Running scared

Your essay, the "Balkanization of American Politics" (February 1999), was one of the most brilliant analyses of the current scene that I have ever read. Not only was it comprehensive in scope, it treated the root issues and related them to one another with clarity.

While I am not surprised at the outcome of President Clinton’s impeachment trial, I am increasingly aware that leadership today, both secular and ecclesiastical, at least appears to be running scared in order to hold together what Our Lord Jesus has already reminded us will pass away. If we but adhered to the radical teachings of Jesus Christ as proposed by the Church that he founded, and trusted enough that he is still capable of working through her to bring clarity and truth to the world, we would fear less and be able to see God’s grace working to bring good out of the evil that permeates our society. In other words, the Gospel remains the most perfect foundation for life for all people of all times.

The "double-speak" that we frequently hear flowing from the lips of our leaders serves only to absolutize the individual at the expense of the common good. It literally gags the truth and silences meaningful discourse. "Double-speak" has been the "coin of the realm" for three generations now. Indeed Pontius Pilate’s response to Jesus, "What is Truth?" haunts our halls of justice, government, education, and even chanceries and rectories more than ever. Who among our leaders will dare to pick up the challenge of John Paul II and proclaim that words are worthless if they are not true, that a promise to fix what is broken is empty unless we learn to depend upon God’s mercy, that human destiny is transcendent, and that only those who become saints in union with the eternal God find perfect happiness?

—Father Michael Parise North Billerica, Massachusetts

Grace withdrawn

Philip Lawler’s essay, "The Balkanization of American Politics" said it all. Bill Clinton has so corrupted America, I doubt that it will ever recover.

My friends and I fear that God is withdrawing his grace. Thank you for your insight.

—Eilene Wetzel Columbus, Georgia

No biblical reference

You may not wish to print this comment/letter, or discuss the subject, but I suggest that you and the Catholic World Report will suffer a gigantic loss of credibility unless you do so.

Millions of Catholics know the famous stanza of the Rubiyat of Omar Khayyam cited by you and President Clinton recently:

The Moving Finger writes, and having writ—

moves on; nor all your piety nor wit;

Shall lure it back to cancel half a line;

Nor all your tears wash out a word of it.

In your essay you claim that this ". . . is a reference to the Book of Daniel" where a disembodied finger wrote a prophecy on a wall regarding the fall of Belshazzar’s kingdom—a message which bodes ill for President Clinton. This so obviously untrue that yet again he is blessed by the overreaching of his critics.

There is no prophecy or reference to the Book of Daniel in the Persian Rubiyat stanza, but only the profound universal truth known to all mankind: what’s done, is done and can never be undone, not by the most bitter tears or regret.

The reason the "connection" between the "Moving Finger" of the Rubiyat of Omar Khayyam and the Book of Daniel was ". . . lost on the American media, and thus never recognized by the American people," as you say, is that it doesn’t exit.

—John Tomasin West New York, New Jersey

Evidently Bill Clinton is not alone in his inability to recognize an obvious biblical reference in a poetic context. It is true that Khayyam does not explicitly cite the Book of Daniel; there is no footnote to make the reference explicit. But any reference to a "moving finger" provokes an immediate reaction in a reader who is familiar with the Bible—and recognizes that serious poetry often carries several levels of meaning.

—The Editor

The Protestant tradition

I refer to the article by editor Philip F. Lawler in the February issue. The editor is worried, not so much that the end of democracy in the US is nigh, but rather that the end of the republican form of government is. The Christian moral tradition, he explains, supports the republican form, with its principles of limited government. Recent judicial activism has been such as to exclude Judeo-Christian moral principles from the public forum. The professional psychologist and spiritual writer, Father Benedict J. Groeschel, CFR, has also ex pressed a fear that the US republic is dead, and bad as it was, he fears that its successor will be much worse.

In their defense of Judeo-Christian moral precepts, Lawler and Congress man Henry Hyde rely heavily on Robert Bolt’s play on St. Thomas More, A Man For All Seasons. But surely it is clear that Bolt’s More is a man of Protestant conscience, the Roman Catholic understanding of conscience being quite foreign to Bolt?

What happens in the US affects eventually the whole world. It seems to me that the wheat of the republican ideal grew alongside the chaff of the so-called "anti-dogmatic" strain in Freemasonry. The trouble is that this "anti-dogmatism" is itself a dogmatism. Freemasonry controlled the mainstream Protestant communities in the US—Episcopalianism and Presbyterianism. Roman Catholics, being a persecuted minority, craved acceptance. They rarely, if ever, bucked the dominant John Wayne-style version of American patriotism, which was, and is, profoundly Freemasonic. The Protestant communities in the US, except for the Evangelicals, have become a joke.

Freemasonry is a minority religion in the US, yet it still calls the shots. Mercifully it appears to be eating its own tail. By its own reckoning Freemasonry is not renewing itself. Roman Catholics, and other faithful Christians and Jews, should keep clear of the collapsing edifice, and prepare for the coming millennium. Irish Catholic pro-life and pro-family people are lost in admiration for the genuine renewal they see in the US. Don’t lose hope. Trust in the Lord! "I’m sure you are well aware that John Wayne was a Freemason, but he converted to Roman Catholicism.

—Séamas de Barra Dublin, Ireland

It is always dangerous to attempt an analysis of the political situation in a country that is not one’s own. Catholics have certainly experienced discrimination in the US over the years, but rarely overt persecution; and while Freemasons have surely had an important political influence, the Masonic tradition in America is quite different from its counterpart in Europe. If we could agree to speak in general terms of an "Enlightenment" tradition, rather than specifically of Masonic influence, I could accept your analysis. As for the conscience of St. Thomas More, the author of A Man for All Seasons may have been a Protestant, but the hero of his work looks every inch a Catholic saint.

—The Editor

Separate societies

Philip F. Lawler has again put to excellent use his marvelous gifts of penetrating analysis and lucid communication in his February essay.

His casting of the current impeachment dispute against the broader background of the development of these opposing forces is illuminating and instructive, and indeed undeniable to any who will read it with an open mind.

This situation is truly a reflection in microcosm of his thesis: "In effect two separate societies are emerging, geographically intertwined but politically irreconcilable." That point was forcibly brought home to me this morning as I attended our weekly prayer picket in front of a Cincinnati abortuary. The "greetings" by passing motorists are increasing, about equally divided: one half giving us a short beep of the horn and a "thumbs up" signal, and the other a long blare and a hand gesture using a different digit.

Lawler is again directly on target in his assertion that this development can be directly traced to the abandonment by the Supreme Court, particularly over the past 30 years, of the natural-law precepts which animated its earlier decisions, in favor of civil positivism. This trend is clear specifically in Griswold, Roe, and Casey, whose outlandish ruling that an individual must be free to determine "one’s own concept of meaning," is as bizarre as playing tennis without a net. These judicial developments are a quite natural outgrowth of the Enlightenment, as he points out, and prove again that actions do have consequences, and that judicially legislated amorality have led us to the Immoral States of America in which we now suffer. People need to consider Lawler’s timely warning: "there are few philosophical dangers more deadly than the modern refusal to recognize the existence of objective truth."

I offer one criticism of his article—a definitional error which exposes the article to academic criticism. He repeats several times that the political principle which has been violated is the republican form of government that our founding fathers gave us. A republican government he defines as "a government based on a constitution which constrains the power of the voting majority" and "based on the understanding that a few fundamental principles should be held sacred and preserved from the ebb and flow of political opinion."

A reference to Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 5th Edition, published in 1948 (before the era of politicized redefinition of meanings), shows that a republic is simply "a state in which the sovereign power resides in a certain body of the people (the electorate) and is exercised by representatives elected by and responsible to them." In fact, what Lawler obviously means, is a constitutional republic, and indeed that is what we have (or had) in this nation.

—Robert C. Cetrulo Covington, Kentucky

By 1974, Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary was listing the definition offered above as a third alternative; the first definition refers to a state which is not a monarchy. That constitutes an improvement, I think. The key point is that republican government is limited government.

—The Editor

Educational failure?

Your essay "The Balkanization of American Politics," is truly a beacon of light from the Christian camp. Its logic and accuracy are unassailable.

But it raises the central question for Roman Catholics. How is it possible that less than one-third of American Catholics stand by our teachings? Considering that the other two-thirds approve, or don’t care, about Clinton’s sinful life, the conclusion must be that our Catholic education has failed dismally. It should be a horrid awakening for those responsible—our shepherds—to realize that in their blindness and preoccupation with trivialities, they allowed a faithless generation to grow: a generation which now unabashedly rejects God and his Commandments.

Whether Clinton will be impeached or not no longer matters. The slouch toward Gomorrah, with Catholics up front, is doing just fine. Will our shepherds wake up in time to save their flock?

—Wendell E. Rossman Phoenix, Arizona

No praise for candor

In all charity, your editorial praise for the "frankness" of some bishops at the Oceania Synod ("Candor Was the Key note," February 1999) is misplaced. These outspoken, sensation-seeking populists, already the darlings of Australia’s Pope-hating media, get all the praise they crave from that source.

Such bishops are the reason for, rather than the consequence of, the present crisis of faith in Australia, and deserve no praise for pushing their derelictions and pet deviations at the Synod. Their interventions were not so much "honest" as impertinent, and are typical of the present abysmal intellectual and faith levels of so-called Catholic education in Australia—primary, secondary, and tertiary.

Archbishop Pell and Bishops Mayne and Brennan are the only exceptions I know of, who have treasured and taught the full "Faith of our Fathers." It is difficult to see how Archbishop Hickey can be sanguine about priestly vocations when what is fed to young people is not Catholicism in all its glorious intellectual vigor and truth, but a half-baked neo-Protestant pap.

Dr. William May’s book on moral theology is not considered suitable for use in the Perth Seminary because it is not "pastoral" enough—it does not condone use of artificial contraception. A number of eccentric "rites" for reconciliation are practiced here (like writing sins on paper and burning them before general absolution). Objectionable guidelines for facilities for the aged conducted in Western Australia by the Catholic Knights of the Southern Cross—despite protests and promise of review—still permit the unconscious to be deprived of nutrition and hydration and allowed to die of malnutrition and dehydration. These things just scrape the surface of the problems of this country.

Verbal promises of reform have been made before. Rome must, this time, see that corrections are being made in each of the offending areas. Otherwise the present crisis becomes chaos.

—John R. Martyr Attadale Western Australia

Uncomfortable in this world

The problems raised at the Oceania synod are not unique to this area of the world; secularism, materialism, rationalism, and a decline in faith are epidemic. The Roman Catholic Church is to a great extent powerless to counter these destructive social trends. Any attempt by the Church to compete on the same level with modern culture will fail. The Church exists in the real world, but her orientation is directed beyond mere mortal existence. The Church must re main faithful to the revealed word of God amidst a hostile sinful world bent on its destruction.

In this cosmic struggle for souls, each person employing free will selects a path towards the things of this world or the next. The Church must avoid competing for souls by mimicking or placating this evil world. Any attempt to liken herself to contemporary culture will quicken her demise. The Church founded by Christ does not want to fit too comfortably into a thoroughly corrupt world. It is better to be a bit estranged from something so diseased. The Ro man Catholic hierarchy should not be panicked into destroying itself by diluting the truth in an attempt to compete with the forces of evil.

During the next millennium the Church founded by Jesus Christ, and passed on through apostolic succession, will decrease in size and will continue to suffer under relentless abuse from the outside world, but in the end victory will belong to those pure souls marked by God to inherit eternal life. Bishops, be not afraid!

—Michael R. Kranyak Clifton, New Jersey

Perhaps the Church will decrease in size in future years; we do not know what the future might hold. But faithful baptized Christians cannot forget the Lord’s commission to "make disciples of all nations." Our efforts may not bear fruit, but surely we cannot show our loyalty to the Church by neglecting the commands of her founder!

—The Editor

Anemia of the spirit

There are two who, were they still in this world, would not be surprised at the words that appear on the front cover of the February issue of Catholic World Re port, echoing the words of the Vatican hierarchy: "There is crisis in faith. . . . A crisis concerning the ability to know the truth. The crisis of faith is worldwide." These two are Cardinals Ottaviani and Bacci, Cardinal Ottaviani being the former Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. After examining the New Order of the Mass (Novus Ordo Missae) which was soon to be promulgated, the two cardinals wrote a letter to Pope Paul VI on September 25, 1969, with an accompanying critical study by a group of bishops, theologians, and priests. I quote two excerpts from their letter: 1) "Despite its brevity, the study shows clearly that the Novus Ordo Missae—considering the new elements widely susceptible to widely different interpretations which are implied or taken for granted—represents both as a whole and in its details, a striking departure from the Catholic theology of the Mass." 2) "The innovations in the Novus Ordo and the fact that all that is of perennial value finds only a minor place—if it subsists at all—could well turn into a certainty the suspicion—already prevalent, alas, in many circles —that truths which have always been believed by the Christian people can be changed or ignored without infidelity to that sacred deposit of doctrine to which the Catholic faith is bound forever . . . new changes in the liturgy could not be made without leading to complete bewilderment on the part of the faithful . . . and an indubitable lessening of their faith."

Prayer is the food of the soul. The prayer par excellence is the Sacrifice of the Mass: the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ on the Cross. If, after three decades of this New Mass, we are witnessing a worldwide loss of faith, is it too simplistic to point out that maybe the food of our souls is now devoid of spiritual nutrients, and is causing our souls to be seriously anemic, impairing the proper functioning of its faculties? When anemic, the soul cannot reason clearly with its understanding, consequently it cannot discern the truth or know where to find it; it cannot remember clearly with its memory, so it cannot recall truths that it may have learned or heard somehow; and its will is too weak to stand up manfully for the truth.

And maybe it is not too farfetched to guess that poor spiritual nourishment leads also to a weakening of our hearts, for Catholics today show no love for our holy mother Church; they even seem to be ashamed of her.

—Zelia Borges Irondale, Alabama

The answer is adoration

The answer to the crisis as mentioned in Catholic World Report is for the flock to see their shepherd(s) in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament . . . daily—either before or after Mass. This prayerful scene does much to strengthen the "flocks" faith in their shepherd . . . its much more effective then the best of meetings.

—Bernice Piekarski Roseburg, Oregon

Fruitfulness in chastity

I was a bit surprised to discover in the January issue of your magazine the caption, "People who don’t reproduce themselves sometimes get glum," coupled with a picture of consecrated women religious. The truth about the vow of chastity in religious life is exactly the opposite. The fruit of chastity is joy, and the total gift of self to God results in a superabundant fruitfulness which surpasses that which is possible on a purely natural level.

God’s command to man, "Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it," is not put aside in the vow of chastity, but rather it is lived out in its preeminent expression. The fruits are superabundant as is evident in lives such as our Holy Father, Mother Teresa, the saints throughout the ages, and any zealous priest, brother, or sister. Can it be said that these have not reproduced themselves? Can it be said that our lord Jesus Christ himself, and his Blessed Mother, whose example we are called to follow in living a life of evangelical chastity, do not reproduce themselves?

Such a caption perpetuates a common misunderstanding about religious life. It should be said that if one is called to a life of consecrated chastity as a religious sister there must actually be an intense desire for motherhood and there must be present the highest degree of respect for men. A person with such qualities will find in religious life much happiness and reproduce herself a hundredfold in spiritual motherhood.

—Sister Mariea Dolorosa, SV Bronx, New York

The quotation which appeared alongside the photo in question was not intended to be read as a caption; it was—like the many similar quotations found in highlights elsewhere in the same article—a quotation from the accompanying article. The photo itself showed the Sisters of Life at prayer; it was intended to suggest the prayerful pro-life witness of the Catholic Church, which is embodied in that religious order. The placement of that particular quotation below that particular photo was regrettable. CWR certainly did not intend to convey any negative judgment on religious life; in fact we wholeheartedly agree with your point.

—The Editor

Tridentine romanticism

The number of articles bemoaning the loss of the Tridentine liturgy seems ever on the increase in the Catholic press. Few articles, however, are based upon any kind of serious study, with the result that they often present a distorted picture of the "riches" of the Tridentine Missal. The piece by "Diogenes" ("The Sense of Adventure") in your February issue is typical. Based upon reminiscence, it does little to help us understand the differences between the old and new rite. We are left simply with the feeling that something has been lost.

Something indeed has been lost, but something has also been gained. If we make a careful comparison of the Tri dentine Missal and the Missal of Paul VI, we find that each missal has its own riches and it own poverty. Certainly, it is to be lamented that many of the prayers and blessings of the Tridentine Missal have disappeared from the Missal of Paul VI. One can only deplore the iconoclastic tendencies of our reformers. On the other hand, there are riches in the Missal of Paul VI which put the Tridentine Missal to shame.

The Tridentine Missal contains no proper Masses for the weekdays of the year, with the exception of the weekdays of Lent, ember days, and the weekdays of certain octaves. There is a reason for this. In early Roman liturgical practice, Mass was not celebrated daily, but only on Sundays, feast days, and the weekdays listed above. Little by little, the increase of feasts of saints and the practice of offering votive Masses, and especially Masses for the dead, led to frequent and, eventually, daily Mass. The Missal of Paul VI takes daily Mass into account and provides proper Mass texts for weekdays of the Advent, Christmas, Lent, and Easter seasons, while also providing Masses of saints, votive Masses, and Masses for the dead. In this respect, it is certainly richer than the Tridentine Missal, giving new meaning and depth to the liturgical seasons.

The disparity between the two missals is even more striking in the case of scriptural readings. Except for the season of Lent and ember days, the Old Testament was rarely read in the Tri dentine Mass. With no proper readings for most weekdays of the year, Catholics had to be content with hearing again and again the readings from the Mass for the dead or one of the commons, the common of martyrs or of virgins, for example, de pending upon the feast of the saint. I best correct myself and say that they would have heard the readings if they were attending a High Mass. At low Masses, which constituted at least 90 percent of all Tridentine Masses, they would have heard no readings at all, since the priest whispered them to himself at the altar. No wonder Cardinal Ratzinger was fascinated by that hand missal! It is lucky for the cardinal that he was born after the invention of printing and in an age of mass education. The vast majority of our Catholic forefathers had no access to a hand missal and wouldn’t have been able to read one if they had. The riches of the missal were buried treasure for them.

One might also note the greater number of prefaces in the Missal of Paul VI (84 as opposed to 15 in the Tridentine). But rather than dwell on that, I close by saying that I expect something more than Tridentine romanticism from CWR. The Tridentine movement is propagating all manner of myths about the antiquity and perfection of the Tridentine liturgy. The attitude of St. Thérèse of Lisieux toward the many pious legends of 19th century Catholicism should be remembered here: "All these things do me no good; I can only nourish myself on truth."

—Father John M. Burns Lake Elmo, Minnesota

The word "Tridentine" appears 13 times in your letter; it never appears once in Diogenes’ column. While we can readily agree that one should not exaggerate the virtues of the pre-conciliar liturgy, it is at least equally wrong to assume that any criticism of current liturgical trends must perforce be evidence of a desire to restore the Tridentine rite.

—The Editor

When NFP is licit, cont.

I was rather surprised at your seemingly grudging admission (Letters, February 1999) that the term "grave" which appears in the translation of the Italian language draft of Humanae Vitae "may indeed be misleading." Surely you cannot be seriously suggesting that "grave motives" may be synonymous with the Catechism’s (2368) "just reasons?"

As one who has been involved in the promotion and teaching of natural family planning (NFP) for a quarter of a century, I know well that very many couples who would be using natural methods if things had been explained properly to them are still using contraceptives be cause they have been told (often by those who should know better) that God’s gift of NFP may only be accepted if they have "grave motives."

You headed my letter "When NFP is licit." I would remind you that when the issue was first raised, in 1853 by Bishop Antoine de Salinas of Amiens, the Sacred Penitentiary replied that those using NFP "are not to be disturbed, provided they do nothing by which conception is prevented (i.e., ‘prevented’ as opposed to ‘avoided’)." I would suggest, therefore, that the use of NFP is licit whenever it is prudent to avoid conception.

—K.P. Platt Sanderstead, Surrey England

We are suggesting precisely that when the Catechism cautions that NFP should be used only for "just reasons," the idea being conveyed is the same as the one advanced by Pope Paul VI in Humanae Vitae, and translated—perhaps improperly—as requiring "grave reasons." The question of what constitutes adequate reason for avoiding pregnancy is best left to individual couples and their confessors, but it should be understood that the reasons must be serious. (For more on that theme, see the letter below.) And it makes very little sense to suggest that couples who believe the use of NFP might be illicit therefore choose instead to use artificial methods of contraception, which are always illicit.

—The Editor

The price of tinkering

Right on, Diogenes! I enjoyed your Last Word contribution, "The Sense of Adventure."

The national figures on the number of Catholics attending Sunday Mass have consistently dropped from the time of the first liturgical changes some 30 years ago. I believe the latest figures on Sun day attendance recognized by the Church show a decline from 78 percent to less than 24 percent. When we all began the grand project 30 years ago (and I was part of the Great Crusade), little did we appreciate the danger of messing with the Mass! Now we had better finally recognize the indisputable fact that the Mass is (or was) the very glue that binds Catholics to their religion. However, as a result of the radical changes that have been made by well-meaning people—dumbing down the sacred, the pageantry, the solemnity, the beauty, and virtually all ties to 2000 years of our heritage—it has lost its identity and its very purpose. Thus our attendance and membership continues to drop.

Changing the understanding of the role of the church building itself from God’s Holy Temple to a community hall has furthered the disillusionment of Catholics in general. We have removed the tabernacle from the place of importance—the focal point of the church, the main altar— and restricted the physical presence of the Lord to a place of lesser importance: a side altar, or in some churches an adjoining room. The altars have been stripped of the beautiful accouterments with only a plastic bookstand surviving. The altar has become a bare marble slab, or as we are now told to refer to it, a "community table." Thus our attendance and membership continues to drop.

With 30 years of tinkering, changing, and adjusting, the Mass has come to rest somewhere between a musical operetta and liturgical Disneyland.

To these well-intentioned modern day "liturgists" I have but one thing to say: Common sense will tell you that you don’t continue to do more of the same things that are producing unacceptable results!

—Jerome W. Gleason Green Bay, Wisconsin

A different view

The arguments of Kenneth Platt on when NFP is licit are based on incorrect translation of the Latin text. That text uses causa and ratio, which have different meanings: causa (best translated as "cause") means a phenomenon producing unavoidable consequences without human intervention; ratio (correctly translated as "reason") de scribes a result of intellect and will. Using the same term for both nouns is at least misleading. The exact translation of the word "iustae" is "just" ("iusticia" is "justice") The translation as "proper, serious reasonable, good" is not a translation, it is a substitution with a "spin," a practice well known from many ICEL "translations." The translation "grave" might not be exact, but it is much closer to the meaning of the Latin text than the substitutions offered by Platt.

The Catholic faith includes a strong tendency in favor of life: the first commandment of the Lord to mankind was to be fruitful and multiply. This commandment is wider than only the protection of life "from conception to natural death." It encompasses also fertility and conception. Obstacles to conception (Onan’s sin, sodomy, homosexuality, contraception, and voluntary sterilization) are condemned; for instance, surgical destruction of fertility is licit only as a side-effect of an operation performed to remedy some serious disease. For this reason, too, the designation of the reasons or causes of NFP as "grave" is fully justified. The overall thrust of Catholic morality is pro-life; the prevention of conception is obviously anti-life, and therefore a grave matter, indeed.

It is known what results have ensued from a "very wide" interpretation of the reasons for annulment; it has earned annulment, in popular parlance, the designation of "the Catholic divorce." It would be unfortunate if a similar "very wide" interpretation of reasons for preventing conception through NFP were to result in the introduction of a "Catholic contraception" into the life of the Church.

—V. John Chalupa Camp Douglas, Wisconsin

 No profiles in courage

Once again you have managed an insightful look at our contemporary society. Your essay in the February issue indicates the cultural fissures in the United States. I hope you weren’t disappointed in the final acquittal vote in the Senate: no "Profiles of Courage." What is so evident is the lack of moral courage by so-called Catholic Senators.

—Eneas Begley Normal, Illinois

Cathedral in the Las Vegas mode

As a recent resident of Las Vegas, Nevada, I couldn’t escape comparing the design of Our Lady of the Angels Cathedral, as described in the December issue of CWR ("Our Lady of the Angels: An Architectural Review"), with its similarity to the design of Las Vegas casinos.

—Joseph A. Karp, Sr. Morro Bay, California