The Annunciation: Celebrating Life

El Greco, The Annunciation 1600s

Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio, USA

The Annunciation was a favourite theme of El Greco

The Solemnity of the Annunciation is an appropriate time to highlight the sacredness of the life of the pre-born. A tireless defender of the rights of all human beings, especially those still in their mothers' wombs is Archbishop Charles J. Chaput OFMCap of Denver, Colorado.

Detroit, Mich., Mar 21, 2009 / 12:32 pm (CNA).-

Archbishop of Denver Charles J. Chaput delivered a speech on Saturday reflecting on the significance of the November 2008 election. Warning that media “narratives” should not obscure truth, he blamed the indifference and complacency of many U.S. Catholics for the country’s failures on abortion, poverty and immigration issues.

He also advised Catholics to “master the language of popular culture” and to refuse to be afraid, saying “fear is the disease of our age.”

The archbishop’s comments were delivered in his keynote address at the Hands-On Conference Celebrating the Year of St. Paul, which was hosted at the Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit.

You can read the full report here.

Archbishop Chaput is media-savvy and speaks calmly but clearly. He is not the caricature often depicted of those who defend the right of the pre-born to be born but who, allegedly, don't care for the child once its born. Here is one part of the report with my emphases and comments:

Noting that there was no question about President Barack Obama’s views on abortion “rights,” embryonic stem cell research and other “problematic issues,” he commented:

“Some Catholics in both political parties are deeply troubled by these issues. But too many Catholics just don’t really care. That’s the truth of it. If they cared, our political environment would be different. If 65 million Catholics really cared about their faith and cared about what it teaches, neither political party could ignore what we believe about justice for the poor, or the homeless, or immigrants, or the unborn child. If 65 million American Catholics really understood their faith, we wouldn’t need to waste each other’s time arguing about whether the legalized killing of an unborn child is somehow ‘balanced out’ or excused by three other good social policies.” (I've heard this point of view from priests, none of whom would ever say that abortion is right or good. But there seems to be an unwillingness to look at the horror of what it is).

Offering a sober evaluation of the state of American Catholicism, he added:

“We need to stop over-counting our numbers, our influence, our institutions and our resources, because they’re not real. We can’t talk about following St. Paul and converting our culture until we sober up and get honest about what we’ve allowed ourselves to become. We need to stop lying to each other, to ourselves and to God by claiming to ‘personally oppose’ some homicidal evil -- but then allowing it to be legal at the same time.” (I've often heard Archbishop Chaput speak on the internet and he is a mild-mannered person, but his language here isn't fuzzy).

Commenting on society’s attitude towards Catholic beliefs, Archbishop Chaput said, “we have to make ourselves stupid to believe some of the things American Catholics are now expected to accept.”

You can listen to Archbishop Chaput's Sunday homilies in Denver Cathedral here and, starting only with last Sunday's homily, listen to and view them here.

Ash Wednesday and Lent

Yesterday I had two Ash Wednesday Masses, one in the chapel across the road from where I live and where I celebrate Mass from Tuesday to Saturday, the other at Holy Family Home, run by the Capuchin Tertiary Sisters of the Holy Family, for girls who come from dangerous or deprived situations. For the first time in years I used the traditional ‘Remember, man, you are dust and to dust you will return’ rather than ‘Turn away from sin and be faithful to the gospel’ (Mk 1:15).

Each Lent I remember growing up in Dublin in the ‘50s and the packed churches every morning of Lent, workers and students, all going to daily Mass without anyone forcing them to. Now the churches in Ireland are bereft of adolescents and young adults on Sundays.

I don’t know why there has been such a colossal falling away from the faith in the last 40 years. What I do know is that there was much more participatio actuosa, or active participation, in the Mass when I was young than now, when there is often more activity, but less participation. In the 1980s a classmate of mine, the late Fr Desmond Hartford, was appointed apostolic administrator of the Prelature of Marawi in Mindanao, one of very few church jurisdictions in the Philippines with a majority of Muslims – about 95 percent. A group of us went to meet him at the airport in Cagayan de Oro. Father Des had made it clear that he wanted a ‘low-key welcome’. Due to a miscommunication he didn’t arrive at all and one of my companions said ‘You can’t get more low-key than that’.

Well you can’t get lower participation in Mass when nobody attends.

One of my memories from my young days is the ‘acclamation of faith’ after the consecration and elevation. It wasn’t called such nor mentioned in the rubrics but it was a powerful expression of faith – the cough of the whole congregation releasing its tension knowing that something truly awesome had just happened.

Father Desmond replaced Bishop Bienvenido Tudtud, who died in a plane crash in 1987 and who, with the full encouragement and blessing of Pope Paul VI, pioneered what he called ‘Dialogue of Life’ between Christians and Muslims in an area where there had been centuries of hostility and sometimes outright war. He started Duyog Ramadan, ‘Accompanying Ramadan, to heighten the awareness of Christians about the holy season of Muslims and to ask them to pray for them. Since then some attempt has been made, I think, to encourage Muslims to engage in a form of Duyog Cuaresma, or ‘Accompanying Lent’.

But surely there’s an anomaly when, on the one hand, we have become more aware of the religious practices of others and are respectful of them, but, on the other hand, we have ditched our own. The Lenten fast means little now, though I was pleasantly surprised while in Britain from 2000 to 2002 that there was still some awareness of Lent as a Christian observance.

We know that Muslims and Jews don’t eat pork and we would never offer it to them. But in our ‘wisdom’ we have dropped Friday abstinence, a common act of penance throughout the year that was universal except, I think, in the former Spanish Empire, where there had been a dispensation.

Archbishop Charles J. Chaput OFMCap, in his homily for last Sunday – you can find the link to the audio here - reminds his people that going out for lobster on Friday during Lent is not quite in the spirit of Lenten abstinence.

However, as this morning’s readings (Thursday) remind us, we can still choose to make Lent a time for personal renewal and for the renewal of the whole Church as we prepare to celebrate the Resurrection.

'We do not believe in the separation of faith from our politics'

Archbishop Charles J. Chaput OFM Cap of Denver is media-savvy. The archdiocese has an excellent website.

You can listen to the archbishop’s homilies and also to some other recordings, including TV interviews, or read his columns in the Denver Catholic Register.

Last Sunday, when the gospel was ‘Render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what Belongs to God’, Archbishop Chaput came out with a number of striking expressions, sound bites with substance. For example, while making it clear that the Church is in favour of the separation of Church and State, he said even more clearly, ‘We do not believe in the separation of faith from our politics’.

He also asked if wives would be happy if ‘A married man can’t act like he’s a married man in public’.

The Lord was being providentially kind to the archbishop who pointed out that last Sunday’s readings weren’t chosen because the US elections are coming up but are part of the three-year Sunday cycle. Archbishop Chaput, whose parents were French-speaking Canadians and who is one-quarter North American Indian, has a best-seller at the moment, Render Unto Caesar: Serving the Nation by Living our Catholic Beliefs in Political Life.

In my most recent post I gave a link to the talk the Archbishop gave last Friday ‘as a citizen’ on the issue of abortion in the elections. (Americans will be voting for the whole House of Representatives and for one-third of the Senate as well as for President and Vice President). In his homily he mentioned that he had received many emails, from all over the world, some critical. One emailer expressed ‘embarrassment’ at what he had said.

It was in this context that Archbishop Chaput said that while he believes, as do the vast majority of Americans, in the separation of Church and State’, ‘We do not believe in the separation of faith from our politics’. He wasn’t giving his personal opinion here but teaching clearly.
He then went on to draw the comparison between a married man and a voter. Would any wife want her husband to act as a married man only at home? When we go into the polling booth we are to act out of faith. He challenged Catholics in any party to bring their faith to bear on their party’s policies. And he pointed out that no matter what is legislated, eg, the requirement to wear crash-helmets on motorcycles, or no smoking areas, some group is ‘imposing’ its views on others.

More and more American bishops are speaking plainly about the gravity of the abortion issue in the context of the elections, even ‘sailing close to the wind’ in terms of the separation of Church and State, that some see a division among the American bishops, which may be no harm. I find it rather ironic that while Pope Pius XII is being condemned for allegedly not saying anything about the slaughter of Jews under Hitler, John Paul II and many bishops are being condemned for speaking out on behalf of the unborn.

Up to the 1950s most men in the Western world wore hats. Many houses had hat-racks in the hallway. Perhaps the US Senate and House had hat-racks outside their chambers where Democrats and Republicans, Protestants, Jews and Catholics left their hats. It seems to me that if there were such a thing as a ‘conscience-rack’ outside those exalted chambers only ‘Catholic’ legislators would feel the need to use it.

Two tragedies in every abortion: killing an unborn child; killing an opportunity to love.

Archbishop Charles Chaput OFM Cap of Denver, Colorado, USA, is one of the shining lights in the Church right now, preaching, teaching and speaking the truth with clarity and charity, especially the truth of the sacredness of human life.

The Archbishop gave an address last night, 17 October, at a dinner sponsored by ENDOW (Educating on the Nature and Dignity of Women). The talk is titled 'Little Murders.'

Archbishop Chaput covered much of the same ground in his column in The Denver Catholic Register on 1 October. The column concludes with a memorable statement:

There are really two tragedies in every abortion: the killing of an unborn child; and the killing of an opportunity to love.

I've highlighted some parts of the full text below.

Respect Life Sunday and our calling to the ‘Gospel of Life’

Exactly 10 years ago this fall, America’s bishops issued a pastoral letter called “Living the Gospel of Life.” Even a decade later, this is no ordinary Church text. I believed then, and I believe now, that it’s the best document ever issued by the U.S. bishops on the priorities of Catholic citizenship. In writing it, the bishops sought to apply Pope John Paul II’s great encyclical “Evangelium Vitae” (“The Gospel of Life”) to the American situation. The heart of their statement, paragraph No. 23, stresses that:

“Opposition to abortion and euthanasia does not excuse indifference to those who suffer from poverty, violence and injustice. Any politics of human life must work to resist the violence of war and the scandal of capital punishment. Any politics of human dignity must seriously address issues of racism, poverty, hunger, employment, education, housing, and health care. Therefore, Catholics should eagerly involve themselves as advocates for the weak and marginalized in all these areas. Catholic public officials are obliged to address each of these issues as they seek to build consistent policies which promote respect for the human person at all stages of life.

“But being ‘right’ in such matters can never excuse a wrong choice regarding direct attacks on innocent human life. Indeed, the failure to protect and defend life in its most vulnerable stages renders suspect any claims to the ‘rightness’ of positions in other matters affecting the poorest and least powerful of the human community. If we understand the human person as the ‘temple of the Holy Spirit’—the living house of God—then these latter issues fall logically into place as the crossbeams and walls of that house. All direct attacks on innocent human life, such as abortion and euthanasia, strike at the house’s foundation. These directly and immediately violate the human person’s most fundamental right—the right to life. Neglect of these issues is the equivalent of building our house on sand. Such attacks cannot help but lull the social conscience in ways ultimately destructive of other human rights” (emphasis in original).

This is why abortion is not merely one among many urgent issues, but rather the foundational one. It provides the cornerstone for a whole architecture of human dignity. When we revoke legal protection for unborn children, we violate the first and most important human right—the right to life itself. And once we do that, and then create a system of alibis to justify it, we begin to put every other human and civil right at risk.

This coming Sunday, Oct. 5, is national Respect Life Sunday. It’s a good moment to remember that over the past month we’ve had a couple of extraordinary witnesses to the preciousness of human life, even when that life is severely disabled.

Thomas Vander Woude, a Catholic father of seven, sacrificed his own life on Sept. 8 trying to save his son with Down syndrome from drowning. And around the same time Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska and mother of five, began her campaign for vice-president. Palin’s youngest son, Trig, also has Down syndrome. One of the things that makes the example of these two parents “extraordinary” is that their disabled children exist at all. More than 80 percent of children diagnosed in the womb with Down syndrome are now “terminated”—the news media’s antiseptic word for killing the innocent.

Raising a child with disabilities does not by itself qualify (or disqualify) anyone for public office. But it does demand a quiet kind of strength, wisdom, character, patience, self-sacrifice, trust in God and inconspicuous heroism. The many parents of children with special needs whom I know have discovered something important about what it means to be human. God’s invitation to love a disabled child, whose imperfections are so obvious, is his way of growing our hearts to love each other, who so often wear our own imperfections—which are just as real and just as disabling—hidden on the inside.

There are really two tragedies in every abortion: the killing of an unborn child; and the killing of an opportunity to love.

Archbishop Chaput and Bishop Saltarelli on dignity of human life

This is the address of Archbishop Charles Chaput OFM Cap of Denver, Colorado, at a Pro-Life Prayer Vigil outside Planned Parenthood of Stapleton, CO, 25 August 2008, the day the Democratic Party convention began in Denver.

One of the other speakers was Dr Alveda C. King, the niece of Dr Martin Luther King.

The future of a community, a people, a Church and a nation depends on the children who will inherit it.

If we prevent our children from being born, we remove ourselves from the future. It's really that simple.

No children, no future.

Here in America, and especially here tonight, we need to remember two basic truths.

Here's the first truth. Society has an obligation - and Christians have a Gospel duty -- to provide adequate and compassionate support for unwed and abandoned mothers; women facing unintended pregnancies; and women struggling with the aftermath of an abortion. It's not enough to talk about "prolife politics." The label "prolife" demands that we work to ensure social policies that will protect young woman and families, and help them generously in their need. In the Archdiocese of Denver we try very hard to do that through the Gabriel Project and other forms of outreach and support. But much more needs to be done. And we will cooperate with anyone of good will who wants to pursue that vital work.

Here's the second truth. Killing an unborn child is never the right answer to a woman's or society's problems. Acts of violence create a culture of violence -- and abortion is the most intimate form of violence there is. It wounds the woman, it kills the unborn child and it poisons the roots of justice and charity that bind us all into one human family.

Or to put it in the words of the great Protestant pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

"Destruction of the embryo in the mother's womb is a violation of the right to live which God has
bestowed on this nascent life. To raise the question whether we are here concerned already with a human being or not is merely to confuse the issue. The simple fact is that God certainly intended to create a human being and that this nascent human being has been deliberately deprived of his life. And that is nothing but murder."

Planned Parenthood is the largest single provider of abortion and family suppression services in the United States. This facility in this minority neighborhood should offend every African-American and Latino family, and all of us, because every child lost to abortion here subtracts one more life, one more universe of possibilities and talent, from the future of this community. Every time Planned Parenthood provides propaganda, pills or medical procedures to teens without parental permission, it undermines the Black and Latino family. The business of Planned Parenthood is the prevention of the future – and business is good, and very profitable, at the expense of this community.

I've been a great admirer of Dr. Alveda King for many years. She does the memory and legacy of her extraordinary uncle, Dr. Martin Luther King, proud -- and it's a great blessing to be with her tonight.

We're very grateful that she's willing to bring her message here to Denver at this critical moment in the life of our country. I'm also very grateful for the many African-American pastors who do such powerful work inspiring their congregations about the sacredness of human life, and anchoring their people in respect for the dignity of all life, from the unborn child to the elderly and poor.

And I'm also delighted to greet my brother in the ministry, Bishop James Conley, who also joins us tonight despite his own demanding schedule.

Finally, I want to thank you all for being here tonight despite your many other obligations. The hope of our Denver community resides in all of you, and especially your unselfish love for children and commitment to the sanctity of human life. May God bless all of you and your families.

Bishop-emeritus Michael Angelo Saltarelli of Wilmington, Delaware, the diocese of Democrat Vice-presidential candidate Senator Joseph Biden, a self-proclaimed Mass-going, rosary-carrying 'Catholic' who pushes abortion, composed the following litany four years ago in honour of St Thomas More (1478-1535), martyr and patron saint of statesmen, politicians and lawyers so that his people would pray for their politicians.

V. Lord, have mercy
R. Lord have mercy
V. Christ, have mercy
R. Christ have mercy
V. Lord, have mercy
R. Lord have mercy
V. Christ hear us
R. Christ, graciously hear us

V. St. Thomas More, Saint and Martyr,
R. Pray for us (Repeat after each invocation)

St. Thomas More, Patron of Statesmen, Politicians and Lawyers
St. Thomas More, Patron of Justices, Judges and Magistrates

St. Thomas More, Model of Integrity and Virtue in Public and Private Life
St. Thomas More, Servant of the Word of God and the Body and Blood of Christ
St. Thomas More, Model of Holiness in the Sacrament of Marriage
St. Thomas More, Teacher of his Children in the Catholic Faith
St. Thomas More, Defender of the Weak and the Poor
St. Thomas More, Promoter of Human Life and Dignity

V. Lamb of God, you take away the sin of the world
R. Spare us O Lord
V. Lamb of God, you take away the sin of the world
R. Graciously hear us O Lord
V. Lamb of God, you take away the sin of the world
R. Have mercy on us

Let us pray:

O Glorious St. Thomas More, Patron of Statesmen, Politicians, Judges and Lawyers, your life of prayer and penance and your zeal for justice, integrity and firm principle in public and family life led you to the path of martyrdom and sainthood. Intercede for our Statesmen, Politicians, Judges and Lawyers, that they may be courageous and effective in their defense and promotion of the sanctity of human life - the foundation of all other human rights. We ask this through Christ our Lord.

R. Amen.

You can find a comprehensive interview with Bishop Saltarelli at Ignatius Insight .

Some

extracts.

IgnatiusInsight.com: Last year, you wrote a statement on Catholics in public life. You said: "No one today would accept this statement from any public servant: ‘I am personally opposed to human slavery and racism but will not impose my personal conviction in the legislative arena.’ Likewise, none of us should accept this statement from any public servant: ‘I am personally opposed to abortion but will not impose my personal conviction in the legislative arena.’"

Bishop Saltarelli: We hear that so often. It’s such an excuse; to me it’s a cop out: "I’m personally opposed, but…" If someone would say I’m personally opposed to slavery but its okay, people would laugh at the ridiculousness of that statement. And yet we tolerate, don’t we–"I’m personally opposed to abortion, but…"? That "but" is translated into the destruction, the massacre, the holocaust of millions of innocent lives in our time.

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[The Litany to St. Thomas More that Bishop Saltarelli composed for the conversion of pro-abortion "Catholic" politicians was first distributed to parishes last October 2004. The litany asks St. Thomas More for his intercession to make politicians "courageous and effective in their defense and promotion of the sanctity of human life."

IgnatiusInsight.com: If you send the Litany to your parishes, do the parishes automatically distribute it and talk about it?

Bishop Saltarelli: Oh yes, it is distributed. There is no doubt about that. Now, some will cast it aside, some will see (this is what we’re dealing with) it as a violation of Church and state, the fact we even dare pray for politicians. Because they get what they say is a hidden message. But, that’s okay; that doesn’t stop us. We’re still going to do it. We’re still going to ask our people to pray the Litany.

I think for too long we have been silent and our people have taken that silence as part of an acquiescence of the status quo. We are complicit in this. So we have to step forward and say, "No, this is not right–it is wrong, it is sinful"–and somebody at least has to say it. Not that I’m being the brave man. I have a magnificent team here with me and wonderful people committed to the cause of life and the Gospel of Life and we push forward together.

IgnatiusInsight.com: What advice would you give to Catholics trying to live a moral and happy life?

It is possible. And that’s not a cliché. The world tells us that we are crazy, ridiculous. The world–and not all the world–but some groups in the world tell us that we’re just fanciful people.

But we know–because of the glorious history that is ours–that in spite of crisis, the scandals, the persecutions, that the Army of Heroes (we call them saints) was there all the way. And the Lord continues. Even in the most critical of times, He sends these heroes in our midst, to announce the Good News, to proclaim the Good News.

We have a God who loves us and invites us to a special way of life and that way for us Catholics, is to follow in the footsteps of the Master who invites us to live a life that is destined to take us to the Father. You know, Jesus never promised there’d be no scandal; Jesus never promised there’d be no suffering; He never promised there’d be no persecutions–witness the two thousand years where there have been enough of those, all of them.

But He promised one thing: He promised that He’d be with us always. We hold onto that promise and we live that promise. Here in this Eucharistic year we experience that promise magnificently, in the Eucharist. And we don’t need a year to tell us about that, we have Jesus’ words that "I’ll be with you" and here it is, His own flesh and His own blood that remains with us and abides with us forever.

Archbishop Chaput's clear teaching

This week the Democratic Party convention is being held in Denver, Colorado, to confirm the candidacy of Barack Obama for the presidential election in the USA in November. Mr Obama holds extreme pro-abortion positions. He has chosen as his running mate Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware, a self-described Catholic who goes to Mass on Sundays but who is also notoriously pro-abortion.

Some have seen it as an act of discourtesy to Archbishop Charles Chaput OFM Cap of Denver that he has not been invited to the Democrats’ convention, even to give an invocation. From my neutral stance I would consider it a blessing that he hasn’t. He and auxiliary Bishop James D. Conley on 25 August issued a very explicit statement on the website of the Archdiocese of Denver, ON THE SEPARATION OF SENSE AND STATE:
A CLARIFICATION FOR THE PEOPLE OF THE CHURCH IN NORTHERN COLORADO.

Archbishop Chaput is a gracious man as this extract from the message in which he refers to another Mass-going Democrat ‘Catholic’, shows:

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is a gifted public servant of strong convictions and many professional skills. Regrettably, knowledge of Catholic history and teaching does not seem to be one of them.

Interviewed on Meet the Press August 24, Speaker Pelosi was asked when human life begins. She said the following:

"I would say that as an ardent, practicing Catholic, this is an issue that I have studied for a long time. And what I know is over the centuries, the doctors of the church have not been able to make that definition . . . St. Augustine said at three months. We don't know. The point is, is that it shouldn't have an impact on the woman's right to choose."

Since Speaker Pelosi has, in her words, studied the issue "for a long time," she must know very well one of the premier works on the subject, Jesuit John Connery's Abortion: The Development of the Roman Catholic Perspective (Loyola, 1977). Here's how Connery concludes his study:

"The Christian tradition from the earliest days reveals a firm antiabortion attitude . . . The condemnation of abortion did not depend on and was not limited in any way by theories regarding the time of fetal animation. Even during the many centuries when Church penal and penitential practice was based on the theory of delayed animation, the condemnation of abortion was never affected by it. Whatever one would want to hold about the time of animation, or when the fetus became a human being in the strict sense of the term, abortion from the time of conception was considered wrong, and the time of animation was never looked on as a moral dividing line between permissible and impermissible abortion."


The Archbishop then quotes a martyr of World War II killed by the Nazis:

Or to put it in the blunter words of the great Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer:

"Destruction of the embryo in the mother's womb is a violation of the right to live which God has bestowed on this nascent life. To raise the question whether we are here concerned already with a human being or not is merely to confuse the issue. The simple fact is that God certainly intended to create a human being and that this nascent human being has been deliberately deprived of his life. And that is nothing but murder."


Some comments on blogs seem to think that Archbishop Chaput speaks out of both sides of his mouth because he has elsewhere written about the dilemma that sometimes faces voters when all the candidates on offer support evil. He tackles, with some irony, ‘Catholics for Obama’ who have quoted the Archbishop in support of their cause, but who have left out part of what he said. I don’t think that Archbishop Chaput is being in anyway devious but I do find the idea of an ordained friar campaigning for a candidate, as the then Father Chaput did decades ago, rather strange.

Why do I mention this now? Earlier this spring a group called "Roman Catholics for Obama '08" quoted my own published words in the following way:

"So can a Catholic in good conscience vote for a pro-choice candidate? The answer is: I can't, and I won't. But I do know some serious Catholics -- people whom I admire -- who may. I think their reasoning is mistaken, but at least they sincerely struggle with the abortion issue, and it causes them real pain. And most important: They don't keep quiet about it; they don't give up; they keep lobbying their party and their representatives to change their pro-abortion views and protect the unborn. Catholics can vote for pro-choice candidates if they vote for them despite -- not because of – their pro-choice views."

What's interesting about this quotation - which is accurate but incomplete - is the wording that was left out. The very next sentences in the article of mine they selected, which Roman Catholics for Obama neglected to quote, run as follows:

"But [Catholics who support 'pro-choice' candidates] also need a compelling proportionate reason to justify it. What is a 'proportionate' reason when it comes to the abortion issue? It's the kind of reason we will be able to explain, with a clean heart, to the victims of abortion when we meet them face to face in the next life - which we most certainly will. If we're confident that these victims will accept our motives as something more than an alibi, then we can proceed."

On their website, Roman Catholics for Obama stress that:

"After faithful thought and prayer, we have arrived at the conclusion that Senator Obama is the candidate whose views are most compatible with the Catholic outlook, and we will vote for him because of that -- and because of his other outstanding qualities -- despite our disagreements with him in specific areas."

I'm familiar with this reasoning. It sounds a lot like me 30 years ago. And 30 years later we still have about a million abortions a year. Maybe Roman Catholics for Obama will do a better job at influencing their candidate. It could happen. And I sincerely hope it does, since Planned Parenthood of the Chicago area, as recently as February 2008, noted that Senator Barack Obama "has a 100 percent pro-choice voting record both in the U.S. Senate and the Illinois Senate."

Changing the views of "pro-choice" candidates takes a lot more than verbal gymnastics, good alibis and pious talk about "personal opposition" to killing unborn children. I'm sure Roman Catholics for Obama know that, and I wish them good luck. They'll need it.

St John Vianney Theological Seminary, Denver

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The current issue of The Catholic Herald (England) carries two articles that highlight the moral dilemma for many voters. One is by a former diplomat:

Obama may be the lesser evil for Catholic voters

Ex-diplomat John Pedler says that American Catholics face an agonising decision this November
22 August 2008:

America's Catholic voters may have tipped the balance ensuring George W Bush's election to the presidency in both 2000 and 2004. Of course, without the support of any one of several other groups of voters, both those Bush campaigns could have failed. Nevertheless it remains true that Catholic votes could possibly determine the outcome this November.

A news story in the same issue by Simon Caldwell begins this way:

David Cameron (leader of the Conservative Party and of the opposition) has made a highly personal defence of the controversial practice of aborting disabled babies up to birth.

The Tory leader insisted it would be wrong to prevent a mother terminating a pregnancy because her baby was handicapped.

He said he would "not want to change" existing laws that permit abortions after the 24-week limit if tests show the baby is disabled.

The Tory Party leader said his views have been shaped by becoming a father to a disabled child himself - six-year-old Ivan, who was born with cerebral palsy and suffers from severe epilepsy, needing 24-hour care.

None of the main parties in Britain have a pro-life policy, though all of the main parties have elected members who are strongly pro-life. The tradition in the British Parliament is that when what are considered ‘conscience issues’ are voted on the party whips are withdrawn, so that each member may vote freely. However, the current Labour government is trying to restrict this on certain matters.

But voters may still be faced with the dilemma of having to choose between a group of pro-abortion candidates, with no alternative. What do you do? I was in Britain from 2000 to 2002 and a registered voter there (Irish citizens have that right). I enjoyed a double ‘luxury’ during the election of 2001. The sitting Member of Parliament (MP) in my constituency had a strong pro-life voting record. Her two main opponents were pro-abortion. I couldn’t find the position of the fourth candidate, representing a minor party. But the seat was also a safe one for the MP’s party. There was no danger of her losing. Her pro-life position made no difference one way or the other to the majority of voters, I would think. My individual vote made little difference either, in one sense. So I could safely vote for the pro-life candidate. When my friends asked me which party I had voted for I simply said I had voted for ‘so-and-so’. I had voted for her, not for her party. But her pro-life voting record was decisive for me. I emailed another candidate asking her position on this matter, without revealing my own. she graciously replied, guessing my position but stating her own pro-abortion position. I thanked her for replying.

I have a close friend, an American priest, who remembers his grandmother dandling him on her knee when he was a toddler and saying to him ‘You are a Democrat’. He grew up with that conviction. But in the last few elections he has voted Republican because of the Democrats’ dogmatic pro-abortion stand, though there are Democrats for Life.

One positive thing about the US election is that abortion is seen as a major issue because it involves basic morality. Americans also see the importance of appointments to the Supreme Court. There’s no doubt in my mind that the court’s Roe v Wade decision in 1973 was a perverse one in the deepest sense of that word.

No watered-down beer here - nor watered-down Catholicism

The word of God is light to the mind and fire to the will

St Laurence of Brindisi OFMCap (1559-1619), priest and doctor of the Church spoke those words in one of his sermons. For the word of God is a light to the mind and fire to the will, enabling man to know and love God.

In the same sermon he writes, This is why Christ says: “A sower went out to sow his seed”. Because of this, the parable of the sower is chosen as the gospel for the feast of St Laurence: Mk 4:1-10, 13-20. I celebrated Mass this evening with Capuchin Tertiary Sisters of the Holy Family. As I began reading the gospel I was struck by the fact that while Jesus preached in synagogues, he often preached in other places. In this case: Again he began to teach beside the sea. And a very large crowd gathered about him, so that he got into a boat and sat in it on the sea; and the whole crowd was beside the sea on the land (Mk 4:1).

One place where people gather is in pubs or taverns. Theology on Tap began in Chicago in 1981 and has spread to a number of countries including, according to some websites, the Philippines (though I haven’t been able to find out online any confirmation of this). Someone is invited to give a talk on a theological/pastoral matter, not for entertainment only but because people are searching for the truth. During World Youth Day in Sydney Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver, Colorado, a Capuchin friar like St Laurence of Brindisi, gave a talk in PJ Gallagher’s Irish Pub.

I don’t drink alcohol but I know that my friends who do wouldn’t accept watered-down beer. Archbishop Chaput didn’t give his listeners a watered-down gospel. Here’s the text, with some parts highlighted.

World Youth Day 2008: Theology on Tap
"Mission Possible: This double-life will self-destruct"

You hear a lot of stories when you're in a pub having a pint. So I thought I'd start our time together tonight with a story. Now, some of the tales you hear when you're sitting with friends over a beer might stretch the truth a little. But I promise: the one I'm about to tell you is true.

It's about a young man named Franz who lived about 60 years ago in a small village in Austria. Franz was the illegitimate son of a farmer who later died in World War I. He was a wild kid. Everyone recalls he was the first one in the village to drive a motorcycle. And I don't think that's because he drove safely or kept to the posted speed limits. Franz was the leader of a gang that used to fight rival gangs in neighboring villages with knives and chains. He was something of a cad, too, and a womanizer. He got a girl pregnant and was forced to leave town. People said he went to work for a while in an iron mine.

For reasons nobody knows, Franz came back a changed man. He had always gone to church, even during his wildest days. But when he returned, he was a serious Catholic, not just a Sunday-Catholic. He started making payments to support the child he had fathered out of wedlock. He married a good Catholic woman and settled down to become a good farmer, husband and father, raising three children and serving as a lay leader in his local parish.

I'll tell you the rest of the story later. But I want to quote something Franz wrote in a letter to his godson. He wrote: "I can say from my own experience how painful life often is when one lives as a halfway Christian. It is more like vegetating than living."

I remembered Franz and those words when I started thinking about tonight's topic: "Mission Possible: This Double-Life Will Self-Destruct." Most of you aren't Americans, and you're all too young to remember the original "Mission Impossible" TV series that aired in the States in the '60s and '70s. But I suppose the organizers of my talk figured you'd all seen the Tom Cruise movies that came out a few years back.

In any event, it's a clever image. Believers today are relentlessly tempted to lead a "double life" – to be one person when we're in church or at prayer and somebody different when we're with our friends or family, or at work, or when we talk about politics.

Part of this temptation comes from normal peer pressure. We don't want to stand out. We don't want to appear different, so we keep our religious beliefs to ourselves. It's as if we've internalized the old adage: "Never talk about religion or politics in polite company." I've never bought that line of thinking, myself. Religion, politics, social justice - these are precisely the things we should be talking about.

Nothing else really matters. What could be more important than religious faith, which deals with the ultimate meaning of life, and politics, which deals with how we should organize our lives together for the common good?

So those are the things we want to talk about tonight. I think it's important, though, that we start with a kind of "diagnosis" of the culture we're living in. The reason is simple. We're living in the first age in human history where entire societies are organized according to this principle of "the double life."

Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor calls our period the "secular age." How we got to this moment is far too big a subject for us tonight. The point is that in just a few centuries we've gone from living in a world where it was virtually impossible not to believe in God, to living in a world where belief in God doesn't seem to be necessary or to make any difference.

Most men and women today can live their whole lives as if God didn't exist. Of course in the West – and by "the West" I mean developed, Western-style democracies like Australia -- we're allowed to believe in God, and even to pray and worship together. But we're constantly lectured by the mass media to never "impose" our religious viewpoints on our neighbors. This curious idea is always framed as a very reasonable and enlightened way to live. You're free to believe what you want to believe; I'm free to believe what I want to believe; and the government agrees not to tell either of us what to believe or not to believe.

But things aren't as reasonable and enlightened as they seem. For example, the last time I was in Australia, your parliament was considering legislation to allow the cloning of embryonic stem-cells. This cloning would translate into an attack on the fundamental dignity of human life. And Cardinal Pell and your bishops had the courage to stand up and say so. What astounded me was the backlash their statements provoked. There was talk of charging Church leaders with intimidating MPs and tampering with the legislative process. All because they had the audacity to voice a political opinion that was based on their religious convictions.

Cases like this are cropping up more and more in the developed world. Just last month a court in Belgium dismissed charges filed against a Catholic bishop. The allegation was that this bishop was fomenting hatred of homosexuals. Of course he did nothing of the sort. All he did was articulate the Church's ancient teaching that homosexual activity is a sin and that it's detrimental to an individual's spiritual health and well-being.

In a secular age, however, this kind of opinion becomes grounds for prosecution. And these cases have a very calculated "chilling effect." They reinforce, with the threat of jail and fines, the pressures that we Catholics already feel to keep our mouths shut. To obey the "double life" rule. To define our faith as simply private prayer and personal piety.

But we know we can't do that. We can't live a half-way Christianity. The organizers of tonight's event were right. Every double life will inevitably self-destruct. The question then becomes: How are we going to live in this world? How can we lead a Christian life in a secular age?

We can't really answer that question until we get some things straight about what it means to be a Christian. And that means first getting some things straight about Jesus Christ. This is another one of the by-products of our secular age: we don't really quite know what to think about Jesus anymore.

A few years before he became Pope Benedict XVI, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger wrote something that is unfortunately very true. He wrote: "Today in broad circles, even among believers, an image has prevailed of a Jesus who demands nothing, never scolds, who accepts everyone and everything, who no longer does anything but affirm us. . . . The figure is transformed from the 'Lord' (a word that is avoided) into a man who is nothing more than the advocate of all men."

We all know people -- friends or family members or both -- who think about Jesus in these terms. It's hard to avoid. Our culture has given Jesus a make-over. We've remade him in the image and likeness of secular compassion. Today he's not the Lord, the Son of God, but more like an enlightened humanist nice guy.

The problem is this: If Jesus isn't Lord, if he isn't the Son of God, then he can't do anything for us. Then the Gospel is just one more or less interesting philosophy of life. And that's my first point about how we need to live in a secular age: We have to trust the Gospels and we have to trust the Church that gives us the Gospels. We have to truly believe that Jesus is the Son of God and the son of Mary. True God and true man. The One who holds the words of eternal life. If we aren't committed to that truth, then nothing else I say tonight can make any sense.

Second point: Jesus didn't come down from heaven to tell us to go to church on Sunday. He didn't die on the cross and rise from the dead so that we would pray more at home and be a little nicer to our next-door neighbors. The fact that you smile when I say these things means we know intuitively how absurd it is to imagine a privatized, part-time Christianity.

The one thing even non-believers can see is that the Gospels aren't compromise documents. Jesus wants all of us. And not just on Sundays. He wants us to love God with all our heart, all our soul, all our strength, and all our mind. He wants us to love our neighbor as ourselves. That is, with a love that's total.

We need to take Christ at his word. We need to love him like our lives depend on it. Right now. And without excuses. Remember that man who told Jesus: I'm ready to be your disciple, but first I need to plan my father's funeral? The way Jesus responds is so blunt, so disturbing: "Leave the dead to bury their own dead. Follow me and proclaim the kingdom of God." Of course, he's not commanding disrespect for our parents. What he's saying is that there can be no more urgent priority in our lives than following him and proclaiming his kingdom.

My third point flows from the first two: Being a follower of Christ is not just one among many aspects of your daily life. Being a Christian is who you are. Period. And being a Christian means your life has a mission. It means striving every day to be a better follower, to become more like Jesus in your thoughts and actions.

Blessed Charles de Foucauld once said that, "God calls all the souls he has created to love him with their whole being. . . . But he does not ask all souls to show their love by the same works, to climb to heaven by the same ladder, to achieve goodness in the same way. What sort of work, then must I do? Which is my road to heaven?"

God expects big things from each of you. That's why he made us. To love him and to serve one another, and to play our personal part in bringing about the kingdom of love. So you have to ask yourselves the same questions that Blessed Charles asked himself. What does God want you to be doing? How does he want you to follow Christ?

Now, how do you go about finding the answers to these questions? By talking to God, humbly and honestly, in prayer. By getting to know Christ better through daily reading and praying over the Gospels. By opening yourself up to the graces he gives us in the sacraments. "Ask and it will be given you; seek and you will find; knock and it will be opened to you." It's not about you choosing what you want to do with your life. It's about discovering how God wants to use your life to spread the good news of his love and his kingdom.

Blessed Charles, by the way, is one of the great stories of the 20th century. He was a Frenchman who lived most of his life like the prodigal son, squandering his inheritance on alcohol, women, and dead-end pleasures. But when he came to know Jesus Christ, his life changed forever. He felt called to follow Christ literally, setting off on foot to Nazareth to devote himself to a humble life of manual labor, prayer, and charity. Some years later, his imitation of Christ led him to the Sahara Desert, where he lived as a hermit and eventually died a martyr's death.

I want to suggest tonight that most of you will find your road to heaven starting a little closer to home. To illustrate that point, let's recall a story about another holy person of the 20th century, Blessed Mother Teresa. Maybe you've heard of Celestial Seasonings, the herbal tea company. The company was founded by a man named "Mo" Siegel in the 1960s. "Mo" was very much a child of his age -- idealistic, with a generous heart. "Mo" made millions with his brand of herbal teas. And he gave a lot of his money to worthy causes. Yet he still wasn't satisfied. So he went to India to volunteer with Mother Teresa among the poor and dying. But when she met him, she told him to go home. The little nun poked this multi-millionaire entrepreneur in the chest and told him: "Grow where you're planted."

That's my advice to you, too. Grow where you're planted. Preach the gospel with your lives no matter where you are or whatever you find yourself doing -- going to school, working, making a home. St. John of the Cross said: "Where there is no love, put love and you will draw out love." Those are good words to live by. Put real love into everything you do. Not a vague, sentimental warm feeling. That kind of love doesn't mean anything because it doesn't cost you anything. No. Jesus wants a love that comes from the heart, a love that sacrifices for others as he sacrificed for us.

One final point before we begin our questions and discussion tonight. And it's this: Love the Church; love her as your mother and teacher. Help to build her up, to purify her life and work. We all get angry when we see human weakness and sin in the Church. But we have to remember always that the Church is much, much more than the sum of her human parts.

The Church is the Bride of Christ. The Spirit that worked in Jesus Christ and in his apostles is still at work in the Church. Jesus promised his apostles that when they teach, it will be he who is teaching.

That when they forgive sins, it will be he who forgives. That when they say his words, "This is my body," the bread and wine will become his body and blood. Jesus doesn't forget his promises. Where the Church is, Jesus Christ is. Until the end of the age. And we always want to be where Christ is, because there is no way home to God except through him.

So love the Church. And this is crucial: Know what the Church teaches. What the Church teaches is what Christ wants you and everyone else to know -- for our own good and for our salvation. Know what the Church teaches so you can live those teachings and share those teachings with others.

The leaders of today's secularized societies like to fancy themselves as true humanists and humanitarians. But these same societies justify killing millions of babies in the womb and dismembering embryos in the laboratory. We dispatch the handicapped and the elderly and call it "death with dignity." Our very language has become distorted. The family is no longer the covenant communion of man and woman that leads to new life and hence the future of society. In fact, there are so few babies being born now in developed, Western-style countries that we have to wonder whether our civilization has lost its will to survive.

Only the Church stands up against these inhuman trends in our societies. It's your mission, as lay men and lay women, to ensure that Christ's teaching is preached and explained and defended at every level of our society -- in politics, in the workplace, in the culture. This takes real courage. There are all sorts of pressures, subtle and not so subtle, to sell out Jesus. To water down or diminish his Gospel. To pick and choose among his teachings. But we can't do that. Make a promise to Jesus Christ never to contradict the Church's teachings by your words or actions.

The Gospel is not just rules and "thou-shalt nots." It's the path to leading a heavenly life on earth. The way of life that alone brings true happiness and lasting joy. This age encourages us to seek a fool's paradise. To imagine that happiness is found in doing whatever we want to do. That's a snare. And many of our brothers and sisters are caught in that trap.

Only the truth can set people free. That truth is Jesus Christ. So if we truly love our neighbors we will want them to know the truth. The whole truth. Not just the parts of it that make them feel good, the parts that don't challenge them to change.

It's not possible for real Christians to lead a double life. We'll self-destruct. Or worse still, we'll just waste away. It will be like what Franz said. Being a half-way Christian is like being a vegetable. It's not a life. It's barely an existence.

I guess it's time for me to tell you the rest of the story about Franz.

The Nazis invaded Austria in 1938. Unlike most of his neighbors, Franz refused to cooperate in any way with the regime because he considered Hitler to be an enemy of Christ and the Church. For five years he waged a lonely campaign of resistance. Finally, he was arrested for refusing an order to enlist in the Nazi army.

While awaiting his sentence, many people, including his family and his local priest, urged him to pay lip-service to the regime and thereby spare his life. Franz wouldn't do it.

So 65 years ago, on August 9, 1943, Franz died on a Nazi guillotine. Today we remember him as Blessed Franz Jägerstätter -- a martyr for the truth that a Catholic can never lead a double-life. That there can be no such thing as a half-way Christian.

Blessed Franz wrote beautiful letters to his wife from prison. In one of them he talked about the great martyrs of the Church. He wrote: "If we hope to reach our goal some day, then we, too, must become heroes of the faith. For as long as we fear men more than God, we will never make the grade." Another time he wrote: "The important thing is that we do not let a single day go by in vain without putting it to good use for eternity."

Let me leave you with those thoughts. May you all strive to be heroes of the faith. And may you put every day to good use for eternity. Thank you.