Idol-Tossing, Yay or Nay? It’s Not that Complicated, Sheesh.

Last updated on: October 21, 2019 at 1:45 pm By Jennifer Fitz

Let’s see:

There might or might not have been a pagan idol given a place of honor in a Catholic church.

Someone stole the idol and tossed it in the Tiber.

Video’s been released, and thus half of St. Twitter is cheering in victory, while the other half is scandalized by the theft and destruction of property.

Which side to take, if any?

Hmmn . . . How about siding with the truth?

If it is in fact a pagan idol, we’re all being far too tolerant. If it’s not one, then let someone with teaching authority (I understand there are some possible candidates for that title milling around the Vatican) say so clearly. And if we are unable to have clear, authoritative teaching on the question of whether the thing is an idol . . . no wonder the Church is such a mess.

***

Meanwhile, for your edification:

This is not about being paranoid. This is not about seeing spooks behind every corner. I am speaking as a mom and teacher-of-religion who took my own kid, with two others from her Christian school, to a massive haunted house last night for good clean terrifying fun, and without the least concern that there be something demonic in it. As the eve of All Saints rolls around, Chesterton’s advice on fairy tales is as apt as ever. But quoting myself from the Ouija link in the list above:

Here’s the thing your children need to know: If you ask for supernatural assistance, you may well get it.

Supernatural can be good. You can ask your guardian angel to watch over you in a particular way (“Keep me from spending too much time on Facebook, please!”). You can ask saints to pray for you. You can of course ask God for everything you need — something you’ve been specifically instructed to do.

But the idea that there are only good supernatural beings is foolish.

. . . If you want only good in your life, skip the [ouija] board. Ask for what you really want, don’t send out the “Hey, whatever you want to do to me is just fine, you unknown mixed bag of good and evil supernatural persons!” Would you make that offer to total strangers on the subway? No you wouldn’t. Don’t make that offer to the supernatural world either.

Photo by Bernard Gagnon: Pachamama Museum, Amaicha del Valle, Argentina, courtesy of Wikimedia, CC 1.0.

What if a Saint Was Gay?

Last updated on: October 16, 2019 at 3:36 pm By Jennifer Fitz

As I write, the usual suspects are circulating conjecture about a newly-canonized saint: Maybe this person was gay!

Well, maybe so, maybe not — as we could safely say about every single person in the universe. What does that have to do with us?

#1 Get Your Mind Out of the Gutter

Dear Catholic Twitter Celebrities,

Quit acting like you’re fourteen years old and passing notes in the back of Algebra class.

Sincerely,

The Grown-Ups

It is hardly a newsflash for those of us who’ve been living in the adult world more than five minutes, but yes indeed, it’s true: Most people are sexually attracted to the opposite sex; some are attracted to the same sex; some are attracted to no one at all.

Likewise, and regardless of who they are and are not sexually attracted to, most people must put effort into living chastely, and a lucky few don’t have as much difficulty. Much as we wish it would, neither that part of your brain nor any other presto-chango puts on Instant Holiness the moment you accept Jesus into your heart.

So we know that statistically speaking, without requiring any frenzied search through dusty documents to make our case, that any given saint probably had to work hard to practice the virtue of chastity. The willingness to do the work, even though it required a life of constant contrition and repentance and turning again and again to the Throne of Grace is what made this person a saint.

Beyond that? Mind your own business. It is bad for your soul to go digging around trying to get dirt on someone else’s private sins. It is enough that we must bear with each other’s public sins.

#2 Build Strong Spiritual Friendships

What causes juvenile busybodies to pull out the I bet they’re making out card? Friendship. As among high school freshman so it is on the internet: If there’s evidence you’re good friends with someone of the opposite sex, you must be having an affair; if the same sex, you must be gay. To those who know nothing about love and are just awakening to their own sexuality, everything’s sex sex sex.

Ignore those people. Gentlemen: You need to build strong, deep, lasting friendships with a few men who share your outlook and priorities in life. Ladies: You need to build strong, deep, lasting friendships with a few women who share your outlook and priorities in life.

This is a need. You will be physically, emotionally, and spiritually healthier if you take care of this intrinsic need.

For those who are married, of course your spouse will also (we hope) be a source of intimacy and support through life’s many joys and trials. It is too easy, however, regardless of your state in life, to settle for the burbling flow of passing acquaintances, and never attend to your need for intimate companionship.

Yes, find joy in getting to know all the many people you interact with just because they are there. They, too, play an important role in your life. But every now and then you’ll get to know someone whose heart is like yours in special way.

This other person is always a source of refreshment, never sucking energy out of you, always building you up. You feel safe sharing your struggles with this person because he or she understands so well and wants only your good. Even when the two of you are absent from each other for months or years, on meeting again it is as if you’d never parted. No amount of suffering or change of life weakens your bond.

Treasure these friendships. Don’t let the fear of gossip-mongers present or future get in the way of your growing in holiness through the ministry of your closest friends.

#3 Don’t Give Up on Saintliness

An acquaintance recently admitted she’d been staying away from church due to a persistent sin in her life. Good news: Church is literally made for those of us who must struggle with persistent sin.

It is hard. We want to be holy, but we are plagued by a tendency to sin that keeps us from perfect holiness. As we get dragged down by our sins, we grow more and more ashamed. Sometimes our sins are so intractable that it feels like we can’t even function in church-life.

When you hear about the Prodigal Son, or the One Lost Sheep, do you sometimes feel like you are a nastier, uglier, harder-to-save version of wretched sinner? Do you feel like you cannot be saved because you are so damn mired in weakness and failure?

Well, it is hard to believe, but you are exactly the person Jesus came to save. He doesn’t need to bother with saving people who are already holy. He came to rescue you from your sins because you cannot rescue yourself.

Try it. You can’t do it. You CANNOT DO IT. So Jesus does it for you.

#4 There is No Ninety-Nine

Friends, there is not a human being alive today who does not need the Savior. There is not a human being alive today who is able to be good enough.

If you think in the story of the Prodigal Son that you are the elder brother? You’re wrong. You’re the prodigal. Because, punch line: The elder brother was just as much in need of his father’s mercy and generosity.

If you think in the parable of the lost sheep that you’re one of the ninety-nine that didn’t go astray? Honey you are LOST. You are more lost than anyone else, because you are lost and you don’t even know it. We are all the one. Jesus comes after each and every one of us, one soul at a time, because every single one of us is the one who almost got away, and He wants us, and He will do whatever it takes to rescue us.

#5 It Isn’t the Sin that Makes a Saint Special

Whether by human or divine wisdom, it can be helpful at times to see that someone else struggles with the same sin you do. More often, though, looking too closely at someone else’s sins is a trap. If the other’s sins seem greater than ours, we can fall into the illusion that we are holier because we don’t have such temptations; if the other’s sins seem less than ours, we can fall into despair.

Don’t go there. Every saint struggled with sin, and grew in holiness not because of the sin, but by the nature of the struggle.

So here’s an irony to the childish twittering of internet pundits who feel the need to pry into men’s private lives: What makes a saint saintly is intimate friendship with Jesus Christ.

How intimate? So friggin’ intimate that God Himself uses the sexual relationship between husband and wife as the very image of His love for us, His bride, the Church. So yeah, giggle away, kiddos, that’s your Redeemer coming with a flaming sword and He wants to spend eternity in a relationship with you that is so profound and so intense and so joyful and so ecstatic that you’ll get to Heaven and never think about sex again because sex will seem so pale and passing in comparison to what God has in store for you next.

That is the answer to sin. That is what makes a saint. Intimate friendship in perfect love with Jesus Christ.

Artwork courtesy of Wikimedia, Public Domain.

Best Practices in Evangelization = Unintended Lesson in Homelessness

Last updated on: September 6, 2019 at 8:02 am By Jennifer Fitz

Here’s an article on a fantastic initiative in the Archdiocese of Baltimore, in which dedicated missionaries are truly evangelizing, brother-to-brother, the homeless near the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption. Read it and take notes. This is what evangelization should be. (Happy feast day, Mother Theresa!)

***

Now catch one detail:

Father Boric has plans to recruit a couple more missionaries. While FOCUS missionaries generally must raise about $30,000 a year to cover their expenses, he wants to be able to provide all of that so the missionaries can focus on their ministry, instead of fundraising.

“I need to provide everything, except for their own health insurance – that’s the one thing I can’t provide for,” Father Boric said. He donated his old 2008 Toyota Corolla to the project as the “mission car.”

Check out those living expenses. These are healthy, childless young adults living in housing that is already owned by the Basilica. They are, presumably, committed to a life of solidarity with the poor, avoiding extraneous luxuries. Their $30K a year does not include health insurance. It certainly doesn’t include any costs related to supporting a family.

$30K a year is working full time at $15 an hour (before taxes). You can check here for information about minimum wages around the United States.

Am I saying that the legal minimum wage needs to be raised? No I am not. I am not, in this post, making any specific policy prescriptions. I’m observing that the archdiocese has stumbled upon an obvious line in the sand between living wages and poverty.

And, related to a column of mine that will be coming out shortly (location TBD), when our life as a Church is organized around the assumption that people in the pews have spare time and cash on hand, we are deciding that poor people need not apply. I think for most American parishes, taking the steps to make the parish friendly to non-middle-class people is a radical change. We have many ministries to the poor, but little expectation that the poor are meant to be part of our church community, equals in the work of ministering and evangelizing. Glad to see Baltimore getting something going in that direction.

Artwork: “Waiting for a Living Wage”, poster, produced by the Suffrage Atelier and designed by Catherine Courtauld in 1913, Public Domain, via Wikimedia. A century later, America’s poor are not physically starving, thank God. Spiritually? Yes indeed. The parish wage-floor is part of the problem.

UPDATE: In response to some reader questions, I clarify a few points over at the Conspiracy.

Need Your Help: Stories of Equal Access

Last updated on: May 15, 2019 at 5:13 am By Jennifer Fitz

I need your help with getting a door unlocked.

I’m a parishioner (and at last check parish council member) at a large and historically-significant parish. Thanks to renovations over the years, there are three wheelchair-accessible entrances feeding the parish church. Unfortunately, since November of 2017 all three of those doors have been locked. The only way to get into the building during Sunday Mass or Saturday Confession is to either walk up a short flight of stairs (seven if I counted correctly) or wait around on the sidewalk hoping to flag someone down who will go unlock an accessible door for you.

Unfortunately, the pastor of the parish doesn’t seem to understand that it isn’t okay for someone with a disability to have to make advanced arrangements in order to be able to get inside the building for Mass or Confessions. He’s otherwise a fairly stand-up guy, but he seems genuinely shocked that I would be angry about this issue.

I’m not above launching a massive public shame-storm, but that’s a weapon of last resort. What I’d like your help with is attempting to show Father (and I tell you again: he is otherwise a pretty sane guy) that equal access matters.

Here is a form where you can share your story. Can you share with him an example (or multiple if you’ve got them — fill out as many entries as you’d like) of how equal access, or lack of it, has affected your life?

My plan is to pass on to him your stories so he can see, person by person, just how painful it is to be the one stuck out on the sidewalk wondering how you’ll get in. I’ll also put in a Mass intention for the collective intentions of those who share their stories (so Father L. gets to pray for you, cause that’s his job), and of course I’ll pray for you individually and I think he will too.

I’m not looking for angry. He’s gotten plenty of angry from me, and believe me, I’m not as nice in regular life as I am on the internet. I’m looking for your personal story of how being able to participate in parish or community life made a positive difference for you or someone you love, or how being excluded by needless barriers did the opposite.

The reality is that barriers keep people out. After a year and a half of locked doors (in a previously accessible parish), the only regulars with disabilities are the few who are okay with the new status quo as second-class citizens. Everyone else has disappeared. If you showed up as a tourist (the parish receives many out-of-town visitors at weekend Masses), you’d follow the signs to a locked door and maybe succeed in waving someone down, or maybe just give up and move on. As a result, Father L. no longer sees the people who are most affected by his decision: You’re all gone.

I need you to make yourself visible to him again.

Thank you so much.

I’ll post updates as I get them. Also: If you choose to let me share your story (and only in that case — opt in or your story remains completely private), I’ll pick a few to post here and elsewhere, so that your voice gets heard far and wide. Thank you!

Image: No Accessibility Icon, courtesy of Wikimedia, Public Domain

To My Child’s Pro-Choice Friend

Last updated on: May 11, 2019 at 3:41 pm By Jennifer Fitz

Dear Young Person I’ve Watched Grow Up,

I want to tell you today about a thing that happened before you were born.

Way back when I was your age, I was pretty much anti-abortion. Many of my friends, like you, were pro-choice. Sometimes we’d debate, because teens and college students like to discuss important issues and take a stand. One time early in college, a friend asked me to drop her off downtown for an appointment, which was a normal thing to do since not everyone had a car on campus. On the way she was asking me questions about what I thought about getting pregnant in college. I didn’t think anything of it, because kids at school always talked about that stuff. Later she told me that she was asking those questions because she was afraid she was pregnant, and the appointment was at a crisis pregnancy center to get a free pregnancy test (it was negative).

Several times throughout my college years, though, one of my friends did get pregnant. No one talked about being pregnant on campus, though, and you didn’t see pregnant students. Motherhood and college just didn’t go together. It was a big school, so if you dropped out and disappeared people mostly would not even notice. But the friends who didn’t drop out did something else: They kept the pregnancy quiet until after they’d had the abortion.

So that’s the world I grew up in, a world where it was unthinkable to be young and pregnant and still able to get an education. I think that’s a horrible world. I think a young woman shouldn’t have to make that kind of choice.

I guess it’s still the world we live in though, and that’s why I want to tell you about what happened back then: Your older brother or sister was one of those aborted children.

Why? Because the idea of having a baby and finishing college seemed impossible. The idea of being a young parent with a little kid to care for at a time when the economy was bad was overwhelming. The idea of being like that one couple we knew who did have a baby just wasn’t okay, because that couple didn’t end up doing the things that we were all hoping to do.

I think that’s probably why you’re pro-choice: You know that there are times when the thought of having a baby is just too much. Maybe the baby was conceived in rape; maybe the parents have no money and no support; maybe there are health issues to consider. You don’t want to put someone through all that. Maybe you have a friend whose parents threatened to disown her if she didn’t have the abortion.

The trouble is that it isn’t the idea of a baby that is killed with abortion. It’s an actual person. In this case: Your brother or sister was alive, and now he or she is dead.

Your parents really love you. You are the best thing that ever happened to them, and it shows. They love watching you grow up, and doing things with you, and seeing the amazing young adult you are becoming.

Unfortunately, this year on your birthday, when your parents are gathered around with the cake, and the relatives are calling or sending cards, there’s an empty spot at the table. Your brother or sister should be there with you, singing off key and being silly and guessing what your wish is.

Life is punctuated by big events: Weddings, graduations, the birth of the first grandchild. You should be experiencing those big events as they happen to your older brother or sister.

Life is punctuated by little events: Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, fireworks on the 4th of July, and getting up early to see the presents under the tree Christmas morning. Your brother or sister should have been there, daring you, annoying you, conspiring with you.

Life with siblings isn’t easy. Sometimes in anger we’ll say to a brother or sister, “I wish you’d never been born!”

Well, that happened to you. You got that wish. Your brother or sister was never born.

Your parents regret it. They grieve it, mostly privately.

And that’s why I’d like you to reconsider your support for abortion.

We can’t change the past. We can’t cause that boy or girl who has the same smile as you, or the same eyes, or the same laugh, to suddenly appear in your selfies, photo-bombing your prom pictures and making weird faces. There’s nothing we can do to give you a childhood — and an adulthood– with your brother or sister.

But we can save someone else that emptiness. Instead of making a girl who is scared and alone feel like she has no choice but to abort, we can give her a real choice. We can help her through hard things, so that twenty, thirty years later she doesn’t have to apologize to the younger sibling about why one child got to live, but the other one had to die.

In light of the death of your brother or sister, I respectfully ask you to reconsider your position on abortion.

Sincerely,

The Friend of Your Parents Who Wishes She Could Have Done More

Photo: “Brother and Sister” by Sheila Sund, courtesy of Wikimedia, CC 2.0

Why Yes, I’m Still Catholic

Last updated on: September 13, 2018 at 4:13 am By Jennifer Fitz

Some things that happened this summer:

(1) We discovered our bishops cannot be trusted with even the smallest things, like the health and moral formation of seminarians.

(2) My son went to France with the clear instruction that in exchange for my part in making his trip possible, he was to stop at Gibert Joseph and pick us up some good used books to share. He brought me home Dans le Secret des Borgia. All things old are new again.

(3) I got a job teaching about the Reformation.

#3 has never been easier. If I ever lacked sympathy for Luther & Co., that’s over now. I get it. I completely get it.

But of course it wasn’t all church-splits back then, and it doesn’t need to be now. There was a Catholic Reformation that happened as well. That’s where I’ll be this go-round. I encourage you to do likewise.

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia, CC 3.0 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gothic_Chapel_Peterhof_tonemapped.jpg

PS: See the part about “teaching school” above. That’s why I have dropped off on the blogging. I’ll be back to it time-permitting, but my first priority is my students and their families. Your prayers for a joyful, Christ-centered school year are most appreciated.

Fisking Cardinal DiNardo: USCCB Unclear on the Concept

Last updated on: August 2, 2018 at 11:02 am By Jennifer Fitz

Happy August! For our entertainment, the USCCB has issued a fresh statement on the terrible, no-good, very-bad ex-Cardinal McCarrick. Below is Cardinal DiNardo’s statement in full, annotated. Let’s see how things are coming:

“The accusations against Archbishop Theodore McCarrick reveal a grievous moral failure within the Church. They cause bishops anger, sadness, and shame; I know they do in me.

Wonderful. We have to start somewhere.

They compel bishops to ask, as I do, what more could have been done to protect the People of God.

What more could we have done? It’s just so hard to know!

Both the abuses themselves, and the fact that they have remained undisclosed for decades, have caused great harm to people’s lives and represent grave moral failures of judgement on the part of Church leaders.

No kidding. Glad you’re caught up on this now.

These failures raise serious questions. Why weren’t these allegations of sins against chastity and human dignity disclosed when they were first brought to Church officials? Why wasn’t this egregious situation addressed decades sooner and with justice? What must our seminaries do to protect the freedom to discern a priestly vocation without being subject to misuse of power?

Do you know what I love? I love that Catholics across the spectrum agree these are in fact the pertinent questions. I mean, here on this blog I’ve been linking to America and One Peter Five both — and that’s not something I normally do. We may be a paranoid, fragmented, snarky lot of in-fighters, but we all have these exact same questions. We also basically already know the answer, no committee meetings necessary. Score one for Christian unity, I guess.

Archbishop McCarrick will rightly face the judgement of a canonical process at the Holy See regarding the allegations against him, but there are also steps we should be taking as the Church here in the United States.

Oh good. You’ve noticed.

Having prayed about this, I have convened the USCCB Executive Committee. This meeting was the first of many among bishops that will extend into our Administrative Committee meeting in September and our General Assembly in November. All of these discussions will be oriented toward discerning the right course of action for the USCCB.

I am so inspired with confidence. I mean, you are the same exact people who have been letting this problem carry on all these years . . . but I’m sure this time it’ll be different.

This work will take some time but allow me to stress these four points immediately.

First, I encourage my brother bishops as they stand ready in our local dioceses to respond with compassion and justice to anyone who has been sexually abused or harassed by anyone in the Church. We should do whatever we can to accompany them.

Second, I would urge anyone who has experienced sexual assault or harassment by anyone in the Church to come forward. Where the incident may rise to the level of a crime, please also contact local law enforcement.

So these are the same things you’ve been saying for twenty years. What’s different now?

Third, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops will pursue the many questions surrounding Archbishop McCarrick’s conduct to the full extent of its authority; and where that authority finds its limits, the Conference will advocate with those who do have the authority. One way or the other, we are determined to find the truth in this matter.

So your plan is to investigate McCarrick. See, up at the top of the letter, you mentioned this whole wondering how you let this happen.* So who do you think are the people you need to investigate if you want to find that out? Hint: It’s not just McCarrick.

Finally, we bishops recognize that a spiritual conversion is needed as we seek to restore the right relationship among us and with the Lord.

Ah. A “spiritual conversion.” So there’s not actually a plan to come clean, name names, admit guilt, and clean house. Hmmn. I wonder how we got into this problem again?

Our Church is suffering from a crisis of sexual morality.

Our Church is suffering from decades upon decades of corruption, deception, and hypocrisy at the hands of our bishops. I teach chastity. You make it sound like you guys are just a bunch of poor lost teenagers waiting for someone to open The Catechism to the exciting pages. Chastity is small potatoes compared to what you have been up to. But if you want me to come go over this stuff for you, I could get a Saturday free sometime. Since the executive committee’s having such a hard, hard time figuring it out.

The way forward must involve learning from past sins.

I’m a little concerned about what it is you’re planning to “learn.” How to better cover your tracks next time? Because I’m not seeing anything in this statement that suggests real change.

Let us pray for God’s wisdom and strength for renewal as we follow St. Paul’s instruction: ‘Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect’ (Romans 12:2).”

Indeed.

File:Philip Absolon. See No Evil.jpg

Artwork by Philip Absolon, CC 3.0, via Wikimedia.

*Unless there’s some other authority responsible for governing the Church. Illuminati or something? I’m pretty sure it’s y’all.