http://www.catholicchronicle.org/ Sat, 13 Mar 2010 18:10:35 +0000 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.catholicchronicle.org/images/M_images/joomla_rss.png http://www.catholicchronicle.org/ The Catholic Chronicle serves the Toledo Diocese by providing a Catholic prospective on news and current events that affect the Catholic church, its members, and the world at large http://www.catholicchronicle.org/index.php/columnists/ralph-mcinerny-and-the-tragedy-of-notre-dame.html http://www.catholicchronicle.org/index.php/columnists/ralph-mcinerny-and-the-tragedy-of-notre-dame.html
Ralph McInerny, an Olympic-class punster who taught at Notre Dame for 54 years before his death on Jan. 29, might have appreciated the sly title of Professor Garber’s book; he almost certainly would have regarded her topic as an example of everything that had gone wrong at the university to which he had dedicated his professional life.

Ralph McInerny was arguably the most distinguished scholar ever to work at Notre Dame. His scholarly publications outstrip those of other Notre Dame philosophers by orders of magnitude — and that’s before we get to his popular fiction, his magazine work, and his encouraging of generations of younger Catholic academics.

Yet a university that does not hesitate to boast of its accomplishments as measured by the U.S. News and World Report ratings seemed curiously reticent about celebrating the life and accomplishments of Ralph McInerny. The university Web site posted a nicely written obituary three days after his death, but there was little sense in the university’s official recognition of its loss that a gigantic figure had left the scene.

One cannot help suspect that this has something to do with the fact that Ralph thought Notre Dame had gone off the rails in its dogged and relentlessly self-promoting attempts to measure itself against what it likes to term “peer schools,” such as Dartmouth and Yale.

What Ralph understood, and what the man who brought him to Notre Dame, the legendary Father Theodore Hesburgh, has never seemed to understand, is that that’s the wrong plumb-line by which to measure a Catholic university’s accomplishment. Or indeed any university’s accomplishment, given the intellectual chaos, political correctness, decadence and madcap trendiness that has afflicted those “peer schools” since the late 60s.

Ralph McInerny knew, and could demonstrate with acute philosophical rigor, that there are truths built into the world and into us: truths we can know by exercising the arts of reason; truths that, known, lay certain moral obligations on us, personally and in our civic lives. With the rarest of exceptions, they don’t know that, and in fact they deny that, at the “peer schools” to which Notre Dame is addicted to comparing itself.

And therein lay the tragedy of Notre Dame and Catholic institutions of higher education of a similar cast of mind, as Ralph saw it: they had sold their intellectual and moral birthright — the true excellence that comes from an immersion in the Great Tradition of western higher learning — for a mess of pottage.

I’ve long thought that all of this had something to do with the misreading of a 1955 essay by Father John Tracy Elis, “American Catholics and the Intellectual Life,” which justifiably criticized the shabby condition of too much of Catholic higher education in the United States in those days. Fr. Hesburgh and others influenced by one reading of Ellis’s critique decided that the thing to do was for Notre Dame to become Harvard, so to speak.

Ralph McInerny thought that this didn’t make much sense at a time when those “peer schools” were awash in pragmatism and utilitarianism. Rather, he believed (and I think this was the more accurate reading of Ellis) that Notre Dame and other premier Catholic universities should play to strength, emphasizing a demanding liberal arts education while bringing the best of the mid-20th century Catholic philosophical, theological and literary renaissance to bear in the U.S. Doing that, Catholic universities would model a form of higher learning that was truth-centered, character-building, and life-inspiring.

There is indeed some of that going on at Our Lady’s University today, thanks to students, younger faculty and some reform-minded members of the Congregation of the Holy Cross. Those true reformers lost a happy warrior for their noble cause with the death of Ralph McInerny. Perhaps someday the university’s board and administration will understand that.

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George Weigel is distinguished senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C. ]]> Angela Kessler Sat, 13 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0000 http://www.catholicchronicle.org/index.php/columnists/liturgy-and-social-justice.html http://www.catholicchronicle.org/index.php/columnists/liturgy-and-social-justice.html
We don’t immediately associate our public worship with the mandate of Jesus Christ to attend to the social matters of the world around us. Part of that understanding may come from an attitude that what goes on in our worship has little or no connection with the world because our personal sanctification and the glorification of God are the aim of all Christian worship. Because there is such an abrupt change in the environment surrounding our public prayer, the hymnody we sing and prayers offered in a space designated for holy ritual compared to the secular marketplace of American culture, we tend to separate the two.

But if we reflect for a moment on the act of worshipping the Triune God and the words that accompany that ritual act as we do each Lord’s Day at Mass and during the celebration of the sacraments, everything we offer to God in praise and thanksgiving is a matter of social justice. The entire celebration of Mass possesses a movement to attend to the matters of the world.

The Liturgy of the Word, for instance, provides God’s faithful members the understanding of what and how justice is to be addressed. We peer through the lens of women and men of faith from the beginning of time, our religious ancestors, how they acknowledged injustices in their time and how the God and provider of all inspired in them the way and means to address those issues.

During the great prayer of thanksgiving at Mass, the Eucharistic Prayer, we recall how God, from the beginning of time, loved us into being and attended to every turning on humanity’s part in bringing us back. And how, in sending us His only begotten Son, God established a once and for all covenant with the human family which the church on earth recalls every time Mass is celebrated.

Having followed the Lord’s command to eat and drink in memory of him, we are nurtured to go forth into the world to attend to the injustices of our time.

Latin phrases have a way of expressing the deepest and clearest meaning for us. “Ita Missa est” is the final commendation given the faithful at every Mass. It could not be any clearer in expressing the fact that we are to “Go, the Mass is ended!” The charge “go” is the key to the whole celebration of Mass.

Having heard the story of faith and its meaning and application, and recalled how, in all of the significant moments in the history of salvation, God has sustained us and saved us, we have work to do. Everything we do in our worship, every word spoken, every hymn sung, every ritual gesture aims to bring several things to focus: God’s glorification and humanity’s sanctification.

This divine exchange likewise has a bi-product: a justice that is of God’s prompting and our response to active faith. Thanks be to God!

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Father Charles E. Singler, D. Min., is director of worship for the Diocese of Toledo. ]]> Angela Kessler Sat, 13 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0000 http://www.catholicchronicle.org/index.php/obituaries/parish-death-notices-through-march-9-2010.html http://www.catholicchronicle.org/index.php/obituaries/parish-death-notices-through-march-9-2010.html Findlay St. Michael the Archangel
Florence V. (Bright) Sattler, 78, Feb. 27

Fostoria St. Wendelin
Lucille (Miller) Scott, 92, Feb. 19
Beverly (Glass) Nye, 70, Feb. 24
Ellen (Moes) Myers, 89, March 3

Fremont St. Joseph
James Haynes, 85, Feb. 16
Gonzalo Popoca, 86, Feb. 20
Leo Dickman, 88, Feb. 26

Genoa Our Lady of Lourdes
Jeanne F. (Taylor) Thostenson, 88, Feb. 22

Hicksville St. Michael
Everett D. Chapman, 64, Feb. 25

Huron St. Peter
Ronald F. Davis, 57, Feb. 24
Walter E. Stutsman, 66, Feb. 27
Nancy J. (Beier) Newsome, 84, March 3

Lexington Resurrection
Mike Schag, 83, March 2

Mansfield St. Peter
Patricia S. (Baka) Albin, 74, Feb. 10
Rose Pellegrino Seckel, 95, Feb. 12

Maumee St. Joseph
Eleanor V. (Olson) Sayers, 84, Feb. 27
Mary C. Wagener, 72, March 5

Norwalk St. Paul the Apostle
Thomas J. Hug, 86, March 1
Marie H. Nelson, 80, March 2

Oregon St. Ignatius
Vernard N. Anthony, 81, Feb. 21
William M. Pasztor Jr., 62, Feb. 26
Joan M. Roush, 86, March 6

Ottawa SS. Peter & Paul
Robert Weis, 71, Feb. 11
Margaret Wanamaker, 93, Feb. 12
Freddy Camarino, 46, Feb. 14

Ottoville Immaculate Conception
Agnes V. Archdeacon, 91, Feb. 22

Perrysburg St. Rose of Lima
Jerry R. Ulm, 60, March 1

Port Clinton Immaculate Conception
Georgiana M. (Zetzer) Below, 76, Feb. 22

Providence St. Patrick
Donald E. Grey, 80, Feb. 25

Rossford All Saints
Edward G. Killian, 85, Feb. 28

Sylvania St. Joseph
Eleanor M. (Westhorn) Gembolis, 92, Feb. 26
Thomas J. O’Grady, 76, Feb. 28
Anne P. Crawford, 75, March 1
Kassie M. Kizer, infant, March 7

TOLEDO
Christ the King
Andrew D. Dixon, 34, Feb. 23
Raymond Tarsha, 60, Feb. 25
Thomas Ainsworth, 89, March 1
Joseph J. Staunton Sr., 85, March 2

Good Shepherd
Lillian K. Belair Knakiewicz, 81, Feb. 19

Little Flower of Jesus
Daniel C. Lewandowski, 86, Feb. 24
Virginia A. (Harshman) Stough, 95, Feb. 26
Fred Vikupitz, 89, March 4
Michael J. Osstifin, 73, March 5

Our Lady of Lourdes
Doris B. (Haas) Cray, 89, March 7

Regina Coeli
Beverly E. (Mishka) Harder, 73, Feb. 28
Glen J. Spitnale, 82, Feb. 28
William J. Gliszcinski, 94, March 2
Ann M. (Slovak) Smolenski, 91, March 2

Sacred Heart of Jesus
Jacqueline M. Schlageter, 47, Feb. 22
Mary C. (Geoffrion) Schardt, 90, March 3

St. Adalbert
Mary L. Osinski, 88, March 2

St. Charles Borromeo
Robert F. Roszyk, 75, Feb. 26

St. Hedwig
Stella "Laura" (Toral) Gutierrez-Gimenez, 77, Feb. 26

St. John the Baptist
Karl Kelly, 84, March 6
Mary E. (Pocs) Ray, 89, March 6

St. Martin de Porres
David M. Greenage, 82, Feb. 25

St. Patrick Historic
Mary (Osborne) Powless, 62, Feb. 23
Patrick James Kernahan, 60, March 1

SS. Peter & Paul
Ezequiel Martinez Bernal, 69, March 2

St. Pius X
Norene M. (Collins) McCollam, 98, Feb. 13
Albin Wisniewski, 87, Feb. 16

St. Stephen
Duane Juhasz, 61, Feb. 26
Carol A. Karcsak, 73, March 5

St. Thomas Aquinas
Loretta A. (Reihing) Altenbaugh, 93, March 2 ]]> Angela Kessler Sat, 13 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0000 http://www.catholicchronicle.org/index.php/statements/bishops-homily-from-prayer-service-for-healing-and-reconciliation.html http://www.catholicchronicle.org/index.php/statements/bishops-homily-from-prayer-service-for-healing-and-reconciliation.html
This prayer service of penance and healing for our diocesan centenary is meant to respond to a need at the very heart of our humanity, and at the very heart of the Christian life; namely, our frailty, our need to forgive and to ask forgiveness, not just in the wider world but also, and even especially, in the Church.

The Church can be publicly represented in many ways, by friend and foe alike. In the modern world individuals and communities have experienced unprecedented change, and feel anxious. In a world that is increasingly impersonal and bureaucratic, whatever is institutional and authoritative can be perceived as threatening, rightly or wrongly in a given situation.

The need for a healing of experiences and memories is not, however, because the Church is an institution. Much more deeply, it is because the Church is a family, a family of faith, a family of weak and sinful human beings from top to bottom and bottom to top.

In his recently published book “The Difference God Makes,” Cardinal George of Chicago points out that our American culture emphasizes voluntary relationships, but downplays relationships that are “given” rather than chosen.

The most “un-choosable” and closest relationship, of course, is to our family. The Scriptures — Old Testament and New — make it clear that you can’t just walk away from your parents, or your spouse or your children, even when things are trying, painful and broken. In any family, there has to come a day of maturity too, when we realize that our parents are not perfect, and that even if our children disappoint or wound us, they are our children still. It is our duty to uphold and cherish the relationships that faith tells us we have no right to “un-choose.”

Faith also tells us that membership in the Church is membership in God’s family, a communion in the life-giving unity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Jesus says, “No one comes to the Father except through me.” And we cannot belong to Christ without his Body. We cannot be a Christian without one another in the Church. And we cannot be “whole” as the Church without the fullness of communion instituted by Christ on the rock of St. Peter’s faith and on the Apostles, of whom the Pope and bishops are the successors.

Ultimately the Church is not a voluntary association, as our culture defines it. If we are convinced of the Christian faith, then the Church is not something we chose to join or not, to take or leave. No, if by faith we know that the Church is God’s family, then you and I can’t walk away from it, even if our spiritual fathers, mothers, sisters and brothers, children and cousins are not perfect, even when they are trying, hurtful, unjust and downright sinful.

We are all a great grace to one another, and sometimes we are also each other’s great cross. There has never been a Church in this world free of human weakness and sin, as anyone who reads the New Testament and Church history can see. In the inscrutable providence of God, the traitor Judas was one of the 12, and came to a bad end because he despaired of repentance.

Every saint is a converted sinner, as they would be the first to tell you. Remember, St. Peter betrayed Jesus too, but what a difference repentance makes!  Saints are often difficult personalities, as they would also be the first to tell you. The great majority of them suffered, sometimes terribly, at the hands of their own. So let’s get rid of a sugarcoated and false view of holiness in the Church.

As the Second Vatican Council taught: “The Church, embracing sinners in her bosom, is at the same time holy and always in need of being purified, and incessantly pursues the path of penance and renewal” (“Lumen Gentium,” 8). It says “incessantly pursues” because the need is always painfully obvious among her members, and it is always a struggle.

Jesus says, “When your brother or sister sins against you, do everything you can with that person within the household of the Church to bring about peace in the family of faith. Peter asked, “Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive him?  As many as seven times?” And what did Jesus answer?  “I say to you, not seven times but 77 times.”

When the Church’s membership — whether clergy, religious or laity, among themselves or in relation to each other — is alienating or alienated, offending or offended, then we have to be like our heavenly Father in the Gospel. We have to “Go in search of the stray.” In a family we are not permitted to say good riddance, or to write other members off.

In the 100 years of the Diocese of Toledo that we celebrate in 2010 we have had our share of saints and sinners, that is to say, the repentant and the unrepentant. Both holiness and sin are never private, as the sacrament of penance makes abundantly clear. We are united in the body of Christ. Our virtues and vices have an impact on all others. And as we celebrate this prayer service we have to heed what our Lord says:  “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.”

This “prayer service for healing of experiences and memories” takes its inspiration from what Pope John Paul the great did on the eve of the third Christian millennium. He acknowledged that certain words and actions of Church leaders and Church members over the centuries had been hurtful and wrong.  He expressed sorrow and asked humanity for forgiveness. “The Church,” he said, “asks forgiveness for the historical sins of all of her children. … Recalling all those times in history … when … instead of offering to the world the witness of a life inspired by the values of faith, indulged in ways of thinking and acting which were truly forms of counter-witness and scandal.”

As the Holy Father is to the universal level, so is the bishop locally. As the spiritual father of the Catholic community of our diocese I ask forgiveness of the wider community of northwest and north central Ohio for anything that the Catholic Church here “has done or failed to do” contrary to discipleship in the Lord Jesus Christ. It is important, too, that we Catholics forgive the sins committed against us by others over the past century.

As the spiritual father of the Catholic household of faith, I also ask forgiveness, and ask that there be forgiveness, within our Church: among us clergy, religious and laity, among ourselves and toward each other. At the same time, we clergy who teach, sanctify and govern as shepherds bear a special accountability, as do those religious and laity who exercise a public ministry and responsibility in the Church.

And so to anyone who has ever been treated harshly, rudely or has been otherwise offended by us clergy in the exercise of our ministry, or treated poorly or unjustly by anyone acting in the name of the Church — I ask, the Church asks, for forgiveness.

To those who have looked for authentic teaching and good example in faith and morals, and ever found instead defective teaching or bad example — I ask, the Church asks, for forgiveness.

To anyone who has ever had an experience of the Sacred Liturgy, especially the most Holy Eucharist, that was not celebrated faithfully and reverently, in accord with the Church’s tradition — I ask, the Church asks, for forgiveness.

To those who look to the Church to be a voice against prejudice, social injustice and other sins against the life and dignity of the human person, and ever were disappointed by silence or indifference — I ask, the Church asks, for forgiveness.

To those who have in any way been the victims of any abuse, sexual or otherwise, whether as a child or as an adult, and to the parents, or siblings or friends of those who were abused — I ask, the Church asks, for forgiveness.

To those who needed the Church to be with them in sickness, in grief, in trauma, in turmoil and ever found her representatives lacking in presence or compassion — I ask, the Church asks, for forgiveness.

To those who have offered their talents for the mission of the Church, but experienced an injustice in the Church’s workplace — I ask, the Church asks, for forgiveness.

For whatever ways any representative of the Church, beginning with myself, has hurt, offended, dismissed, ignored anyone — I ask, the Church asks, for forgiveness.

My dear brothers and sisters, sin and sorrow for sin is not the end of the Christian Gospel. Jesus says, “Repent and believe, because the kingdom of God is near.” During Lent mercy is near; forgiveness is near; resurrection is near to those who know their need for God and for one another in Christ.

May all of us appreciate ever more deeply what it means to be members of a family that faith does not permit us to “unchoose” — the new family of God created by the precious blood of a spotless Lamb, who for us sinners was lead to the slaughterhouse and opened not His mouth. May the purification of Lent lead us and our diocese to Easter joy. ]]> Laurie Stevens Bertke Fri, 12 Mar 2010 20:45:09 +0000 http://www.catholicchronicle.org/index.php/movies/war-flick-well-intentioned-but-flawed.html http://www.catholicchronicle.org/index.php/movies/war-flick-well-intentioned-but-flawed.html
Loosely inspired by journalist Rajiv Chandrasekaran's 2007 best-seller "Imperial Life in the Emerald City," this is the fictional tale of dedicated Army Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller (Matt Damon). Frustrated that his unit's hunt for the weapons of mass destruction that served as the justification for American intervention has led only to a series of dead ends, Miller begins to question the validity of the intelligence reports on which he and his comrades have been relying.

Jason Isaacs and Matt Damon star in a scene from the movie "Green Zone." The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is L — limited adult audience, films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling. The Motion Picture Associat ion of America rating is R — restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.(CNS photo/Universal)

His doubts bring him to the attention of two feuding residents of the titular American enclave within the Iraqi capital: Defense Department official and ideologue Clark Poundstone (Greg Kinnear), who's wholly indifferent as to how the conflict began so long as Iraq can be transformed into a functioning democracy, and rogue CIA station chief Martin Brown (Brendan Gleeson), a veteran Middle East analyst who believes the entire operation rests on a foundation of lies and fabrications.

Miller's pursuit of the truth also leads him to Wall Street Journal reporter Lawrie Dayne (Amy Ryan), whose series of pre-war articles on the dangers posed by Saddam's weapons program had helped fuel public support for the offensive, pro-American local Freddy (Khalid Abdalla), who's willing to endanger himself to help secure a better future for his country, and former Saddam ally Gen. Ayad Hamza (Aymen Hamdouchi).

Hamza's out to strike a political bargain with the new occupiers, failing which, he's prepared to help launch a nationwide insurgency.

The subjects of just war and political truth telling are obviously worthy themes, especially the very timely issue of whether a preemptive strike can ever meet the criteria for a morally acceptable use of force according to the standards of traditional Catholic teaching.

But director Paul Greengrass' uneasy mix of political conspiracy yarn and action adventure increasingly takes on the qualities of a personal crusade by Miller, thereby blunting Brian Helgeland's script's ability to dissect larger questions of real-life morality. And the occasionally gritty scenes of battle and captivity, together with the persistently salty dialogue — all, perhaps, accurate enough — further restrict the appeal of this well-intentioned but flawed war story.

The film contains considerable action violence, some of it bloody, torture, several uses of profanity and frequent rough and crude language. The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is L — limited adult audience, films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is R — restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.

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Mr. Mulderig is on the staff of the Office for Film & Broadcasting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. More reviews are available online at www.usccb.org/movies. ]]> Angela Kessler Fri, 12 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0000