Foul Ball! By Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan of New York

I found this on Joan's Rome blog today, but I can't link to it. Sorry. But you can find it on EWTN's website. Tuesday, November 03, 2009

As you know I have been in Washington, D.C. since Saturday. Today at noon I will attend a talk by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople at Georgetown University. I have asked to interview him during his time in D.C. and am awaiting a response. At 6 p.m. tonight I will be interviewing Newt and Callista Gingrich about their new documentary on Pope John Paul II entitled “Nine Days That Changed the World.” For the moment, however, I want to leave you with some serious food for thought. I have learned that the following article by Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York was submitted in a slightly shorter form to the New York Times as an op-ed article, but the Times declined to publish it. The piece was dated October 29, 2009. I first read about this on the blog by Fr. Christopher George Phillips, the founding pastor of Our Lady of the Atonement Catholic Church, the first Anglican Use parish, established on August 15, 1983. FOUL BALL! By Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan, Archbishop of New York October is the month we relish the highpoint of our national pastime, especially when one of our own New York teams is in the World Series! Sadly, America has another national pastime, this one not pleasant at all: anti-catholicism. It is not hyperbole to call prejudice against the Catholic Church a national pastime. Scholars such as Arthur Schlesinger Sr. referred to it as “the deepest bias in the history of the American people,” while John Higham described it as “the most luxuriant, tenacious tradition of paranoiac agitation in American history.” “The anti-semitism of the left,” is how Paul Viereck reads it, and Professor Philip Jenkins sub-titles his book on the topic “the last acceptable prejudice.” If you want recent evidence of this unfairness against the Catholic Church, look no further than a few of these following examples of occurrences over the last couple weeks: On October 14, in the pages of the New York Times, reporter Paul Vitello exposed the sad extent of child sexual abuse in Brooklyn’s Orthodox Jewish community. According to the article, there were forty cases of such abuse in this tiny community last year alone. Yet the Times did not demand what it has called for incessantly when addressing the same kind of abuse by a tiny minority of priests: release of names of abusers, rollback of statute of limitations, external investigations, release of all records, and total transparency. Instead, an attorney is quoted urging law enforcement officials to recognize “religious sensitivities,” and no criticism was offered of the DA’s office for allowing Orthodox rabbis to settle these cases “internally.” Given the Catholic Church’s own recent horrible experience, I am hardly in any position to criticize our Orthodox Jewish neighbors, and have no wish to do so . . . but I can criticize this kind of “selective outrage.” Of course, this selective outrage probably should not surprise us at all, as we have seen many other examples of the phenomenon in recent years when it comes to the issue of sexual abuse. To cite but two: In 2004, Professor Carol Shakeshaft documented the wide-spread problem of sexual abuse of minors in our nation’s public schools (the study can be found here). In 2007, the Associated Press issued a series of investigative reports that also showed the numerous examples of sexual abuse by educators against public school students. Both the Shakeshaft study and the AP reports were essentially ignored, as papers such as the New York Times only seem to have priests in their crosshairs. On October 16, Laurie Goodstein of the Times offered a front page, above-the-fold story on the sad episode of a Franciscan priest who had fathered a child. Even taking into account that the relationship with the mother was consensual and between two adults, and that the Franciscans have attempted to deal justly with the errant priest’s responsibilities to his son, this action is still sinful, scandalous, and indefensible. However, one still has to wonder why a quarter-century old story of a sin by a priest is now suddenly more pressing and newsworthy than the war in Afghanistan, health care, and starvation–genocide in Sudan. No other cleric from religions other than Catholic ever seems to merit such attention. Five days later, October 21, the Times gave its major headline to the decision by the Vatican to welcome Anglicans who had requested union with Rome. Fair enough. Unfair, though, was the article’s observation that the Holy See lured and bid for the Anglicans. Of course, the reality is simply that for years thousands of Anglicans have been asking Rome to be accepted into the Catholic Church with a special sensitivity for their own tradition. As Cardinal Walter Kasper, the Vatican’s chief ecumenist, observed, “We are not fishing in the Anglican pond.” Not enough for the Times; for them, this was another case of the conniving Vatican luring and bidding unsuspecting, good people, greedily capitalizing on the current internal tensions in Anglicanism. Finally, the most combustible example of all came Sunday with an intemperate and scurrilous piece by Maureen Dowd on the opinion pages of the Times. In a diatribe that rightly never would have passed muster with the editors had it so criticized an Islamic, Jewish, or African-American religious issue, she digs deep into the nativist handbook to use every anti-Catholic caricature possible, from the Inquisition to the Holocaust, condoms, obsession with sex, pedophile priests, and oppression of women, all the while slashing Pope Benedict XVI for his shoes, his forced conscription -- along with every other German teenage boy -- into the German army, his outreach to former Catholics, and his recent welcome to Anglicans. True enough, the matter that triggered her spasm -- the current visitation of women religious by Vatican representatives -- is well-worth discussing, and hardly exempt from legitimate questioning. But her prejudice, while maybe appropriate for the Know-Nothing newspaper of the 1850’s, the Menace, has no place in a major publication today. I do not mean to suggest that anti-catholicism is confined to the pages New York Times. Unfortunately, abundant examples can be found in many different venues. I will not even begin to try and list the many cases of anti-catholicism in the so-called entertainment media, as they are so prevalent they sometimes seem almost routine and obligatory. Elsewhere, last week, Representative Patrick Kennedy made some incredibly inaccurate and uncalled-for remarks concerning the Catholic bishops, as mentioned in this blog on Monday . Also, the New York State Legislature has levied a special payroll tax to help the Metropolitan Transportation Authority fund its deficit. This legislation calls for the public schools to be reimbursed the cost of the tax; Catholic schools, and other private schools, will not receive the reimbursement, costing each of the schools thousands – in some cases tens of thousands – of dollars, money that the parents and schools can hardly afford. (Nor can the archdiocese, which already underwrites the schools by $30 million annually.) Is it not an issue of basic fairness for ALL school-children and their parents to be treated equally? The Catholic Church is not above criticism. We Catholics do a fair amount of it ourselves. We welcome and expect it. All we ask is that such critique be fair, rational, and accurate, what we would expect for anybody. The suspicion and bias against the Church is a national pastime that should be “rained out” for good. I guess my own background in American history should caution me not to hold my breath. Then again, yesterday was the Feast of Saint Jude, the patron saint of impossible causes.

The Joys of Catholic Paradoxes

I have been so busy lately I have not been able to keep up with this blog, but I have for some time wanted to post about the paradoxes, the enigmas, seeming contradictions I have found within Catholicism and plan yet on doing that. But yesterday, I was again reminded of this when I was walking into St. James Cathedral in Seattle.

There are many homeless people in Seattle and they hang around the cathedral because there they find shelter and food. As we were walking into mass yesterday morning a man, obviously a mentally ill vagrant, was walking in with us. Besides the bags of his earthly wealth carried under his arm, he was wearing jeans with a woman's dress over them. His face was caked with women's makeup, his eyes smeared with eyeliner making him look somewhat like a raccoon.

I was going to mass with a mentally ill, cross dressing, homeless man. Something I had never been exposed to in other churches. He sat down on a wooden chair, and the magnificent organ began the prelude. The choir began its glorious praise to God and I felt so wonderfully small and insignificant amongst the beauty of the sound and the high ceilings full of stained-glass windows and golden pillars.

In the Catholic Cathedral we are reminded that beauty draws us to worship the creator of beauty. We are brought into a building of unparalleled breathtaking magnificence in Washington State. The sounds bouncing off the ceilings so high I have to put on my glasses to see any details way up there. I find a God there who wants to bring us into the opulent, lavish grace of His presence. It is a taste of heaven.

And there also I find the darkest depths of sadness in the eyes of the lonely comic looking man. In one moment heaven and hell stand in the same room. I am reminded by this paradox, this strange scene that in Catholicism we are living in the Kingdom of God and also, not yet.......

Now, About my Mom...

The last post was about my dad, so this one will be about my mother.

We were talking yesterday and she, being a Seventh-day Adventists, decided that it was terrible that the family was being torn apart by different beliefs. So I was amused at her solution:

We all start a new church and call it Cathadventism or Cathventism.....

We would take the doctrines we like out of Adventism and Catholicism and put them together and build a little chapel on their land and we can all worship together. Problem solved, unity achieved. I laughed, only she was serious. She compromised greatly by saying that we could ditch the SDA prophetess Ellen White as long as we attend services on Saturday. The Saturday Sabbath is something she could never give up for anything or anyone. She's okay with Mary, Penance, Confession... so we could include those things.

When I realized that she was being serious, I didn't know what to say. She was, after all, being very sweet and wanting unity between us!

There is truly a great difference in Catholicism and Protestantism. Protestants believe that if you don't agree with others about your beliefs, just start a new denomination! Make everyone happy about what they believe no matter what truth is.

If there is anyone out there who would advise me on what to say to my mother about this, she has an attention span (with religious topics) of about 90 seconds.... I would be so grateful. I am still a baby Catholic and sometimes I feel like I don't really know enough to give authentically "Catholic" answers!

Catholicism, Adventism and the Great Gulf of Thought

My father just visited me from across the country. He is a Seventh-day Adventist. Our visit was wonderful because he is wonderful. He taught me about God's mercy and grace as a child. He was a very good example of a loving God and if God is anything resembling my father, we have very little to worry about as far as justice and mercy.

As an Adventist, though, I wonder how difficult his visit was with us. Adventists have a very anti-Catholic set of prophecies including one that has Catholics leading a civic witch-hunt against them in the last days. We, especially we who have left Adventism, will persecute them with ever more degrees of severity beginning with the dreaded Sunday law. We will insist that they worship on Sunday instead of Saturday "Sabbath." Then we will ratchet up the persecution until, in the very end, many will be martyred at our hands. I grew up hearing this scary stuff in Adventist churches and schools--including their universities.

Most people outside Adventism don't understand that I wasn't raised in a particularly strange sect within Adventism, because they don't see this side of the doctrines with their Adventist colleagues and friends. But it is there, under the surface. Their prophetess, Ellen White, predicted these events with visions that have been recorded in her book entitled, The Great Controversy.

What part of these prophecies were lurking in my dad's subconscious as we took him all around Seattle, to our magnificent St. James Cathedral and Pike's Place Market and Mount Rainier? I do know that he is concerned about us spiritually. It was all over some of his comments, like the worried, "Just promise you won't give up spiritually searching...." He even laughingly joked that one of his best friends think we are crazy for becoming Catholic. But his was a nervous laugh.

It pains me deeply to know there is such a gulf in our beliefs and yet we worship the same God. How is it possible that prejudices within the Body of Christ can leave people so paranoid of each other? I wanted to spend some time defending my faith, yet I know that there are no words that can pierce through the cloud of so deeply ingrained misunderstanding. So I prayed and I leave it up to God as to when is the right time, if ever, for a discussion. I am hoping that love will bridge the gap when words fail. Love, perhaps, will reach into places where prejudices have a stronghold and soften their nasty grip.

9-11 and Catholicism

To me, this 9-11 remembrance just feels different because I am a Catholic. When I had just left the Seventh-day Adventist church and 9-11 occurred, I was thinking, “last day events, the world deserves this for its sins, much more ahead.....”

I didn’t feel a part of anything going on, even when we went and visited the former site of the Twin Towers in NYC. Everything was so distant, so “the world” and as a good Christian, I wasn’t really in “the world.”

Today, things are different. As a Catholic I feel connected with everything. Walking inside the Kingdom of Heaven here on earth, I actually am more at peace and at war. I am safely inside God’s body, yet, as part of God’s body I am expected to be Him for the world. Everything that happens is not distant, it reverberates within God’s body and we weep with those who weep and we laugh with those who laugh. We are to render assistance not as some charitable act of self-righteousness, but because love and unity draws us to it as if the wounds were our own. We are those who died, they were part of us. We, as Christ’s body, ARE those who now suffer and grieve. They are our griefs and our sorrows too.

Catholicism doesn’t allow me to view life from a safe distance. As God’s arms to hold, I am to hold, as God’s heart I must feel, as His eyes I must see, as His ears I must hear. I am called to LIFE, not to comfort. As a Catholic life calls to me, and I must answer.

9-11 Now a sad memory. God be with those who are still suffering with the loss of loved ones. May we reach out as God’s body and comfort them.

Seventh-day Adventist to Roman Catholic: The ELCA, Up the Creek

Seventh-day Adventist to Roman Catholic: The ELCA, Up the Creek

His is interesting...... Obama and the Catholic Church

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVN2MMuiedI

Seventh-day Adventist to Roman Catholic: We Are Catholics

Seventh-day Adventist to Roman Catholic: We Are