Reasoning Through a Bone-Deep Faith

March 29, 2011 By Elizabeth Scalia

My column at First Things this week is a slightly enlarged response to a question I received in an email, from a young man who wrote: “I know the Church puts a high premium on docility, humility and the emptying of self,” he wrote, “but common sense tells me that none of those should involve self-lobotomizing. Please tell me I’m not wrong.”

Good heavens, no—you’re very right. While I may not have the brain of an Aquinas or an Augustine, do I seem to you to be in any way conformist or lobotomized? Quite the opposite of what you fear, Catholicism not only invites the application of reason into one’s faith—it rather insists upon it.

I may be a cradle Catholic given a fair grounding in faith thanks to some nuns and family members, but I have still had to bring my whole self into my explorations of the faith, in order to understand it and to conform—imperfectly, but with firm intentions—to its teachings in genuine freedom, rather than compulsion, and freedom is what the faith brings.

For me, every tenet of Catholicism—including the pro-life teaching—has been one I’ve had to really research, read about, and reason out in my head and through prayer—and the prayer part is absolutely essential, because that is where what you are learning becomes bone-deep; it is the “setting agent,” as it were. In this way—using research, reading, reason, and recollected prayer—I have always come down on the side of Catholic orthodoxy; never because she has simply dished it out and I’ve eaten it, but because she has made a sound argument that fed me in my totality: mind, spirit, and sinew.

Read the rest here

UPDATE:
Two more excellent examples of Faith and Reason kissing and bringing forth something powerful: Take a look at Tim Muldoon’s piece on the film Of Gods and Men:

Our communications-saturated age is characterized by a “if it bleeds, it leads” mentality. Violence among people of different religious groups is played up in headlines because it incites passions and sells newspapers. Yet there is a much quieter, and vastly more common story of friendship among people of different faiths. The exquisitely wrought film Of Gods and Men dares to tell one such story, and thus represents an important contribution to our thinking about faith traditions today. Unlike those who want to assert that religions are jockeying for adherents—like so many political groups competing for power—this film tells the story of men who give themselves totally to their Catholic faith, and yet who look upon the Muslims around them with great love and affection. And the Muslim villagers with whom the monks live and work similarly show great affection toward the monks, showing that friendship can grow even when faiths differ.

And then, read Pat McNamara, who closes out Women’s History Month with a look at Dorothy Day, a woman no one would ever call “docile and lobotomized.”

By the 1920s, she was living on Staten Island with Forster Batterham, an English botanist. After her abortion, she doubted whether she could ever have children, and her subsequent pregnancy led to a religious awakening. “No human creature could receive or contain so vast a floor of love and joy as I often felt after the birth of my child,” wrote Day. “With this came the need to worship, to adore . . .”

She had her daughter Tamar baptized Catholic, and Day herself soon followed. But Forster was a committed atheist, and the move led to their separation. Day supported Tamar through her writing.

Looking to unite her social concerns with her faith, she found an answer in Peter Maurin, an elderly, eccentric Frenchman brimming with reform notions. He urged her to found a paper promoting Catholic social thought. As she protested finances, he told her not to worry, just start. On May 1, 1933, The Catholic Worker was born, selling for a penny a copy. By December, 100,000 copies a month were printed.

They also began directly serving the poor on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Asked how that started, she said: “Well, if your brother’s hungry, you feed him. You don’t meet him at the door and say, ‘Go be thou fed’!” Day and her co-workers lived in solidarity with society’s outcasts, no easy task. In her diary, she confided: “The dirt, the garbage heaped in the gutters, the flies, the hopelessness of the human beings around me, all oppress me.”

More great, not-docile, not-lobotomized writing here

Filed Under: Faith and Reason, First Things Tagged With: , , ,

Musing on Masturbation

March 15, 2011 By Elizabeth Scalia

Every once in a while, I’ll get a sneering or giggling, always condescending email from someone who has stumbled upon this old piece about artificial birth control, oral sex, and other things and feels the need to sound off on the unreasonable stupidity of Catholicism.

Well, I can certainly be stupid and unreasonable — I often am, about many things — and I am the first one to admit that others know a great deal more than I do. But Catholicism is the farthest thing from stupid or unreasonable. There is not a life-question that has not been faithfully thought-out, explored, considered from all perspectives and given thorough exposition by some of the finest theological and philosophical minds of the past 2,000, and then burnished with nuance and humanity via the lives and examples of possibly less-educated, but phenomenally gifted saints.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church is a valuable condensation — or distillation, if you will — of all of the wisdom of our forebears and our contemporary fellows. It is a shame so few people ever pick it up. When I was beginning to discuss human sexuality with my kids, the catechism was a great springboard into some terrific discussions. I thought the section on masturbation was eminently wise and useful — it touched on both the gravity of the matter, and acknowledged how broadly misunderstood is the Church’s teaching, and how psychology, maturity, social factors and other human aspects are relevant to considerations.

Often I think that people’s resistance to even accepting the concept of “sin” in their lives is rooted in a simple unwillingness to understand what the nature of sin is at its core — a selfishness and a turning away from the Source of All Love — because they simply see it as a rejection of themselves.

Over at Inside Catholic, the tireless Mark Shea, who sometimes leaves me breathless with the amount of copy he generates, has decided to flesh out the Church’s understanding and teaching regarding masturbation

. . .it is worth noting a few things about the specific sin of masturbation my reader references. First, of course, is the fact that his is not the first somewhat incredulous reaction I have seen to this teaching. When most folk run across this teaching for the first time it can be a shock, since it seems (to our culture) like the matter of masturbation is so trivial that to talk of mortal sin in connection with it is (they suppose) surely some sort of holdover reaction from the Dark Ages. In a world full of war, rape, pillage, and murder, how can anybody take seriously the notion that this seeming triviality is a sin as capable of sending somebody to Hell (if unrepented) as adultery or murder?

Yet, from the logic of divine charity and, in particular, the theology of the sacrament of marriage, the Church’s teaching about the gravity of masturbation makes perfect sense. Indeed, I would note that it can (not must, but can) be argued that it is, in fact, graver than adultery. After all, which sin — adultery or masturbation — at least involves the disordered love of another person and so participates, to that degree, in divine love (albeit, I repeat, in a radically disordered way)? Answer: adultery. With masturbation, even disordered love of another person is totally excluded. It is a much more purely selfish sin, reducing the core act of marriage to something ordered completely toward one’s own appetite with no love for any other human being involved at all.

This is a long, thoughtful piece, well-reasoned, instructive and — if one reads it in good faith — very sensible and sensitive. It completely gives lie to the notion that the church is “unreasonably stupid,” although I hold out no hope of people who want to believe she is stupid being easily persuaded otherwise. I suggest printing the piece out, and reading it with adults or older children who can be trusted to actually give the subject its due. If nothing else, it will give folks something to think about.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: ,

Women's History: Drexel, Connelly, Addiss?

March 3, 2011 By Elizabeth Scalia

March is Women’s History Month, and a good time to introduce you to the sorts of formidable women who made (or are making) enormous differences to the lives of many, but who frequently go unmentioned in the mainstream. Today I am going to introduce you to three of them. Interestingly enough, the first two hail from the affluent Philadelphia Society of the 19th century — one was heiress to a fortune — and the other is a modern woman of boundless energy, imagination and great warmth.

Because it is her feastday in the Catholic calendar, let’s start with the heiress who gave it all up to become a saint, instead. Pat Gohn gives us a terrific look at Katharine Drexel:

To say she came from money would have been an understatement. But what is more remarkable is how her parents raised her. Contrary to being possessed by their riches, the 19th-century Drexel family from Philadelphia maintained that wealth was simply loaned to them to be shared for the good of others.

Katharine Drexel, born in 1858, grew up one of three heiresses to a family fortune. Her grandfather, Francis, and his sons, founded and ran the Drexel Bank. Her successful uncle, Anthony Drexel, pioneered banking networks and the early days of Wall Street. He also opened Drexel University with the goal of helping people improve their station in life by offering low-cost tuition.

in 1885, while still a young woman, Drexel opened a school for Native Americans in Santa Fe, New Mexico; struck by their poverty, and also the marginalization of African Americans, she pleaded with the pope to send missionaries for their sakes, and was challenged to become a missionary, herself. This she did with her whole heart, as Gohn writes:

Katharine and a few companions founded the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament for Indians and Colored People. The title of her community summed up the two driving forces in her life: devotion to the Blessed Sacrament and her love for the most deprived people in her country . . . opening over sixty schools during her tenure. Using a combination of great prayer and generosity—and no doubt, the gift of her family’s business acumen—she opened a network of schools around the country that some say were modeled after her uncle’s banking networks.

The most famous school Katharine founded was Xavier University in New Orleans. Opened in 1915, it was the first Catholic institution for African Americans in the United States.

Read the rest; it’s quite a story. One that would make a great film, actually.

Another great film — nay, mind-blowing — could be made from the life of our next Philadelphia girl, one Cornelia Augusta Peacock, who Dr. Pat McNamara tells us eventually became Cornelia Connelly and then, finally, she became her truest self.

Married to an Episcopal priest, Pierce Connelly, she and her ambitious husband eventually became Catholic: Their conversion became front-page news. In Rome, Connelly orchestrated an elaborate reception ceremony. For two years, they lived in Rome as he mingled with the rich and famous. Cornelia began reading theology and Church history. One figure who made a big impression upon her was St. Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits. Eventually, their money ran out and they had to go home . . . One morning, as they were walking back from church, Pierce Connelly told his wife that he wanted to become a priest. But he couldn’t do this unless she entered the convent. Cornelia soon realized he wasn’t asking but telling. His request shocked her, and broke her heart. They had just lost one child, and she was pregnant with another.

Bizarre, right? Wait; this story goes beyond bizarre, but Cornelia Connelly became yet another in the large group of women who found her freedom in Christ, and her self-actualization within the church:

Always flighty and selfish, Pierce now showed his vindictive side. Still a priest, he sued to have his conjugal rights restored. The case was international news. The press depicted Cornelia as “a cold, cruel-hearted woman and an unnatural mother.” But she refused to give in. The once-submissive wife was now a nun with an iron will who fought her ex-husband priest in court. And, amazingly, she won.

Read it to the end. What a life!

I don’t know how these women managed to breathe and move in those heavy woolen habits, much less serve so many people.

Finally, a modern woman for you to contemplate, and one without a habit; Lisa Mladinich profiles Corinne Addiss, a Catechist out of New York who bursts with energy and creativity that inspires children who in turn leave her inspired:

“We were in the second day of our [Vacation Bible School] program. Almost a hundred children nursery school age through sixth grade children enrolled, with another thirty-something junior counselors, grades seven and above. My energy was uncharacteristically low. I wanted to just get through the week. This day’s focus was the Eucharist, and one of our ‘stations’ was Adoration.

“As a teacher was finishing up with a group of about twenty little ones, they all came out of the pews and she showed them how to genuflect properly in front of the Blessed Sacrament, on both knees. As she watched, one child suddenly went down on her belly, prostrated in adoration before the monstrance. And then, one after another, the children followed until all of the children were lying with their hands extended in front of them, adoring Jesus—in a position no one in the program had taught them.”

The teacher, Corinne remembers, knelt in silence, tears streaming down her face as she gazed in awe at the sight. “There was no ‘earthly’ explanation; it was something within the children. It was their faith in God.”

The interview becomes a treasure trove of creative ideas for catechists, parents and parishes to aid in the religious education and formation of our young. You’ll love it.

And a quick heads-up to women in New England, specifically in Stoneham, Massachusetts and nearby, Faith and Family Magazine (edited by the tireless Danielle Bean) is hosting a “Mom’s Day Away” on Saturday, April 2. Participants include our own Pat Gohn (who you want to meet) and Bean, Rachel Balducci and Jennifer Fulwiler will be featured speakers. Were I nearer, I’d attend.

You never know when you’re going to meet a woman whose name you’ll want to remember, some future March.

Related:
More on Katharine Drexel from Fr. James Martin and Deacon Greg

Simcha Fisher: More about women

Filed Under: Feminism Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

WYD, Madrid 2011 Awesome Sauce!

February 8, 2011 By Elizabeth Scalia

HOLY SMOKES!

Via Deacon Greg

Chills! Chills to hear that baritone voice again, and to see these youthful crowds.

Chills to realize that Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI have drawn millions of young people to them with the message they so need to hear: You are good. You are loved. You are created for a purpose. You are more than the pop culture. You are greater than the temptations of the age. You are the ongoing affirmation of unique individualism. Jesus loves you, he calls you. Do Not Be Afraid.

YouTube Preview Image

Just chills! A great job by Grassroots Films

UPDATE: iPhone app for confession; prompts examination of conscience

Filed Under: Benedict XVI, John Paul II, World Youth Days Tagged With: , , ,

The Yin and Yang of Catholic Young

February 4, 2011 By Elizabeth Scalia

It is fascinating to ponder the Taoist idea of Yin and Yang – the notion of an eternal cycle that grows to a fullness that must then transition to something else. I wrote about it once, in a manner of speaking, when thinking about the bliss of the Divine Office:

A beautiful depiction of the constant-renewal of the world and all Creation in it, including you and me. I prayed the psalms and considered the slow lifting of the darkness on this overcast autumn day, the first-turning leaves, from green-to-gold. Summertime had reached its absolute fullness, and–being wholly and fully summer, was incapable of being more of what it was–summer began to go . . .Of course, if we offer to be used, we had better mean it, because as we have seen time and again, when you make that offer, Christ will use you until you are completely and wholly used up, until you are nothing more than cinder. Until you can’t be summer anymore and must burst into splendid autumn.

An OSV piece by Mary DeTurris Poust put me in mind of that Yin and Yang — that eternal cycle of fullness and emptying, activity and quiessence — as regards our youth and our catechesis. Mary writes:

. . . it was with great interest that I read stories about a recent conference at Fordham University that was focusing on a “lost generation,” only the generation in question is the 20-something generation of today. The follow-up stories shared the good news that this generation isn’t really lost at all.

“Catholic young adults aren’t as attached to the church as their counterparts from the 1940s and 1950s, but they are hardly a lost generation and have not abandoned the faith, according to speakers at a two-day forum at Jesuit-run Fordham University.”

Notice who they’re looking at: Catholic young adults and their “counterparts” from the 1940s and 50s. What about their counterparts from the 1960s and 70s? Their parents? That is the original lost generation, my generation, the folks who were lost along the way as the Church changed the methods and content of catechesis.

Mary expounds on the need to reach out to that “lost” generation, and I’d certainly love to see a discussion among readers take root here in the comments section about what successes or failures some of your parish communities have seen.

But the issue strikes me, always, as being partly one of perspective, and of that Yin/Yang cycle.

I find that as a rule when comparisons are done — particularly as regards vocations, but also on participation — researchers love to start by citing figures from the Catholic “heydey” of the 50′s, when the church in just about all areas was at her Zenith; there were more priests and nuns, more flourishing communities and parishes, more schools in operation, more missions, more “everything” than at any time previous in the church’s history.

But those numbers are always an aberration, particularly as to vocations:

. . . and well up to the first World War, priests and nuns were distinct, small minorities. Convents, abbeys, friaries grew then scattered, and their growth was always greater where people were poorer, and thus less distracted by the lure of materialism – more open to the small, still voice calling their names.

And too, vocations used to bring with them a bit of social cache. If you were a priest or sister, you may never be a king or queen, but you were likely to get some education, a sense of community and your meals, however frugal. Many a sound and fervent vocation began with an empty belly and a thirst for learning, and there is nothing wrong with that. The Holy Spirit has ways of using everything to God’s own purpose.

Comparing vocations and participation within the modern church to those “heyday” numbers will always paint a dreary picture. If anyone would compare today’s numbers to oh, say, 1978-1989, I believe the picture would become much brighter.

A less-than-stellar understanding and implementation of the documents and reforms of the Second Vatican Council undoubtedly had much to do with the drop in vocations and the mushing up/dumbing down of our catechesis. Transitions always blur, for a while. But I doubt it’s any accident that the dramatic turnaround in the church’s material and spiritual fortunes coincided with the beginning of a great period of secular material prosperity. The expansion of the middle class, the wealth of man-made opportunity, the distraction and deification of the popular culture all contributed to to the emptying of our pews and our catechetical content.

One might say the 60′s through the 80′s were the first yangthrust of cultural relativism. The philosophy so succinctly expressed in the lyrics, “It’s you’re thing, do what you want to do/I can’t tell you who to sock it to,” had a profound influence on Catholic laity, just at the moment they were permitted to enter into liturgical and catechetical planning, and the age began to influence the church, rather than the church influencing the age.

Think again of the Yang that becomes so full of itself that it can be no more and must revert to Yin – it’s the same sort of thing. The boisterous Church of the 50′s and late 40′s bore no relation to the previous 1900 years of the church as it built toward than end. The Church became so full of itself (in many ways – and perhaps that contributed to the terrible abuses of that era, for which we are paying, now) that it could be no more of what it was; the 60′s through ’80s were the beginning of the Yin – that transitional time that lies fallow a while and then grows in quiescence until it can be no more. No one pays attention to that first, transitional blip — that move from white to black or black to white — and many end up falling through the cracks, it’s sad but true; a truth that repeats in history.

There is always that “slipped” generation that gets missed and shortchanged when yang moves to yin and yin to yang. I figure God must have a particular abundance of mercy for those lost in the blur, because the transition leaves them so vulnerable and untethered. If that is true, then he will surely give us the means to reclaim his lost sheep. I believe, in fact, that in our two most recent popes — and even the advent of alternative media — he has done just that.


Related:
More on that Fordham Conference

Filed Under: Benedict XVI Tagged With: , , , , , ,

The Beatitudes & Sargent Shriver

January 29, 2011 By Elizabeth Scalia

Deacon Greg Kandra has had a very impressive career; as a writer and producer with CBS News, he won Peabody Awards and Emmy Awards, and Writer’s Guild Awards – and then he went to the Diocese of Brooklyn and helped establish Currents, the first daily Catholic news broadcast in the country, at New Evangelization Television. He has a gift for zeroing in on the human center of a story, and extending it in a way that brings all the peripheral loose ends together into a cohesive and marvelous whole.

That gift is never shown to better advantage than when he is in the pulpit, preaching. His homily this week manages to bring together the (for many, including me) challenge of the beatitudes taught by Jesus, and the fleshed-out human articulation of the same, within the life of the late Sargent Shriver:

Here we have a succinct job description of what it means to be a disciple of Christ. More than any other public figure I can think of, Sargent Shriver embodied those ideals – with joy, with idealism, with faith. And he did it without sacrificing his Catholic identity. He and his wife Eunice attended mass every day. He was his faith, and his faith was him. It was so deeply ingrained in him that his daughter Maria said, of her father’s debilitating dementia: “He could pray the rosary perfectly. But he couldn’t remember who I was.”

Well, the world should remember who Sargent Shriver was.

The gospel tells us: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”

Shriver was the founding director of the Peace Corps – nothing less, really, than a secular missionary society, with a mission of encouraging dialogue among nations and helping the poor in developing parts of the world. As recently as 1994, Sargent Shriver called on graduates at Yale, his alma mater, to be makers of peace. “You’ll get more from being a peacemaker than a warrior,” he told them, adding “I’ve been both, and I know from experience.”

The gospel also tells us: “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.”

He was a champion of racial justice – and devoted his time and considerable resources to helping the weak, the vulnerable, the outcast. He offered mercy to those who needed it most. He helped set up and run the Special Olympics, which gave dignity and honor to those with mental disabilities.

The gospel tells us: “Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted.” Like so many members of the Kennedy family, Sargent Shriver mourned again and again and again – private grief expressed so often at public funerals.

And the gospel assures us: “Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.”

When being pro-life became unfashionable in his own political party, Sargent Shriver continued to speak out against abortion, and stood his ground. When he ran for vice president with George McGovern in 1972, he was the last pro-life Democratic candidate on a presidential ticket – at least, the last so far. His stance may have ended his political career. But it was a price he was willing to pay. He would not compromise his ideals, or his Catholic faith.

None of this is to say that Sargent Shriver was a saint. But at a time when people are willing to compromise, to bend to political expediency, to dwell in what the pope has called “moral relativism,” Sargent Shriver didn’t. He stood for something. And he strove to make the world just a little bit better than it was – to make it more merciful, more compassionate, more just, more peaceful.

That’s the great message of the Beatitudes. And, in a nutshell, that is what it means to be a Christian.

I’ve teased you with a bigger excerpt than I had planned. But you should go read the rest!

Related: Pat Gohn’s take on the Beatitudes

Filed Under: "Remaking" Ourselves, Crucible of Faith, Culture of Life/Death Tagged With: , ,

A Golden Voice with a Word in Season

January 20, 2011 By Elizabeth Scalia

Every time I talk to Pat Gohn speak, I find myself marveling at the resonance of her lovely alto. She has one of those voices that belongs behind a microphone or a podium, and that — coupled with her ability to reason smoothly and articulately — makes her podcasts at Among Women such soothing, thoughtful programs.

She’s got a voice like rich honey.

This week’s podcast is not quite so soothing, however. Pat is mellifluous as ever but her guest is a bit on the hyper side and she can’t shut up.

Gohn does manage to rise above the challenge of getting me to say anything sensible, though, and she also begins with a brief, informative and inspiring look at St. Agnes of Rome (happy synchronicity: my confirmation name is Agnes and she is one of my favorite saints!) so I urge you to give it a listen. We touch on a lot of topics, ending on a whole question of how to balance justice with charity, and whether charity might — in the end — be the pre-eminent virtue.

Pat Gohn’s weekly column “A Word in Season“ is a terrific resource for adult Catholic; Pat essentially follows the liturgical year of times and seasons and (via scripture, the Catechism and our own history) helps the reader become acquainted or re-acquainted with what we believe, why we believe it, and where that faith can take us. This week, her column takes a surprisingly personal turn as she brings us St. Francis de Sales (whose feastday is next Monday). St. Francis (of, Saint Frank, as Pat calls him) became the source of a deep well of hope for Pat when she was a young mother of three, facing breast cancer:

Diagnosed with breast cancer at age 36, I was a young wife and mother to three children under age 9. To put it mildly, I was a mess over the news. And having a writer’s vivid imagination, the kind that often writes the end of the script in my head while the play is still the first act, I was tending toward pessimism. (I have since worked to suspend that habit, learning that God is the superior scriptwriter, and he already knows the end of the story.)

But back then, my pessimist’s wild imaginings coupled with a volatile pathology report brought misery. My believer’s heart needed a trauma intervention.

God’s rescue squad arrived in the form of my loved ones, my church, and a 16th-century saint I had heard about but never took serious note of. Until I read his words:

Do not look forward in fear
to the changes of life;
rather look to them with full hope
as they arise.
God, whose very own you are,
will lead you safely through all things;
and when you cannot stand it,
God will carry you in His arms.
Do not fear what may happen tomorrow;
the same everlasting Father who cared for you today
will take care of you then and every day.
He will either shield you from suffering,
Or will give you unfailing strength to bear it.
Be at peace
And put aside all anxious thoughts and imaginations.

St. Frank’s words stopped me in my proverbial pessimistic tracks. I was either going to live this life as a trusting believer who happened to have cancer, or I was going to languish in my own pity.

St. Francis de Sales brought Pat “a word in season,” and all these years later, she tells the tale. Life is a kind of continuum. You’ll want to read the whole thing.

Filed Under: Blogs and Blogging, Parenting Tagged With: , , , ,
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