Sanctity of the Family

FROM THE PASTOR
by Fr. George W. Rutler
October 26, 2008

Although city parishes are not commonly thought of as "family oriented" the way suburban parishes are, and while urban conditions make it costly and difficult to rear children, it is gratifying to welcome a steadily increasing number of families to our parish and to baptize the children of couples married here. Pope Leo XIII called the family "the cradle of civil society" and said that the destiny of states is largely fostered in the circle of family life.

As a reminder of the sanctity of the family as the "little church" or "ecclesiola," last Sunday the Church beatified the parents of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, who was canonized in 1925. Beatification is the last degree before canonization. The ceremony took place in the basilica of Lisieux, according to the preferred practice of Pope Benedict to have the beatification rite in the place where the blessed ones lived. Louis and Zélie Martin were not beatified because their daughter is a famous saint. Their own heroic virtue was attested by a miracle required in the beatification process: In this case, their intercession healed a man's malformed lung. Their earthly lives were outwardly ordinary, typical of a French bourgeois family in the nineteenth century. Louis was a prosperous watchmaker. He had wanted to be a monk, and needed the counsel of a priest to explain the sanctity of fatherhood. They were married in Alençon in 1858 and never ceased exchanging love letters. Five of their nine children joined religious orders. Their daughter, Saint Thérèse, wrote, "The good God gave me a father and a mother more worthy of heaven than of earth." After Zélie's death, Louis worked hard to care for his children with a contagious happiness.

There has been a widespread breakdown of family life in our society, due to many reasons including a loss of a sense of the holiness of marriage, worsened by government policies that threaten family stability. It is widely recognized that welfare programs begun in the 1960s backfired in their attempt to help children. Today this is worsened by civil attempts to redefine marriage against the natural law. Nonetheless, there is a desire on the part of many not to repeat the mistakes of the past. Many young couples have learned the importance of families the hard way, often through the failures of the last generation. In one recent five-year period for which there are statistics, couples with three or more children increased from 11.4% to 18.4%.

It may take a long time to repair to the damage done to society by misguided social engineers who scorned the traditional family, but the Church lives by the vision expressed by Pope Pius XI at a time when a fascist government tried to usurp the role of parents: "The family is more sacred than the state, and men are begotten not for the earth and for time, but for heaven and eternity."

"For it is better to suffer for doing good..." (1 Peter 3:15-17)

FROM THE PASTOR
By Fr. George W. Rutler
October 19, 2008

October 9 was the 50th anniversary of the death of Pope Pius XII. He lived in one of the most tumultuous papal reigns and history is still trying to absorb it. Sometimes the books tell more about the historians than the history. Sham scholars twist the annals to fit their theories. So has it become the case with some historians of Pius XII.

As Vatican Secretary of State, he had condemned the Nazis before a quarter of a million people at Lourdes. Before that, as Nuncio to Germany, he attacked the neo-paganism of National Socialism in almost all of his 44 public speeches. The Universal Shepherd had the care of millions of persecuted Catholics, including the thousands of clergy imprisoned. He sheltered and saved the lives of at least 700,000 Jews, hiding upwards of a tenth of that number right in Rome in 155 religious houses and the Vatican. This had to be done subtly to avoid retaliation, as happened when the Archbishop of Utrecht condemned the deportation of Jews, which only incited a pogrom in which many were killed, including the convert St. Edith Stein. Leaders like Golda Meir thanked him and the Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem wrote: "The people of Israel will never forget what His Holiness and his illustrious delegates, inspired by the eternal principles of religion which form the very foundations of true civilization, are doing for us unfortunate brothers and sisters in the most tragic hour of our history." The Chief Rabbi of Romania said: "The Catholic Church saved more Jewish lives during the war than all other churches, religious institutions and rescue organizations put together. Its record stands in startling contrast to the International Red Cross and the Western democracies." While the U.S. and other allied governments often notoriously rejected refugees, the Vatican forged documents to help thousands of Jews to escape. The mainstream media in the West largely ignored much of this, and Albert Einstein reflected how the media along with the universities and law courts in the 1930s often enabled the horrors: "Only the Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler's campaign for suppressing truth. I never had any special interest in the Church before, but now I feel a great affection and admir­ation because the Church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual truth and moral freedom."

Today the media and the universities and the courts once again cooperate with offences against the most innocent life by advocacy of abortion, euthanasia, genetic experimentation, and general contempt for natural law. At this moment the American people are being challenged to decide the course of our society, and once again the Catholic Church is a singular and isolated voice for good. Pius XII's first antecedent said: "Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope, but do it with gentleness and reverence, keeping your conscience clear, so that, when you are maligned, those who defame your good conduct in Christ may themselves be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that be the will of God, than for doing evil" (1 Peter 3:15-17).

Painting: Peter McIntyre, His Holiness Pope Pius XII, c.1943-1944

McIntyre painted the Pope by arrangement of the British Minister to the Vatican, following a request from Lieutenant General Bernard Freyberg. The artist described how -"His face, deeply lined, was one of the most arresting I have seen, with magnificent eyes and a fine Roman nose." (Peter McIntyre: War Artist, 1981)

Church Under Attack

FROM THE PASTOR
By Father George W. Rutler
October 12, 2008

The Holy Eucharist unites each congregation with our fellow believers throughout the world, along with the faithful departed in Purgatory and the saints in Heaven. Thus it is often said that the Catholic Church is too universal to be merely "international." The concerns of local churches in other lands should move us from preoccupation with local matters. The word "parochial" is a good one, referring to the parish as the local family of the Church, but "parochialism" can mean an isolated mentality.

The mainstream media has been poor in covering attacks on the Church. For instance, in Vietnam, where the government has been confiscating Church property and intimidating the faithful. The Archbishop of Hanoi, Joseph Ngo Quang Kiet, is under virtual house arrest, and Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has threatened "extreme actions" against Catholic protesters.

The situation has been even more volatile in the last month in India where small but potent groups of Hindu extremists concentrated in Kandhamal have burned down about 4,500 Christian houses, 100 churches, and 20 other Church institutions, including convents and rectories. An estimated 50,000 Christians have fled into forests or live now in refugee camps or with relatives and friends in outlying areas. The situation is producing martyrs, such as Lalji Nayak in Orissa who refused to renounce the Faith at the point of a knife and died of his injuries a few days later. So far, about 50 have been killed, including a nun who was violated and a father and son who were hacked to death. Institutions founded by Mother Teresa and run by her Missionaries of Charity were set on fire and some of the lepers in their care were blinded by chemicals. The missionaries intend to return as soon as p ossible to care for patients with leprosy and tuberculosis.

Coincident with this, the first female saint of India will be canonized by Pope Benedict XVI this Sunday, October 12. Saint Alphonsa, daughter of Ouseph and Mariam Muttathupandathu, was born in Kottayam in Kerlala and died in 1946 at the age of 36 after many illnesses. India's first saint was Gonsalo Garcia, canonized in 1862. Garcia, who was from Vasai, was born of an Indian mother and Portuguese father in 1556 and was crucified in 1597 in Nagasaki. It is hoped that soon Blessed Teresa of Calcutta will also be raised to the altars. Mother Teresa walked through the streets of our parish more than once, and frequently remarked that the difficulties in her own land were not as bad as the materialism and indifference which afflicts so much of our own society. When we pray for our fellow Christians, we are doing a most concrete and practical thing. And when we contribute money we remember thankfully that part of it regularly goes to help others whose tragic conditions also occasion triumphs of holy religion.

FROM THE PASTOR
By Father George W. Rutler
October 5, 2008

This Tuesday we remember another October 7, in 1571, when the Battle of Lepanto was fought off the western coast of Greece, the largest naval operation before the Normandy invasion. The Holy League, put together by Pope St. Pius V, had 212 fighting ships with 12,920 sailors and 28,000 soldiers, while the Muslim forces of the Ottoman fleet had 278 war vessels, 13,000 sailors and 34,000 troops. Our world, and our little corner of it in New York, would be unrecognizable today had the outcome of that five-hour battle been reversed. St. Pius made that day a Feast of the Holy Rosary in thanksgiving for Our Lady's intercessions, and added to her titles "Our Lady of Victories."

We are now engaged in a clash of cultures even more widespread, and to reduce it to a mere political or economic paradigm would be to ignore its spiritual significance. Observers have remarked a parallel with the moral test which the Church faced in World War II when Blessed Clemens August Cardinal von Galen of Münster risked his life to preach against the eugenics policies sanctioned in his country. Today bishops are also moved to speak out in defense of life when it is threatened in an unprecedented way. October 4–5 is Respect Life Weekend, and Bishop Joseph F. Martino of Scranton has written a pastoral letter recalling the Church's duty to speak prophetically about our nation's found ational principles. Bishop Martino, whom I knew when we were students in Rome, is a fine historian who did the research for the canonization cause of St. Katherine Drexel. In his letter he quotes his predecessor, Bishop Timlin: "The taking of innocent human life is so heinous, so horribly evil, and so absolutely opposite to the law of Almighty God that abortion must take precedence over every other issue. I repeat. It is the single most important issue confronting not only Catholics, but the entire electorate." Bishop Martino reminds his people that "it is incumbent upon bishops to correct Catholics who are in error regarding these matters. Furthermore, public officials who are Catholic, and who persist in public support for abortion and other intrinsic evils should not partake in or be admitted to the sacrament of Holy Communion."

A writer for U.S. News & World Report has accused the Bishop of Scranton of violating the First Amendment by denying Communion to anyone who publicly contradicts the Church. This turns inside out the Amendment which forbids the government to interfere with the free practice of religion. Blessed Clemens von Galen well knew such stratagems of the media to intimidate the Church. Pope Benedict XVI, a successor of St. Pius V and also a fervent disciple of von Galen, has said: "God is so humble that he uses us to spread his Word." Neither powerful armies nor minor journalists can stop that.

"Bodies—The Exhibition"

FROM THE PASTOR
By Fr. George W. Rutler
September 28, 2008

To bury the dead is one of the seven corporal works of mercy. The human body is to be treated with respect from conception through death. In the general resurrection of the dead, the body will be glorified in a mysterious way in union with the soul. The Church regulates the treatment of the dead (Catechism #2000). Burial of the body is normative, but cremation is permitted, provided that it does not signal disbelief in the resurrection of the body. In a large city, with cemeteries often far removed, it is still desirable that the body of the deceased be brought to the church for the funeral Mass before burial or cremation. Only by exception is a body to be cremated before the funeral and the ashes brought to the Mass. I am occasionally surprised when people are uninformed about these things and make funeral arrangements before c onsulting a priest.

A Manichean concept of the body virtually worships it as an idol in life and then treats it as irrelevant after it has lost its earthly usefulness. Contempt for God leads to contempt for the human body. At the South Street Seaport, there currently is a display of 22 whole bodies and more than 260 additional organs and partial body specimens. "Bodies—The Exhibition" is a version of "Body Worlds," which in recent years has exploited prurience in the name of scientific edification. The corpses are skinned, and the blood replaced with silicon polymers. These plasticized bodies are shown in various poses, sometimes whimsically. Dr. Thomas Hibbs, professor of ethics and culture at Baylor University, has called it pornographic.

The founder of "Body Worlds" is Gunther von Hagens, who invented the "Plastination" method at the University of Heidelberg. He is not culpable for his father having served in the Nazi SS in a perverse age when lampshades were made of human skin. That horrified people then. A generation later, more than 20 million people around the world have paid to view "plastinated corpses" for the thrill of it. Von Hagens moved to China in 1996 where bodies were more easily obtainable, some of them rumored to be the bodies of homeless or mentally ill people or executed prisoners. In 2004, bullet holes were found in two of the exhibited "sculptures." The anonymous bodies on display in Manhattan were taken from the Dalian Medical University in northern China. The New York State legislature this summer passed a bill requiring a declaration of the cause of death of the exhibited remains. Is it possible that if you visited this exhibition, you were looking at a Christian martyr

"Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body" (1 Cor. 6:19-20).

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"What makes us smile should be a hint of heaven..."

FROM THE PASTOR
By Father George W. Rutler
September 21, 2008.

Catholicism has long distinguished itself from Puritanism in its joyful embrace of feasts and recreation. But while Puritanism disdained forms of entertainment basically because they were entertaining, the Church has been cautious of the tendency of entertainment to degrade instead of edify. For a long time, pipe organs which worked by water pressure were banned from the liturgy because they supplied background music for the martyrdoms of Christians in the Colosseum and Circus Maximus.

Politicians have long known how to exploit entertainment. The Lincoln-Douglas debates were highly amusing, with Douglas at five feet four inches matching himself against Lincoln at nearly six feet four inches. Whiskey flowed freely. Douglas orated in deep and sonorous voice in contrast to Lincoln's curiously high tenor. Both were honorable men and took each other and the crowd seriously. Douglas, whose wife and sons were Catholic, resisted the bigotry of the Know Nothing Party and willed his estate for the foundation of the University of Chicago. In their instance entertainment was to good effect.

The Roman satirist Juvenal (A.D. 55-127) knew the dangers of weak-willed people being manipulated by demagogues in exchange for spectacles and mindless celebrity. He marked the decay of republican Rome to the later imperial decadence when the Caesars bought support by offering panem et circenses, lamenting that "the people that once bestowed commands, consulships, legions, and all else, now meddle no more and longs eagerly for just two things—bread and circuses."

Ignoring the lesson that should have been learned from the Munich Olympics of 1936, staged to divert the world from the Nazi crimes, the media and business interests recently indulged the Beijing Olympics, expressing minor irritation at reminders that one and half million people had been dispossessed to build the Olympic center, and that political prisoners were suffering while the crowds watched a spectacle that outdid the choreography of Speer. On the closing day of the games, while the medalists were honored, the 73-year-old bishop of Zhengding, Julius Jia Zhiguo, was arrested for leading underground Catholics in celebrating the Feast of the Assumption. He will not be paid millions of dollars to endorse products on television.

Anyone who had not watched television for the last generation would find it hard to believe what passes for entertainment on the screen today: the coarse language and degrading acts and numbing banality. Classical philosophers connected legitimate pleasure with virtue: id quod visum placet, or "that which pleases," does not mean that any amusement is good. It means what pleases a person indicates that person's character. A beautiful soul is drawn to beautiful things, and what makes us smile should be a hint of heaven. Gratification only on the animal level is a glimpse of the opposite. George Bernard Shaw said that hell is a place where the only thing you have to do is amuse yourself.

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