July 2006 Archives

A priest, a seminarian, a bishop, a pope, a religious person, or a lay person of any sort, must always focus on being a son of God first. There is no distinction to be made between these different categories of persons in terms of holiness. All are called to be holy the way Christ is holy.

For one who is going to seminary, it is no good to try to be holy as a seminarian ought to be holy. Such an attitude introduces superfluous criteria into the person’s spiritual and moral life. All we need is to be holy as sons and daughters of God. If we can do that, then whatever our specific duties are will come with much greater ease.

Needless to say, this is not always immediately apparent to me. And I’m sure there are or have been other seminarians who feel like they actually have to meet a higher moral standard than other people. It is true that seminarians and priests and spiritual leaders are held to a higher moral standard by others. But objectively speaking the person sitting in the very back pew on Sunday has access to all the graces (via the sacraments) to which a priest or bishop or pope does, and thus can legitimately be expected to live just as virtuously as the Holy Father. If we laugh away such a notion, it is only because of cultural axioms which we have ceased to question.

The pope is not a very holy man because he is the pope. He is the pope because he is a very holy man. Being holy as a man, being holy as a woman, that comes first. Always.

Twenty-two days.

That first one is Charlotte Church, and yeah, we're talking five-star sacrilege here, folks. According to the Catholic News Service, the renowned Welsh singer turned pop star mocked the Church in the pilot of an eight-part television chat show.

She called Pope Benedict a nazi, dressed up as a nun, pretended to hallucinate while eating "communion" wafers imprinted with smiley faces signalizing the drug ecstasy, smashed open a statue of the Virgin Mary revealing a can of hard cider inside, stuck chewing gum on a statue of the child Jesus, and well, you get the idea.

Pray for this woman.

At any rate, Ignatius Press had been a distributor of her CDs, cassette tapes, VHS tapes and DVDs. They have decided, surprise surprise, to no longer do so. In a statement, Ignatius said:

"In light of the recent statements and actions of singer Charlotte Church, Ignatius Press will be dropping all of her products. It is with regret that we do this; Miss Church possesses a great gift from God, and in the past she has used her talent often to offer praise and glory to our Lord. She has performed for the late Pope John Paul II, and in many sacred concerts, televised Christmas celebrations, and her many albums were enjoyed by our customers over the years.

But we cannot stand by a young woman who uses her stature in the media to mock the Eucharist, slander the Holy Father, and denigrate the vows of religious women.

Therefore, our catalogs and website will immediately withraw all compact discs, cassette tapes, DVDs and VHS tapes that feature Miss Church. Please join us in praying for this troubled young woman."

I have to wonder if Ms Church hasn't had second thoughts about her shenanigans. I have no reason to think she has. But, there's always hope.

It is often said that one cannot go to seminary as a way of trying to do penance for the sins of his past. I agree with that and do not believe that that is why I am going to seminary and looking to become a priest. But the sins of one’s past certainly do lend a certain poignancy to the decision. Jesus says very plainly, “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

I am certainly one of those latter. I have been thinking a lot lately about my past mistakes. The darker moments of my life. There are people in my life, even pretty close friends, who don’t know the extent of them, and may never know them. But I know them. They are in my memory forevermore. I don’t beat myself up about them, at least not anymore. But I do on occasion look back on them and marvel at what a good God He must be to be able to use such a scoundrel as myself to do the work to which he has called me. It is enough to move one to tears at times.

I am a sinner who deserves hell. But not only is God calling me home to him; He is calling me to bring the message of his love to other people. To go to the people who have suffered and sinned just as I have, and to tell them when they doubt that there is a God who loves them that he is and he does. And not only does he love them, but he is calling them by name to go and tell the rest of the world about that love, to bring glad tidings to the other spiritually starving people of the world.

That’s the crazy thing about Jesus. He doesn’t just go to individuals and make his relationship right with them. He then calls those individuals to go out and love other people the way he loved them. He makes us whole, but that’s just the beginning. He sends us forth. He gives us the gift of participating in his work. And we ask God, “Why me? Why have you chosen me for this? There are so many other people out there who could do this work. Better people. Holier people. Smarter people. Prettier people. Funnier people.”

God doesn’t buy that line. He made his Son ordinary, just like all the ordinary people who wondered in the desert for forty years and waited for a Messiah for centuries more. And when this ordinary flesh and blood man began to do extraordinary things, he chose other ordinary flesh and blood men and women to help him do so. Surely they must have asked themselves why he called them. But when the time came, they knew the voice of the shepherd, and they responded. I pray I can do the same.

I have decided to start writing more personal material via the Thinker, if for no other reason than because it just so happens that the most important thing happening in my life at the moment happens to pertain quite explicitly to the Gospel of Christ and the Church he founded.

In just under four weeks now, on August 20 between noon and 4 PM to be exact, I will be reporting to Holy Trinity Seminary in Dallas, TX to begin training to become a priest for the Diocese of Austin. I am very much looking forward to that day. This is certainly a time of intense transition for me, I’ve been telling people that if my life was a movie, we’d be about to roll credits and getting ready to start filming the sequel. (Not that I think my life is worth making a movie out of…)

Tonight at Mass I got to read the first reading, which was from Jeremiah 23:1→6. It was a stark reminder of the responsibilities that come with being a “shepherd” of “the flock of his pasture” (cf. v 1). Failing to meet that responsibility meets with considerably undesirable consequences, as Jesus says also in Matthew 18. None of this makes me fearful really. But it does help me to take seriously what an important task it is to share in the one priesthood of the one priest who is Christ.

It is for that reason that I am entering seminary with pretty much an entirely open mind. I do believe that seven years from now I will be ordained a priest for the Diocese of Austin. But I can be by no means certain.

The goal of seminary after all is not to make one a priest, but rather to help one to know as clearly as possible precisely what God is asking of him. If one goes to seminary and concludes that God is asking him to be the father of a nuclear family, then he should leave seminary and pursue that call. If God is asking him to be the father of a spiritual ecclesial family, then he should stay in seminary.

I don’t know which of those I will hear God calling me to a year from now. But suffice to say the thought of lifelong ordained ministry and service to the Mystical Body of Christ excites me in a way that no other path that I can think of at this point does, But I’m confident that if I keep focused on God and keep in mind the blessings he has graced me with in life in spite of my unworthiness, he will show me clearly the way he wants me to go. I just have to be patient in the meantime.

I've discovered Red. They are sort of the Linkin Park of the Christian music scene. They have a couple of really excellent songs, dark night of the soul type stuff, which is getting more popular in Christian music these days. I think in general people are getting a little worn out of all the saccharine praise and worship type stuff, which has its place and its value but won't always suffice for the difficulty of the real world Christian experience.

Red's album is "End of Silence." My favorite song on it is "Pieces."

I'm here again
a thousand miles away from you
a broken mess
just scattered pieces of who I am
I tried so hard
thought I could do this on my own
I've lost so much along the way

Then I see your face
I know I'm finally yours
I find everything
I thought I'd lost before
You call my name
I come to you in pieces
So you can make me whole

I come undone
but you make sense of who I am
Like puzzle pieces in your eyes

Then I see your face
I know I'm finally yours
I find everything
I thought I'd lost before
You call my name
I come to you in pieces
So you can make me whole

How true is that?? That's what I love about these guys. You listen to their stuff and you know that these aren't a bunch of holy rollers who have never done anything bad. These guys know what it's like to be in pieces.

And that's something the non-Christian world, and the Christian world, really needs to know: that Christians aren't perfect people. They are in pieces. The only difference is they are made whole, and that is something that everyone can have, if they know where to turn. And that I daresay even accomplishes what a theme like "Take Me As I Am" aims to but without the confusion. It makes the point that Christians know they are fallen people, but that God is indeed a God who takes us as we are, in pieces, but who makes us whole.

If I had been on the creative counsel that picked out the theme for the National Young Adult Conference 2006, set for August 4 thru 6 in San Francisco, I think I would have had a few things to say. "Take Me As I Am." Is it catchy? Yes. Is there some pastoral value in it? Maybe. Is it a bit confusing? Perhaps more than a bit. The first thing I think of is all the questions I have about this theme.

"Take me as I am." Who is saying these words, and to whom?

If they mean it as God saying these words to us, then all I can say is right on. (It's even rather perfect that the words "I am" are in the theme.) That's something that absolutely needs to be said to a world that has been making it it's business to redefine God in terms that make us all feel "validated" and good about ourselves. For all our whining about feeling judged and oppressed by moral authorities like God and the Church to which he gave that authority, we don't often realize that we judge God with far less mercy and understanding than he judges us. If I was the keynote speaker at this conference, that's probably the way I would take this theme, even if it wasn't what the authors intended.

But alas, I have a feeling that the theme is intended to be precisely what I fear it is: a command to those in moral authority--the Church or God or both--to be more accepting of people who have difficulties with the standards they so rigidly set. (Course that's pretty much all of us who are not God, including the leaders of the Church.) If I'm right, and these words are spoken by us people to either the Church or to God then it implies some or all of the following to me:

1) an unwillingness to change, that is, an unwillingness to be converted from sinful inclinations, tendencies, and practices. A demand that those in authority, either the Church or God or both, change in order to be reconciled with me, AND / OR
2) that the Church or God or both need to learn to be more forgiving and accepting of sinful people like myself so that we can enter into the process of conversion without being judged or looked down upon, AND / OR even
3) that the Church or God or both need to recognize that not everyone agrees with their moral codes, and that they are free to disagree and practice their own versions of the moral life. In other words, these moral authorities need to be "tolerant."

I'm not saying that this is what the crafters of this theme or this conference intended by this theme, just saying that's how I took it at first and why it confuses me. "Take me as I am" implies to me a certain acceptance of "who I am" that is simply not healthy for a serious Catholic.

The least abhorrent of those three to me is the second. I suppose there is some value in that, because at least in that case it accepts the Church's moral authority and asks the Church to do better at inviting people in so that conversion can actually take place. But I can't help thinking that in that case it accepts the premise that most of the Church is cold, uninviting and judgmental. I've been to confession hundreds and hundreds of times in my life and the number of times I have walked out of a confessional feeling more judged than loved is once, by an ultra-ultra-ultra-conservative priest who I don't think I've ever seen smile. (I've also known some liberal priests whom I've never seen smile.) Priests (and people in the Church) like him are the exception, not the rule.

This is why I can't help thinking that dedicating a whole weekend to telling the Church to accept me as I am is a waste of time. Heck, I don't want to be accepted as I am. I want to be expected to change, to convert, to grow closer to him. That's what Catholic spirituality is all about: constantly repenting, constantly renewing, constantly turning back to Jesus. "As I Am" seems to neglect that whole journey and process. That's how it struck me anyway.

Gee whiz I love our pope!

The more I see of this man, the clearer it becomes that this is a pope who will not keep silent about that pesky thing that gets in the way of so much "progress," that annoying x-factor, that "narrow" and "imposing" mantra used by us unenlightened religious folk--"The Dignity of the Human Person." While power elites hide behind a false rhetoric of "freedom," while misguided technologists press the weakest human beings on the planet into lethal servitude in the name of "science" and "medicine," they can only roll their eyes and hang their heads in dismay (or is it shame?) as the Successor of Peter reminds us all about the truth and mystery of each person, and thus the discriminatory and destructive nature of these cultural fads.

The Meeting of Families
During his homily at Mass at the FIfth World Meeting of Families on Sunday, the Holy Father made plane multiple times that marriage is to exist between one man and one woman, and that couples must accept the child born to them as loved by God. Said he:

In contemporary culture, we often see an excessive exaltation of the freedom of the individual as an autonomous subject, as if we were self-created and self-sufficient, apart from our relationship with others and our responsibilities in their regard. Attempts are being made to organize the life of society on the basis of subjective and ephemeral desires alone, with no reference to objective, prior truths such as the dignity of each human being and his inalienable rights and duties, which every social group is called to serve.

"The Human Person: Heart of Peace"
On the heels of that dramatic message, the Vatican News Service reported Thursday that the Vatican issued a communiqué announcing the theme for the next World Peace Day, which will be celebrated on January 1, 2007: "The Human Person: Heart of Peace." The theme was chosen by Pope Benedict, the communiqué said. The news report quotes the communiqué at length, saying that the theme

...expresses the conviction that respect for the dignity of the human person is an essential condition for peace within the human family. Only through an awareness of the transcendent dignity of each man and woman can the human family follow the path that leads to peace and to communion with God.

Today, perhaps more persuasively and with more effective means than in the past, human dignity is threatened by aberrant ideologies, assailed by the misguided use of science and technology, and contradicted by widespread incongruent lifestyles. Indeed, ideologies that find their inspiration in nihilism or fanaticism (material or religious) seek to deny or to impose supposed truths upon reality, upon man and upon God.

Catch that? It's often said by proponents of these "aberrant ideologies" that it's us unenlightened religious types who seek to "impose our views" on the rest of humanity. But the Vatican press office here is turning the tables, saying it is rather these aberrant ideologies that actually impose their own views upon reality itself, in other words, trying to establish what is right and wrong merely by their own whims. This table-turning has proven to be a rhetorical specialty of Cardinal Ratzinger / Pope Benedict, as exemplified by his now well-known phrase "the dictatorship of relativism."

...[O]ften science and technology (especially biomedicine), rather than serving the common good of humanity, are instrumental in serving an egotistical vision of progress and wellbeing. Moreover, propaganda and the growing acceptance of disordered lifestyles contrary to human dignity are weakening the hearts and minds of people to the point of extinguishing the desire for ordered and peaceful coexistence. All this represents a threat to humanity, because peace is in danger when human dignity is not respected and when social coexistence does not seek the common good.

Culture wars on World Peace Day?
So direct is the Vatican in announcing the focus of the Day that it makes reference to the encyclical of John Paul II that made clear in an unprecedented way the Church's emphatic defense of life.

The Church has the mission of announcing the Gospel of Life, the central position of mankind in the universe and God's love for humanity. [emphasis added]

It's rather striking when one considers: we are talking about the World Day of Peace. Yet the day looks to focus on issues the contentious and sometimes downright hateful conflicts over which have been described by many as "culture wars." Someone might then object: How are we to work towards peace if we are fixating on issues that are so divisive? Won't this just lead to more conflict?

This argument depends upon a false understanding of peace that, it seems to me, the pope and the Vatican are now blowing out of the water. Peace doesn't just mean the absence of conflict. It does not mean simply sitting down and remaining silent in the face of evil. Sometimes, one must fight--yes, fight--against falsehood and injustice in order to build a culture where peace is possible. Not necessarily with guns but with truth. Not with missiles but with charity. We must love those who disagree with us, but that does not mean pretending no disagreement exists. It means finding charitable ways to communicate truth to them. This is an ongoing and difficult struggle. But it is a necessary prerequisite for real peace.

His Holiness' holiness
Remember all those folks in the secular press who preened like peacocks when the pope came out with his first encyclical and didn't mention abortion, contraception, homosexuality or divorce? Remember Ian Fisher at the New York Times and so many others who beamed back in January that the pope had "presented Roman Catholicism's potential for good rather than imposing firm, potentially divisive rules for orthodoxy"?

Where are those people now? Might they be eating their own speculations? Why, this snarling bulldog of a pope was supposed to have been enlightened by the importance of his office! He was supposed to realize that the world was bigger than the tiny world he knew as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith! How frightfully upsetting that he has turned out to be just as committed to these narrow-minded doctrines now that he is the Successor of Peter as he was when we all made fun of him and called him "God's Rottweiler"! How could he be so unconcerned about what we think?

The fact of the matter is he doesn't have to be concerned about whatever the rest of the world says about him because His Holiness' holiness is a direct refutation in itself of whatever defamations might fly his way. Instead of never shaking any cherry trees and being just the irrelevant nice-guy pope so many in power and the press wanted him to be, he has consistently made himself a model of what it means to speak difficult truths to the world--even a world that slanders him--with the love of Christ. And no one who ever actually knew or appreciated him is surprised by this. He is simply the same man with the same strong message and the same gentle voice that he always was.

Except now he's the Rock. Viva il Papa!

According to the Japan Times, some folks in Japan are claiming that a species of mushroom can provide people with the most significant spritual experiences of their lives.

This might sound frivolous, or even insulting, compared to the experience of losing a parent or feeling the presence of god, but in a report published this week on the effects of magic mushrooms, more than 60 percent of people taking the hallucinogenic drug said the resulting "trip" met the criteria for a "full mystical experience" as measured by established psychological scales.

It's not insulting to anything except my intelligence. Just because it provides people with the same sensations as a "full mystical experience" doesn't mean that's what people actually have when they take the drug. If there was a drug that made a person feel like they were on Man of Steel Roller Coaster at Six Flags, that would not mean the person by taking the drug would actually be on the roller coaster. Nor would it mean that--since the effect can be generated in the brain without the person actually being on the roller coaster--the whole exercise of riding a roller coaster is pointless, or that the roller coaster doesn't exist but is merely a figment of the imaginative center of the person's brain.

The article features Roland Griffiths, pscyhopharmacologist at Johns Hopkins who was involved with the study.

Thought, emotion, and ultimately behavior, are grounded in biology, Griffiths said. "We're just measuring what can be observed. We're not entering into 'Does God exist or not exist.' This work can't and won't go there."

But assuming that "thought, emotion, and ultimately behavior are grounded in biology" already has implications as to whether God exists and his place in the order of things. That's the agenda behind stories like this. The scientists may very well believe they only want to measure "what can be observed." But the ultimate implication is that everything is observable and everything can be manipulated at the biological level. Sinners can be turned into saints, and saints into sinners, with a pill.

Course, this pill doesn't claim to do that. It just claims to give people "mystical experiences." That's actually what Griffith says at the end of the piece.

"Far from being threatened, the only thing we can imagine being of greater interest to religions is whether people live more wholesome, compassionate and equanimous lives in consequence of such experiences."

Of course he hopes it would and thinks religious communities ought to hope it would as well. But that would only further his own assumptions: that thought and emotion and behavior are grounded in observable biology, and therefore can be manipulated just as a science bereft of ethics is seeking to manipulate biology today. Right behavior is not a matter of chemicals. It is a matter of grace. And grace is one of those very inconvenient "nonobservables" in the field of science, which means it cannot be manufactured pharmaceutically.

This is not to say that science and pharmacology have nothing to offer in the way of treating behavioral disorders. But the fact of the matter is that we are largely living in a pop-a-pill society where many people are completely dependent on tablets to accoplish their goals. One of the few realms left where such quick-fixes are not possible is the realm of spirituality and religion. The last thing we need is more pills to apparently (but not actually) accomplish what only Providence can.

But to answer the question posed in the headline, yes. Mushrooms can bring one closer to God, but only in the same sense that any of God's creations can do so. In the same way as dogs or cats, or birds or trees, or horses and mountains. But if one fixates on any of these as if it is the way to commune with God, then it ceases to be an ally in the quest for God and becomes an obstacle. If these mushrooms become understood by the psychopharmacological field as the way to commune with the divine, they may find that just the opposite has happened.

The Fifth World Conference of Families recently wrapped up in Valencia, Spain this past weekend.

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero annoyed the Vatican by playing hooky from yesterday's Mass, although he had welcomed the pope at the airport when he arrived to visit the conference. Now why would he want to do that? Maybe because the Catholic Church and the Vatican in general and Pope B16 in particular represent all the sorts of moral absolutism and family defense and life defense that the socialist prime minister abhors.

John L Allen Jr at the National Catholic Reporter anticipated the Holy Father's visit to the conference in Valencia and his much awaited meeting with Zapatero by looking back at his time in office.

Since taking office in 2004, Zapatero's government has either adopted or discussed legislation in favor of:

* Same-sex marriage legislation;
* Fast-track divorces;
* Curbing religious education in state schools;
* Supporting embryonic stem-cell research;
* Easing abortion laws;
* Reducing or eliminating public funding for the church.

After listing off a few other jabs Zapatero has taken at the Church and her vision for a culture of life, Allen writes:

Cumulatively, the impact of all this has been to make Spain the front line in the battle against what Benedict XVI has called the "dictatorship of relativism." The stakes are doubly high, from the Vatican's point of view, because not only is Spain a traditional Catholic stronghold in Europe, but it exercises a strong gravitational pull on Latin America, home to almost one-half of the 1.1 billion Catholics in the world.

It was not supposed to be like this.

When Zapatero was elected just three days after the March 11, 2004, terrorist attacks in Madrid, he attracted support even from practicing Catholics. Many thought his government would be akin to former Socialist Prime Minister Felipe Gonzales -- cautious on social questions, albeit officially committed to progressive positions, and respectful of the church. Prior to the election, almost no one predicted a serious church/state clash. Zapatero campaigned in favor of dialogue, and he was actually closer to the church on what was the election's deciding issue, the war in Iraq.

Once in office, however, Zapatero let loose the dogs of cultural war.

What puzzles me is Allen's assertion that "it was not supposed to be like this." I don't see how anything that has taken place in Spain could not have been entirely predicted before Zapatero took office. He garnered much of the Catholic vote because of his stance on what turned out to be the deciding issue--the war in Iraq. As Allen puts it, he was closer to the Church on that one particular issue, even though he was decidedly against the Church on a laundry list of others. The simple difference here is that the war in Iraq--I hate to say it but somebody has to--is an issue on which people of good will, Catholic or otherwise, can legitimately disagree. On the other hand, that laundry list includes issues--same-sex marriage, embryo-destructive research, and abortion--that simply cannot be disagreed upon from a Catholic standpoint. And pardon my frankness, but an issue that can be legitimately disagreed upon should not have been the deciding electoral issue in a country where 80 to 90 percent of the population is Catholic.

But alas, what do we have here? We have a mostly Catholic electorate choosing a candidate based on issues--like war--that require prudential judgments on the part of the part of the politicians. (That is to say, the Church in the end leaves it to the prudential judgment of the heads of State to decide what the best course of action is in terms of war and peace. They can assess, they can persuade, but theirs is not infallible judgment in matters of state.)

So in the process the Spanish electorate basically ignored issues--like same-sex marriage, embryo-destruction and abortion--Church teaching on which is clear and unequivocal. And I'm telling you folks, it's just not that complicated: When you elect politicians who claim to agree with the Church's prudential judgments but not with the Church's timeless moral and social doctrines, you can expect major friction with the Church if that person wins. And that's exactly what's going on in Spain right now. This whole thing was entirely predictable.

It's also entirely predictable on account of less than 20 percent of the Catholics in Spain are practicing. If they don't go to Mass, they can hardly be expected to make the distinction between intrinsic evils and prudential judgments.

Politicians love to blow smoke about "dialogue," during political campaigns. But bottom line: If they stand against the Church on clear-cut, indisputable evils, we shouldn't be surprised if those politicians go militant anti-Catholic once they're in office. Even if they are Catholic themselves.

Here's a conversation over instant messenger between myself and fellow contributor Brandon Kraft, from this afternoon:

Brandon: the church of england voted to continue the process to admit women to the office of bishop
Mark: of course they did
sorry -- my militancy comes out
Brandon: it's england though- they've been slower to adopt the liberal leanings that we're used to with the [Episcopal Church of the United States]
they have another vote in the future that needs a 2/3rd majority in all three houses to be approved the vote today, only needed a simple majority, would have been only one vote over the 2/3rd required for the final rule change
so really, it could stall out still
today's vote marked the [Church of England]'s acknowledgement that theologically they accept the possibility
Mark: well i suppose we can hope for something
Brandon: i think we've given up hope for an instutitional reconcilation with rome
or at least that's my read
like there's no pastoral provision for the eastern orthodox
we're still hoping for instiutional unity with them
Mark: yeah that's far more likely i think
Mark: with [the Church of England] i just see a history of the false sense of "compromise," giving an inch here and there and pretty soon it's just too far gone to resemble anything that would be considered reconcileable with traditional Christianity (that is to say, Catholicism and Orthodoxy)

So there you have it. I wish I could say it surprised me. But we'll see how all this pans out.

United Regional Health Care System (URHCS) in Wichita Falls, TX announced that The Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth are leaving effective July 31st from their Wichita Falls medical operations.

Catholic-sponsored health care started in Wichita Falls in 1935 with the Sisters opened Bethania Hospital on 11th Street and moved into a convent across the street. Over the years, the hospital competed with Wichita General Hospital, located three blocks down Grace Street until in 1997, the two hospitals merged to form URHCS.

One of the sisters joined the Board of Directors for the combined operation and the Sisters maintained direction of pastoral care for the 11th Street Campus, as Bethania is now known.

Due to various circumstances, including the hopsital's performance of tubal ligations, the Sisters decided it was time to move on.

In the coming weeks, the Catholic identity of the hosipital will be stripped away. Except for the "landmark" cross on top of the building, the hospital will become secular. The hospital intends to maintain pastoral care and grow it into an interdenominational effort. The hospital's chapel, original to the 1935 section of the building, will be converted to an interdenominational structure. The chapel is the only public chapel in Wichita Falls to maintain a traditional high altar after renovations in the 1960s to the other Catholic chapels and parishes in the city. While no plans have been formalized, it is assumed that this will be removed as part of the transition.

URCHS will work with the Sisters to create a "herritage center" or "mini-museum" to honor the legacy of the Sisters and their impact on Wichita Falls healthcare. For all of the religious items removed, the hospital will work with the Diocese of Fort Worth to ensure they are handled with all due reverence and care.

My involvement with the pastoral care of the hospital has been quite minimal. I am friends with Fr. Donlon, chaplain of the hospital and the usual celebrant of the 12 Noon Mass at Sacred Heart Parish. Before moving to Austin, I was also an altar server and lector for the chapel's Sunday morning services.

I'll be in Wichita Falls in mid-July so I plan on visiting, praying in and taking pictures of the chapel for probably the last time I'll be able to before the transition.

During his homily yesterday the priest, whom I love but do not always agree with, brandished a bumper sticker, which I have seen around previously, which read, “God Bless the Whole World. No Exceptions.” It’s a very high-minded notion of course, and something which all Americans have a solemn obligation to pray for, for solidarity with the rest of the planet.

Still, I find the bumper sticker just a bit unsettling, because I think I can discern what the subtext behind the message is. For I started to see the bumper sticker for some time after we all started seeing the bumper stickers and signs everywhere saying “God Bless America,” which mostly started popping up after 9.11. For a brief period following that awful day, the rest of the world felt solidarity with the United States, and shared in our mourning over the 3000 lives lost (many of whom were not Americans).

That period of solidarity, however, is most decidedly past now. Today it is once again quite fashionable to say that America sucks. Anti-Americanism, blame-America-first, is more popular today than perhaps it ever was. And this is why I can’t help thinking that the message of “God Bless the Whole World; No Exceptions” is not so much a sincere invitation to pray for the whole planet as it is a backhanded response to the explicitly patriotic message that came before it: “God Bless America.”

Of course we should pray that God bless the whole world, regardless of borders. The slogan “God Bless America” doesn’t imply otherwise, unless one is of the opinion that this country sucks.

For the record, I am of no such opinion. I am of the very low-minded and ethnocentric opinion that my country is pretty great. I believe that “Land of the Free and Home of the Brave” is at the bottom of things an accurate description of this nation. I believe there are people here of real nobility, of real virtue, of real love, and I pray to God they don’t lose that when they go to college.

I believe many of these men and women of nobility and virtue are presently serving in our military. I have the same reservations about their mission as many Catholics do, but I’m not nearly so quick to pass judgment on the mission as is fashionable in Catholic (and political, and academic, and media) circles today. I believe that they believe in their heart of hearts that they are out there doing precisely what the bumper sticker really wants us Americans to do, which is to get up off our lazy bums and do something good for the rest of the world. They’re just doing it in a way that some people don’t like, because it is also fashionable these days to be of the opinion that military engagement is intrinsically evil, unless of course you’re an anti-American insurgent.

Of course we’re not perfect. We’re materialistic, yes. We’re wasteful, yes. We’re hedonistic. Very hedonistic. Yes. We are indeed too violent too often. Yes. We’re addicted to many things. Yes. We’re voyeuristic and narcissistic. Yes. We could all go on and on with the number of reasons why America is not perfect. But it seems to me this is that much more of a reason to invite God’s blessings in a special way down upon the Land of the Free. One could just as well create a bumper sticker that reads, “God Bless America, Cuz They Damn Well Need It.” (Although for the record, many of those imperfections just listed and otherwise apply just as much if not more to the rest of the world as they do to the Home of the Brave, which is a whole ‘nother can of double-standards.)

Having said all this, I do have my own reservations about the patriotic mantra, although of a different sort. The problem I have with “God Bless America” is that it’s one-directional. It makes a request of God without offering any measure of sacrifice or praise on our own parts.

My counter-sticker then would be “America Bless God.” It’s a message that would certainly be worth spreading around these days, what with the ongoing assault (mainly in our courts) on all things Christian in the public square which bears the misnomer of that great (un-)constitutional mythology known as “separation of church and state.” If we focused primarily on our own duty to give credit where credit is due, that is, to be religious, to give thanks and praise to our God and King, we would have very little to worry about in the way of God giving us all the grace we need to continue as a nation and a people to be great, and to be greater.

Having said that, I do think that the long-standing patriotic slogan serves a valid purpose. For love of country is an entirely healthy and even necessary form of Christian charity, provided it does not lapse into idolatrous nationalism. All the saints, even the Americans, were patriots—they loved their countries. Part of that love indeed involves challenging the cancers that infect the national culture.

But what I see in popular culture today is not so much a desire to challenge the culture as a seething desire to witness its very demise. What I see is an ostensibly high-minded and fashionable hatred of country. To the extent that such hatred exists, it is impossible for real love to thrive. If Americans are to become saints, they must love their country. And to the extent that this supposedly ethnocentric mantra can begin to rekindle a healthy love of this fruited plane, I have no problem saying it.

Therefore, Happy Fourth, Let Freedom Ring, and yes: God Bless America.

NOTE: The term "crappy church music" is apparently sweeping the Catholic blogosphere. I'm at least the third person to use it. Sorry for my lack of originality, it's just so darn true, people!

I was talking on the phone with my sister in Minneapolis today. She moved there recently and has been dabbling in different Catholic churches in the area. She likes St Olaf's. She tried another parish but found said she didn't like it because the liturgy was "too contemporary."

So just now I come across this story from the UK Telegraph which reported on Tuesday that Pope Benedict XVI has "demanded an end to electric guitars and modern music in church and a return to traditional choirs."

It is possible to modernise holy music. But it should not happen outside the traditional path of Gregorian chants or sacred polyphonic choral music.

That's right, B16! Throw down!

Aaaah, it's good to be back in the blogosphere! I spent all of last week in Bapchule AZ on a pastoral mission trip ministering to Native American youth. Quite an experience. I'll be reflecting on it more in the future.

Here's something to watch for on the cinema front. December 1, 2006, The Nativity premieres, a cinematic presentation of the story of Joseph and Mary as the journey to Bethlehem and give birth to Jesus. Screenplay by Mike "good thing my last name isn't Roch" Rich, writer of Radio, The Rookie, and Finding Forrester. DIrected by Catherine Hardwicke, director of Tombstone, Three Kings, and Vanilla Sky.

Check out the movie's homepage. Looks like it might be pretty dandy. Five months from today, folks. I'm there.