Advice to the Cardinals and to Catholics: the quickest way to irrelevance

George Jonas gives some advice to the Cardinals in the Vatican as they set out to choose the next Pope and head of the Cahtolic Church.

Jonas tells us he is neither a Catholic nor religious. Nevertheless, I think his advice may be divinely inspired.

"Dear cardinals, the next Pope must be willing and able to restrain predatory priests. He must be willing and able to clean house. But there’s a difference between fumigating the church and blowing it up. Fashionable as blowing things up has become, you’re not in the fashion business. You’re in the faith business. Restoring the church and hijacking it aren’t the same thing. Appearances and vocal demands to the contrary, you don’t have to be up-to-date.

I say this knowing that hardly a week goes by without a person accusing the church of being insufficiently up-to-date, or of unfairly restricting some human desire or ambition. Complaints may range from sexual matters to points of ritual. Some people may demand that the church approve of divorce, or maybe of contraception or abortion, or the ordination of women and homosexuals, or whatever else would bring the church’s doctrines more in tune with the complainers’ own philosophies.

All such complaints boil down to one thing. It is that the moral teachings, or sometimes the mysteries, of a given religion restrict some of the complainers’ worldly ambitions. The usual code-word expressing this complaint is “relevance.” The complainers worry that the church is becoming “irrelevant” to their lives. Only if the church agreed with their views on contraception or whatever would it become “relevant” again...

Jonas then gives us an example of this "irrelevance" by way of Tolstoy's character Helene Bezuhov from the book War and Peace, whose:
"standard is held up by men and women who, having acquired the liberty to do as they please, now demand religion to also applaud their moral choices. They want their churches, their priests, even the very Vicar of God, to approve and endorse what they do, or else they threaten him with irrelevance. God Himself becomes irrelevant unless he can be used to rubber stamp human desires – because, as Tolstoy points out, that’s what God is for, at least as far as Helene Bezuhov is concerned. That’s how it was in 1812 and that’s how it is in 2013.

Helene would be reassured to know that her heritage lives on. Her standard is held up by men and women who, having acquired the liberty to do as they please, now demand religion to also applaud their moral choices. They want their churches, their priests, even the very Vicar of God, to approve and endorse what they do, or else they threaten him with irrelevance. God Himself becomes irrelevant unless he can be used to rubber stamp human desires – because, as Tolstoy points out, that’s what God is for, at least as far as Helene Bezuhov is concerned. That’s how it was in 1812 and that’s how it is in 2013.

I’ve little doubt that the Countess Bezuhov’s spirit will attend the conclave in Rome, right along with the Holy Spirit. Both will be available to the cardinals, and we can only hope they’ll listen to the right one.

As I mentioned before, I’m not religious. If I were, however, I think I’d have something more important to worry about than God’s relevance to me. I’d worry about my relevance to God. And in the unlikely event that the cardinals asked me, I’d say that worrying about what’s relevant instead of what’s right is the quickest way to irrelevance."

Amen to that.

Lenten Mission (Part 2)

Below is part two of our Lenten Mission at the Annunciation of Our Lord Parish in Ottawa. Father Terry below speaks to a parishioner after his talk. The audio is below that. 

In last night's segment, Fr. Terry talks about Saint Thérèse of Lisieux and her Little Way and about God's love for us.

Thanks to Maureen Ward for the audio below and yesterday's audio as well. We will post tonight's talk tomorrow.

The Existence of God

 Fr. Terry Donohue is giving our Parish a Lenten mission for three nights.

Last night Father Terry explained the intellectual reasons for believing God's existence, and for believing that Jesus is, who he says he is. His talk last night, was "from the head" approach as he said.

He uses physics and philosophy in this part one of his talks.

Tonight and tomorrow night he'll speak to the Faith aspect for the existence of God.

Here are his five reasons for the Existence of God that he goes into detail on:

- The need for an uncaused cause

- The universe had a beginning

- The fine-tuning of the laws of nature

- Modern day miracles

- Moral obligation

It's a great talk and it leaves me with two questions I'd love to ask Richard Dawkins.

1) How does Dawkins explain the origin of life (I think even Dawkins admits he can't answer this question)?

2) How does Dawkins explain bone fide modern day miracles?

Fr. Terry also does a great job in discussing the Resurrection.

The Catholic Church and hope

The Catholic Church I know and love became my rock in a time of personal struggle and crisis. I felt deep sadness when I read Janice Kennedy's view of the Church which she has grown so disillusioned with. It sincerely made me feel very bad for her and I would like to give her hope that it needn't be that way.

After my own absence from the Crunch for thirty five years I returned to it in my quest for healing and found a new conversion along the way. After myriad psychological and new age "help", and whatever else I could get my hands on, in order to relieve my suffering, it was the Church in the end that saved me.

I began anew a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and did this through his Church, and by his Church, the same Church that Jesus began over 2000 years ago. For the first time in my life I felt God reaching out to me and enveloping me with his Love and his Grace.

I renewed myself in the Sacraments of his Church with regular confession and the Holy Eucharist and began to attend Mass daily whenever I could. I listened to homilies by humble, funny and wise priests who filled my soul with the knowledge and faith that I am loved by my God, regardless of my sins.

I found a gentle and kind spiritual director who guides me on my spiritual path, a man of the cloth who has soothed my soul and given me hope that we truly are children of God.

The Church is not perfect. That is because man is not perfect. The Church is divinely inspired but there are men within her ranks that may be arrogant or evil or do bad things. This is the nature of humanity. It should come as no surprise that there are people within her sphere like this.

But I also believe we should not throw the baby out with the bath water. I believe we should embrace the good that we see within the Church and do our best to weed out the bad. We must pray that the God who takes care of us all, help us along this path to find healing from within.

I love the Church and I love what she has done for me in my life. I hope Janice Kennedy can rediscover it as well.

Those who believe are never alone

Today Pope Benedict is gone.

This morning Fr. Gerry told us some of Pope Benedict's words he spoke before the conclave in 2005. The conclave where he was elected Pope. Here are a few of those words about the enormous task ahead of all the Cardinals:

"How alone we all felt after the passing of John Paul II...He crossed the threshold of the next life, entering into the mystery of God. But he did not take this step alone. Those who believe are never alone – neither in life nor in death. At that moment, we could call upon the Saints from every age – his friends, his brothers and sisters in the faith – knowing that they would form a living procession to accompany him into the next world, into the glory of God.

...

We were also consoled as we made our solemn entrance into Conclave, to elect the one whom the Lord had chosen. How would we be able to discern his name? How could 115 Bishops, from every culture and every country, discover the one on whom the Lord wished to confer the mission of binding and loosing? Once again, we knew that we were not alone, we knew that we were surrounded, led and guided by the friends of God. And now, at this moment, weak servant of God that I am, I must assume this enormous task, which truly exceeds all human capacity. How can I do this? How will I be able to do it? All of you, my dear friends, have just invoked the entire host of Saints.

...

In this way, I too can say with renewed conviction: I am not alone. I do not have to carry alone what in truth I could never carry alone. All the Saints of God are there to protect me, to sustain me and to carry me. And your prayers, my dear friends, your indulgence, your love, your faith and your hope accompany me... all of us belong to the communion of Saints...we who draw life from the gift of Christ’s Body and Blood, through which he transforms us and makes us like himself."

And today Pope Benedict appeared for the last time at the balcony of the Apostolic Palace and said to the faithful:

“Thank you. Thank you all. Dear friends, I am happy to be with you, surrounded by the beauty of Creation and your well wishes, which do me such good. Thank you for your friendship and your affection. You know that this day is different for me than the preceding ones. I am no longer the Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Church, or I will be until 8:00 this evening and then no longer. I am simply a pilgrim beginning the last leg of his pilgrimage on this earth. But I would still—with my heart, with my love, with my prayers, with my reflection, and with all my inner strength—like to work for the common good and the Good of the Church and of humanity. I feel very supported by your kindness. Let us go forward with the Lord for the good of the Church and the world. Thank you. I now wholeheartedly impart my blessing. Blessed be God Almighty, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Good night! Thank you all!”

God bless you Pope Benedict. We will miss you.

 

Dawkins and Lennox: who is petty?

Great debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox.

Of course Dawkins has to begin with comments that have nothing to do with debating, like:

"That God couldn't think of a better way to rid the world of sin than to come to this little speck of cosmic dust, have himself tortured and executed so that he could forgive himself. That is profoundly unscientific. It is petty and small minded and it doesn't do justice to the grandeur of the universe."

Petty and small minded? Nothing like a personal attack to make your point.

Then Dawkins gets a bit tongue tied when Lennox states that historians, even non believer historians, agree that the evidence for Jesus and the empty tomb are very strong.

Dawkins says:

"I don't care if historians believe in Jesus because it's petty."

That gave me a wonderul chuckle. Thanks Richard.

All in all, a good debate.

Kissing the face of God

Imagining Mary: Christmas paintings that open our eyes

"California artist Morgan Weistling’s “Kissing the Face of God” was inspired by the song “Mary, Did You Know?” Photo provided by Morgan Weistling"