, stood an old rugged cross,
The emblem of suffering and shame;
I love that old cross, where the dearest and best,
For a world of lost sinners was slain.
And the chorus goes:
I will cherish the old rugged cross,
Till my trophies at last I lay down.
I will cling to the old rugged cross,
And exchange it someday for a crown.
Yes, there’s the story. Christ must endure the sufferings of Good Friday to fulfill his salvific mission. But Easter is coming. And we, who cherish his cross, and are willing to bear his suffering and shame, will share in his glorious resurrection. We who cling to that old rugged cross will exchange it someday for a crown.
And then comes the next verse, and how perfectly it captures the attitude we must adopt, the stance we must take, the witness we must give, in these times of trial if we are to be true disciples of Jesus:
To the old rugged cross, I will ever be true,
Its shame and reproach gladly bear,
Till he calls me someday, to my home far away,
Where forever his glory I’ll share.
Yes.
And I’ll cherish that old rugged cross,
Till my trophies at last I lay down.
I will cling to the old rugged cross,
And exchange it someday for a crown.
Yes, for us Catholics and all who seek to be faithful, it’s Good Friday. We are no longer acceptable. We can no longer be comfortable. It is for us a time of trial, a time of testing by adversity. But lest we fail the test, as perhaps many will do, let us remember that Easter is coming. Jesus will vanquish sin and death. We will experience fear, just as the apostles did-that is inevitable. Like Jesus himself in Gethsemane, we would prefer not to drink this cup. We would much rather be acceptable Christians, comfortable Catholics. But our trust in him, our hope in his resurrection, our faith in the sovereignty of his heavenly Father can conquer fear. By the grace of Almighty God, Easter is indeed coming. Do not be ashamed of the Gospel. Never be ashamed of the Gospel.
Robert Peter George is McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University, where he lectures on constitutional interpretation, civil liberties and philosophy of law. He also serves as the director of the James Madison Program.
To listen, beginning at about 20 minutes:
Note:
Carlo Maria Vigano, Apostolic Nuncio to the Untied States, read a prayer by Pope Francis as the closing prayer for the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast, 2014. The Pope’s prayer ended this way:
“Our Lady of America, pray for us. Amen.”
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