The Synod and the True Meaning of Family

When challenged by the Pharisees to name the greatest of God’s laws, Jesus replies: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.  This is the greatest and the first commandment.  The second is like it:  You shall love your neighbor as yourself.  The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.”  (Matt 22:38-40).  Jesus’ answer was straightforward and simple.  It is not that these two commands are difficult to understand, but following them is easier said than done.  What gets in the way of course is our ego, the tendency to put ourselves first in all things, and allowing our feelings to govern our words and actions.  When we let this happen, we become victims of our own vices, whether they be pride, selfishness, lust, sloth, or envy.  The consequences inevitably affect our relationships and our ability to be good spouses, parents, or friends.   I know this from personal experience.  When I am governed by my feelings, all sorts of excuses and rationalizations take over my thinking and I will attempt to justify my words and actions on the basis of how I feel about whatever it is that is affecting me.  When I let this happen, I lose sight of the Truth of the situation which is usually me being spiritually and emotionally immature.

In modern society, the victim most affected by failure to observe God’s prime directive is the family.  I will not recount the many attacks on marriage and family in this blog, but instead try to interpret what I’ve been reading about the extraordinary Synod of Bishops that started a couple weeks ago in Rome.  What little has been reported about this in the secular press is misleading at best, and for the most part blatantly wrong.    The last time the Bishops met in a Synod to discuss the importance of families was 1980 when St. John Paul II called them together.  The result of that Synod was an excellent document released by the pope entitled, “The Christian Family in the Modern World,” which addressed the growing problems of contraception, abortion, sterilization, and divorce.  The document called for and resulted in enhancements to marriage preparation and the advancement of Natural Family Planning (NFP)research and training.   I suspect the Marriage Encounter (ME) movement was one of the byproducts of that effort as well.  Rose and I were active in the ME community and we know it has helped millions of couples improve communication and spiritual formation, while at the same time exposing priests to the very real struggles faced by married couples, making them better pastors and counselors.  Where these efforts have been implemented, many couples and families have benefited.  Unfortunately, they were not fully or universally rolled out. 

Of course, a great deal has changed since 1980, and Pope Francis has asked the bishops to update that work and respond to the very real challenges being faced by families today.  Among the goals for this synod, which will be on-going for the next year, will be to “open up a wider vision of the vocation to love that corresponds to the deepest desire of the human heart.”  Revamping marriage preparation to better understand the sacredness of marriage is also on the agenda, as is addressing how to better minister to divorced and remarried Catholics as well as homosexual Catholics.  These latter two items are what has attracted media attention and stirred controversy.  What the secular world does not understand is that this is NOT an effort to change Church doctrine in any way, but rather to explore better ways of ministering to the needs of divorced and gay members of the Church.  The focus is on how to alter pastoral practice with respect to married couples, divorced Catholics, and homosexuals, not to change what every bishop knows and understands to be the Truth about how we were created, how families are formed, and how God intended children to be raised.

The Catholic Church is often characterized as enemy of progress, equality, and tolerance.  This criticism comes from a world focused on pleasure and profit, and a culture with disturbing notions about personal freedom as well as mistaken notions about the nature of our humanity.   Critics of the Church would have us change doctrine to conform with the image of secular humanism, while denying what we know to be the Truth: that marriage is a divine gift from God whereby only a man and woman can conceive a child, and those children are meant be raised by both of their biological parents.  This is a profound undertaking, one that requires commitment, sacrifice, and deep and abiding love.  God entrusted man and women with the responsibility to co-create children and raise them to know, love and serve God, which is ultimately the secret to human happiness and fulfillment.   The Church will never agree with worldly pundits that anyone who feels love for another person is entitled to marry in order to satisfy their feelings.  To agree to such a thing means condoning no-fault marriage, gay marriage, and who knows what next (threesomes? Incestuous relationships?).  All of which ignores the responsibility of parenting and the rights of children to be raised in a loving, stable environment by both of their biological parents.  This is the True meaning and sacredness of marriage,  defines what it means to be a family,  based on how God created us for the continuation of humanity.  Marriage is not just satisfying emotional feelings!

One last note:  The news of late has been consumed with the ebola scare and recent violence against children.  Perhaps the greatest threat to humanity is the virus-like condition one theologian at the synod called Ego-latry (worship of the ego).  What kind of civilization we are building when we allow the true meaning of marriage and children’s rights to be set aside in preference to self-indulgence?  Half the children in our country are born to single parents and live in poverty.  Seventy-five percent of adults in jail were raised without a father in the household (90% for blacks).  Single parenting is a recipe for poverty, and children raised without the benefit of a secure and loving family environment are less likely to marry and raise children of their own.  The purpose of the Synod is to point out to the world that marriage is not a man-made institution, but rather a divine gift with profound meaning and intrinsic natural beauty.  Marriage is a sacred undertaking and a vocation in which we participate with God in life-giving love and procreation that fulfills the deepest desire of the human heart.  The fullness of our sexuality is expressed in the unity of man and woman when they conceive a child and participate in the infinite reality of co-creating a new soul.  It is not humanly possible to love as perfectly as God, but as Bishop Sheen once said, “It takes three people to get married: a man, a woman, and God.”  When we follow God’s greatest command to love Him “with our heart, all our soul, and all our mind,” we invite Him to transform us so that we are more capable of loving our spouse and children with the life-giving, sacrificial love that imitates God who is infinitely loving, forgiving, and merciful.  

Using Words as Weapons

“The Pharisees went off and plotted how they might entrap Jesus in speech.”  (Matt 22:15)  Thus begins Sunday’s gospel when the Pharisees asked Jesus if it was lawful to pay taxes.  The Pharisees thought they had Jesus trapped, but He turned the tables on them by asking whose image was on the Roman coin and saying, “Then repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar to God what belongs to God.”  Although the Roman coins stated that Tiberius Caesar was the ‘son of god,’ Jesus was declaring that God alone is King of all creation.  Caesar can have his coins, but our heart and soul belongs to God. 

The Pharisees were engaged in a political battle to retain control by suppressing Jesus and accommodating the Romans.  They did not want Jesus to cause an uprising, nor did they want to lose their power over the people or the temple.   Hence, their efforts to discredit Him, and when they could not outwit Him, they had Him murdered.   Political struggle has been with us from the beginning of recorded history.  People will do whatever they think necessary to obtain and retain power and control.  The most egregious current example is radical Islamists who rule by might and force, killing or enslaving all who oppose them, much the way Mohammed did in the 6^th century.  Sharia law forbids anyone to oppose Islam, even to the extent that Christian speech is considered treasonous, punishable by death. 

It’s easy to be critical of Islamic extremism, but freedom of religion is being suppressed right here in America as well.  Last week the Mayor of Houston Texas obtained court orders to demand that Christian ministers hand over their sermons, email, and text messages for scrutiny by the government to determine if they were promoting opposition to the mayor’s political agenda.   Imagine the outcry if this had been done to Martin Luther King for opposing existing segregation law, or abolitionists in Lincoln’s time for their opposition to the Supreme Court’s Dread Scott decision, which ultimately led to the Civil War.  The point is that the Supreme Court has been wrong about important issues in the past, trying to enforce their will on the people, even when what they wanted was clearly wrong on moral grounds, e.g.  not just slavery but the right to kill slaves.  State Courts have also frequently been wrong, for example when they decided in favor of segregation laws and when they put limits on voting rights. 

I contend that the court was wrong again when they pronounced in Roe v. Wade that the States had no right to restrict access to abortion; and again more recently when they refused to uphold the Defense Of Marriage Act (DOMA).  In both cases, the high court took it upon themselves not merely to interpret existing law, but to strike down laws that had been duly passed by Congress and State Legislatures.  Taking their lead from the Supremes, lower courts are frequently overturning not just laws, but State constitutional amendments that had been passed by legislatures or by a majority vote of constituents.  This means that a single judge in a lower court can now impose his political will on the people of a State, or a simple majority of five Supreme Court justices can discard laws passed by Congress.  Our constitution never intended for the courts to have the power to strike down or amend laws, only the legislature can do that. 

Not only are activist judges using words as a weapon to discredit and disregard the will of the people.  Our president imposes his will not only by writing Executive Orders that exceed his constitutional authority, but by administrative fiat in the rules and regulations that are written by the Departments of Health, Education, Treasury, and the EPA, just to name a few.  Without congressional oversight or approval, these departments have published hundreds of thousands of pages of regulations that dictate everything from how much water we can use in our toilets, to requiring religious orders to pay for abortion-inducing drugs against their will. 

In times past, it has often been our clergy who pointed out the injustice or immorality of laws, Martin Luther King being a prime example.  Never the less, our president insists that religious speech should be limited to worship services, and the Mayor of Houston thinks she can harass ministers into being silent on issues they disagree with her on.  Despite having taken an oath to uphold the constitution and the laws of the United States, Attorney General Holder thought he could force a church to hire a gay minister (and lost that one 0-9 in the Supreme Court), and he openly disregarded DOMA while it was still the law of the land, choosing instead to oppose it in court.  The current administration used the IRS in an attempt to suppress the political speech of pro-life and tea party groups by denying them tax-exempt status and harassing them, while quickly approving applications from liberal groups so they could raise money for elections while their conservative counterparts were hampered by the IRS.

I shudder to think what our lame duck president will attempt to do in his final two years in office.  A lot is riding on the upcoming election because if the republicans gain control over the Senate, they may not be able to repeal Obamacare, but at least they can forestall the appointment of more progressive, activist judges to the courts.  Our most fundamental right is the right to speak in public, and this includes sharing our moral views about the right to life, marriage, education, and  how our tax dollars are spent.  When judges and political incumbents trample on that right, they threaten the roots of democracy and the foundations of our Republic.  I urge you to speak out against all efforts to suppress free speech, especially on issues with moral consequences.   People may object that we cannot “impose our morals” on anyone else, but that’s exactly what activist judges are doing when they rescind marriage laws, restrict religious speech, force employers to violate their conscience, and suspend laws regulating the abortion industry.

 

The Veil of Death

A phrase in Sunday’s scripture stood out for me: “On this mountain the Lord of Hosts will provide for all peoples a feast of rich food and choice wines....  On this mountain He will destroy the veil that veils all peoples, the web that is woven over all nations; He will destroy death forever.”  (Is 25: 6-7)

In a sense, death is a veil that prevents us from knowing what happens after death.  Although there have been many books written by and about people who have had life-after-death experiences, we have no means of knowing what awaits us.  We believe there is life after death because God has promised us as much in Scripture and especially in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.   Belief in life after death has been a basic tenet of almost all religions of the world for thousands of years, despite no physical proof other than the resurrection of Jesus Himself. 

Sunday’s gospel contains a parable about heaven with several layers of meaning.  First, God calls many to the heavenly banquet, but they refuse to come because they are pre-occupied with their lives.  Some even kill God’s messengers, while others who are invited later, show up improperly dressed and are thrown out.  Jesus is describing not only heaven, but salvation history in which God’s own people rejected and even killed the prophets, and the Son of God.  The people who were not dressed for the banquet were rejected because they had not prepared themselves to be in God’s presence.  Finally, describing heaven as a wedding banquet draws a parallel between the intimate personal relationship of marriage and God’s abiding love of His people.

This begs the question: How are we responding to God’s invitation?  Are we too consumed with our lives to be bothered with an intimate relationship with God?  And at the end of our lives, when we meet God face to face, will be prepared to face Him?  Or will we be too embarrassed to be in His Presence because of our apathy and our sinfulness?   Could it be that God casts no one to Hell, but we send ourselves there by our failure to accept God’s invitation, or our unwillingness to clothe ourselves in virtue, choosing instead a life of selfishness?

Church attendance is dwindling in much of the world, not only in Catholic Churches, but Protestant Churches as well.  Paradoxically, churches that take a more modern, progressive stance seem to be shrinking the fastest, (e.g., Episcopal), while the more conservative and evangelical churches are growing in many instances.  One unexpected consequence of the Common Core angst is that there has been a resurgence of interest in Catholic education, with parents coming together to re-open or expand Catholic schools. 

The world has become more frenetic as the result of social media, IM, and 24/7 connectivity, and with so much going on, religion has been relegated to the back burner in many homes.  Never the less, God’s invitation is out there, calling us to something far more meaningful and fulfilling than facebook and iPhone frenzy.  He calls us to consider the Truth about ourselves:  that we have been created for eternal life; that there is more to life than the paltry 8-10 decades we will spend on this earth.  We are more than the assemblage of several hundred trillion carbon atoms that will return to earth upon our death.  We are sentient creatures capable of something that transcends biological life; we are capable of love and understanding.  The reason for this is that God created us in His image, including His eternal Spirit.  Anyone who has looked deeply into the eyes of their newborn child knows that they are seeing something more than just a complex set of molecules and cells.  Similarly, anyone who has witnessed the death of a parent, knows in their heart of hearts that their lives can never be extinguished.

When we die, the veil of death will be lifted and we will, for the first time since our conception, become aware of the extent of God’s love and the full potential of our lives, a potential that transcends death because we are living spirits, set free of our mortal bodies.  In that moment, will we find solace in having spent so much of our earthly lives focused primarily on ourselves and the trappings of success that we surrounded ourselves with?  Or will we regret having disregarded God’s many invitations to participate in His grace, His love, and His forgiveness?

In his letter to the Romans, St. Paul said, “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life…”  (Romans 6:23).  When St. Pope John Paul the Great coined the term, culture of death, he was referring to the turning away from God that justifies abortion, euthanasia, and the many attacks on marriage and family, all of which are rooted in selfishness.  Selfishness destroys our capacity to love anyone but ourselves.   Love, on the other hand, depends on our ability to put the good of others ahead of our selfish desires, and make a gift of our life.  In other words, love is sacrificial.  God, who IS Love, made a sacrifice of Himself, so that we may live for all eternity.  When we do likewise, even in small ways, we are life-giving and affirming, and we contribute to the creation of a culture of life.  This is the kind of love God offers us, and asks us to participate in.  When we do so, we participate in His grace and we become instruments of His Love in the lives of others.   Imagine a world where everyone is capable of love like this.  Imagine Heaven.

The Vineyard and the Mid-Term Election

Sunday’s readings make numerous references to vineyards, comparing the Jewish people to God’s vineyard which has gone bad.  Isaiah and Psalm 80 both make this clear, “The vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel,” (Isaiah 5:7) and, “A vine from Egypt you transplanted,” (Psalm 80:9).  Unfortunately, this vineyard deteriorates.  The chosen people of God, despite all God’s efforts, turn away from Him and end up in ruin.  The gospel parable also makes reference to a vineyard, but in this case, the vineyard is stolen by the very people is has been entrusted to, even to the point of the tenant farmers killing the owner’s son.  What is it with us humans?  Why do we squander what God has given us so generously?

The answer of course, is contained in another parable of Jesus in which He explains that He is the vine and we are the branches.  When we are severed from the source of life and all that is good, we wither and die for one reason or another.  We are all sinners and victims of our own selfishness, and we need to stay connected to the life-source if we are to flourish.  All too often, we take what is good, then want more and more of it for ourselves.  In some instances we take what is good and obsess about it so much that we neglect other, more important parts of our life.  Or worse, we pervert what is good and beautiful, and turn it into something harmful and ugly.  Take food and exercise, both wonderful and good things, unless we obsess about them and over indulge to the point of making them more important than anything else; or pornography, which reduces human sexuality to a commodity for our own selfish satisfaction, even at the expense of the dignity of others.   Another extreme example is religion which can become too scrupulous, or in the case of Islamic extremism, a rationalization for killing innocent people.

Moving down the continuum from healthy appreciation for the good, to obsession or perversion, can be a slow-motion process in which we fail to realize that we have crossed beyond healthy respect and appreciation.  There’s an old adage about a frog in boiling water: If a frog is tossed into a boiling pot, he’ll jump right back out so save himself.  But if put in tepid water on a stove, he’ll sit there contentedly until boiled to death.  All of us need to take a step back once in a while and re-examine our lives and our values, to ensure that we have not gone down the slippery slope from good, to something not-so-good, or even evil, without realizing it.

While perusing a Catholic store last week, I ran across a book about why the author left the Democratic party he grew up with, and loved.  In summary, it was because the party has adopted a culture of death.  People who have been long-time Democrats have apparently adopted the many changes in their party over the past several decades, including their decided pro-abortion, gay marriage agenda.  At their last convention, Democrats voted to remove any reference to God from their official party platform, until an embarrassed chairman called for a quick and questionable voice vote to overturn it. 

In just four weeks, the mid-term elections take place and people will be once again casting votes for federal legislators.  If the Democrats retain a majority in the Senate, they are very likely to approve the President’s next nominee for the Supreme Court because there are rumors that the president has been putting pressure on Justice Ginsberg to resign for this purpose.  As a lame duck president, Mr. Obama will undoubtedly continue to “use his pen and his phone” to make laws without actually passing legislation through Congress, in violation of the constitution.  As evidenced by the administrative laws he and his Cabinet have already written unilaterally, this probably means more violations of the first amendment right of freedom of religion. 

The Catholic Church teaches that participation in the election process is an important civic and moral responsibility.  Furthermore, the Church is clear about the fact that voting for legislators who support what is intrinsically evil (e.g., abortion) is morally wrong.  Catholics who are Democrats must ask themselves this question, rather than just going along with their party, like a frog in gradually boiling water.  Some would argue that there are more issues at stake than just abortion and gay marriage, but the official teaching of the Church is that there is a hierarchy of responsibilities and that respect for the dignity of every human life takes primacy over all other issues.  

The Democratic party has become obsessed with personal freedom, even at the expense of children, both unborn and those who are devastated by divorce.  Children also have a natural right to be raised by both of their biological parents, not by two moms or two dads.  But like the frog in rapidly warming water, Democrats seem to be content with the party line that “marriage equality” trumps the rights of children.  In my view, Democrats are increasingly separating themselves from the moral imperatives of Natural Law, a fact which they refuse to acknowledge, despite evidence of the consequences.  I’ve written about those consequences extensively in the past: declining marriage rates, birthrates below replacement level, injury and risk to children, and the economic aftermath of a shrinking workforce, even as the number of elderly grows.

I’m not contending that Republicans have all the answers, but a good many of them hold conservative, more traditional values, and would work to protect life, marriage, and the family, which is the basic and most essential unit of society (not the individual).  Moreover, conservatives seem to have a better grasp of how the economy works, and it’s not by increasing the welfare rolls, expanding Medicaid, and Medicare disability enrollment, all funded by higher taxes.  The most conservative president in recent history was Ronald Reagan, and his tax cuts created more jobs and the strongest economy we’ve had since the post war boom.   My recommendation for the upcoming election is that we all pray for guidance, and for all voters to examine their values and their consciences before casting their votes.   If we continue down the path of separating ourselves from God and His Natural Law, we will end up like ancient Israel… in ruin.