Why Confession Matters

Confession.  If confession were the kid on the playground, it would be the kid picked last for everything.  It would be the sacrament most likely to get voted off the island.  Judging by the way most Catholics, including priests, treat Confession, you would wonder if it were necessary.  Long answer short: It is!

Confession matters and is necessary.  What is confession?  A lot of people misunderstand what it is.   Many believe it is a self-deprecation session in which the sinner tears themselves down.  That isn't going to play well in a society where we teach kids self esteem at any cost and throw out participation trophies to protect their egos.  Many believe that they can just tell God they are sorry in their heart and all is good.  Granted, there is no where in the Scriptures that say this.  It does say something about how the forgiveness of sins do need to be approached. 

We find this in John 20:23.  It is the day of the resurrection.  Jesus appears to the 11 and gives them the Holy Spirit and then says 'whose sins you forgive are forgiven, whose sin you retain are retained'.  Let's just look at this for a second.  Notice He first breathes on them and gives them the Holy Spirit.  What He will instruct them next is dependent upon the power of  the Holy Spirit and not on the power of man.  Why give this authority to them on the day of the resurrection itself?  Because the center of the mission of Jesus Christ is reconciliation; a restoration of relationship to God that is lost as a result of our sins.  The Cross was the final sin/peace offering; its zenith.  In the Old Testament, forgiveness was always mediated by the priest in the sin/peace offering.  That mediation would continue under the apostles and their successors.  The former mediation would bring forgiveness but not reconciliation; no one could enter heaven until the Christ event.  Because of the death and resurrection, forgiveness and reconciliation are now possible.

Why make forgiveness of sins mediated?  Why can't I just tell God I am sorry and be done with it? First, the Church doesn't require all sin to be forgiven through confession.  It does need to be forgiven though.  Remember God hard wired us.  Our psyches need to hear the words coming out of our mouths of what is held inside.  Think about it:  what does a therapist or counselors lead people to do?  They desire them to vocalize what is going on.  Once the person says it, they take ownership of it.  Once we take ownership, something positive can be done.  In the case of confession, what we speak can be forgiven.  To forgive means to no longer hold against.  When we seek forgiveness, God no longer holds what we have done against us: remember, Jesus saying "Father forgive them, they know not what they do" from the Cross.  We also need to hear through the words of absolution that we are forgiven.

Does everything need to be brought to confession?  Everything can be but it is not necessary.  Sins fall into two classes: venial and mortal.  Mortal sin requires three criteria: 1) It must be serious matter.  2) It must be done with knowledge. 3) It must be done with full use of free will.   What constitutes serious matter? The 10 Commandments are good guides for this.  We must know it is wrong and what that means.  We must have chosen positively to sin.  If a sin lacks one of the criteria, it is venial sin.  Mortal sin does require confession as mortal sin severs the relationship with God. In mortal sin, one excises the sanctifying grace given at baptism (a grace necessary for that relationship with God)and cuts ties with God.  This is called mortal because it also condemns us to everlasting torment in hell.  No relationship= no heaven.    Venial sin must be be forgiven as well, however, this can be done through asking God for forgiveness (act of contrition) and is done sacramentally at mass (Penitential Rite).  Those sins must be forgiven before the reception of the Eucharist...all of them.  To come up in severed relationship with God and still receive the sin /peace offering of the Cross is tantamount to sacrilege, as St Paul reminds us in I Corinthians 11.   To be in a state of grace (necessary for the reception of the Eucharist) means to be in an eternal relationship with God.

Confession reminds us of something that the entire Christ event does: God is much more interested in where we are going that where we have been.  He wants us to fess up to where we have been so that the crushing burden of sin is not carried.  The fact of the matter is that unconfessed sin is like an iron weight we carry around.  All it can bring is pain and resentment which leads t rebellion.  Doubt that?  To keep from confessing sin we have to use two things: fear and pride.  Pride tells us we didn't sin.  It tells us we shouldn't have to apologize.  It builds resentment in the person and a spiritual numbness which breeds separation from God.  Pride is a tool, a powerful tool, of Satan.  Fear becomes operative in that we then nurture a belief we cannot be forgiven or that forgiveness means change must happen in our lifestyle. That latter part is true.  When Jesus forgave he would say 'go and sin no more.'   Fear tells us we can't do that and shouldn't have to do that.  Fear provokes us to fashion a god that will accommodate our sins.  Fear, too, is a tool of Satan.  Satan wants you to remain unforgiven just as He is.    His hate and wrath want your destruction as a way of hurting God.  The devil doesn't mind your going to church, just as long as it has no effect on your life...just as long as their is no real relationship with God involved.

Now for a difficult question: why are so many parishes stingy with confession?  Most places any more, confession times are for minutes on a Saturday afternoon regardless of how large the parish is.  This is a problem because it does say that either most people don't sin   and the church acknowledges that or that we think confession unnecessary because we have bought into the false teachings prevalent in society.  One would think that based on the lack of preaching about it.  I know many priests will say by appointment...good luck with that!  My brother priests: when we don't teach about confession, when we don't preach about it (instead giving them feel good drivel), when we don't make clear through our own willingness to sit in a confessional, we poison the flock entrusted to us.  This doesn't mean we become a gothic 'you're going to hell about everything' type.  No, it does mean that we keep making clear God does want to forgive you...He desires to show mercy so much so that He sends His only Son.  Forgiveness of sins and the reconciliation that it brings is at the very heart of the ministry of Jesus Christ.  This is why the first act he does after the resurrection is to give the Apostles and their successors the authority to forgive sins in His name.  We priests are supposed to be agents of that mercy.

Confession matters because our relationship with God matters.  Sin damages and destroys the relationship Jesus Christ restored though the Cross..  It is in our best interest to confess and be reconciled.  We know the deadly sin of pride will lie to us about the necessity of confession.  We know fear will do the same.  We need not carry the crushing burdens of sin and be caught in vicious cycles of resentment to justify that which cannot be justified.  Jesus tells us "Come to me all you who labor and are burdened.."  Carting sins around crushes us.  Let us take those to a place where something positive can be done.  Forgiveness is so important that the confessor cannot speak about what is said during confession or act on knowledge gained in a confessional (the seal of the confessional)...if God indeed, in His mercy, no longer holds your sins against you...who is His representative to do so?

This column is by no means exhaustive on the topic of confession, but a push to get one to consider going. 

Why Camp Maccabee?

In 2009, I and few other founded a camp for teen boys.  The camp was a result of years of observations about young men from the work I did as a priest.  My thought was this: we are failing them.  This failure was bearing fruit and that fruit was detrimental to all parties involved.  I noticed in priestly vocation recruitment that there were many good young men out there, but the mere mention of priesthood freaked them out.  I saw a lack of the virtue of faith and hope.  Even among those who went into the seminary, I saw a hedging of bets and the melancholy I started referring to as the "Hamlet Syndrome" .  In marriage preparation the prospects were not much better.  I saw many men largely disinterested in faith and whose maturity levels left much to be desired. They were not auditioning to be the spiritual head of the home which marriage calls them to be.  In either case, and in so many other instances of priestly ministry I didn't see what we needed: warriors.

It is easy to fault the young men and their parents for this.  In fact, most priests do.  It is easy.  I got into that trap but starting asking myself what we as a Church were doing about it.  I had read the exhortations that Pope St John Paul II and Pope Benedict had given at World Youth Days.  They were pointed.  But they seemed to dissipate as the crowds dispersed to go home.  I started to look at what we as a church were doing in the training of our young men.   I didn't like what I saw.

We had fallen into the societal trap of training our boys to be nice or to be thugs.  On the one hand, they were to be still, quiet, submissive, and ultimately melancholic; a wimp.  The other choice was to be a thug: a promiscuous sexists who focused on the accrual of wealth and respect (fear).  Most churches fell in the former categories.  Most of our schools did.  Worse yet, we portrayed Jesus as the tragic hippie.  We were not serving our young men well as we gave them no reason to see Jesus as a man, a role model, and a warrior.  The young men left in droves...at one time I did too.

It is said that it is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.  I was unsure of what to do.  I prayed.  The task seemed monumental.  I knew this: these young men needed to hear and experience something different.  They needed to know the truth.  They needed to know they were called to be warriors and not passive couch potatoes.  But how?

The first spark came from reading John Eldredge's "Wild at Heart" in which he states that part of the development of a boy into a Christian young man was by tapping into his need for adventure, exploration, and fellowship.  Organized sports were the only outlet left for young men to experience this.  The church was failing them.  Since, I have tapped into the writings of Fr. Larry Richards and have connected with other men, both lay and clergy, who were looking for the same answers I was. We needed something from our churches that tapped into these things and told these young men what we need to tell them: We, your church, need you to be a warrior...and that will not happen without God in your life.

The camp took its name from Judas Maccabeus (the Hammer) and his clan.  Those unfamiliar with his story: Judas' father, Matthias, was  a town elder of the town of Modien.  Alexander the Great had conquered the territory but died and left no heirs.  The empire was split between his generals.  Initially, the land of Israel fell under the rule of the Ptolemys of Egypt.  The Jews were allowed to keep their faith.  However the Seleucids of the north conquered them. Their leader Antiochus Epiphanes wanted union in his lands and decreed  that all peoples in his realm were to abandon their religions, languages, and cultures in favor of the Greek.  Many in Israel readily apostatized.  Failure to do so incurred the death sentence.  When the representatives of the king came to Modien it was to convert the people.  They went to town elder, Matthais, promising great reward if he would convert.  Instead, he revolted.  Being old, he soon died and left his son, Judas...called the Hammer...to lead the rebellion against one of the most powerful armies the world had seen to that point.  Judas, like his father, knew this could only be accomplished with God.  In the end, Judas (though he fell in battle) won the day and Judaism was not exterminated as Antiochus had hoped.

This was the image I wanted.  Our Christian faith is less and less welcome in this society.  Since the formation of the camp, we have seen marriage and gender redefined into the unrecognizable.  We have seen freedom of religion reduced to freedom of worship.  We needed warriors.   But to train a warrior means showing them their armaments and how the use them with accuracy.  Our weapons are the virtues, the disciplines necessary to stand one's ground and be a rock for others.  Our weapons depend upon a virile relationship with God.  The core of the camp surrounds this.

Hence, we have lot of bonding activities.  They have as their philosophical center  Navy Seal training: individual glory means squat...you bind together and find your strength in God and your brothers in arms.  We pray as a group of men: Mass, Divine Office, Rosary, Eucharistic Adoration.  We do this to show both fellowship and God are needed to be men.  The camp is not easy nor is it for every young man.  We designed it to be physically grueling and intense.  It is we as a church making a strong manly plea for these young men to rise up and be warriors!

Why?  Because we need them.. The foundation of virtue and discipline to cultivate it are essential to all walks of life.  Most of the young men who go through this are called to the vocation of marriage.  Their wives and children will need them to be warriors who stand in that breach between them and those who would prey on them. They need them to claim the mantle of spiritual head of the home.  Their parishes need them to be leaders and forthright.  Some of these young men will be called to be priests.  If there is anyplace the Church needs the heart of a Judas Maccabeus strongly beating. it in the hearts of her clergy!  We need men who will step into the breach without hesitation or fear, who take up the mantle and bring the fight to a hostile world and to the devil himself.  We can ill afford boys as husbands, dads, and priests anymore...we need men!  We need warriors!

More information on the camp, its times,its applications, and its need for funds can be found at the camp website  www.campmaccabee.com.  Your young men need to hear the call to arms we are trying to give.  Give it some thought and prayer.

The Biggest Lessons in Marriage

Over the years I have done much marriage preparation and marriage counseling.  I have searched for many different techniques and programs to best hit at what marriage in the Catholic Church is about.  Some I have found lacking.  For example, I am not a big fan of FOCCUS.  It is a good compatibility survey, but does not treat marriage as a sacrament  as it does a civil contract. It is the limitation in such a survey.  I used the Theology of the Body course, which was good.  I am currently using Beloved from St Augustine Institute.  I love it.  It has programs for both those to be married and those who are married.

From this, I will extrapolate the following that I have learned:

 The fuel of marriage is self giving love.  Love isn't an emotion, it is a virtue.  It is not something we fall in and out of of.   It is one of the theological virtues.  This means is requires God's grace to grow.  It is a conscious discipline where the spouse, through sacrifice, self-giving, and even a willingness to suffer offers themselves up for the good of the other.  This happens on all levels: physically, mentally, and spiritually.  This is why we believe that the use of human sexuality is reserved to marriage; it is the place where such self-giving can achieve the ends (unity and procreation) for which it exists.

I see so many marriages break down when either an essential question was never really asked or quit being asked: How can I make your life better?  Many times in marriage counseling I will hear a torrent of the opposite: he/she doesn't do this for me.  This orientation changes  can do little more than create a fatality.  It struck me in one of the marriage enrichment videos where Dr. Edward Sri remarks that the persons within a marriage can not be like vacuum cleaners: they can't be perpetual sucking machines always demanding to be satiated.  This will never lead anywhere good.  In the course of marriage counseling I try to invite the couple to stop worrying about what the other does or doesn't do in the relationship, but what they are bringing and doing to strengthen or weaken the relationship.

Why?  Because no human being possesses the ability to make another person do anything.  We do not posses the power to make the correct series of synapses fire off to make a person see or correctly choose.  We do, however, have the ability through discipline to do this to ourselves.  With couples to be married, I try to convey that the focus needs to be oriented to the good of the other.

This self giving love is a reflection of the love of God Himself.  This is why a sacrament is needed to bind the man and woman into a bond that unifies and creates.  The latter may not be possible for all couples because of physical problems.  But the openness to this divine self giving love is crucial.  We are told in St. John letters that God loved us first; our love for Him is a response.  In a powerful way that repsonse is lived in marriage.

The willingness of the two spouses in the marriage to cultivate the virtue of love will determine the health and longevity of the marriage.  Health comes and goes.  It is a fact that in a marriage that lasts, one spouse will watch the other die.  There will be illnesses, sometimes chronic, that will test the family.  Wealth comes and goes.  So do jobs and careers.  Even the children grow up and move out.  Life comes with its stresses and tragedies.  A couple who cultivates the virtue of love weathers these storms.  That takes work...it can never depend upon the fickleness of emotion.

That love is the central witness to the children.  Children see the love of God most powerfully on display in the love that their mom and dad have for each other.  The parents teach them that love is important and what real love looks like.  The parents show how love is truly oriented.

Finally, to make this love truly work, God has to be a part of the equation.  We cannot cultivate the virtue of love without His assistance.  No one can...not a spouse...not a cleric...no one.  In Catholicism, it is the primary reason we have the sacraments: to help grow in the virtues of faith, hope, and love.  We are given concrete avenues for the necessary grace.  That's why you're not at Mass to hear a good homily (good when it happens) or good music (also good when it happens), but to get the grace of the Eucharist.  You need God to make this work.  Marriage is hard.  If it wasn't, there would be such thing as divorce.   Being a person who truly loves is not easy.  God knows this.  He gives grace, sacramental grace, to help you.  Your ability to love needs to be nourished by the sacraments.  Love is not about merely tolerating the spouse.  It is about a willingness to sacrifice for the good of the other.  This is what Jesus does on the Cross.

I tell my couples when they come in for their first marriage prep session that my job over the next 6 months is to keep you out of someone's annulment pile. However, I want so much more than that for them...I want a happy marriage that thrives regardless of the circumstances that life throws at them. That takes the virtue of love...that takes a relation ship with God Himself. 
   

19 years in the Fields of the Lord

19 years today.  19 years ago I sought the grace of God to make good on a commitment I made to God that I would give my life in service of His flock as He had called me to do.  I didn't choose God, He chose me.  As God as my witness,  I haven't the foggiest notion why other than its was His will.  I wasn't the holiest guy around, nor was I the smartest.  I'm still not.  I didn't go joyfully either.  I fought it and fought it hard.  I am proof that God can be awful persistent....and patient.  He knows far better than I.  Pride and fear blinded me to what joy could be found.  Thank God I was really wrong about being a priest.

In those 19 years, I have lost track of how many weddings, baptisms, confessions, funerals, and anointings I have done.  All the hours preaching and teachings seem but a moment in time.  The most important things I do aren't giving what I can give, but giving what God alone can give.  My feeble meanderings are no match for the grace given through the sacraments.  It is why I feel compelled to make those sacraments as widely available as is allowed.  Being a priest is more about what God can do than what I can do. 

The 19 years have been an exhilarating ride.  There have been times of great joy and times of being crushed.  I will admit that the sex scandals in the Church in 2002 were crushing.  Men I had known and admired as a boy were among the accused.  Men I had gone to school with were among the victims.  I thank God I was with the people of Edina and Baring at the time.  I do not know if they appreciate or know how much their support and prayers got me through that time.  Even the depths of that time pales in comparison to the immense amount of joy that has been an almost constant companion in the 19 years of ministry.

What gives me joy as a priest?  Watching someone embrace conversion.  What sorrows me as a priest?  Watching someone walk away from conversion.  19 years and I know that I am far from a finished product and that God will continue to aid me by His grace to become fully what He calls me to be.  I know this to be true for anyone who will open their hearts and minds to Christ.  I know fear gets in the way.  I know pride gets in the way.  They sure got in my way.  Doing vocation work for all 19 years has taught me this over and over again.

So today I start my 20th year in the fields of the Lord. I pray that what God begun on that June day 19 years ago will continue to expand as I grow.  To all those who have helped me in these years, I thank you.  To all those I have hurt over those same years, I apologize.  To all, I ask for your continued prayers as I enter my second decade serving in the fields of the Lord.

Why Priestly Vocations Matter

Introduction
There is no way to really sugar coat this anymore.  We need priests.  We need them like we need air.  Why?  Because we need their leadership?  Because we need their teaching and preaching?  Because we need their prayers of intercession?  All good reasons, but no, not primarily.  We need them because we are a sacramental Church.  We need them because we need the Eucharist.  We need them because we need  confession.  We need them because we need to be able to have Last Rites.  In short, the primary need isn't what they stand to offer us, but what Christ offers through them.  Through them, Christ offers us...all of us...forgiveness and reconciliation.  This happens because upon the grace of the sacrament of Holy Orders, a priest's soul is ontologically changed so that the priest may act in the person of Christ so that we can be forgiven by Christ and receive the eternal sacrifice of the Cross in the Eucharist.

We are not Pelagians.  We can not work ourselves into heaven.  We are in need of the unmerited grace of God to assist us in living as His adopted brother or sister.  God makes these realities concrete and sensible through the sacraments of the Church.  The priests have the responsibility to make these sacraments available to as many as possible.  Those who are appointed pastors have additional duties as well.  But any priest has the duty to make accessible the sacraments.  As the number of priests shrink the access to the sacraments shrink as well. Why?  Because as the number of priests fall, the number of churches shrink as well.  The more physical distance between the nearest priest and his widely scattered flock, the less likely that Last Rites can happen.  The lesser the number of priests, the more unlikely shut ins and hospital patients will get anointed as the priests will be stretched so thin as to leave wide open cracks for many to fall through.  These are just the harsh facts.

The Chickens are coming home to roost 

I will use my home diocese as an example.  My home diocese is 110 parishes and missions spread throughout 38 counties over 22,000 square miles.  6 of the counties have no priest residing in them.  34 parishes and missions have no resident priest. There are 87 priests active in the diocese (1/3 of which are not priests of this diocese) to serve the 80,000+ Catholics which make up less than 10% of the overall population.  Within 5 years 1/3 of the priests of this diocese will be 70+. WE already have a few priests who are well past the age of 75 still serving as pastors.  We have 7 seminarians spread throughout 8 years of seminary.  Only two of them are in college.  The chickens are coming home to roost.  It will not be pretty.

This diocese will be 60 years old this November.  It has never produced enough vocations to man its parishes.  Never.  Of the 61 active diocesan priests, 30 are not from this diocese.  Some of the most densely Catholic areas of the diocese have given us no priests in the 60 years of this diocese.  11 parishes in this one county (with 6 parochial schools) has not produced one single priests for this diocese since its inception.  Not one.  One was ordained for another diocese.  Otherwise, no.  There are no living priests that can call the parishes of this county their home parish.  There are no seminarians from this county and there have not been in years. While this county is not the sole cause of our problems, they provide a nice microcosm of the problem.  For the reader, 60 years predates Vatican II.

It does get personal...very personal

As a pastor, this does get very personal.  I think people wonder why I get into such a tither about vocations.  I do.  I have been trying for my entire priesthood to recruit good holy young men to think about the priesthood.  It is hard.  My perseverance gets tested on a regular basis.  There are days I really do wish that I could let it go and just give up and move on with vocation recruitment.  I could right a book on the different variations of no, not me, not my son that I have heard over the last 19 years.   I could write an encyclopedia load of conversations in which I bit my tongue clean off to hide my frustration.  One might well think me mad (the jury is still out) for continuing to do this.  Why do I do it?

1) I love Christ and His Church.  I love the people I serve as a pastor.  Part of that love is looking to the long term.  I know that in any parish I am serving that inevitably I will not always be their pastor. I want someone to replace me...to pick up where I leave off.  I want my parish taken care off well for years to come.  I want my flock to have access to the sacraments in abundance.  I want them to be able to have those avenues of grace.  I want them to be able to grow in faith.  I will not always be there to do it.  They will need a father of the parish.  If the numbers decrease, the likelihood of this diminishes.  It pains me to think that some of them will not get Last Rites because the nearest priests will be a good hour drive away.

2) I believe we should be going in the opposite direction.  Regardless of population shifts, I do not think there is a parish in the diocese that shouldn't be expanding through evangelization.  If half of all Americans are unchurched, we should be reaching out for them.  There are millions of fallen away Catholics.  We should be reaching out for them as well. However, we are not congregationalists.  We are a sacramental church.  How on earth will be able to address greater sacramental need with fewer priests?  Our evangelical zeal for the truth of our Catholic faith should be filling the churches...we will need priests for this.

3) I love being a priest.  I do.  Yes, it is exhausting and frustrating at times, but it is so full of joy, that the moments of frustration are eclipsed by the good.  I can not help must take it personally when people act as my asking them to be a priest is an imposition on their happiness. It is hard not to get tedious when my joy is met with a boatload of melancholy feelings and bargaining.  What God has planned for us is not loathsome imposition to be bargained with like a auctioneer trying to drive down a bid.

Getting past the blame game

It seems that when this topic comes up, a blame game ensues.  Some want to blame bishops.  Some want to blame Vatican II or that Vatican II didn't go far enough.  Some want to blame things being too this or that.  Bottom line: ego non serviam.  I will not serve.  As a society we do not value serving, we value being served.  Serving is seen as an imposition.  Status comes in being served.  We want free stuff.  We want leisure.  We fixate on the eternally inconsequential (sports, gaming, celebrity, power, money) and lose sight of the eternally consequential (relationship with God, family, neighbor).  The eternally consequential is service oriented because its genus and end are the love of God.  The eternally inconsequential are all about personal achievement and self satisfaction.

We wait for pristine conditions for us to finally get our act together.  Perhaps, when nothing pans out, maybe we'll think about priesthood.  Times up though for so many places.  How long it lasts is up to whether we desire to serve or be served.  We need to quit looking for excuses and start finding obedience.  We need to quit telling God how to solve the problem and get about to listening to what He wants.

When the time comes for parishes to get closed, I will ask the complaining one question: When was the last time your parish gave the Church a vocation to the priesthood?  I have been to the Bishop's house many times.  He does not have a cabbage patch nor a secret lair where he is stockpiling priests and withholding them from us just to be obnoxious.  He can't send you priests if you don't send him priests.  Mark my words, we get what we give.  If your parish has not sent at least a solid young man to the seminary in decades: You.are.part.of.the.problem!  If your reaction to either you or your son to being asked to consider priesthood is one of scrambled bargaining or outright anger...you are writing checks that other people will have to cash.

In ending, many will say that' my diocese is a mess'. Perhaps.  Perhaps not.  But tell me what institution has ever been reformed from the outside?  If we are get the church the country back on the road to not just recovery, but thriving, then we must man up and get about the business of the kingdom.  We didn't get to the point we are by God's will, but by our disobedience to that will.  Make no mistake, that disobedience will be judged.  No more excuses.  No more bargaining.  We are a sacramental church and there is work to do, souls to save, and a society to transform.   Complaining does not make things better.  Let us get about doing what is bold, forthright, and holy!

   

Liberals and Conservatives: Clash of the Titans

My first year in major seminary, one of my professors, who happened to be the Academic Dean, had enough of us seminarians.  We seminarians liked to throw the words 'liberal' and 'conservative' like poisoned darts at each other.  He reprimanded us for misusing the words incorrectly. He told us the following"  From a philosophical standpoint, liberal and conservative refer to where one's locus of authority is.  For a conservative, the locus of authority is someone or something other than themselves.  For a liberal, the locus of authority is themselves. He pointed out that you can have right and left wings of both.  For example you could have left wing conservatives who locus of authority was the state and right wing conservatives whose locus of authority was the Church.  In the words of Inigo Montoya from the Princess Bride, "You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means."

The difference is how a person uses objective truth.  The more conservative a person is, the more objective truth is the center and they rely less and less upon opinion.  The more liberal a person is, the more personal opinion and tastes weigh in on decision making.  A strict conservative can lean towards being rigid whereas a strict liberal will embrace anarchy. 

People will attach specific traits to either side.  It is a fallacy.  Rarely in life are all A =B.  Love, rationality, mercy and such are not traits specific to one side.  They are exercised in different ways.

Christianity is by its nature a conservative faith.  The locus of authority is God.  What He says is the way life is to be lived.  This is passed on through the Scriptures and the teachings and beliefs of the Church.  Because the locus of authority is outside the person, then it is up to the person to conform to that belief.  Most of the tension within our churches comes from trying to make Christianity a liberal faith.  We see this in the desire for the Church to get with the times; that it is the Church and the Scriptures that have to conform with the society...to become relevant to the society.  To do this requires that the Church move away from objective truth (something that is true by its own merit) and replace it with subjective truth (something that is true because I say it is true).  The more that this move is made, the more that the teachings of the church are first treated as a cafeteria and later as irrelevant to life.  The quicker the move, the emptier the churches become.  Why?  Because in losing their authority, they lose their relevance.

What rises in its stead is the tyranny of opinion.  The worth of something is based on what I like and/or believe.  We see this clash in multiple arenas in our society.  The tyranny of opinion, of philosophical liberalism will lead to this.

Let's take our politics.  The words republican and democrat really mean very little any more.  There are really liberals and conservatives, with the vast majority being liberal.  The telltale sign is this: for a true conservative, he or she holds their beliefs as true and do not need other agreement with it to validate their beliefs.   There is room to debate ideas without personal attacks.  A  TRUE conservative can walk away from a debate without feeling as animosity to the other side.  He of she doesn't need to shut down or censor the other side.  The same cannot be true for a true philosophical liberal. Because they are their own locus of authority, they need outside approval of their ideas to validate them.  Alternative voices must be conquered or silenced!  Hello, safe zones!  Hello censorship.  The tyranny of opinion can only lead to division.  Debates are personal as disagreement equals personal attack.

If we as Catholics are to rise back up again and refill our churches, it is going to be through adhering to the authority of Christ and His Church.  This means conforming ourselves to Christ and His teachings instead of wanting the church to change its teachings to conform to what I desire.  this is much harder to do, but unlike expecting God to change truth to suit me, it is not an exercise in futility.

In today's Gospel, when Jesus is asked is asked what is the greatest of the commandments, his reply is the shema: Deuteronomy 6:4-9..."in essence, "You shall love the Lord with ALL your mind..." with the addition that you shall love your neighbor as yourself."  It is  a complete submitting of our will to God.  It is making God the locus of authority in our lives.  We priests and those charged with teaching the faith within the Church must (and I mean MUST) teach an complete adherence to the Gospel, especially when that adherence is difficult.  If we are true to the faith, then we must have God as He has revealed His will as the locus of authority in our lives.  In this we will find the union that escapes us when we become our own locus of authority.        

But We're Too Smart to Believe

The mantra of the modern world.  Belief in the supernatural is for children and fools. It is for the hayseed, the uninformed, the superstitious, and feeble.  It is an opium for the masses, a crutch for the unimaginative and weak.. We're just far too intelligent and urbane to believe.  We know that such an attitude does exist strongly in some sectors of the country.  It is worn as a badge of honor, a trophy for coming of age as a species.  Yeah, I am not buying it.  I'm not buying it because at one time in my life I did.  In my early twenties I was an agnostic.  I could not buy the intellectual premise of atheism that all we see just spontaneously came into existence and so ordered itself to produce life as we know it.  I did not buy that whatever created was personal in nature or gave a rat's behind about how certain of that creation fared.  Hence, this post is not about ridiculing those who are in those situations now.  Rather, this is directed at the consequences of these beliefs and how people got there.

The concept of God is as old as humanity itself.  Every society from the ancients on showed some understanding that all they saw was not all there was.  They looked for ways to fill this understanding.   For many early societies, they looked at the natural order and saw the capricious nature sometimes of it, how the same weather that made agriculture possible also could bring death.  The supernatural they built came from such observations.  In these faiths, though, the gods were not interested in mankind's happiness, they were not disposed to humanity's good.  No, they were to be appeased with sacrifices and kept at bay.  In Judaeo-Christianity, you have one God who is disposed to his creation's good and keeps reaching out for his wayward creation like a husband for his wife.  Sacrifice wasn't to appease God, but to restore a relationship lost through infidelity.  All these religions had moral codes, expectations of behavior.

The arbiters of these moral codes, throughout history, were not so good at upholding the moral codes themselves.  Corruption, simony and graft always seemed to rear its ugly head.  For millennia, though, because of the intense fear most had of the natural world, very few strayed.  Then came the rise of science.  In this rise we changed a question that dominated humanity.  Before, it was 'why are things they way they are?' which changed to 'how are things the way they are?'   The corruption of the professional religious class became all the more an intolerable blight in this new light.

A shift from the supernatural to the natural occurred with an assumption that the two were mutually exclusive.  The natural order we could measure, weigh, observe, and experiment with. The natural order seemingly had no moral code to it.  The natural order could be manipulated.  This wasn't always a bad thing.  Cures were found for many ailments, the benefits of hygiene came into being once we understood how germs and viruses worked.  But where it was bad...because of advances in warfare, for example, the 20th century was the bloodiest in history.  Hundreds of millions died through warfare, revolutions, genocides, and abortion.


Humanity's modern vision rose out of these violent times numb.  Increasingly, man was the problem.  This started in the late 19th century and caught fire in the early 20th century with the eugenics movement.  Humanity would have to weeded like an overgrown garden.  As there was no creator anymore, there was no inherent dignity to respect anymore.  We were livestock that could build our own homes.  As western society grew further and further away from the supernatural, the natural order now was something to be manipulated so that the supernatural heaven could be replaced by a natural one.  What arose?  Well, one man's heaven is another man's hell. The focus on material wealth rose to absurd amounts, so absurd that only governments and revolutions against governments could restore balance.  We see the rise of socialism, communism, and other forms of totalitarianism; forms that renounced the supernatural.  So much of the global warming/ climate change philosophy arises from this philosophy that humanity is the enemy.  Of course, only government can save us.  In the order purged of the supernatural, government fills the void.

But governments can also be capricious gods. That yearning as old as humanity can not satiated by such entities.  Our answer is to numb the pain from this emptiness.  Is it any wonder that drug and alcohol abuse are as rampant as they are?  The desire to decriminalize drugs comes from the 'they are going to do it anyway' belief.  They are right. Life without the supernatural will demand something fill the void; whether that something is sex, drugs, gluttony, or wealth.  However it is never enough, is it?  Our being too smart to believe leads to frustration  and emptiness.  This is a dangerous place to be, because malignant earthly messiahs will rush into that void, promising all sorts of things if only we give them complete allegiance.  It takes very little to understand why the western societies are so very angry.  It takes very little to understand why so many (not all) atheists are angry people.

We created this monster.  Once we dismissed the supernatural, we were going to replace it with something else.  Why I moved from agnosticism to 'spiritual but not religious' for awhile, is that what I replaced the supernatural with didn't work at all.  It was an exercise in futility that was leading to be a person I didn't want to be.  The lure of no supernatural is that morality becomes a  matter of opinion or mob rules.  This is the opium of secularism.  Life without discipline.  The problem with this opium is that every decision has a consequence.  Choice doesn't happen in a vacuum.  Others are effected. Parties with different vested interest war until the society inevitably breaks down.  Selfishness is the ultimate drug.  Many can't break the habit.

I ended up moving from 'spiritual but not religious' to actively searching.  I was in St Augustine's "our hearts are restless until they rest in thee" mode. It made more logical sense to me that whatever created us would have an intent than not have an intent.  It made more sense that with intent came a positive interest in that creation.  This led me back to Christianity.  I looked elsewhere, trying to be my own locus of authority.  I failed.  God, as presented in Christianity, is so well disposed to humanity.  Our problems aren't things he shields us from but that he helps us through.  Because we are at the mercy of each others choices, bad things were going to happen.  I moved back to Catholicism (not willingly at first) because it best understood the human condition and best presented how God does love us.

So why do our churches empty out in the west where in Africa they are expanding?  Is it because the Africans are superstitious mental midgets who just don't get it their superstition?  No.  They didn't lose what we lost: an understanding of the supernatural.  They understand that the transcendent God makes Himself visible through Jesus.  Whereas ancient religions had the gods take on a human form (not become human mind you)  it wasn't to save us but to cause trouble for us.  God becomes flesh to save us.  However, we in the west have replaced the supernatural with a much more malleable natural God.  Our churches are social clubs and businesses.  They have morphed into country clubs and entertainment extravaganzas with dry ice and effects appropriate to rock concerts.  They are emptying out and well they should.

What we are seeing is unsettling to professional church types: where the supernatural and transcendent is focused upon, the numbers grow.  For example, among many young Catholics in this country, interest in Eucharistic Adoration and extraordinary form Masses is growing.  Congregations at these have a tendency to much younger than normal.   Professional church types will dismiss this as a fluke, as people not appreciating or understanding  the 'superior' product they offer.  Do those going to these things do so because they inherently love Mass in another language?  No, I don't think so.  I believe it is because those rituals have a greater emphasis on God as transcendent, something they often do not see in their local parish.  They have seen the moral ambiguity and the havoc it has wreaked.  They want something else.  It is not as if the Mass of Paul VI (Novus Ordo or ordinary rite) is absent of transcendence as written, but as practiced in many places.

At the end of the day, it isn't that the majority of the irreligious really believe that they are too smart to believe.  They are searching.  This is especially true of the millennial generation.  They may not be able to put words to what they are searching for.  Their conflict is going to be having to either give up a self-styled morality or a transcendent God.  If we do not show them the latter (and in many churches we do not) they we adhere to the former. Our job is to help them see the transcendent.