Bishop McFadden, Bishop Sheen and Totalitarian Schools (reposted)

Reposted for new Sky View readers:

"Let no one who hates religion falsely think that we can do without religion or that it can be banished from the earth. That is false assumption under which modern pagans work...The choice is not between religion and no religion, but between two religions: a religion from God or a State religion."

-Bishop Fulton Sheen

“Unless our people are thoroughly instructed in the great truths of religion, they are not fitted to understand our institutions, or to provide them with adequate support.”

-U.S. President Calvin Coolidge


During an interview in early 2012 with the ABC affiliate in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Bishop Joseph McFadden gave voice to a belief about State-run education which enjoyed a consensus among U.S. bishops in the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century. He simply dusted off an old truth and reminded the public, in so many words, that a monopoly on education by the State does not, in the end, empower children or citizens but rather the State itself. He said, “In the totalitarian government, they would love our system…This is what Hitler and Mussolini and all them tried to establish -- a monolith; so all the children would be educated in one set of beliefs and one way of doing things.”

Unfortunately, the beliefs of the family and the doctrines of the Church would not get equal time under such a system; instead, political ideology would take precedence and hence give shape to how children perceive the world. Inevitably, parental and Church authority would have to yield to State authority. And isn’t this the case today? The question can be asked: Do secular politicians- the very ones who promote the glories of public education -really favor the rights of parents ? Bishop McFadden would go on to say this: “[U]nchecked monolithic governments of the past used schools to curtail the primary responsibility of the parent in the education of their children.” And then he adds, “Today many parents in our state experience the same lack of freedom in choosing an education that bests suits their child as those parents oppressed by dictators of the past.”

Universal education under the Federal and State government inevitably adopts rigidly uniform standards. Such a system does not allow for rival creeds or philosophies. Established are the set of beliefs approved by the State...and no one else's!

It is interesting to note that prior to the 1940’s the U.S. bishops were virtually unanimous in sounding the alarm about the dangers of State-run education. A towering figure in the Catholic Church during the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century was Cardinal James Gibbons. For instance, in a Pastoral Letter in 1919 to the US Bishops, he wrote the following:

"The spirit of our people in general is adverse to State monopoly, and this for the obvious reason that such an absorption of control would mean the end of freedom and initiative. The same consequence is sure to follow when the State attempts to monopolize education; and the disaster will be much greater inasmuch as it will affect, not simply the worldly interests of the citizen, but also his spiritual growth and salvation."

Here, the good cardinal said that not only economic and political interests would be at stake, but the salvation of souls would be adversely affected as well. In other words, public education will, at some point, prove to be a nemesis to the mission of the Church. And to be sure, it has!

Yet, how few of us see what our spiritual ancestors saw! How few members of the clergy articulate what Bishop McFadden is now giving voice to. However, what he said is nothing new! Is it any wonder, then, that the Catholic Church has to publicly raise her voice against the federal government’s encroachment on her religious liberty?

We have forgotten that a nation’s education is more important than a nation’s government. After all, it is education that makes society, and eventually the government, into its own image. And what might be the image of our public schools? Well, students and teachers, by and large, cannot mention God; they are forbidden to promote chastity or the Ten Commandments; and as mentioned, parents do not have much say about the school of their choosing nor do they have much leverage in objecting to the implementation of a secularized sex-education. Furthermore, democratic principles and the Christian roots of our nation are not being taught to our children. And in the absence of these truths, one thing is sure to take its place: The advancement of a totalitarian ideology!

As stated, Bishop McFadden’s statement draws from a well established tradition of belief that the family and the Church have priority over the State in terms of educating its children.

A fine piece of writing which represents that tradition is by Bishop Fulton Sheen, whose book, Philosophies at War, was published in 1943. The excerpt below is from one of the chapters entitled, Democracy in Education.

If you are interested in knowing what is at the heart of the threat on religious liberty by the Obama administration, take the time to read Sheen's insights about whether we will become a people under an all-powerful God or slaves under an all-powerful State.

Keep in mind that even if the federal government should rescind its healthcare mandate, the battle to preserve religious liberty will have to continue on the municipal, state and (and eventually) on a federal level. The foes of religious liberty are legion. Their movement and determination are strong. In addition to raising our voices against these injustices, we must also consider the long term solution. Bishop Fulton Sheen prophetically identifies the long term solution below. Indeed, his writing is a wonderful compliment to Bishop McFadden's statement on education.

Democracy in Education: Bishop Fulton Sheen, 1943

The Unifying Principle:

"Education as it is presently constituted is not the bulwark of the nation. It should be; but it is not. And the reason is because the college, in taking over the function of the Church, failed to supply a body of beliefs which could sustain the nation in time of trouble. Religion has a social function; that is, to give citizens a set of principles, a hierarchy of values, fundamental convictions and beliefs, and a set of moral standards.

We need these standards and beliefs today, but who shall say what are the beliefs of an educational system? There is no agreement on principles and no uniform set of values. In time of peace the only universal agreement was a negative one, namely, that the Church is non-essential; in time of war, another negative one, a hatred of Hitler. Education now affirms that the function which was once performed by religion can be better performed by a school without religion.

The result is that in time of crisis such as this, we lack a positive belief and a unifying inspiration of sacrifice. As Calvin Coolidge said, “Unless our people are thoroughly instructed in the great truths of religion, they are not fitted to understand our institutions, or to provide them with adequate support.”

We are at a stage like that developed by Dostoevski in his Crime and Punishment, in which he describes the world as having been desolated by a microbe which affected the intellect and the will rather than the body. The effect of being poisoned by these bacteria was that one imagined there was no law or authority outside of himself; that he was the final standard and arbiter of right and wrong; and that all scientific conclusions and judgments were absolutely right, because they were his.

Whole populations became infected, and no one could understand anyone else; each considered himself as the possessor of the greatest truth; and when someone insisted on his great truth, another would throw his arms in the air and complain about the stupidity of the first. The result was that there was only chaos in the world, which ended in a great strife in which every man rose up to kill his brother.


Insufficiency of Knowledge:

And this picture is fairly accurate. No one in his right mind will admit that universal education has brought us freedom from evil…Ignorance is not the cause of evil; hence universal education of the intellect alone will not remove evil. It is not the educated who are the good. In fact, the great marvel about St. Thomas [Aquinas] is that in being so learned, he was also very saintly, and not the other way around. What is the use of piling up knowledge, unless we know what we are going to do with it? Facts are for the purpose of feeding values and moral ends of living; but when our education is devoid of these things, we leave the facts hanging in mid-air. If they are taken into the mind, they remain as so much undigested knowledge which through constipation mars [disfigures] mental and moral judgments. We are all agreed that the youth should know something, but there is no agreement as to the one thing everyone ought to know.


Four Indispensible Principles:

Upon what principles shall we proceed?

First, educate the whole man, not the part man. The whole man is not only economic, nor political, nor sexual, but is moral. Because he is moral, he is economic, political, and social, and not vice versa. The education of the whole man entails education on three levels: man must be informed about what takes place on the sub-human level, and thus become acquainted the natural sciences; he must become acquainted with what takes place on the human level, and hence know the humanities and metaphysics. Finally he must become acquainted with what takes place on the supra-human level, and hence know something about God and the moral law and his eternal destiny.

Secondly, as a basic principle of the rights of education, the family, because instituted by God, has a priority of nature and therefore a right over civil society. Existence does not come from the State, hence the parents rights of education is anterior to a right of civil power and the State. The State derives its power to educate from the family; the State does not give it to the family.

Third, restore education back again to the Churches and to religion. We are at present in an era of transition in education, and coming into an era wherein education will belong to the family which insists on religion, or to the State which will exclude it. No one wants education to be the unique and fundamental right of the State because such is the essence of Nazism…

Fourth, in a country such as this where there different religious beliefs, it is the duty of the State to leave free scope to the initiative of the Church and the family while giving them such assistance as justice demands…


Crossroad in Nation's History:

We are at the crossroads of our national history. In the field of education we will either believe or we will obey. He who will not believe in the Truth must submit to Power. Which will it be? Will we retain a set of beliefs in which we are all agreed, and on which we were all agreed when this country was founded, or, scrapping all beliefs shall be and thus extinguish all freedom?

Let no one who hates religion falsely think that we can do without religion or that it can be banished from the earth. That is false assumption under which modern pagans work...The choice is not between religion and no religion, but between two religions: a religion from God or a State religion...

We do not yet realize this truth, but it is an indisputable fact that a nation's education is far more important than a nation's government. Given one generation educated on the principle that there is no absolute Truth or Justice and our next generation will be a government of power. There is no such thing as neutral education; that is, education without morality and religion.

Religion and morality are not related to education like raisins to a cake, but as a soul to a body. There can be cake without raisins, but there cannot be man without a soul. If education does not inculcate a moral outlook, it will inculcate a materialist or a Communist or a Nazi outlook. Neutrality is absolutely impossible in education. By the mere fact that religious and moral training is neglected, a non-religious, non-morality and by consequence an anti-religious and anti-moral ideology will be developed. 'He that is not with me is against me.' (Matt. 12:30)

The old notion of “no indoctrination,” really meant “no religion,” but instead of “no indoctrination” of faith, it really meant “indoctrination of doubt and unbelief.” And doubt is the accomplice of tyranny; if we educate pagans in one generation, we will educate barbarians in the next. As William Penn said: “Men must be governed by God or they will be ruled by tyrants.”

The question before us as a nation is not whether religion shall be taught as one subject among many, but where the integrating principle of all subjects will be derived from the spiritual and Absolute Truth, or from the material and omnipotent State.

The modern world as confused the extension of education with intension, and by spreading it thin has sacrificed depth. This does not mean universal education is wrong. No! It is not the universality of it that is wrong, but it is the lack of philosophy of life and a proper understanding of the man to be educated. The natural or “neutral” man, as the intelligentsia call him, is anti-social and can be counted on to abuse society for his own personal ends. The only way his egotistic impulse can be combated is by a renewal of his nature from above. This rebirth alone enables him to be a member of society without losing his personal dignity. There is no disputing the necessity of controlling selfish tendencies. The choice is in whether the State will control it by its omnipotence. The whole of civilized man is today confronted with this question: “To whom do you belong?” Education will give the answer.


Liberty or Totalitarianism:

Neglect conscience, and the majority makes right; neglect the absoluteness of Divine Truths which religion teaches, and you dethrone Power as the only criterion of right and wrong. Neglect the training of freedom, as liberty within the law, as religion teaches, and you will first enthrone first a liberty without law which is anarchy, and then by reaction a law without liberty which is Totalitarianism. Neglect the principle that evil is rooted in a perverse will, which religion teaches, and you will train the intellect to neglect of the will and this end in system where reason is used to support the passions. Neglect the principle that the progress of man is conditioned upon the progressive diminution of original sin, and you will create a fatalistic belief in progress which is unable to stand either the shock of depression or the bloodshed of war. Neglect the ideal that man was made for happiness as religion teaches, and exalt the idea that man was made to make money and you build a race of profiteers, but not a race of Americans.

The hour is past when anyone can say, “I belong to nobody, because I belong to myself.” We will belong to either Caesar or we will belong to God. It was Christianity in the beginning that deprived Caesar of his unrestricted power over individuals, and it was through martyrs’ blood that it was accomplished. It is through their blood today, that modern Caesars are challenged.

That America may be preserved from such a necessity, it must close the gap between the principle of democracy and its education. Our democracy is founded on the principle that our rights come from God: “The Creator has endowed man with certain unalienable rights.” Education has a tendency to divorce these human rights from God. It cannot be done. If our rights come from God, no one can take them away- they are “unalienable” as the Declaration of Independence puts it. If they come from the State, the State can take them away.

Certainly, we have rights, but there are never any rights without duties. In fact, duties are opportunities for acquiring rights. Because God made us free; we have rights. Because God made us creatures; we have duties. For over one hundred and fifty years [from 1943 back to 1776] we have been celebrating the ten articles of the Bill of Rights. It is now about time to recall the Ten Commandments in our Bill of Duties!

Here is the dilemma facing the country. On the one hand, government admits that good citizenship is impossible without religion and morality [not in 2012!], and that such an integration has been our philosophy of democracy from the beginning.

On the other hand, what encouragement is given by the States to foster religious and moral education? The White House Conference stated that of the thirty million children between the ages of five and seventeen, sixty million receive no religious education. When you take out the sixteen million, those who are being educated by the Catholic Church at its expense the number becomes more staggering still…

Any doubts about the importance of religion to resist political slavery can be dissipated by inquiring into the forces which resisted it in our modern crisis. When Hitler came into power in 1933, the first to capitulate were the professors, and the one force which never capitulated was religion, such as the Catholic bishops and Pastor Niemoeller. It was the professors who allowed the independent administration of the universities to be abolished…

Given a crisis in any country in the world in which Totalitarianism in any form threatens the liberty of its citizens, the first to capitulate will be the non-religious educators. How could it be otherwise, for without a faith, how could they oppose a faith? It will be only those schools which give moral and religious training which will challenge the right of the State to dominate the soul of man…


Purpose, Religion and Education:

The prime purpose of education is the making of a man, and it is impossible to make a man without giving him the purpose of being man. Unless we make sense out of life, we fail in education...So long as we educate without defining the purpose of life and the standards of life and without developing a sense of right and wrong, we are losing our souls...

No signer of the Declaration of Independence was educated in a non-religious school. For a century the United States did not have a single presdient who was educated in a non-religious school. The only time the State now recognizes religion is when it builds a chapel in a penitentiary. Would it not be a good idea to give a religious training before men get into the penitentiary?

Centuries ago the Light of the World rebuked those whom He called to be teachers, because they ignored little ones: "Suffer the little children and forbid them not to come unto me: for the kingdom of heaven is for such as these." (Matt. 19:14) The Master is crying out to them now, Hitler has said: Suffer the little children to come unto me, for of such is the essence of Totalitarianism. There is the dilemma: the children of America will belong either to God or to the State."

Peter & Paul: Founders of the New Rome

June 29th marks the great feast day of St. Peter and St. Paul. Some early Christian witnesses claim that these two illustrious Apostles were martyred under the Roman emperor Nero on the same day: St. Peter being crucified upside down and St. Paul being beheaded. Interestingly, their calling to martyrdom seemed to have been traced out by the crucifixion of our Lord and the beheading of St. John the Baptist. Also noteworthy is the pagan legend that two twin brothers, Romulus and Remus, founded the city of Rome between 758 and 728 B.C. And it would seem providential that two brothers in Christ, Peter and Paul, would help bring about a new Rome through the shedding of their blood.

An early Christian account, Liberianus (354 A.D.), records that St. Peter had presided in Rome as bishop for 25 years, 1 month and 9 days. As for St. Paul, he eventually made his way to Rome after having preached the Gospel to the Mediterranean world. These two pillars of the Church, the former an icon of authority and the latter representing the prophetic voice of Christ, would serve as the epicenter of Christianity. St. Ireneaus (180 A.D.), bishop and Father of the Church, attested to this “by indicating that tradition derived from the apostles, of the very great, the very ancient, and universally known Church founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul; as also [by pointing out] the faith preached to men, which comes down to our time by means of the successions of the bishops.”

Yet the sacred authority of St. Peter and St. Paul would not go uncontested. In fact, it was the Roman emperor Nero, a mad man to be sure, who inaugurated the era of Christian martyrdom by using Christians as a scapegoat for setting fire to a district of Rome. Having sensed a political backlash to his arson, he immediately blamed the Christians. Tacitus, a non-Christian historian in the first century, had this to say about one of the first great persecutions of the Church: "Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus…” Indeed, the tortures consisted of wrapping the Christians in animal skins and setting them on fire for all to see.

It was during this wave of persecutions that St. Peter and St. Paul were put to death in 64 A.D. About forty years earlier, Christ foretold the kind of death St. Peter would “glorify God.” He said, “Amen, amen, I say to you, when you were younger, you used to dress yourself and go where you wanted; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go." This wouldn’t be the last time a Roman emperor would see the pope as a rival to his throne and seek to have him eliminated. Out of the first 30 popes, 29 died a martyr’s death. As you can see, the first several popes had to be willing to suffer a martyr’s death in order to sit on Peter’s chair. Indeed, for a successor of St. Peter, dying a natural death wasn’t likely in those early years.

During the first centuries, being a Christian in Rome was a health hazard. As such, it begs the question: Why did the Spirit of the Lord lead St. Peter and St. Paul to Rome, the very center of moral and spiritual darkness? Gladiator games, infanticide, and slavery were just a few vices on display there. In fact, St. Peter concluded his first epistle by saying, “Babylon sends you greetings…” First century Jews and Christians referred to Rome as Babylon for two reasons: First, Babylon was a place of exile for the Old Testament Jews when Temple and Jerusalem was destroyed (586 B.C.). Rome was a dwelling place for Jews and Christians away from Jerusalem. Second, as with the construction of the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11, Rome was an epicenter of godlessness. Yet, St. Peter and St. Paul threw themselves right in the middle of this darkness so as to emit the Light of Christ. They were set apart from the world but ministered in the world. The Catholic Church took it for granted that if Rome could be transformed through the preaching of the Gospel, the light of Christ would be diffused throughout the world.

Retreating from ungodly cities, therefore, was not on the early Christian agenda. In fact, the Apostles and the Church Fathers- most of whom were bishops -took to the streets, exposing themselves to ridicule and persecution. This is a missionary tactic that ought to be revived in our cities. As Fulton Sheen said (and here I am paraphrasing), “Christ did not get crucified between two candles in a cathedral. Rather, died out there in the jungle; that’s where we need to take our message.”

The strength do carry this daunting task out was none other than the grace that came from Christ-crucified. Having the Passion of our Lord burned in their hearts, these two great Apostles saw that God was glorified through setbacks, humiliations, persecutions and martyrdom itself. As such, they did not wince from bearing witness in those places most hostile to the Gospel of Christ. From Rome, St. Peter encouraged those Christians undergoing trials to adopt the same attitude: “In this you rejoice, although now for a little while you may have to suffer through various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that is perishable even though tested by fire, may prove to be for praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” (I Peter 1:6-7) For St. Peter, suffering was an opportunity to break with sin. He said, “Therefore, since Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same attitude (for whoever suffers in the flesh has broken with sin), so as not to spend what remains of one's life in the flesh on human desires, but on the will of God.” (I Peter 4:1-2)

The foundation these two Apostles laid bore much fruit. In the year 313 A.D. Christianity was legalized. Nearly 80 years later, in 392 A.D., it was made the official religion of the Roman Empire. When the Church’s mission was allowed to flourish, gladiator games were banned, infanticide and abortion were declared illegal and the institution of slavery collapsed. Indeed, the world was introduced to the Culture of Life all because the Gospel of Life was preached on enemy territory by men who were willing to endure its hazzards.

St. Peter and St. Paul, founders of the New Rome, pray for us.

What US Supreme Court ruling portends for the Church

The US Supreme Court ruling today on Obamacare is a real shocker. In a 5-4 ruling, the mandate was surprisingly upheld; US Supreme Court justice John Roberts being the swing vote. Suddenly, the uphill climb to preserve religious liberty in our country is looking a little steeper.

I cannot help but recall the words of what sounded like a prophetic utterance almost four years ago. Cardinal James Francis Stafford gave a lecture in the fall of 2008 at the Catholic University of America. He warned his audience about the perils to come after president-elect Barak Obama won the bid for the President of the United States. He said, “On November 4, 2008, America suffered a cultural earthquake.” Then he added: “For the next few years, Gethsemane will not be marginal. We will know that garden.”

Sixty years before Stafford’s statement, Bishop Fulton Sheen reminded Americans that it gets the politicians it deserves. In fact, the moral integrity of politicians which, by the way, is inseparable from the competence and worthiness to lead, never rises above the citizenry. Indeed, men and women who occupy the offices of civil authority are but a mirror of the people who put them there. Political remedies, therefore, invariably rest upon factors outside of politics; factors that are bound up with the morality and spirituality of the people.

The Old Testament prophets were keenly aware this. When Israel’s liberty was in jeopardy because of the hostile actions of foreign powers such as the Assyrian and Babylonian empires, you will notice that they spent little time condemning them. It is even true to say that our Lord Jesus had little to say about the overbearing nature of the Roman Empire which had dominated Palestine in his day. Rather, both the prophets and our Lord zeroed in on, not the sins of outsiders per say, but on the sins of the people of God; especially their leaders. Christ and the prophets took it for grant it that spiritual slavery to sin was but the precursor to political slavery.

This is where the comments by Christopher Dawson, a Catholic historian, are quite instructive; especially for the Catholic Church as Obamacare entrenches itself in the medical world. He said, “Religious people are not always very clear-sighted in political matters and nothing is easier for them to mistake the real danger and waste their time attacking that form of secularism which happens to be the most unpopular in their own society, and consequently the least likely to succeed, while they close their eyes to the real source of danger.”

The most unpopular aspect of the HHS mandate for Catholics is that it violates the Church’s liberty to carry out her mission as she sees fit. In good conscience, Catholic agencies cannot distribute birth control as the mandate requires. Such a policy violates Church teachings. Up to this point, however, the campaign mounted by the Catholic Church for religious liberty has met with little success. Indeed, there are few signs that the Obama administration has suffered politically for it. Moreover, the public’s reaction to the HHS mandate has been surprisingly subdued.

To use Dawson’s words, “the real source of danger” is that the campaign to defend religious liberty is being waged without due consideration for the moral principles behind the Church’s teachings on contraception. Can the Catholic Church really arouse sympathy from the public when the majority of people believe that contraception is morally acceptable? It’s very much like the ban on smoking in privately owned restaurants. Because cigarette smoke is a displeasing aroma to most, the ban on smoking is not something people quibble over. In fact, most people are in favor of the ban. However, when personal likes and dislikes trump the principles and rights of private ownership (i.e. the right to engage in a legal activity on private property), then liberty is less likely to be defended. And if most people think that artificial contraception is a good thing, the public outrage of the HHS mandate will continue to be subdued.

The question then becomes: How would the prophets, the saints and our Lord himself respond to the HHS mandate and the US Supreme Court ruling? If past behavior is any indication then I am guessing they would first fix their gaze on the Church herself. As St. Peter said, “For it is time for the judgment to begin with the household of God…” The day of accounting begins with those who have been entrusted with much. And as for the Church, she has been blessed above all churches and religions. But her responsibility is proportionate to the blessings given to her. For that reason, her leaders and members have much to answer for because much has been given to them.

In light of this, it would seem we are attempting to educate the public about religious liberty and are campaigning for its perseveration without also educating the public about the moral principles behind the Church’s teaching on contraception. A case can even be made that Catholics have distanced themselves from God's teaching on contraception. Church goers rarely, if at all, hear about it on Sundays. As such, the public will naturally wonder why the Church is fighting so hard for the freedom “not to distribute” contraception to her employees. But the Church needs the American people to understand this if we are to benefit from their support. To this end, explaining the reasons why we cannot comply with the HHS mandate is paramount!

Hence, the campaign for religious liberty should not be divorced from the moral and social evils of birth control for the very reason that freedom and morality go hand in hand. And for those times when we were silent about Christ's moral law on contraception, perhaps to publicly repent is every bit as necessary as our protests and denunciations. After all, the "real source of danger" is from within.

If we do make amends, we can pass through this garden- the garden of trials Cardinal Stafford referred to in 2008 -and expect that God will bless the Church's mission to preserve religious liberty. But this can hardly be done without the Church undergoing a much needed interior purification. To be sure, if we do not do it, God will do it for us.

Certain unexpected lights

Reposted for new Sky View readers:

"Jesus has no need of books or teachers to instruct souls; He teaches without the noise of words. Never have I heard Him speak, but I feel that He is within me at each moment; He is guiding and inspiring me with what I must say and do. I find just when I need certain lights which I had not seen until then, and it is not most frequently during my hours of prayer that these are most abundant but rather in the midst of my daily occupations.”

-St. Therese of Lisieux, Story of a Soul

Silence is the language of God. Without silence it is difficult to hear His voice. Very seldom does Jesus speak to the soul with audible words. Rather, He uses impressions and flashes of insights. As St. Therese said, more often than not, He does not speak to us when we are engaged in prayer or meditation. If He did, we would be tempted to think that we could just push a button and the Lord would be obliged to speak. Soon enough, like those engaged in Eastern spirituality, we would be deluded into thinking that communicating with God is the result of a technique. But it isn’t. He takes the initiative. And in doing so He speaks to our soul when we are walking to the refrigerator or when we are waiting in line at the grocery store or when we are driving. Indeed, inspirations come when we least expect it.

Perhaps, if God has given you some insight or has revealed some previously unknown truths to you- write it down! It just might come in handy in the future when you are need of inspiration. Moreover, when you do pray- hopefully with your family and in solitude (both are necessary) –call attention to God’s presence within you. This might bear a superficial resemblance to an “Eastern spiritual exercise,” but rest assured, most, if not, all of the Saints recommended this premeditation before your actual prayers begin. If you are like me, you might be inclined to see God in nature; such as the stars, the sky or just anywhere outside. After all, St. Paul says we can discern God’s existence in the beauty of His creation. Nevertheless, it is an article of Faith that the Holy Spirit dwells in our souls in a special way; in a way He doesn’t exist in the material universe. He comes alive, not through a rock or a bird, but through a sanctified soul who bears His image.

From time to time we need to remind ourselves that Christ’s own body became a Temple of God so that our body could be a temple of the Holy Spirit too. Yes, the altar, the tabernacle, the sanctuary and our Lord’s real presence in the Eucharist at the local church is truly the House of the Lord. But like the Jewish Temple, the sanctuary of your local church not only symbolizes heaven but it is a template of the human soul. The heart is the altar of Christ. And St. Paul says that we are to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice. Little acts of self-denial and love, therefore, serve as miniature holocausts. Mother Theresa used to say that the smallest of things can become infinite if it is offered to God with love.

Therefore, honoring God at the altar is but the fulfillment of glorifying Him in our soul. When all is said and done, God dwells in the sanctuary of our souls on earth so that we can dwell in Him in heaven. And as St. Therese indicated, Jesus guides and inspires us along the path to heaven in His own way- in His own time- using His own language.

The Tower & the Fortnight for Freedom (abridged edition)

The following post is a revised and abridged edition that will be published by Catholic News Agency this Friday, June 29th and July 2nd.

On June 21st of 2012, Archbishop William Lori delivered an historic homily to commence Forthnight for Freedom in the Basilica of the Assumption in Baltimore. Upon the conclusion of the homily, he deservedly received a standing ovation from the congregation in attendance. Indeed, it was passionately and flawlessly delivered. He addressed religious freedom in light of the martyrdom of St. John Fisher, bishop of Rochester, England, and St. Thomas More, lawyer and chancellor. In short, the execution of these two heroic men in 1535 resulted from their refusal to take an oath acknowledging King Henry VIII divorce with Queen Catherine and his act of making himself Supreme Head of the Church in England.

In addition to the heroism that Archbishop Lori asked us to remember and venerate, I would like to address another consideration that is every bit as important for the preservation of our religious liberty. And this consideration has to do with the historical circumstances which made it easier for King Henry VIII of England to violate, not only the religious liberty of the Church in his own country, but the human rights of those Catholics who died under him.

These historical circumstances have something to do with what Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia said during the same week Fortnight for Freedom was kicked off:

“Politics and the courts are important. But our religious freedom ultimately depends on the vividness of our own Christian faith–in other words, how deeply we believe it, and how honestly we live it. Religious liberty is an empty shell if the spiritual core of a people is weak. Or to put it more bluntly, if people don’t believe in God, religious liberty isn’t a value. That’s the heart of the matter…The worst enemies of religious freedom aren’t ‘out there’ among the legion of critics who hate Christ or the Gospel or the church, or all three. The worst enemies are in here, with us–all of us, clergy, religious, and lay–when we live our faith with tepidness, routine, and hypocrisy.”

Alongside the developments in England there were other unfortunate developments unfolding in the Catholic Church. During the lifetime of St. John and St. Thomas- from the late 1400’s to at least the mid 1500’s -the papacy had stooped to its lowest point in terms of internal discipline, morals and the ill repute that natural followed. At the same time, scores of Catholics left the Church and Protestantism was borne. By breaking with the Roman Catholic Church (from 1517-1534), Martin Luther and King Henry VIII certainly did wrong. However, the general lowering of morality among the Catholic clergy, even within the Papal Court itself, gave many an excuse to either sever ties with the Church or introduce their own flawed agenda.

For instance, the papacy of Pope Alexander VI (1492-1503) was rocked with scandal. Pope Julius II (1503-1513) was preoccupied with wars. As for Pope Leo X (1513-1521), a historian of the papacy, Joseph Brusher, had this to say about him: “Leo faced the crushing responsibility of spiritual leadership with a light heart. He loved shows and games, and many a play and ballet was performed for the Pope's amusement. A keen sportsman, Leo spent much time hunting. He was careless of the morals of the humanists he patronized as long as their Latin was Ciceronian.” Upon giving a toast, he was quoted saying, “Let’s enjoy the papacy!” And Pope Clement VII (1523-1534) “was a handsome man of good morals, and quite free from the frivolity of Leo X, but he was not very able and was tortured with a dangerous inability to make up his mind. In short, he was scarcely the pope for troubled times.” Indeed, he dragged his feet, hoping the crisis with King Henry VIII and his appeal for a divorce would just go away. The thing to be noted here is that the problems which beset the papacy was but an index of what was transpiring in many dioceses throughout Europe.

However, to put things in perspective, out of a total of 266 popes, about a hundred of them were superb to very good, about hundred were good, if not, capable and there were a handful that were real disappointments. But even given the imperfections of these few popes, Pope St. Leo the Great (440-461) reminds us that "the dignity of Peter suffers no diminution even in an unworthy successor."

Nevertheless, relaxed morals and discipline within the Church has led, in many cases, to a boomerang effect that ended up costing her dearly. We Catholics rightly deplore the Reformation and how it led to the splintering of Christianity. But what preceded the Reformation- what made it ripe for its success -was a general lowering of morality and discipline among the clergy. It can be argued, therefore, that decades of sinful behavior and mismanagement on the part of the leaders and members of the Church occasioned the Reformation. In fact, during the twenty years leading up to the Luther’s protest, the talk of the town- in nearly every town –was “reform! reform! reform!” And unfortunately, from Pope Alexander VI (1492) to Pope Clement VII (1534) and beyond, the image of the papacy was stained and the pope’s credibility as being the Universal Shepherd of the Church was damaged. Therefore, when the State bullied the Church, the public was slow to take notice.

It is a true marvel that nearly everyone in 16th century England- including bishops, priests and laity -sided with King Henry VIII despite his transgressions. Even his own family encouraged St. Thomas More to take the oath, swearing allegiance to the King’s supremacy. Now, this is surprising considering that the Catholic Church built up England from a tribal, savage and superstitious region to a civilized and educated nation. Oxford University, in fact, was one of the first universities in Europe; an institution that was the fruit of Catholic monks creating a Christian environment in which sanctity and learning could flourish. For a nation to just abandon its religious heritage in such short order is a lesson for all of us. Indeed, because the papacy and the episcopate became an object of ridicule and scorn, King Henry VIII could get away with incarcerating and then executing St. John Fisher, a bishop in good standing and St. More, a highly respected chancellor, for so-called high treason without the slightest rebellion or insurrection by public.

For their imprisonment, these two Saints spent a long and lonely fourteen months in the Tower of London. But there were no public protests to have them released. Instead, their characters were maligned from many pulpits. If we can write a sad note in Great Britain’s history it would read as follows: The Tower was not the gathering place for protestors. Rather, it was met with silence while two Saints wasted away inside.

Enter the HHS mandate: It is interesting to note that during an election year President Barak Obama decided to gamble on compelling the Catholic Church to provide contraception through its health insurance. Many in the Catholic media had marveled that he would take this risk, considering the importance of the Catholic voting bloc. But from all appearances, the HHS mandate did not cause a sizable political backlash. Certainly, the polls show that most people support the Catholic Church’s position in asserting her right to refuse the distribution of birth control. But support doesn’t necessarily translate into a vigorous defense. With that said, what can prove to be damaging to the Obama presidency is not the HHS mandate but the Fast and Furious scandal. In fact, if the White House can survive the scrutiny and negative publicity of Fast and Furious, and if the economy can make a comeback in the months to come, it is conceivable that President Obama can be reelected in 2012.

Yet, this begs the question: How can a U.S. president possibly be reelected if he, in broad daylight, set out to deny the Church’s right to religious liberty? Answer: It has something to do with why a tyrannical king could deny the Catholic Church’s religious liberty in 16th century England. In recent decades, the Church in America was hit with the 2002 priestly scandals, low pastoral standards and a general lowering of morality (i.e. studies show Catholics do not fare much different in terms of divorce and contraception). Furthermore, the moral evils of contraception are rarely talked about in Catholic venues, the worst offenders of human rights (i.e. progressive politicians and other public figures) are allowed to sit comfortably in our pews and those who show no interest in observing God's laws have easy access to the Sacraments. Suffice it to say that by making repentance an option as a matter of pastoral policy had led, in no small measure, to the 2002 priestly scandals in which the Catholic Church lost quite a bit of credibility in the eyes of the American public. The residue of that public distrust still remains. As such, the public outrage over the HHS mandate is predictably subdued. Like the Tower of London in the 16th century, the public square in the United States is quiet in this regard.

This is where the Tower has some relevance for the Fortnight for Freedom. It teaches us that in addition to mounting a robust defense of religious liberty, exposing the injustice of the HHS mandate, a real repentance from relaxed standards is needed. An examination of conscience would likely tell us that as with the Reformation in the 16th century, Catholics had something to do with the chipping away of religious liberty in 2012. Therefore, can we ask: Is it possible that we made it easier for the Obama administration to threaten the Church with his mandate?

Catholics can learn from the historic homily Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore delivered on June 21, 2012 in that the injustices of the H.H.S. mandate must be clearly articulated. Indeed, every effort must be made to expose this unprecedented power-grab by the federal government. But the Church in America can also greatly benefit from the comments made by Archbishop Charles Chaput when he said, “The worst enemies are in here, with us–all of us, clergy, religious, and lay…”

All this confirms that the Church is the hope and despair of mankind. When her leaders and members are worldly and pastoral standards are relaxed, society disintegrates and the State assumes inordinate power. On other hand, when Catholics are world-renouncing and zealous for the things of God, society is well ordered. The Church, for her part, is then able to be that effective “sign of contradiction” to the menace of political tyranny.

Quiet in Tarsus

Preface:

Waiting on the Lord can be one of the most difficult trials a Christian endures in his or her spiritual life. Pope St. Gregory the Great said the cross of waiting may be due to the punishment or purification from God for sins committed; or it may be a preparation for some greater task or mission the Lord has for you; or it may be an instrument through which God wishes to glorify himself in a special way.

Whatever the reason, waiting on the Lord can be likened to a school where the greatest of lessons about life can be learned. It teaches us the humility of being that “worthless” servant Jesus refers to in his parable; the one where the servant works hard in the field only to have to serve his Master at the table at the end of the day. St. Paul had to learn this lesson over and over again in prison and in the setbacks he encountered during his mission.

This blog was originally divided into three posts in May of 2010 and then again in May of 2011. Quite in Tarsus speaks to the St. Paul’s difficult trial of waiting on the Lord before his mission even got started.


Future Trials:

Very few Saints have been privileged with a clear foresight of what trials lay ahead. Usually we are made aware of the challenges of life, the trials of a mission or the difficulties of some undertaking as they happen. For St. Paul, however, just after he saw the Risen Lord on his way to Damascus, he was granted a vision of the sufferings which awaited him. After his conversion, he recounted some of what he suffered in his second Letter to the Corinthians:

"Five times at the hands of the Jews I received forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I passed a night and a day on the deep; on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my own race, dangers from Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers at sea, dangers among false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many sleepless nights, through hunger and thirst, through frequent fastings, through cold and exposure." (II Corinthians 11:24-27)

Somehow, the Lord had to prepare St. Paul to endure these trials. Without this preparation, the temptation of giving into despair would have been too overwhelming. Indeed, this new Apostle, teeming with enthusiasm and fervor, had to be trained to see through short term sacrifices in order to lay hold of the long term gain of saving souls.

It is important to keep in mind that enthusiasm and fervor alone is never enough for perseverance. Such feeling and inner conviction are no match for the uncertainties, opposition, or even the dangers in carrying out God's work. Surprisingly, the preparation which God uses for such a work is often uneventful and quiet. Here, I refer to the simple but painful act of waiting on the Lord. It is in this that faith, hope and love are perfected. It is in this that great Saints are made. And to be sure, St. Paul was no exception.

Before the torrent of St. Paul's preaching was to be released into the ancient world, this newly ordained minister of the Word had to wait in silence. Shortly after his baptism, St. Paul had visited the Church in Jerusalem only to have become the source of commotion and a object of hatred. The Hellenists (those who adapted to Greek culture) wanted to kill him and worse yet, the Christians in Jerusalem did not trust him yet. As a result, a short time after he began his mission, the Apostles sent him home, back to Tarsus. Few people know that St. Paul had to wait a long four to five years until St. Barnabas came looking for him.

For a zealous man like St. Paul, waiting on the Lord was no easy feat. "But God is a great King, and kings often expect others to wait for them."


Saints Waited:

Scripture is full of waiting: "I waited, waited for the LORD; who bent down and heard my cry." (Psalm 40:2) "Wait for the LORD, take courage; be stouthearted, wait for the LORD!" (Psalm 27:14)

St. Padre Pio once said that waiting on the Lord is like being in an interior room of a ship out at sea. You can feel the ship rocking from side to side; but because the room does not have any windows, it seems the ship is far from its destination. Indeed, the ship seems to be going nowhere. In reality, however, the ship is traveling many miles a day. Likewise, waiting on the Lord can feel like you are losing ground, but in reality the soul makes much progress during this time. The Lord has been known to do his greatest work when things look dormant or when all seems lost. Beneath the surface, Divine Providence is merely getting things ready: "The prayer of the lowly pierces the clouds; it does not rest till it reaches its goal, Nor will it withdraw till the Most High responds." (Sirach 35:17-18) Just as important, as we wait and trust in the Lord on a day to day basis, he builds-up the soul from within.

For St. Paul, it is probable that the Apostles did not give any indication as to when they would commission him to preach the Gospel. In obedience to them, St. Paul had to wait for their permission to resume his ministry. God leaves us in periods uncertainty for his divine purposes. Perhaps, this is part of what makes the Dark Night of the Soul so difficult.


The Holy Family Waited:

Recall another familiar story: the exile of the Holy Family into Egypt. In order to escape the wrath of Herod, St. Joseph was told by an angel of the Lord to flee with the baby Jesus and his mother to Egypt. St. Joseph was simply told by the angel to stay there until he was told to leave. There was no indication as to how long they would have to stay. A short meditation of this episode will bring to our attention how difficult that must have been! Taking refuge in a foreign land amidst a foreign people for safety is one thing; but to do so without knowing how for how long is a real test of faith. The same could be said of St. Paul. He was told to wait in Tarsus until the Apostles said otherwise. That could have been interpreted to mean one week, a month or several years.


Eyes of Faith:

It was during these years of apparent inactivity that the fortitude, spirituality, and theology of St. Paul were developed. Receiving the vision of the Risen Lord on his way to Damascus was a miraculous, supernatural intervention. Although it was enough to convert him, it did not serve to prepare him for his apostolate. Evidently, God chose a more ordinary means of getting St. Paul ready for his mission; and that was to wait on the Lord in silence, fasting, and prayer.

Through solitude and stillness, the Lord trained St. Paul to rely less on his senses and more on his faith. In order to live in hope when things look hopeless or to even press forward in difficult conditions, the believer, like St. Paul, must grow accustomed to seeing the world differently. He must peer beneath the surface with the eyes of faith, trusting that what appears to be fruitless or evil, can be beneficial for God's purposes. If there is a law that runs through great enterprises, achievements and missions it is that they are more often than not marked by contradictions and suffering. Too many people are quick to dismiss failures and setbacks as having little to no value when in fact it just may be what Christ had willed.


Unless the Lord Builds:

Waiting on the Lord provides yet another lesson; and that is to teach the believer that true and lasting good comes from God himself. It is not so much what we say or what we do that makes this world a better place, it is what God does with what we say and what we do which really counts. For St. Paul, it was but a natural impulse to want to immediately share the "good news" he had received from the Risen Lord. But before the Apostle did act, the Lord wanted to impress upon this new convert a critical lesson: "Unless the LORD build the house, they labor in vain who build." (Psalm 127) No matter how good or how eloquent the Ambassador of Christ would prove to be in proclaiming Christ-crucified, such gifts would be useless if the Lord did not use them.


Putting God Above Your Mission:

Lastly, waiting on the Lord served to purge the Apostle of a subtle temptation all too common among the workers of the vineyard: the temptation to love the work of God more than God Himself. How many followers of Christ- Christians who sincerely want to advance the kingdom of God -end up becoming too preoccupied with the mission while our personal spirituality suffers neglect? We may get too busy for prayer; we may enjoy the success of a mission with the result of becoming complacent; or the disciple of Christ may attribute the fruits of his labor to himself. To help us avoid these pitfalls and illusions so fatal to the work of God, Jesus allows us to wait on him while some petition seemingly goes unanswered. While we endure the "silence of God," the opportunity to affirm and reaffirm our love for the Lord is invaluable! It not only strengthens and validates our relationship with Christ, but it gives the Christian credibility. We know that God listens to those who are willing to forsake all for him, including the very work he has called us to.

That's right! It is the ironies of ironies that the Lord calls his servants to renounce (that is, the willingness to give up some work for his glory if necessary) the very mission he calls us to. This is what makes the period of waiting exceedingly difficult. God first provides the inspiration for a mission but then he permits delays and setbacks. From the days of Noah to the Christian era, this means of testing was frequently used.


Willingness to Sacrifice:

For St. Paul, the Risen Lord provided him the inspiration to proclaim Jesus as the Messiah. After his baptism, he was able to act on that inspiration...but just for a short period of time. Unexpectedly, just when St. Paul was ready to join the Apostles to begin a new vocation, he was told to sit down and wait. In other words, he had to die to the very mission God had called him to fulfill just as Abraham was called to sacrifice his son Isaac on Mt. Moriah (the male heir God had promised from whose loins the nation of Israel would proceed).

After each day that passed in Tarsus, the Lord seemed to be asking St. Paul the very question he asked St. Peter: "Do you love me more than these?" That is, do you love me more than the mission I have called you to? With the fervor to proclaim the Good News burning in his soul, St. Paul had to reaffirm his love for the Lord as the highest and the most unrivaled of his loves.

For every Christian who seeks to work on God's behalf, there are two competing loves: The love for God versus the love for God's work. To be a channel of God's grace and an Apostle of his Good News, the latter must be totally subordinated to the former. This right ordering of the two loves can be a painful process. But it is one that is absolutely necessary to glorify God.

Waiting on the Lord in Tarsus played no small role in preparing St. Paul for his mission. More importantly, it prepared his soul for heaven. As such, he could say at the end of his life, "I have competed well; I have finished the race; I have kept the faith."

The Birth of the Baptist

St. John the Baptist was born approximately six months before Christ. The Catholic Church celebrates his birthday on June 24th, just as the days are getting shorter.

This great Saint’s birth was surrounded all sorts of ironies. First, on the eighth day, the day of his circumcision, his relatives and neighbors assumed he was going to be named Zachariah, the name of his father. But that was not to be. Instead, Elizabeth insisted that he was to be named John as foretold by the angel Gabriel. Interestingly enough, they did not take her word for it saying, "There is no one among your relatives who has this name." Incredulous, those in the synagogue looked to the man of the house, Zechariah, for his directive. But he was mute, punished some months earlier for not believing the good news the angel Gabriel had delivered to him while he was a priest in the Temple. For some reason Zachariah could not bring himself to believe that he and his wife could conceive a child with God’s help. Nevertheless, Elizabeth had already settled the matter, as if with authority. Despite breaking with family tradition, and with deference to his wife, he wrote down that his son’s name shall be John, meaning- “God is gracious.” Immediately, Zachariah was healed and was able to talk.

Names are important in the Hebrew tradition. New names given by God or otherwise, signify a new and distinct mission. Adam named his newly created companion, “Woman.” Abram was renamed Abraham (father of many) by the Lord himself; Jacob was renamed Israel (struggled with God) by an angel; the name Moses means drawn out of the water; Simon was renamed Peter (Rock) by Christ; and Saul took on the new name of Paul after the Risen Lord had appeared to him on the road to Damascus.

The fact that John the Baptist did not take on the name of his father suggested that he would not follow in his footsteps as a priest. In fact, St. John the Baptist would help usher in a new priesthood by baptizing the new High Priest in the river Jordan. Instead of sacrificing lambs in the Temple, he would spend many a year preparing for his mission in the desert. At the appointed time he would prepare the way for the Lamb of God who would take away the sins of the world. His father, Zachariah, belonged to the Levitical priesthood that served the purpose of foreshadowing the “pure offering” the prophet Malachi foretold; that is, the Eucharistic Sacrifice of the New Covenant. The former consisted of offering mere animal sacrifices which merely symbolized forgiveness of sins, the latter involved a real power from heaven that absolved sins and restored the dignity of the human spirit.

What was said to the prophet Jeremiah was equally applicable to St. John the Baptist: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I dedicated you, a prophet to the nations I appointed you.” Indeed, Jesus, from the Mary’s womb, and through her greeting, sanctified John before he was born. He jumped with joy because the Holy Spirit had entered into his soul as a permanent Guest. And it was this Divine Spirit, in the form of a dove, that would point out the Messiah too him at the river Jordan.

St. John’s calling from the womb is not much different than ours in that every Christian is called to point out the Messiah for others to see. Also, like St. John the Baptist, our calling often transcends what any of our family members or neighbors could imagine for us. It just goes to show us that the biggest plans of all, that is, for our lives, can only come from the Lord who knew us before we were formed in the womb.

The Tower and the Fortnight for Freedom

“The fourteen days from June 21—the vigil of the Feasts of St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More—to July 4, Independence Day, are dedicated to this ‘fortnight for freedom’—a great hymn of prayer for our country. Our liturgical calendar celebrates a series of great martyrs who remained faithful in the face of persecution by political power—St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More, St. John the Baptist, SS. Peter and Paul, and the First Martyrs of the Church of Rome. Culminating on Independence Day, this special period of prayer, study, catechesis, and public action will emphasize both our Christian and American heritage of liberty.”

-USCCB website



Historic Homily:

On June 21st of 2012, Archbishop William Lori delivered an historic homily to commence Forthnight for Freedom in the Basilica of the Assumption in Baltimore. Upon the conclusion of the homily, he deservedly received a standing ovation from the congregation in attendance. Indeed, it was passionately and flawlessly delivered (the contents of the homily is provided in the post below).

In particular, the new archbishop of Baltimore criticized the unprecedented overreach of the HHS mandate. In no uncertain terms he said, “Until now, it has been entirely possible under federal law for conscientious owners to conduct private businesses in accord with one’s conscience and the teachings of one’s faith.” But with the mandate imposed on the Catholic Church, fundamental religious and civic rights- not just of Catholics but of all Americans -will be at stake like never before. Without exaggerating, it can be said we are at a critical juncture in American history. He then reminded the Catholic faithful that time is not on our side. “On Aug. 1st,” he said, “less than six weeks from now, the Health and Human Services mandate will go into effect.” With this time frame in mind the U.S. Catholic bishops are asking us to pray, fast, unite, speak up and act.


HHS Mandate and Henry VIII:

Noteworthy is that Archbishop William Lori gave his homily on the topic of religious freedom within the broader context of two Catholic martyrs from 1500’s. In addition to the heroism that the archbishop asked us to remember and venerate, I would like to address another consideration that is every bit as important for the preservation of our religious liberty. And this consideration has to do with the historical circumstances which made it easier for King of England to violate, not only the religious liberty of the Church in his own country, but the human rights of those Catholics who died under him (more on this later). Again, the emphasis of this homily was placed squarely on two Saints who laid down their lives for religious freedom. These two great Saints are none other than St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More. Their willingness to die for Christ and his Church is a testament to the ultimate truth that God is supreme and he is to be obeyed above any earthly authority.

To make a long story short, King Henry VIII of England wanted a divorce from Queen Catherine because she could not produce an heir from him. However, he failed to get an annulment from the Holy See. Feeling a little chagrined, to say the least, he broke ties with the Catholic Church and hence declared himself the Supreme Head of the Church in England. It should also be noted that he married four more times (after marrying his second wife, Queen Ann).

As with any ruler guilty of power grabbing, it wasn’t enough that he took the initiative to anoint himself Head of the Church. No. Others had to approve of his power grab through an oath. Of course, what this meant was that any opposition to his new title would be a crime of high treason. But St. John Fisher, bishop of Rochester, could not, in good conscience, take the oath of support. Archbishop Lori quoted him as saying, “I cannot in anywise possibly take [the oath], except I should make shipwreck of my conscience, and then were I fit to serve neither God nor man.” As for St. Thomas More, a chancellor of King Henry VIII, he refused to swear the oath for the same reasons. As such, these two men were imprisoned in the Tower of London for several months and then executed within days apart in 1535. Lori then goes on to make a not so subtle connection between 16th century England and 21st century America:

“In the wake of St. John Fisher’s martyrdom, churches, monasteries and centers of learning were seized by royal power and were either destroyed or made to break their ties with the Roman Catholic Church. The government interfered in the internal life of the Church with a cruel thoroughness John Fisher could not have imagined even a few years earlier. He symbolizes for us our struggle to maintain religious freedom for Church institutions and ministries such as our schools and charities. We surely are not facing the dire brutality that confronted St. John Fisher, but our Church and her institutions do find themselves today in perilous waters.”

Then he concluded his homily with these words: “Friends, we must never allow the government — any government, at any time, or any party — to impose such a constrictive definition on our beloved Church or any church!”


Public Sympathy for Despotism:

As a preliminary note to this section, Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903) once wrote the following in a letter to a cardinal: "The historian of the Church has the duty to dissimulate [i.e. mask] none of the trials that the Church has had to suffer from the faults of her children, and even at times from those of her own ministers." As such, it is not in our best interest to exaggerate nor mask the sins of those within the Church during the late 1400’s to mid 1500’s or even in our own era. To do so is to run the risk of overlooking the cure to the erosion religious liberty. Church history can provide us insights into current events if we but take the time to consider them. Indeed, there is a reason why foes of religious liberty nearly 500 years ago and foes of religious in recent years were able to violate the most fundamental rights of the Church with public support and with few political consequences.

As for St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More and their standoff with King Henry VIII, the following is a time frame and a broader context as to how the conditions ripened for the challenges that were to threaten religious liberty:

In a nutshell: St. John Fisher was ordained a priest in 1491. And as for St. Thomas More, in 1504 he was elected to Parliament and in 1505 was married to Jane Colt. Their martyrdom, only days apart, took place in the summer of 1535.

Alongside the developments in England there were other unfortunate developments unfolding in the Catholic Church. During the lifetime of St. John and St. Thomas- from the late 1400’s to at least the mid 1500’s -the papacy had stooped to its lowest point in terms of internal discipline, morals and the ill repute that natural followed. At the same time, scores of Catholics left the Church and Protestantism was borne. By breaking with the Roman Catholic Church (from 1517-1534), Martin Luther and King Henry VIII certainly did wrong. However, the general lowering of morality among the Catholic clergy, even within the papal court itself, gave many an excuse to either sever ties with the Church or introduce their own flawed agenda.

For instance, the papacy of Pope Alexander VI (1492-1503) was rocked with scandal. Pope Julius II (1503-1513) was preoccupied with wars. As for Pope Leo X (1513-1521), an historian of the papacy, Joseph Brusher, had this to say about him: “Leo faced the crushing responsibility of spiritual leadership with a light heart. He loved shows and games, and many a play and ballet was performed for the Pope's amusement. A keen sportsman, Leo spent much time hunting. He was careless of the morals of the humanists he patronized as long as their Latin was Ciceronian.” Upon giving a toast, he was quoted saying, “Let’s enjoy the papacy!” And Pope Clement VII (1523-1534) “was a handsome man of good morals, and quite free from the frivolity of Leo X, but he was not very able and was tortured with a dangerous inability to make up his mind. In short, he was scarcely the pope for troubled times.” Indeed, he dragged his feet, hoping the crisis with King Henry VIII and his appeal for a divorce would just go away. The thing to be noted here is that the problems which beset the papacy was but an index of what was transpiring in many dioceses throughout Europe.

However, to put things in perspective, out of a total of 266 popes, about a hundred of them were superb to very good, about hundred were good, if not, capable and there were a handful that were real disappointments. But even given the imperfections of these few popes, Pope St. Leo the Great (440-461) reminds us that "the dignity of Peter suffers no diminution even in an unworthy successor."

Nevertheless, relaxed morals and discipline within the Church has led, in many cases, to a boomerang effect that ended up costing her dearly. We Catholics rightly deplore the Reformation and how it led to the splintering of Christianity. But what preceded the Reformation- what made it ripe for its success -as stated previously, was a general lowering of morality and discipline among the clergy. It can be argued, therefore, that decades of sinful behavior and mismanagement on the part of the leaders and members of the Church occasioned the Reformation. In fact, during the twenty years leading up to the Luther’s protest, the talk of the town- in nearly every town –was “reform! reform! reform!” And unfortunately, from Pope Alexander VI (1492) to Pope Clement VII (1534) and beyond, the image of the papacy was stained and the pope’s credibility as being the Universal Shepherd of the Church was undermined. Therefore, when the State bullied the Church, the public was slow to take notice.

For instance, it is a true marvel that nearly everyone in 16th century England- including bishops, priests and laity -sided with King Henry VIII despite his transgressions. Even More’s family encouraged the Saint to take the oath, swearing allegiance to the King’s supremacy. Now, the marvel consist in the fact that the Catholic Church built up England from a tribal, savage and superstitious region to a civilized and educated nation. Oxford University, in fact, was one of the first universities in Europe; an institution that was the fruit of Catholic monks creating a Christian environment in which sanctity and learning could flourish. For a nation to just abandon, in short order, the very Church that gave it being, is a lesson for all of us. Indeed, because the papacy and the episcopate became an object of ridicule and scorn, King Henry VIII could get away with incarcerating and then executing St. John Fisher, a bishop in good standing and St. More, a highly respected chancellor, for so-called high treason without the slightest rebellion or insurrection by public.

For their imprisonment, these two Saints spent a long and lonely fourteen months in the Tower of London. But there were no public protests to have them released. Instead, their characters were maligned from many pulpits. If we can write a sad note in Great Britain’s history it would read as follows: The Tower was not the gathering place for protesters. Rather, it was met with silence while two Saints wasted away inside.


Connection to Fortnight Freedom:

It is interesting to note that during an election year President Barak Obama decided to gamble on compelling the Catholic Church to provide contraception through its health insurance. Many in the Catholic media had marveled that he would take this risk, considering the importance of the Catholic voting bloc. But from all appearances, the HHS mandate did not cause a sizable political backlash. Certainly, the polls show that most people support the Catholic Church’s position in asserting her right to refuse the distribution of birth control. But support doesn’t necessarily translate into a vigorous defense. With that said, what can prove to be damaging to the Obama presidency is not the HHS mandate but the Fast and Furious scandal. In fact, if the White House can survive the scrutiny and negative publicity of Fast and Furious, and if the economy can make a comeback in the months to come, it is conceivable that President Obama can be reelected in 2012.

Yet, this begs the question: How can a U.S. president possibly be reelected if he, in broad daylight, set out to deny the Church’s right to religious liberty? Answer: It has something to do with why a tyrannical king could deny the Catholic Church’s religious liberty in 16th century England. In recent decades, the Church in America has been marked by low pastoral standards and a general lowering of morality. The moral evils of contraception are rarely talked about, the worst offenders of human rights (i.e. progressive politicians and other public figures) are allowed to sit comfortably in our pews and those who show no interest in observing God's laws have easy access to the Sacraments. Suffice it to say that by making repentance an option as a matter of pastoral policy had led, in no small measure, to the 2002 priestly scandals in which the Catholic Church lost quite a bit of credibility in the eyes of the American public. The residue of that public distrust still remains. As such, the public outrage over the HHS mandate is surprisingly subdued. Like the Tower of London in the 16th century, the public square in the United States is quiet in this regard.

Amid theses challenges, Archbishop William Lori in his Fortnight for Freedom homily points us in the right direction. He brought to our attention what is really at stake for the freedom of the Catholic Church in America. And if that freedom is to be preserved, then a martyr-like conviction and courage, like that of St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More, are virtues that can take us where we need to be. Still, coming to terms with the fact that our own failings contributed, in part, to this HHS mandate crisis is important. This is where the words of another archbishop can compliment to the homily of Archbishop Lori. During the same week, Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia reminded us of a very important component in defending religious liberty:

“Politics and the courts are important. But our religious freedom ultimately depends on the vividness of our own Christian faith–in other words, how deeply we believe it, and how honestly we live it. Religious liberty is an empty shell if the spiritual core of a people is weak. Or to put it more bluntly, if people don’t believe in God, religious liberty isn’t a value. That’s the heart of the matter…The worst enemies of religious freedom aren’t ‘out there’ among the legion of critics who hate Christ or the Gospel or the church, or all three. The worst enemies are in here, with us–all of us, clergy, religious, and lay–when we live our faith with tepidness, routine, and hypocrisy.”

This is where the Tower has some relevance for the Fortnight for Freedom. It teaches us that in addition to mounting a robust defense of religious liberty, exposing the injustice of the HHS mandate, a real repentance from relaxed standards is needed. An examination of conscience would likely tell us that as with the Reformation in the 16th century, Catholics had something to do with the chipping away of religious liberty in 2012. In other words, is it possible that we made it easier for the Obama administration to threaten the Church with his mandate?

To be sure, the most liberating thing about accepting the Gospel is to know that we are sinners and that our sins can be absolved if only we confess them with a humble heart. From there, the cure to the erosion of religious liberty can be had.

Fortnight for Freedom Commencement Homily

Fortnight commencement homily by Archbishop William Lori on June 21st, 2012:

A few years ago, due to inclement weather that grounded many international flights, I found myself stranded in London during the week just before Christmas. Worse things than that can happen to a traveler, but the unexpected pleasure of a week in London enabled me to visit places I hadn’t seen for many years — not Harrod’s or even Windsor Castle, but places such as Tyburn Hill, where many English martyrs laid down their lives in witness to the faith, including St. Thomas More and St. John Fisher.

I was deeply moved to stand on the spot where, in 1535, Thomas More and John Fisher were beheaded because they refused to comply with the Act of Supremacy, a law that made King Henry VIII head of the church and that broke ties of communion with the Roman Pontiff. I also visited the parish church in the Tower of London, St. Peter in Chains, and prayed in the crypt where St. Thomas More and St. John Fisher are buried.

Tonight, we have gathered here in this historic national basilica, the first Roman Catholic cathedral in the United States of America and a monument to religious freedom. We have gathered on the eve of the feast of St. Thomas More and St. John Fisher, martyrs who laid down their lives rather than violate their consciences or their sacred principles. Their courageous witness of faith continues to stir the minds and hearts of people yearning for authentic freedom and, specifically, for religious freedom, just as it inspired those who came to Maryland a century later in 1634, seeking not only to worship God freely, but, indeed, to practice their faith publicly.

We do well to speak of St. Thomas More and St. John Fisher in the same breath, because each in his own way symbolizes two aspects of religious freedom we are striving to protect and foster as we begin a two-week period of prayer and reflection known as the Fortnight for Freedom.

What does St. Thomas More teach us about protecting religious liberty? Thomas More was a devout Catholic, a husband and a father, a learned and accomplished man, a lawyer by profession; his conscience was formed by principle and virtue at a time when both were routinely sacrificed for political expediency. Thomas More was chosen to serve in Parliament and rose to become the chancellor of England in the days of King Henry VIII. When called upon by the king to betray his principles and his conscience, however, More chose instead to put everything at risk, including his own life. Throughout, he defended his cause brilliantly, but to no avail. He staved off martyrdom as long as he could, but when it came, More accepted it courageously.

Blessed Pope John Paul II wrote that “the life and martyrdom of St. Thomas More have been the source of a message which spans the centuries and which speaks to people everywhere of the inalienable dignity of the human conscience. … Whenever men or women heed the call of truth, their conscience then guides their actions reliably towards good. Precisely because of the witness which he bore, even at the price of his life, to the primacy of truth over power, St. Thomas More is an imperishable example of moral integrity” (“Proclamation of Thomas More as Patron of Statesman,” Oct. 31, 2000, 1).

More’s witness enriches the Church’s teaching on the dignity of the human person. For as the Book of Genesis teaches, we are created in God’s image to be participants in his wisdom and love. Because we are created in love and for love, we are endowed by the Creator with inherent rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Though only a few could claim St. Thomas More’s influence and integrity, this great saint stands for the individual believer and citizen who seeks, in the words of the United States bishops, “[to] connect worship on Sunday to work on Monday … [to] carry the values of our faith into family life, the market place and the public square” (U.S. bishops, “Everyday Christianity: To Hunger and Thirst for Justice,” Introduction, 1998).

St. Thomas More could be said to represent that conscientious private employer or employee who seeks to avoid doing or facilitating moral evil in course of daily work, while striving to live and work in accord with the demands of social justice. He stands for those who go about their daily work in accord with their faith (Dignitatis Humanae, 13) and those who understand how dangerous it is to the common good to separate faith from life, the Gospel from culture (Christifideles Laici, 212).

Until now, it has been entirely possible under federal law for conscientious owners to conduct private businesses in accord with one’s conscience and the teachings of one’s faith. Until now, federal law has also accommodated businesses that are not church organizations but that are related to the mission of the Church. Examples include Catholic publishing houses such as Our Sunday Visitor, Catholic insurers, Legatus, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and Catholic fraternal organizations such as the Knights of Columbus, just to name a few. The freedom of conscientious and like-minded individuals to conduct such businesses in accord with the teaching of the Church now hangs in the balance.

On Aug. 1, less than six weeks from now, the Health and Human Services mandate will go into effect. This will force conscientious private employers to violate their consciences by funding and facilitating through their employee health-insurance plans reproductive “services” that are morally objectionable. As the United States bishops recently indicated, the HHS mandate violates the personal civil rights of those who, “in their daily lives, strive constantly to act in accordance with their faith and values” (“United for Freedom,” March 14, 2012).

St. John Fisher may be less well-known than St. Thomas More, but his witness of faith was no less courageous. Like St. Thomas More, he possessed great learning and virtue and was an able defender of the faith.

Both More and Fisher refused to sign the Act of Supremacy, and both of them paid for their principled stand with their lives. More, of course, was a layman, and Fisher was a bishop. Ordained a priest in 1491, Fisher would become the bishop of Rochester in Kent.

In the House of Lords, he strongly opposed state interference in Church affairs. At the same time, he led the Church in reforming itself first and foremost by his own spirit of learning and holiness in communion with the Holy Father, the Successor of Peter.

At length, St. John Fisher found himself at odds with King Henry VIII and with laws passed by the British Parliament, which required him to take an oath repudiating papal authority and acknowledging the king as head of the church. This pastor of souls and lover of the Church refused, saying: “I cannot in anywise possibly take [the oath], except I should make shipwreck of my conscience, and then were I fit to serve neither God nor man.”

In the wake of St. John Fisher’s martyrdom, churches, monasteries and centers of learning were seized by royal power and were either destroyed or made to break their ties with the Roman Catholic Church. The government interfered in the internal life of the Church with a cruel thoroughness John Fisher could not have imagined even a few years earlier. He symbolizes for us our struggle to maintain religious freedom for Church institutions and ministries such as our schools and charities. We surely are not facing the dire brutality that confronted St. John Fisher, but our Church and her institutions do find themselves today in perilous waters. For embedded in the HHS mandate is a very narrow governmental definition of what constitutes a church. If it is not removed, it is likely to spread throughout federal law.

In the HHS mandate, the federal government now defines a church as a body that hires mostly its own members and serves mostly its own members and which exists primarily to advance its own teachings. In a word, so long as a church confines itself to the sacristy, then it is exempt from having to fund and facilitate in its health-insurance plans government mandated services which are contrary to its own teachings. But if a church steps beyond the narrow confines of this definition by hiring those of other faiths and by serving the common good, then the government is telling us that such institutions aren’t religious enough, that they don’t deserve an exemption from funding and facilitating those things which violate the very teachings which inspired churches to establish their institutions in the first place.

Friends, we must never allow the government — any government, at any time, or any party — to impose such a constrictive definition on our beloved Church or any church! Our Church was sent forth by the Lord to teach and baptize all the nations. It was commissioned by our Savior to announce that the Kingdom of God is at hand. It was sent into the world to do the corporal works of love and mercy. Don’t we see this all around us — in inner-city Catholic schools, in Catholic hospitals, in the work of Catholic Charities, so critical for the well-being of local communities?

“The word of God cannot be chained,” St. Paul wrote to Timothy, and now it is up to us to defend the Church’s freedom to fulfill her mission to freely manifest the love of God by organized works of education and charity.

This is why the Church has engaged the administration so earnestly; this is why we are working for legislative protection from the Congress; this is why, thankfully, so many have filed lawsuits in various parts of the country. And this is why there is a Fortnight for Freedom — so that the Church would be free of that government interference which St. John Fisher warned against in the British Parliament in the 16th century.

As Americans, it comes naturally to us to defend the rights of individuals to follow their consciences, not only in their personal lives, but also in the course of their daily work. And I know how deeply you value and support Church institutions that do the corporal works of mercy on a grand scale.

Inspired by St. Thomas More and St. John Fisher, how important for us to defend both the religious freedom of individuals and the religious freedom of Church institutions — for the two are inseparably linked. As the Second Vatican Council taught, “The right to religious freedom has its foundation in the very dignity of the human person, as this dignity is known through the revealed word of God and by reason itself” (Dignitatis Humanae, 2).

In differing ways, both the Church’s teaching and our nation’s founding documents acknowledge that the Creator has endowed individuals with freedom of conscience. Such freedom goes to the heart of the dignity of the human person. Pope Benedict recently said that religious freedom is constitutive of human dignity because it pertains to the relationship of human beings to the God who created them. The Holy Father then reminds us of the grave consequences that follow when governments ignore this fundamental aspect of the human person:

“To deny or arbitrarily restrict [religious] freedom is to foster a reductive vision of the human person; to eclipse the public role of religion is to create a society which is unjust, inasmuch as it fails to take account of the true nature of the human person; it is to stifle the growth of the authentic and lasting peace of the whole human family” (“Message for the Celebration of World Day of Peace,” 2010).

Our churches and their institutions have freedom not only because they are made up of individual persons endowed with freedom, but because our institutions are like persons. In fact, we call them “moral persons” because they truly do possess some of the characteristics of persons.

Like all of us, these institutions claim their identity and fulfill their mission based on the principles and convictions by which they are guided. Like individual persons, institutions also have rights and responsibilities which flow from their guiding principles and convictions, and, in the case of our institutions, these guiding principles and convictions are to be found in the teaching of Christ, as conveyed through the Church.

Religious freedom includes the freedom of individuals to act in accord with their faith, but also the freedom of church institutions to act in according with their teachings and to serve as a buffer between the power of the state and the freedom of the individual conscience. If we fail to defend the rights of individuals, the freedom of institutions will be at risk; and if we fail to defend the rights of our institutions, individual liberty will be at risk. More needs Fisher, and Fisher needs More.

And we need them both more than ever. Even if current threats like the HHS mandate were to be overcome, we would still have to face powerful forces which seek to prevent religious faith from exerting an appropriate and necessary influence within our culture. Some would even say that the Catholic Church is a primary obstacle that stands in the way of creating a completely secular culture in the United States.

Let us remain united with our ecumenical and interfaith partners in being that obstacle! For love of country, let us bear constant witness, individually and collectively, to those moral truths and values that are the foundation of democracy and the basis for building a society that is just, peaceful and charitable.

By prayer, education and by exercising our rights as citizens, let us never cease defending the only notion of freedom worthy of our dignity as persons and sturdy enough to support our democratic way of life. And it’s this: “Freedom is not the power of doing what we like, but the right of being able to do what we ought.”

This is the flame of true freedom, which we should keep burning brightly, not only for our own sake, but also for the sake of many people in many countries who suffer terrible persecution and even death because of their religious beliefs.

As you may know, only one Catholic signed the Declaration of Independence, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, the cousin of Archbishop John Carroll, who laid the cornerstone of this basilica in 1806.

Like all Catholics, Charles Carroll was forbidden by Maryland colonial law from taking any part in political life, especially from holding office. Carroll risked his life, family and property by supporting the revolutionary cause, but he did so, and I quote, “to obtain religious as well as civil liberty.” He added: “God grant that this religious liberty may be preserved in these states to the end of time and that all who believe in the religion of Christ may practice the leading principle of charity, the basis of every other virtue.”

If freedom is a system based on courage, and if the motive of democracy is love, then let us strive in God’s grace, throughout this fortnight and beyond, to be men and women of courageous love for the glory of God, for the good of the Church and for love of country.