All posts by techdecisions

March, Saints

Mar 8 – St John of God, O.H. (1495-1550), Soldier, Revert, Religious – Founder of Brothers Hospitallers, “Fatebenefratelli”, “Do-good brothers”


-St John of God carrying a sick person with the Archangel Raphael appearing to help him. Raphael (often misattributed by some commentators as Gabriel) stepping out of the darkness to assist him to bear his load. (Apart from his identification with caring for the sick, e.g., Tobit and his father, Raphael is often shown in gold. The name “Raphael” itself means “God has healed”) by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (1617–1682), ca. 1672, oil on canvas, height: 79 cm (31.1 in), width: 62 cm (24.4 in), Hospital de la Caridad, Seville, Spain, please click on the image for greater detail

“Lord be blessed for in Your great kindness to me who am such a great sinner having done so many wicked things, yet You see fit to set me free from such a tremendous temptation and deception which I fell into through my own sinfulness. You have brought me into a safe harbor where I shall endeavor to serve You with all my strength. My Lord, I beg you with all my might, give me the strength of Your grace and always let me see Your clemency. I want to be your slave, so kindly show me what I should do. Give peace and quiet to my soul which greatly desires this. O most worthy Lord, may this creature of Yours serve and praise You. May I give my whole heart and mind to You.” ~Prayed by Saint John of God at the time of his final conversion

Saint John of God was born in the village of Montemor-o-Novo, Portugal to middle-class, faith-filled parents, the son of André Cidade and Teresa Duarte, a once-prominent family that was impoverished but had great religious faith. According to his early biographer, John was abducted from his home when he was only eight years old. According to his original biography, his mother died from grief soon after this and his father joined the Franciscan Order. John was taken to the town of Oropesa, Spain, more than 200 miles away. In Oropesa, John found himself homeless and alone. He met a good man named El Mayoral who gave him a job as a shepherd and a place to live. John worked hard until he was twenty-two years old, never returning to his parents’ home. El Mayoral wanted John to marry his daughter, but John wanted to see the world. He joined the army of the Holy Roman Emperor and battled the French. During his service, he was assigned to guard some captured clothing that went missing. John was accused of theft and condemned to death, but others intervened and he was released. Frustrated with military life, John returned to El Mayoral’s farm where he worked for another four years before entering the army once again to fight the Turks for the next eighteen years.

Upon the completion of his military service, John decided to return to his home country in Montemor-o-Novo to learn what became of his parents. After much searching, he found one of his elderly uncles who informed him that his mother died of heartbreak after his abduction and that his father joined the Franciscans and advanced in holiness. John said to his uncle, “I no longer wish to stay in this country; but rather to go in search of a way to serve Our Lord beyond my native place, just as my father did. He gave me a good example by doing that. I have been so wicked and sinful and since the Lord has given me life, it is fitting that I should use it to serve Him and do penance.”

John began an interior search for the best way he could serve God and decided to journey to Africa, to ransom himself to the Muslims in exchange for their prisoners. On the journey, he met a knight and his family who were destitute and unable to care for themselves. The knight begged for John’s help that John gladly gave by working and giving them his earnings. When one of John’s fellow workers fled to Muslim territory and converted to Islam, John began to despair, thinking he should have done more for his friend. After seeking counsel from a Franciscan monastery, he decided to return to the mainland of Spain for the good of his soul.

Upon his arrival, John threw himself into a life of prayer, made a general confession, and tearfully went from church to church begging God for the forgiveness of his sins. To support himself, he began to buy and sell religious pictures and books as a traveling salesman. He found this to be spiritually rewarding and fruitful for the salvation of souls. Eventually, at the age of forty-six, he set up a small shop of religious items at Granada’s city gate.

Soon after, the great preacher Saint John of Ávila came to town to preach a mission. John was in attendance and was so moved by John of Ávila’s sermons, and so keenly aware of his own sins, that he started running through the streets like a madman, shouting for mercy. He returned to his shop and destroyed every book that was not religious, gave every other religious book and picture away to those passing by, gave away the rest of his possessions, and continued crying out in the streets that he was a sinner. “Mercy! Mercy, Lord God, on this tremendous sinner who has so offended you!” Many thought John was a lunatic. Some good men brought him to Saint John of Ávila who heard his confession, counseled him, consoled him, and offered his continued guidance. But John was so deeply touched by the priest’s holy help that he wanted everyone in the town to know how sinful he was, so he ran through the streets crying out again and rolled in mud as a sign of his sinfulness. Eventually, two compassionate men took John to the local insane asylum for treatment.

The theory of the day was that those who were insane were best cured by locking them in a dungeon and torturing them continuously until they chose to abandon their insanity, and this is what happened to John. Saint John of Ávila heard of this and began communicating with John, encouraging him, and guiding him. He received every beating in the asylum with joy as penance and offered each sacrificially to God. Throughout, John exhorted the warden and other officers to treat the patients better. When John began to exude a peaceful disposition, the warden was pleased and permitted him to be freed of his shackles. John showed mercy and compassion to others, performing menial charitable tasks and spreading God’s love. He thought to himself, “May Jesus Christ eventually give me the grace to run a hospice where the abandoned poor and those suffering from mental disorders might have refuge and that I may be able to serve them as I wish.”


-logo/emblem of the Brothers Hospitallers of St John of God, the Fatebenefratelli, please click on the image for greater detail.

After receiving permission to leave the asylum, John made a pilgrimage and had a vision of the Blessed Mother who encouraged him to work for the poor and infirm. Upon his return to Granada, he moved forward with his desire to open a hospital. Through begging, he was able to rent a building, furnish it, and begin seeking out the sick. He worked tirelessly to care for them, begged for food, brought priests to hear their confessions, and nursed them back to health. In the years following, John extended his mission of mercy to the poor, the abandoned, widows, orphans, the unemployed, prostitutes, and all who suffered. Soon, others were so inspired by the work John was doing that they joined him. His example helped others: two men who were in public enmity with each other while sharing common dissolute lives, Antoni Martin and Pedro Velasco, were reconciled to each other and became the nucleus of the new order that John was establishing. His companions in the work made up what would eventually become the Order of Hospitallers. In John’s life, the group would be only an organized group of companions, but twenty-two years after John’s death, the pope would approve this group of men as a new religious order.

Among the many miracles that have been reported, the most notable was when John ran in and out of a burning hospital to rescue patients without being burned himself. He is most known for his reaction when a local hospital caught fire. Bystanders did nothing. Disregarding his own safety, John rushed into the burning building to carry out patients. After having done that, he began throwing pillows and blankets out of the windows, mindful of what it took to get supplies. Finally, it’s said that when the local authorities planned on shooting a cannon at the burning edifice to level it, John stood on the roof and, with an axe, separated the burning part of the building from that which had not yet ignited. He emerged unscathed. A subsequent biographer explained it thusly: “The flame of Divine love which burned in his heart surpassed the intensity of the material fire.”

When a local river was seen to be carrying driftwood, John and his companions went to gather it as useful supplies. When a boy fall into the river and was caught in its current, John leaped in to try and rescue the lad, but came down with pneumonia, the cause of his death. The same city that had earlier put him in a hospital asylum mourned his death. He was canonized in 1690. John of God died on March 8, 1550, his 55th birthday, in Granada.


-St. John of God saving the Sick from a Fire at the Royal Hospital in 1549 by Manuel Gómez-Moreno González (1880), oil on canvas, height: 310 cm (10.1 ft); width: 195 cm (76.7 in), Museo de Bellas Artes de Granada, Alhambra, Granada, Spain, please click on the image for greater detail


-attributed to Juan Zapaca Inga, 1684-1685, “Passing of Saint John of God”, oil on canvas, height: 1,660 mm (65.35 in); width: 2,225 mm (87.59 in), Lima Art Museum, Peru, please click on the image for greater detail

The Order of Brothers Hospitallers of St John of God maintains a presence in 53 countries, operating more than 300 hospitals, services, and centers serving a range of medical needs in addition to mental health and psychiatry. The Family of Saint John of God, as those who commit to his vision are called, is made up of more than 45,000 members, Brothers and Co-workers, and supported by tens of thousands of benefactors and friends who identify with and support the work of the Order for sick and needy people across the world.

Saint John of God is a shining example of God’s power. He was a sinner and was thought to be mentally ill, but God did incredible things through him. If you ever feel as though you have nothing to offer God, think of Saint John and know that the weaker you may feel, the more God can use you.

Prayer

Saint John of God, you struggled in many ways throughout your life. Through it all, you never gave up your desire to serve God and others. Please pray for me, especially when I lose hope, that I may imitate your example and offer myself to God for His glory and the service of all. Saint John of God, pray for me. Jesus, I trust in You.

Love,
Matthew

February, Forty Martyrs of England & Wales, Saints

Feb 26 – Bl Robert Drury, Priest, Martyr, Apellant (1567-1607) – separation of Church and State?

Blessed Robert Drury was born in Buckinghamshire in about 1567. He studied at the English College, Rheims, France in 1588, and the English College, Valladolid, Spain in 1590. Ordained at Valladolid in 1593. Returned to England in 1593 to minister to covert Catholics around London, England. He was one of the signers of the loyal address of 31 January 1603 which acknowledged the queen as lawful sovereign on earth but maintained their loyalty in religious matters to the Pope. When James I came to the throne, the king required them to sign a new oath that acknowledged his authority over spiritual matters. Robert refused and was arrested in 1606 for the crime of being a priest. He was offered his freedom if he would sign the oath; he declined. Martyred by being hanged, drawn, and quartered on 26 February 1607 at Tyburn, London England.

An invitation from the English Government to these priests to acknowledge their allegiance and duty to the queen (dated 5 November 1602) led to the loyal address of 31 January 1603, drawn up by Dr. William Bishop, and signed by thirteen of the leading priests, including Drury and Roger Cadwallader. In this address, they acknowledged the queen as their lawful sovereign, repudiated the claim of the pope to release them from their duty of allegiance to her, and expressed their abhorrence of the forcible attempts already made to restore the Catholic religion and their determination to reveal any further conspiracies against the Government which should come to their knowledge. In return, they pleaded that as they were ready to render to Caesar the things that were Caesar’s, so they might be permitted to yield to the successor of Peter that obedience which Peter himself might have claimed under the commission of Christ, and so to distinguish between their several duties and obligations as to be ready on the one hand “to spend their blood in defense of her Majesty”, but on the other “rather to lose their lives than infringe the lawful authority of Christ’s Catholic Church”. This repudiation of the papal deposing power was condemned by the theological faculty of the Catholic University of Leuven; but Dr. William Bishop was in the end nominated Bishop of Chalcedon and first vicar Apostolic in England in 1623.

Elizabeth I of England died within three months of the signature of the address, and James I of England was not satisfied with purely civil allegiance. A new oath of allegiance was drawn up. It was imposed 5 July 1606, and about this time Drury was arrested. He was condemned for his priesthood, but was offered his life if he would take the new oath. A letter from Father Robert Persons, S.J., against its lawfulness was found on him. The oath declared that the “damnable doctrine” of the deposing power was “impious and heretical”, and it was condemned by Pope Paul V, 22 September 1606, “as containing many things contrary to the Faith and Salvation”. This brief, however, was suppressed by the archpriest, and Drury probably did not know of it. But he felt that his conscience would not permit him to take the oath, and he died a Catholic martyr at Tyburn, 26 February 1606-7.


-Robert Persons (Parsons), SJ (1546-1610)

Blessed Robert Drury attempted to appease Queen Elizabeth and her government as one of the Appellants. Two of the 13 who signed the Protestation of Allegiance would be executed during the reign of James I of England: today’s martyr and Blessed Roger Cadwallador (in 1610 on August 27). The Appellants opposed the Jesuit methods of leading the Catholic mission to England and attempted to compromise, pleading a divided but honest loyalty–secular loyalty to Elizabeth’s authority as the Queen of England; religious loyalty to Papal authority as the successor to St. Peter. The Appellants also opposed the authority and methods of the Archpriest George Blackwell, whom they thought favored the Jesuit approach. The Jesuit approach, articulated by Father Robert Persons, was uncompromising: total loyalty to the Roman Pontiff and absolute refusal to adopt public acceptance of the Church of England while remaining privately opposed. The Jesuits would not tolerate Church Papists who attended Anglican services to avoid the fines and imprisonments, for example. The Elizabethan regime took advantage of these disagreements to encourage division among Catholics in England.

Even if Elizabeth I had accepted their appeal for relief to her Catholic subjects, the succession of James VI of Scotland ended this attempt–because he would not compromise, either. He demanded that the Appellants accept his authority over both religious and secular matters with the Oath of Allegiance. Members of the Appellant party were divided over whether they could take James I’s new oath. Drury and Cadwallador were arrested and refused to take the oath.

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia entry on Blessed (then Venerable) Robert Drury:

‘The results of the address were disappointing; Elizabeth died within three months of its signature, and James I soon proved that he would not be satisfied with any purely civil allegiance. He thirsted for spiritual authority, and, with the assistance of an apostate Jesuit, a new oath of allegiance was drawn up, which in its subtlety was designed to trouble the conscience of Catholics and divide them on the lawfulness of taking it. It was imposed 5 July, 1606, and about this time Drury was arrested. He was condemned for his priesthood, but was offered his life if he would take the new oath. A letter from Father Persons, S.J., against its lawfulness was found on him. The oath declared that the “damnable doctrine” of the deposing power was “impious and heretical”, and it was condemned by Pope Paul V, 22 September, 1606, “as containing many things contrary to the Faith and Salvation”. This brief, however, was suppressed by the archpriest, and Drury probably did not know of it. But he felt that his conscience would not permit him to take the oath, and he died a martyr at Tyburn, 26 February, 1606-7. A curious contemporary account of his martyrdom, entitled “A true Report of the Arraignment . . . of a Popish Priest named Robert Drewrie” (London, 1607), which has been reprinted in the “Harleian Miscellany”, calls him a Benedictine, and says he wore his monastic habitat the execution. But this “habit” as described proves to be the cassock and cap work by the secular clergy. The writer adds, “There were certain papers shown at Tyburn which had been found about him, of a very dangerous and traitorous nature, and among them also was his Benedictine faculty under seal, expressing what power and authority he had from the pope to make men, women, and children here of his order; what indulgence and pardons he could grant them”, etc. He may have been a confrater or oblate of the order.’

Almighty and merciful God, who brought your Martyr blessed Robert to overcome the torments of his passion, grant that we, who celebrate the day of his triumph, may remain invincible under your protection against the snares of the enemy. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Love,
Matthew

Apologetics

Pleasure sinful?


-by Alice von Hildebrand (1923-2022)

“Is pleasure sinful? Some religious movements, such as Puritanism or pietism, certainly seem to think so. For them, religion is severe, for we are sinners threatened at each turn with damnation. Pleasure is the preferred tool of the devil to coax us into the abyss, so the religious man views pleasure as an archenemy and orders his life accordingly. The more somber life is, the better. God is judge, always on the lookout to condemn sinners to eternal punishment.

On the other side of the spectrum, we find thinkers like the ancient Greek Aristippus of Cyrene and the father of utilitarianism, Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), who considered any pleasure, as long as it produced happiness, good. “Let a man’s motive be ill will,” Bentham wrote; “call it even malice, envy, cruelty; it is still a kind of pleasure that is his motive: the pleasure he takes at the thought of the pain which he sees or expects to see his adversary undergo. Now even this wretched pleasure taken in itself is good.”

Where does the Christian stand between these two extremes? One of the many paradoxes of our faith is that, while we are told we should live in fear and trembling, aware that “the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking some one to devour” (1 Pet. 5:8), we are further told, “Likewise you also should be glad and rejoice” (Phil. 2:18). Can’t Christianity be accused of contradicting itself?

That certain activities are pleasurable is something God has put in human nature. Food, drink, rest, and moderate physical activity are pleasant and are meant to be. But the natural pleasures, legitimate as they are, can be abused. In moral evils such as gluttony, drunkenness, and laziness, the evil is not in the pleasure itself, but in its abuse. The fact that I know that someone enjoys a good meal and a choice wine does not give me any information about his moral standards.

But things become very different as soon as the person in question is addicted to any innocent pleasure. It is one thing to enjoy a glass of wine with dinner; it is another to spend most of the time drunk. This type of addiction betrays a lack of moral seriousness that is bound to have dire consequences. For God has created man to serve him on this earth and enjoy him eternally in heaven, and even if such people do not do anything evil, they certainly fail to serve God as he ought to be served.

The situation becomes radically different the moment a person, in order to attain a particular pleasure, uses illegitimate means. That a person is a gourmet and enjoys refined food is not morally evil; that he steals in order to be able to afford this pleasure is immoral.

Moreover, there are pleasures that should be avoided for the very reason that they are harmful. I would venture to say that if a person has full knowledge of tobacco’s harmful effects and chooses to become addicted to nicotine, he has committed a morally culpable action. Our health is God’s gift, and we have no right to jeopardize it. It is noteworthy that this fact is difficult for many to perceive: the tendency in our fallen nature is to assume that we have a ” right” over our own bodies, while in fact our bodies are God’s property. All gifts come from him, and we should never forget that we are stewards and not masters.

The pleasures that spring from immoral actions—such as cruelty (even toward animals), sadism, and the whole gamut of sexual perversions—are intrinsically evil, and the only proper response to them is horror and rejection: “Go away, Satan!” When such temptations arise—don’t forget: we’re not responsible for temptations, but only for yielding to their evil attraction—we should remember that moral abominations call for a radical cure and the use of radical means to protect ourselves from falling into an abyss of filth.

Once, according to legend, when Francis of Assisi was tempted by the flesh, without a moment’s hesitation, he threw himself into a bush of thorns. He did not “flirt” with the temptation. Not only did he reject it, but he inflicted upon himself a sharp physical pain that forced his attention on the immediate physical suffering—a radical way and efficient way of repelling the temptation’s vicious appeal.

Though someone who is tempted by the devil to view pornography may not be responsible for the temptation, if he keeps yielding to it, he invites its inevitable reappearance. Remember, we must run away. No one can force us to look at filth. To the one who lives in front of God, these types of “pleasure” evoke nothing but nausea. Nothing can justify our yielding to them. They degrade us in a very deep way and call for a radical condemnation. Clearly, such pleasures had no appeal prior to original sin, whereas we can assume that legitimate pleasures were more pleasurable still prior to the Fall.

Any “flirting” with obscene pleasure—such as looking at pornography even briefly or infrequently—leaves traces in the imagination that can create huge obstacles to our transformation in Christ. Anyone may be tempted; those who have never been subject to these abominations should realize that it is purely through God’s grace that they have been protected. But he to whom Satan presents these horrors should spew them out and run away.

This leads me to a related topic that I will mention only briefly. One of the regrettable changes that has taken place in the Church following Vatican II is the practical elimination of asceticism. Founders of religious orders have always insisted upon its importance for the “liberation” of man, leading to true freedom. I am referring not only to a limited sleep, to modest food, and to little or no wine, practices that limit the range of legitimate pleasures. I am also speaking of certain practices which are painful, such as long fasts, abstinence, and such disciplines (highly recommended by Francis de Sales—see Introduction to the Devout Life).

The news media have been so efficient in misinforming the faithful about the true teaching of Vatican II that, all of a sudden, novel practices were introduced in religious orders that would have made their founders cry. Discipline was in great measure abolished. Monks, nuns, and priests discovered that they were “unfulfilled” and left their monasteries, convents, and vocations in droves. But a good psychologist will tell you that the most unfulfilled persons are frequently those whose primary focus in life is self-fulfillment.

To abandon any form of asceticism is to sap Christian life of one of its essential aspects: death to ourselves. Dying to ourselves makes little sense in a world that has become so secularized that it has totally lost the sense of the supernatural and the radiant world that it opens up to the weak and imperfect creature that is man. Christ said in the gospel that there are some devils that can be conquered only by prayer and sacrifice. This should be a guideline today for those who are attracted by moral filth.

What should be the Christian’s attitude toward legitimate pleasures? Granted that he should never allow himself to become a slave of pleasures (innocent as the pleasure may be), he should view them as refreshments that God in His goodness has placed in the paths of his pilgrim children struggling in this vale of tears. Augustine tells us that weary travelers should gratefully accept to rest in an inn placed on their difficult path in ascending the mountain of the Lord. No doubt some heroic souls choose to renounce virtually all pleasures, not only to become “free,” but also because sacrifices are pleasing to God and can benefit brothers in need. Under wise spiritual guidance, they choose to suffer for those who seek nothing but pleasures.

Not everyone is called to put ashes on his food like Francis of Assisi (who, at the end of his life, apologized to his body—”Brother Ass”—for having treated him so badly). But every Christian is called upon to view pleasures not only as something subjectively satisfying, but as a beneficial good, manifesting God’s kindness, a kindness that should trigger gratitude in our soul. Indeed, gratitude—a forgotten virtue—should be a basic Christian attitude. And, as Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 10:31, “Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.””

Love & Lord, have mercy on me for I am a sinful man,
Matthew

Ecclesiology

Conquistadors – saviors of souls


-please click on the image for greater detail


-by Steve Weidenkopf

“The Catholic conquistador Hernán Cortés occupies a preeminent place in the modern pantheon of villainous Catholic personages. It is common to find the explorer in lists of the “most brutal” conquistadors. The five hundredth anniversaries of his landing at Veracruz in 1519 and conquest of Mexico in 1520-1521 produced varied reactions in Spain and Mexico. In November 2019, Mexican president Andrés Manuel López-Obrador criticized Cortés at a press conference. Like many other historical personages who have been roped into the clutches of “presentism” (a modern bias in historical interpretation that judges the past based on modern sensibilities), Cortés’s legacy is called into question in the modern world. Efforts to “cancel” his memory and achievements and to tear down statues erected in his honor (including in his hometown of Medellín, Spain) dominate the current view of this sixteenth-century Catholic conquistador.

Amid these historical attacks against the Church and her past members, today’s Catholics are oftentimes bewildered and uncertain how to respond. Catholics are susceptible to two erroneous responses to these anti-Catholic historical criticisms: an unflinching and uncritical triumphalism that highlights the good and ignores the bad of Church history and the “ostrich” approach of ignoring the controversy at best and implicitly accepting the false historical narrative at worst. The Catholic defender of Church history must fight these extreme positions and seek the historical truth through knowledge, understanding the context of historical events, and recognizing that people in the past were men and women endowed with free will, which was sometimes exercised virtuously and sometimes not.

The point of defending the Church’s history against false historical views and narratives of the modern age is to protect the Church against detractors who use history to discredit the Church and her teachings. Defense of Catholic personages and historical events from the “mythistory” of the present does not indicate complete acceptance of past persons or actions, but instead seeks authentic understanding so that controversial events can by explained (but not necessarily justified).

So who was Hernán Cortés, and what did he accomplish? How should Catholics in the modern world view this man and his actions?

While the Church was embattled in the theological revolution, which soon turned political, in German territory in the early sixteenth century, on the other side of the world, an unauthorized expedition of five hundred Spaniards left Cuba for a journey to the interior of modern-day Mexico. Nearly three decades after Columbus’s first voyage to the New World, the Spanish soldier Hernán Cortés landed his ships at Veracruz on Good Friday 1519 with multiple objectives, chief among them the conversion of the indigenous peoples to the Catholic faith. His army marched with two banners, with red and black with gold trim, with the Spanish coat of arms on one side and the cross of Christ on the other.

At the beginning of their journey, Cortés remarked to his men, “Brothers and companions, let us follow the sign of the Cross with true faith and in it we shall conquer.” He ordered the destruction of their ships, so that failure was not an option, and began the trek inward.

Cortés was a skillful military leader and tactician and an excellent motivator of men. Additionally, whatever his faults, he was a man of deep, pious faith and a faithful son of the Church. Bernal Díaz, one of Cortés’s soldiers who wrote an account of the conquest toward the end of his life, described the first conquistador’s faith life: “[He wore] just a thin chain of gold of a single pattern and a trinket with the image of Our Lady the Virgin Saint Mary with her precious Son in her arms. . . . He prayed every morning with a [book of] Hours and heard Mass with devotion; he had for his protector the Virgin Mary our Lady . . . as well as the Lord St. Peter and St. James and the Lord St. John the Baptist.”

Cortés marched his troops to the Mexica (the proper name for the rulers of the Aztec Empire) capital city of Tenochtitlán (on the site of the future Mexico City), a metropolis of 200,000 people in the center of a lake. The Aztec Empire consisted of a warlike people who conquered neighboring tribes to expand their empire and provide the human capital needed to satiate their bloodthirsty gods (the Hummingbird Wizard and the Lord of the Dark, among others).

The Mexica practiced more human sacrifices than any other New World native peoples. Every imperial city and large town had a central square from which a temple pyramid, where human sacrifices were performed, rose to the sky. The victim was laid on a table, where a priest would cut out his beating heart and hold it aloft for the worshipers to see. Imperial law mandated 1,000 human sacrifices a year in every temple, which totaled nearly 20,000 victims annually. Thirty years before the Spanish arrival in the city, the human sacrificial toll surpassed 80,000 during a four-day inauguration of the Great Temple.

Cortés sought the end of the grotesque and barbaric human sacrifices in conversations with the Aztec emperor, Moctezuma II. Eventually, Cortés arrested Moctezuma, an action deemed necessary for Spanish protection, and received permission from the emperor, in January 1520, to allow the placement of an altar, a cross, and an image of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Great Temple. The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass replaced the demonic human sacrifices for three months in the temple, but the Mexica priests were agitated and incensed at the stoppage.

Moctezuma was held in captivity for six months before his death (accounts differ as to the manner of death, with blame placed either with the Mexica or the Spanish). When Cortés left the city to deal with the arrival of another Spanish force sent to arrest the conquistador for his unauthorized foray, a large group of unarmed Mexica warriors were massacred by the remaining Spanish while dancing during a temple festival. This raised the ire of the indigenous population and forced the Spanish to flee the city. Cortés led his remnant army to Tlaxcala, a neighboring region containing a tribe hostile to the Mexica. Establishing alliances with Tlaxalans and other indigenous tribes, Cortés and the Spanish captured Tenochtitlán in August 1521, dealing a significant blow to Mexica hegemony.

The eventual conquest of the Aztec Empire was not as swift as usually portrayed, but occurred through a combination of Spanish military and technological superiority, and, most importantly, significant indigenous ally support. Cortés was aided by a former Mayan female slave known as Malintzin, who was among a group of twenty slaves given to the Spanish by the native people of Tabasco. Malintzin served as interpreter for Cortés and later became his mistress and bore the conquistador a son (Martin). Malintzin, like Cortés, has been maligned in modern memory as a traitor to her people who assisted Cortés for material and personal gain.

The conquest of New Spain was a bloody affair. The Spanish suffered significant casualties (over fifty percent) during the two-year war, but the Mexica suffered substantially more. Although Cortés estimated that his troops killed twelve thousand natives, the more likely number over the entire two-year campaign was near a million.

There is no doubt that the Spanish conquistadors and subsequent colonization severely impacted the indigenous peoples of the New World, both negatively and positively. Negatively, the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire resulted in a catastrophic death toll from violence and the unintended introduction of European diseases. Positively, Cortés expedition ended the barbaric practice of human sacrifice in the empire, and Spanish evangelization efforts, undertaken without much success until the appearance of Our Lady of Guadalupe a decade afterward, brought the light of Christ to a new area of the world.

Hernán Cortés was no saint, but he was a man of his age and culture, who, at least in part, was motivated by a desire to see the gospel communicated to people enslaved in darkness. Catholics cannot justify many of his actions in the New World, but, by studying authentic history, and not the false narratives rooted in presentism, we can understand the context in which he lived and acted and more effectively defend Catholic history against inappropriate and nefarious attacks.”

Love & truth,
Matthew

Eucharist, Real Presence

Transubstantiation

Rejection of Aristotelian metaphysics is to reject the philosophy of the Western world and culture.  It demonstrates either ignorance or willfulness to proclaim one’s contemporaries dummies.


-by Jimmy Akin

A recent article by Thomas Reese, S.J. for National Catholic Reporter has attracted attention. There’s a lot to respond to in Fr. Reese’s article, but I have a word limit, so I’ll keep it short.

Under the deliberately provocative title “The Eucharist is about more than the real presence,” Reese discusses what he thinks is wrong in the contemporary Church concerning the Eucharist. And about halfway through, he states:

Since my critics often accuse me of heresy, before I go further, let me affirm that I believe in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. I just don’t believe in transubstantiation because I don’t believe in prime matter, substantial forms and accidents that are part of Aristotelian metaphysics.

Thomas Aquinas used Aristotelianism, the avant-garde philosophy of his time, to explain the Eucharist to his generation. What worked in the 13th century will not work today. If he were alive today, he would not use Aristotelianism because nobody grasps it in the 21st century.

So, first, forget transubstantiation. Better to admit that Christ’s presence in the Eucharist is an unexplainable mystery that our little minds cannot comprehend.

Reese is correct that Aristotelianism was an avant-garde philosophy in the time of Aquinas. Except for Aristotle’s work on logic, the rest of his philosophy had been unavailable in the Latin-speaking West for centuries, and it was just before and during Aquinas’s time that translations of most of Aristotle’s works were becoming available.

The major figure in synthesizing Aristotelian and Christian thought was Aquinas’s mentor, Albert the Great (c. 1200-1280), and the new ideas were considered quite daring. In 1210, 1270, and 1277, ecclesiastical authorities in Paris prohibited the teaching of various ideas connected with Aristotle’s thought, and Albert himself found it expedient to state, “I expound, I do not endorse, Aristotle.”

Aquinas’s own synthesis of Christian and Aristotelian thought was viewed with considerable suspicion, and some of the Condemnations of 1277 were directed at Aquinas’s ideas. Particularly suspect were Aristotle’s physics and metaphysics.

But what does any of this have to do with transubstantiation?

From what Reese says, you might suspect that Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) came up with transubstantiation, that the concept is inextricably bound up with Aristotle’s thought, and that it’s purely optional for Catholics. However, none of these things is true.

In the first place, the term transubstantiation had been around for quite some time before Aquinas. Its first recorded use was by Hildebert of Tours, who used it around 1079—two centuries before Aquinas. The term was regarded as an apt one for expressing what people believed, and it quickly spread among theologians.

It appears—and is endorsed—in a letter of Pope Innocent III from 1202 (DH 784), and in 1215, the ecumenical council of Lateran IV taught that Christ’s “body and blood are truly contained in the sacrament of the altar under the appearances of bread and wine, the bread being transubstantiated into the body by the divine power and the wine into the blood” (DH 802).

So transubstantiation was not the brainchild of Thomas Aquinas. What about it being inextricably linked to Aristotle’s thought?

That the term was proposed before the major translation of Aristotle’s writings into Latin and the integration of Aristotelian and Christian thought should be a big clue that there’s no essential connection between the two.

So is the fact that the term had been widely adopted—including by a pope and an ecumenical council!—during the period when Aristotelianism, and especially its physics and metaphysics, were viewed with suspicion.

The term transubstantiation itself is not Aristotelian, and Aristotle did not use it. The word is Latin rather than Greek, and it comes from perfectly common Latin roots: trans, which means across or beyond, and substantia, which means substance. Any Latin speaker of the day would naturally understand it to mean a change of one substance or reality into another, as you can tell from the context in which Lateran IV used it.

Neither do we find distinctly Aristotelian terms like prime matter, substantial form, or even accidents in the Church’s articulation of transubstantiation. When the Council of Trent met, it issued the following definition:

If anyone says that in the most holy sacrament of the Eucharist the substance of bread and wine remains together with the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ and denies that wonderful and unique change of the whole substance of the bread into his body and of the whole substance of the wine into his blood while only the species of bread and wine remain, a change which the Catholic Church very fittingly calls transubstantiation, let him be anathema (Decree on the Sacrament of the Eucharist, can. 2; DH 1652).

There’s nothing distinctly Aristotelian in that. The Council even avoids the Aristotelian term accidents and uses the term species—which means appearances—instead. The council thus articulated the faith of the Church without endorsing any particular philosophical school of thought.

I don’t know how much catechesis Reese has done in his career, but you don’t have to sit down and give a person a mini-course in Aristotelianism—or any philosophical system—to explain transubstantiation. It’s not a familiar term outside Catholic circles, but all you have to say is, “The bread and wine become Jesus. After the consecration, bread and wine aren’t there anymore. Jesus is present under the appearances of bread and wine.”

This understanding was present in the Church’s faith before the term transubstantiation was coined. Indeed, it’s why the term was coined.

Reese’s comments about transubstantiation, Aquinas, and Aristotle are thus misinformed and misdirected, but he raises the question of whether he can be accused of heresy and professes his faith in the real presence as proof that he is not a heretic. It’s good that he believes in the real presence, but is this sufficient to avoid heresy?

The charge of heresy is a very serious one and should be made only in the gravest circumstances. It is defined as follows:

Heresy is the obstinate denial or obstinate doubt after the reception of baptism of some truth which is to be believed by divine and Catholic faith (CIC 751).

A “truth which is to be believed with divine and Catholic faith” is another way of saying a dogma—that is, a truth that has been infallibly defined by the Magisterium to be divinely revealed. Dogmas are a subset of other infallible teachings, which may or may not be divinely revealed.

It is commonly held that Trent’s canon (above) contains two infallible definitions: first, that the whole substance of bread and wine is changed into Christ’s body and blood so that bread and wine do not remain and, second, that this change is fittingly called transubstantiation.

The term transubstantiation was coined in the 1000s, so it is not part of the deposit of faith and not divinely revealed. Reese would not be a heretic for denying this term.

But in rejecting transubstantiation, Reese said that “Christ’s presence in the Eucharist is an unexplainable mystery.” On its face, that appears to be a doubt of (a refusal to believe) the explanation provided by Trent—that the whole substance of bread and wine are changed into the whole substance of Christ’s body and blood.

Reese thus should clarify whether he actually accepts this change, which is divinely revealed and was made a dogma by Trent.

Doubting this dogma obstinately would make Reese guilty of heresy—and that’s for the competent ecclesial authorities to judge, not me. I thus am not in a position to accuse him of heresy, but based on what he has said, he is dancing on the edge of it.

Love & truth,
Matthew

Holy Orders

The fire on the altar


-please click on the image for greater detail


-by Br Cassian Mary Iozzo, OP

“The eighth chapter of the Book of Leviticus brings us to the Israelites’ encampment at the foot of Mount Sinai, after their march through the scorching desert. Here we find the entire community assembled at the entrance of the tabernacle, before Aaron and his sons disappear inside for seven days to be ordained as priests of the Lord. As part of this long and mysterious rite, they become extensions of the altar of sacrifice—the altar is anointed with oil, and Aaron is anointed with oil; the altar’s extremities and base are anointed with blood, and Aaron’s extremities and foot are anointed with blood. As is the rite’s requirement, Aaron and his sons burn sacrifices. The Lord then brings the ordination rite to a dramatic conclusion as flames rush from the Lord’s presence to completely consume the sacrifices on the altar (Lev 9:23-24). By that same act, the Lord’s divine fire sanctifies the fire that Aaron and his sons originally kindled on the altar. Keeping in mind Aaron’s new connection with the altar, we can understand that the Lord igniting and sanctifying the altar is a visible sign of his Spirit igniting and sanctifying those who are to serve Him as priests. 

The Rite of Ordination today does not involve setting anyone on fire—for obviously good reasons—but this account from Leviticus presents a powerful image of the Holy Spirit igniting the heart of the priest. The priesthood is not a matter of doing, but of being. Jesus Christ conforms the ordained man to Himself as both priest and altar. The heart of the priest is connected to the new altar of sacrifice: the Cross of Christ. At this new altar, the priest unites his own sacrifice and the sacrifice of his flock to the glory of God the Father at the Mass. No man is worthy of the grace of being conformed to Christ. It is the work of God. Adding wood to a pile will never make it catch fire. The ignition must come from outside because it is a sharing in the divine nature of God, Who Himself “is a consuming fire” (Deut. 4:24). To stress the importance of this, God commanded Moses that “the fire on the altar is to be kept burning; it must not go out” (Lev 6:5). In fact, in this same place God gives this commandment three times! The fire on the altar of the priest’s heart must not go out. Should the fire stop, the heart ceases to share in God, the very source of its burning. All that would remain is a heart of cold ashes. 

Were there ever bonfires that were brighter and hotter than the one on the altar of sacrifice? Of course. But the fire on the altar was the one that God chose as the only one acceptable for sacrifice (Lev 10:1-2). Are there people who seem like they could do “the job” of a priest better? Of course. But the priest is the one whom God chose, regardless of that man’s failings and the brokenness of his human nature. A man is not a priest because of what he does, a man is a priest because of what God has done.”

Love, pray for our priests,
Matthew

Reconciliation, Sacraments

Denying absolution


     (This confessional screen is ridiculously well-lit. I guess to let you know what it looks like. It is usually near pitch black dark. The only light comes through the screen towards your darkened side (pun intended) from the confessor’s chair in the center of the confessional. You can make out the outline of the confessor’s silhouette from the light in his confessional chair. It is nearly pitch black and dark on either penitent’s side.
     Each side takes turns with heavy velvet curtains to muffle any conversation and a sliding wooden door the confessor controls due to an internal wooden knob.  The screen opens when it is your turn.  If you are waiting your turn inside and you hear voices, you are to do your best to ignore even muffled voices.  There is never clarity. 
     When you kneel before the screen this may close an electrical switch in the red velvet (classically) kneeler (whose movement you can feel) which turns on a red let immediately above and outside some (older) confessionals telling others that side of the confessional is occupied.  It is extremely embarrassing to pull the current gently aside to discover the prior occupant if you’re not careful and before they’ve departed or started or, eek!, in the midst of.
     The confessional screen is hardly visible from the penitent’s side due to darkness except for the pattern it gives immediately before the penitent’s face when in use. The idea is to hide the identity of the penitent. Protocol, as traditionally taught, is if you are waiting for your turn outside the confessional either standing in line or seated in pews immediately in front of the confessional and can hear voices, you are to move further up in pews closer to the altar, or generally further away from the confessional until you can no longer hear voices. An organ is sometimes played during confession to aid in the secrecy where sins are being divulged.
     Absolution is critical to Catholics.  As the Church teaches, “The teaching of the Church affirms the existence of hell and its eternity. Immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into hell, where they suffer the punishments of hell, ‘eternal fire’.” CCC 1035)

Pope curses ‘delinquent’ priests who withhold absolution
-January 17, 2023

“Priests should grant absolution in the confessional even when the penitent has no intention to repent, the Pope has said in a speech which has shocked seminarians.

The Holy Father put aside a written speech, describing it as “boring”, and delivered an off-the-cuff address to seminarians from Barcelona, Spain, in which he frequently used foul language.

In his address, he ordered students for the priesthood “not to be clerical, to forgive everything”, adding that “if we see that there is no intention to repent, we must forgive all”.

“We can never deny absolution, because we become a vehicle for an evil, unjust, and moralistic judgment,” Francis reportedly told the seminarians, who were accompanied by the Auxiliary Bishop Javier Vilanova Pellisa of Barcelona.

Priests who deny penitents absolution are “delinquents”, the Pontiff said, according to the Church Militant website.

If accurate, the Pope’s remarks appear to put him at odds with the moral theology expressed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church which emphasises that contrition occupies the “first place” of any act of a penitent and that it involves “the resolution not to sin again”.

Canon 987 of The Code of Canon Law also says that for the faithful to receive “the saving remedy of the sacrament of penance, they must be so disposed that, repudiating the sins they have committed and having the purpose of amending their lives, they turn back to God”.

According to reports, Francis also used his speech to rant against “f***ing careerists who f*** up the lives of others”.

The Pope also criticised “those who climb to show their a**”, the Italian media outlet Daily Compass reported.

The speech in December was the second time in two months that the Pope has dispensed with a prepared text on the grounds that it was boring.

Speaking to rectors and directors of seminaries in Latin America in November, he allegedly put down a 12-page written speech, saying: “It is a heavy thing, let us read it calmly”, before proceeding to deliver an extempore message, according to Vatican News.

Again, the Pope took issue with the rules about a penitent’s amendment of purpose being a necessary criteria for absolution.

He said that priests should “ask the permission of the bishop” before they dared to withhold absolution from people confessing mortal sins.

“This happens, please!” he said. “Our people cannot be in the hands of criminals. And a priest who behaves like this is a criminal, in every word. Like it or not.”

….In his bestseller The Dictator Pope: The Inside Story of the Francis Papacy, author Henry Sire (Marcantonio Colonna) records several instances of the pontiff using expletives, saying he was “prodigal with bad language”.

According to Sire, Fr Peter Hans Kolvenbach, former superior general of the Jesuits, wrote a damning report on Fr Jorge Mario Bergoglio in 1991, accusing the future pope of “a series of defects, ranging from habitual use of vulgar language to deviousness”.”


-by Jimmy Akin

“A recent news story discusses a talk Pope Francis gave to a group of seminarians in December.

Reportedly, the pope said that priests should not refuse absolution to penitents. However, the same story discusses him saying priests should check with their bishop before denying absolution.

Unfortunately, there are no recordings or transcripts of exactly what was said, so we can’t know. However, we can review the basic principles on this topic.

The first thing to say is that withholding absolution is a real possibility. When Jesus granted the power of absolution to the disciples, we read,

Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained” (John 20:21-23).

Jesus thus told the disciples that they needed to make a choice: to either forgive or retain sins.

He thus did not envision the disciples granting absolution in each and every case. Rather, he called upon them to make a decision—to exercise discernment, as our Jesuit friends would say.

Jesus thus envisioned the disciples withholding absolution in some cases, but on what basis? Obviously, as wrenching a decision as withholding absolution is not to be made capriciously or on a personal whim. So what would justify a priest in doing it?

In Scripture, the fundamental condition on which God forgives sin is repentance. If a person repents of his sins, God is willing to forgive. But if he clings to his sins, his salvation is in jeopardy.

This is the rational basis on which a priest can decide whether or not to absolve a penitent. If the individual has repented of his mortal sins, he is to be absolved, and if he has not repented of them, he is not.

The mere fact that an individual has come to a priest for confession indicates a desire for forgiveness, and it creates a presumption that the person is repentant. Confessing your sins is not fun, and subjecting yourself to the shame of doing so in order to be forgiven suggests that you regret what you did and have repented.

Therefore, in general, priests should presume that the individual has repented and absolve him. But the presumption of repentance can be overcome.

If a penitent behaves in the confessional in a way that is inconsistent with repentance, the priest is warranted in inquiring further—asking questions to see if the individual is repentant or not.

This can be a delicate matter. Many penitents recognize that, out of human frailty, they are likely to fall into the same sins in the future. But that does not mean that they are not repentant now. They may regret what they did, they may want not to sin in the future, and they may be hoping for grace—including the grace of confession—to help them not to sin, even though they are objectively likely to.

Such penitents are to be absolved as long as their will is currently turned away from sin.

But if the individual is genuinely non-repentant—showing no signs of contrition and being perfectly comfortable with committing mortal sin in the future—then denying him absolution is warranted.

Discerning this is a delicate enough matter that in some cases it could be advisable for a priest to check with his bishop.

Fortunately, stark unrepentance is rare when it comes to people going to confession, and—at least in the United States—the denial of absolution is very rare.”


-by Rev. Jerry J. Pokorsky

“The Church’s ritual has the priest introduce confession with these words: “May God Who has enlightened every heart help you to know your sins and trust in His mercy.”

As the Code of Canon Law (CIC) puts it, “individual and integral confession and absolution constitute the only ordinary means by which a member of the faithful conscious of grave sin is reconciled with God and the Church” (960). We need God’s grace to recognize our sins, and the confessor is, by his office, an instrument of God’s grace.

Occasionally, when a confessor has significant doubts as to a penitent’s disposition, circumstances, Scripture, traditional pastoral practice, and canon law require a priest to deny absolution.

  • After the Resurrection, Jesus breathed on his new priests and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained” (John 20:22-23).
  • Canon 987 reads, “To receive the salvific remedy of the sacrament of penance, a member of the Christian faithful must be disposed in such a way that, rejecting sins committed and having a purpose of amendment, the person is turned back to God.”
  • Canon 980 reads, “If the confessor has no doubt about the disposition of the penitent, and the penitent seeks absolution, absolution is to be neither refused nor deferred.”
  • Certain particularly grave sins impede the reception of the sacraments, and absolution cannot be granted until ecclesiastical authorities grant approval (see paragraph 1463 of the Catechism).

“Amen” is a solemn expression of our belief. It derives from the Hebrew verb aman, “to strengthen” or “to confirm.” “Amen” concludes the Creed at Mass, and we can think of “amen” as the Creed in brief. Above all, “amen” is on our lips in response to “the body of Christ” immediately before we receive the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus. Jesus gives Himself to us in friendship, and our “amen” opens our hearts, adorned by His grace, to Him and the entirety of His teaching.

“Anyone who desires to receive Christ in Eucharistic Communion must be in the state of grace. (Ed. My mother would regularly inquire of her children if they were, at that moment, in the state of grace.) Anyone aware of having sinned mortally must not receive Communion without having received absolution in the sacrament of penance” (CIC 1415). We must confess every mortal sin by kind and number—or an approximation, as we are aware—with a firm purpose of amendment. Confession restores our honesty and personal integrity and gives meaning to our “amen.”

Yet, often, we cannot see our sins except after many years. The prophet Jeremiah says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately corrupt; who can understand it? ‘I the Lord search the mind and try the heart, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings’” (Jer. 17:9-10). If God would reveal the entire burden of our deficiencies, perhaps our discouragement would be crushing and our sorrow unbearable. We are a work in progress.

The life of Bartolomé de las Casas, the Spanish missionary and Dominican priest, is a story of a spiritual and moral work in progress. Las Casas was the first to expose the oppression of the Indians by Spaniards in the Americas. He was also the first to agitate for the abolition of slavery. However, at one point, Las Casas suggested that African slaves substitute for Indian slaves. The suggestion conformed to cultural expectations. But with God’s grace, Las Casas regretted the proposal. He took his “amen” seriously.

Las Casas tirelessly wrote books, tracts, and petitions, arguing his defense of the rights of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. He became an adviser to King Charles of Spain, who signed laws requiring Spaniards to free their slaves after a generation. It would take the English-speaking Americans another 300 years to free their slaves, and only after a brutal American Civil War.

Church bells tolled throughout Hispaniola upon news of the death of Las Casas in 1566. The Dominicans introduced his cause for canonization in 1976. In 2002, the Church began the process of his beatification.

Why this history? It may come as a surprise that the heroic life of Bartolomé de las Casas begins with a priest denying him absolution. A group of Dominican friars arrived in Santo Domingo in 1510, led by Pedro de Córdoba. They were appalled by the injustices of the slave owners and refused them absolution without a purpose of amendment. Las Casas—a slave-holder—was among those denied. The anonymous priest hearing the confession of a young Las Casas became a powerful instrument of God’s grace.

The prophet Ezekiel proclaimed that we are responsible for the sins of others if we cooperate with them. “If I say to the wicked, ‘You shall surely die,’ and you give him no warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, in order to save his life, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood I will require at your hand.” But a priest saves his life when he judiciously denies absolution as a warning: “If you warn the wicked, and he does not turn from his wickedness, or from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you will have saved your life.” (Ezek. 3:18-19)

With academic study and pastoral experience, we can understand the conditions under which the refusal of absolution is essential to respect human freedom and provoke repentance. (Alas, some sins, such as forms of genital mutilation, cannot be physically reversed, but they can be reversed in a supernatural way by a sorrowful heart.) The possibilities are rooted in Scripture and the precepts of canon law. But the fundamental reason is also rooted in honesty and integrity when we receive Communion.

Denying absolution, under certain strict circumstances, provides clarity and discourages a lie when responding with the word “amen.” Honest repentance accepts God’s promise: “I, I am He Who blots out your transgressions for My own sake, and I will not remember your sins” (Isa. 43:25).”

Love, Lord, have mercy on me, for I am a sinful man,
Matthew

Moral, Suffering, Theology of the Body

Suicide – Jn 11:25


-by Casey Chalk

“A new federal suicide prevention hotline has witnessed a significant increase in calls and texts, with 154,585 more calls, texts, and chat messages in November 2022 compared to the old national lifeline in November 2021, according to the Associated Press. This comes at a time when depression rates, overdose deaths, and suicide rates have all exploded.

When people think about Catholicism and suicide, it is often through lenses informed less by magisterial teaching and more by popular portrayals of how the Church has responded to those who take their own lives. I remember, for example, once seeing a cinematic portrayal of Vlad the Impaler (later mythologized into Dracula) that showed his first wife killing herself. Vlad’s realization that the woman cannot be buried in consecrated ground and that eternal damnation is her punishment drives him into darkness and evil. Alternatively, today, priests have been disciplined for even suggesting that hell might be the result of death by suicide, and many presume that all those who commit it must be mentally ill and those incapable of mortal sin.

Catholics (and all Americans) need a more coherent understanding of suicide—one that not only addresses the above misconceptions, but also takes full account of the human person and better protects those who are most vulnerable to being persuaded that death is the only or the best option for themselves. Thankfully, Catholic teaching offers quite a bit of clarity on the topic of suicide, prioritizing our dignity as persons, as well as our inescapable indebtedness to the divine—the “God factor,” as it were.

To properly contextualize this conversation, we need to start with God. For it is to God, not ourselves, that we owe our lives. Human life—pace atheists or transhumanists—is not solely our own, nor some sort of material product, to do with as we see fit. Yes, we possess freedom via our will. But our lives originate in the divine—indeed, even our wills are in certain senses circumscribed, because we are free to choose not anything, but only those things that our corporeal, intellectual, physical, economic, historical, and geographic circumstances allow.

It is God Who created us and sustains us, at every moment of our lives, in His omnipotence and omnipresence. We are entirely His, whether we believe it and act like it or not. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches,

everyone is responsible for his life before God who has given it to him. It is God who remains the sovereign Master of life. We are obliged to accept life gratefully and preserve it for his honor and the salvation of our souls. We are stewards, not owners, of the life God has entrusted to us. It is not ours to dispose of (2280).

That idea runs counter to our increasingly post-Christian culture, which elevates autonomy as the greatest of all virtues. It’s also in tension with our culture’s acceptance of in vitro fertilization and surrogacy, which treat children not as gifts, but products. Parents can “produce” babies with preferred genetic traits and even declare fetuses faulty if they have some debilitating genetic defect. In that sense, our dystopian future is already upon us.

Yet if we can accept that our lives are first God’s, rather than our own, then the danger of suicide becomes more easily apparent. By taking our own life, we are destroying something that is not ours to destroy. Only God, in his infinite (if often obscure) wisdom and justice, has the right to take human life, or confer on his creatures that right (e.g., self-defense or just war).

There is more than this to the evil of suicide. Suicide, as St. John Paul II would say, encourages a “culture of death” that affects everyone. The Catechism explains:

Suicide contradicts the natural inclination of the human being to preserve and perpetuate his life. It is gravely contrary to the just love of self. It likewise offends love of neighbor because it unjustly breaks the ties of solidarity with family, nation, and other human societies to which we continue to have obligations. Suicide is contrary to love for the living God (2281).

It’s not just that suicide undermines love of God. It also undermines love of neighbor, the second greatest commandment. As Catholic philosopher Josef Pieper argued, each of us has obligations to one another, or pietas. We have obligations to parents, siblings, children, friends, neighbors, and fellow parishioners and citizens. We are obliged to love and serve them, and even communicate the love of Christ to them. In killing ourselves, we repudiate those duties.

To anticipate one likely objection, we should remember that this duty is reciprocal. In other words, our parents, siblings, children, friends, neighbors, fellow parishioners, and fellow citizens all have obligations to us, too. In destroying ourselves, we deny them the opportunity to love and serve us, especially when we are most in need of it. When we are depressed or diseased, or have some terrible, perhaps even terminal condition, that is precisely when those around us are most expected to exemplify both virtues on our behalf. If we are a burden, it is for their good.

It’s true that the Catholic Church has acknowledged that “grave psychological disturbances, anguish, or grave fear of hardship, suffering, or torture can diminish the responsibility of the one committing suicide” (§2282). Yet we should not allow that reality to persuade us into an indifference toward the dangerous threat posed by a culture that permits and even encourages suicide. The Catechism also teaches, “If suicide is committed with the intention of setting an example, especially to the young, it also takes on the gravity of scandal. Voluntary co-operation in suicide is contrary to the moral law” (2282). It is horrible indeed when some prominent figure or celebrity kills himself, inspiring their acolytes to consider the same fate.

Given the increasing frequency of suicide in our nation, readers may know someone, even a loved one, who has committed suicide. I know a few, including a close relative I never got to meet. It is a real possibility that such troubled persons are in hell, and that is a harrowing thought, indeed. But we cannot know the thoughts of the deceased, who may have repented even as they died, or may have lacked full knowledge of what they were doing. The Catechism itself gives us hope:

We should not despair of the eternal salvation of persons who have taken their own lives. By ways known to him alone, God can provide the opportunity for salutary repentance. The Church prays for persons who have taken their own lives (2283).

As serious (and evil) a thing as suicide may be, there remains reason to hope in a merciful God. Like so many other complicated areas of life, Catholic teaching navigates a middle path between unreserved contempt for those who kill themselves and, alternatively, eliding the real culpability we have for our decisions, even when there are mitigating circumstances.

Whether we have contemplated it ourselves or know someone who has, we must reject the lie that tells us our lives are solely our own, to keep or kill as we wish. It is a blessing, not a curse, that we are God’s from birth to death.”

Love, Jesus save me,
Matthew

Purgatory

Don’t forsake the dead


-by Sarah Cain

“Don’t say a eulogy at my funeral. Modern Catholic funerals can look a lot like Protestant variants. At first glance, that might not seem like a problem, but upon scrutiny, the profound disservice that is being done to the dead becomes clear.

Imagine attending a Catholic funeral. The pews are full, attesting to how the deceased had clearly reached a great number of people. Now, why are those people there, at a funeral Mass? They should be there for two primary reasons.

1. To join in solemn acknowledgment of Christ’s sacrifice and resurrection, which is what provides the pathway for us to enjoy eternal life.
2. To pray for the deceased’s soul.

We should grieve at the knowledge that it rarely happens that way. With increasing frequency, Catholic funerals take a different approach. “Progressive” priests give homilies that tell of the life that the deceased lived, the decedent’s love of various sports teams, and his family. They eulogize and label it a homily. After Communion, members of the man’s family are called to the pulpit to offer eulogies of their own. They postulate about what they believe their loved one is doing in heaven.

When I die, please don’t offer a eulogy at my funeral. It’s not because I’m inherently opposed to being remembered, and certainly not because I don’t want my loved ones to gain comfort from sharing stories that they may have. It’s because that’s not the place for those activities and because doing so undermines the purpose of having a funeral Mass at all. The funeral liturgy is an act of worship, in which the Church gathers to commend the deceased to God’s mercy. It’s not merely an expression of grief.

We pray for the dead in part because we acknowledge that people, no matter how much we love them, might not be in heaven. Thus, we pray for them, sacrifice for them, and offer Masses for them. Proclamations about what our loved one is doing in heaven undermine this. Recalling from the pulpit fond memories about the deceased distracts us from what is most important and from what our obligations are to the dead now.

Perhaps it seems harsh, as though this stipulation takes something from the grieving family members. But there is a helpful way to think of it differently. Imagine that you are in the casket. You are the deceased. How sure are you that you’ll go straight to heaven? Are you pure enough to stand in the presence of God, without hesitation, without shame or regret? Do you want your loved ones to presume that you are in heaven, or should they pray for your soul, so that if you are in purgatory, you might be helped? Only you and God know the tally of your sins; that is the case for each one of us. If it were my funeral Mass, I would want people to be reminded of the need to pray for the souls of those who have passed on—mine especially.

Catholic funerals are increasingly mirroring Protestant services, with differences between them barely discernible. One of those differences between our faiths—one of the chief ones—is our understanding of what happens after death. We pray for the dead because we know that they might be in purgatory.

If we don’t believe that they need this help, why even have a funeral Mass at all? Shouldn’t we merely clink glasses and say a toast to our departed comrade? If there is no liturgical response needed, then yes. We still have the vestiges of a time when we recognized the need, but the laity’s understanding of it is parched, so that even when priests seek to offer a reverent funeral Mass, they risk offending a grieving family that does not understand what should be taking place.

By all means, people can have gatherings in which speakers reminisce about the life of the dead, usually at the vigil (wake) or a funeral reception. This isn’t an attempt to deny family members their rightful grieving process; rather, it is to prevent the departed from being denied what he needs. It is tragic to witness a funeral Mass in which hundreds of people gather and likely none will pray for the departed’s soul, because they didn’t see the need and weren’t told of it.

The decision to remain silent on this topic is to forsake the dead in order to oblige those who might complain. Surely, we have exhausted the simplification of the liturgy to compensate for poor catechesis. It is not without its victims, even if they can no longer speak for themselves.”

Love,
Matthew

Heresy, Theology of the Body

Quid sit homo? – the body & human composting


-by Sarah Cain

“With its recent legalization of “human composting,” the state of New York joined California, Washington, Colorado, Oregon, and Vermont.

The process goes like this: the body of the deceased is placed in a metal vessel alongside wood chips, alfalfa, and other plant matter. A moderate heat is applied alongside extra oxygen to encourage microbial activity, and over a period of weeks, the human body breaks down into compost, which is then presented to the family. One cubic yard of dirt is given to them, or about three barrels full. Then, presumably, the family can get started with the cabbage patch they had been planning.

You wouldn’t be wrong to think that seems callous. Man as fertilizer cannot be an expression of man as one who shares in the nature of Christ.

Human composting is just one method of what are now being labeled “green burials.” Advocates boast that such methods “give back to nature.” Mushroom suits perform a similar function, wherein the deceased are placed in spore-ridden suits that will help to decompose them. “Alkaline hydrolysis” is all the rave in some (rather macabre) circles. That’s when the body is broken down in a chemical stew, to be disposed of like hazardous waste.

A vast array of disposal options might be helpful if you had a large, valueless item to get rid of. If the item was a broken refrigerator, there’s little to discuss regarding the morality of what happens after it is discarded. But this isn’t a discussion about refrigerators—it’s about human beings. By virtue of that knowledge, we must treat the body with respect, even reverence. Each person is made in the image and likeness of God; he bears a divine reflection. Even more so, by virtue of his baptism, a Christian is a member of the body of Christ. Human composting is a violation of the natural dignity of man and the supernatural dignity of the Christian.

Modern man has found himself back at an ancient question: quid sit homo? (What is man?) The answer that he has come to, if the actions are analyzed for what they imply, is “nothing.” Modernity asserts that man is nothing in his own right. He can and should be reduced to his utility. Thus, when he dies, he ceases to produce, and we can search for ways to use his body while making sure that it doesn’t take up too much space in the ground. It’s one last attempt to get another use out of it.

There’s an inherent shudder when most of us first hear of these ways of treating the dead. One of the consequences of living among (at least the ruins of) a Christian culture is that we “feel” that certain things are wrong even when we’ve lost the words to explain why. Part of the problem is that modern Catholics are too often divorced from the writings of the past to be able to answer the questions that man has long struggled with.

Our forebears knew, as we should, that man is different from animal. He has a higher nature. He has the capacity to reason. He has an immortal soul. He is made in the image and likeness of God, with a destiny to join in union with him. He matters enough to God for God to endure the Passion. Man is not trash, nor plant, nor mere animal, and he shouldn’t be disposed of as if he were. Man has dignity and value simply because of Who created him, Who willed him into being. The dignity that he holds is not contingent on how productive he is.

The secular understanding that deprives man of innate value leads down sinister roads. If he is defined by his output, what of those who are severely ill and thereby dependent? It naturally follows that the secular thesis deprives those people of their rightful protections and submits them to the whims of the capable—perhaps better labeled “the mob.” How about those with intellectual or developmental difficulties? Those still in the womb? All of these groups have little material output, and each has been targeted for termination by the secular world we inhabit, using a vast array of justifications.

Our respect for the totality of the human person necessitates that we treat the dead with dignity and charity. Further, it requires that we bury them in hope of the Resurrection. The act of burying the dead is a corporal work of mercy and recognition of the sacred nature of the body, which is “temple of the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor. 6:19).

One of the ways that our faith is distinguished from paganism is in the elevated placement of man on earth. It might seem paradoxical at first: as Christians, we recognize man’s fallen nature, thus placing him in need of a Savior, but we also value him as higher than other life forms, as each child is made in God’s image. In various pagan sects, nature is of higher value than man, and man becomes merely a parasite, plundering nature’s resources. Nature becomes worshiped as a deity. For these people, “mother nature” is not just a colloquial phrase. Other pagans refer to this false god as Gaia. To deprive man of his dignity and inherent value is thus both paganistic and sacrilegious.

We must do better than the world around us, which reduces man to utility, as in secularism, or to leech, as in paganism. A baptized person is a child of God. Even when the Church permits cremation, he must be set to rest in consecrated ground and buried in hopes of the Resurrection. He is not placed on display in the home, nor scattered because someone believes the act to be pretty. Those of us who live today have a profound obligation to honor the dignity of the man who can no longer speak for himself—certainly not by composting him, but rather by praying for his soul.”

Love & truth,
Matthew