Church Teaching Is Not Negotiable!
By Leon Suprenant | July 3, 2008
In our legal system, if we don’t like a law, we push for new laws and elect new legislators who might listen to us. When it comes to interpreting and applying existing laws, we hire the most skilled attorneys we can afford, whose job is not to seek the truth but to present our side most effectively. Even if we lose at trial, we can still pursue our cause through various avenues of appeal, all the while using the media to put pressure on the government.
We have many “disciplines” in the Church which are “positive law,” meaning that they’re the product of human invention. While Church leaders in general make the best pastoral judgment they can, such disciplines may turn out to be good, bad, or somewhere in between, and they may be in effect for a week or for 100 years or more.
Church disciplines have been subject of “lobbying,” especially in our time, from altar girls and Communion on the hand to a wider, more readily available access to the extraordinary (Tridentine) form of the Roman rite. The laity have the right to be heard on such matters, though in the meantime the current discipline calls forth our obedience and filial respect for the Church.
But when it comes to the deposit of faith–what the Church teaches in the area of faith and morals–American democratic concepts simply are out of place. Read the rest of this entry »
Topics: Church Discipline, Deposit of Faith, Divine Revelation, Dissent, Doctrine, Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith | 3 Comments »
God’s Life Savings
By Leon Suprenant | July 2, 2008
“O Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to you” (1 Tim. 6:20).
This sort of language is a recurring theme of St. Paul as he instructs his successor Timothy. In fact, St. Paul tells Timothy that “what you have heard from me before many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also” (2 Tim. 2:2; see also 2 Tim. 1:14).
But what exactly was entrusted to Timothy?
The Church has always understood these passages as referring to the “deposit of faith” (cf. Catechism, no. 84). This sacred deposit is the entirety of the body of teaching Christ entrusted to His Apostles and, through them, to the Church. It is the full revelation of Jesus Christ–the Word of God–through Scripture and Tradition, ordered to uniting all mankind into the family of God: the Catholic Church.
If the Word of God is to be understood as a sacred “deposit,” I think it’s fair to understand the Church as the “bank.” Why do we entrust our money or other valuables to a bank? The answer is we want to protect our assets, and we want them to bear interest. Read the rest of this entry »
Topics: Tradition, Divine Revelation, Magisterium, Catechesis, Scripture | No Comments »
Claiming the High Ground
By Leon Suprenant | July 1, 2008
Recent popes have emphasized that youth won’t even listen to teachers unless they are first and foremost witnesses. And yet, at the same time, our society has a perverse desire to see good people fall from grace. Take the moral high ground and you become a target.
Our zeal for the truth of Jesus Christ impels us to stand with the Holy Father and with the Church. This of course is the right and noble thing to do. Yet it also singles us out as targets, especially when we defend the Church’s moral teachings on hot-button issues such as contraception, abortion, euthanasia, and homosexuality. If there is any discernible inconsistency between what we say and how we act, we’re dismissed as hypocrites and held up to ridicule or worse.
Our Christian commitment, then, must be authentically lived and expressed in our lives. In this regard, there are a few pitfalls that should be avoided. Read the rest of this entry »
Topics: New Evangelization, Christian Living, Orthodoxy | 1 Comment »
The Newest St. Louis Cardinal?
By Leon Suprenant | June 30, 2008
In today’s Gospel, Our Lord says to those who would follow Him that “foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest His head.”
This verse carries more meaning to me today as I reflect upon the announcement last week that Archbishop Raymond Burke has been named the new prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, the Church’s highest judicial body. This appointment will entail his moving to Rome, where he will be missed by all of us here in the States, especially here in the heartland.
Already he has had to leave rural Wisconsin, where he faithfully served as priest and bishop for many years prior to being named the Archbishop of St. Louis. Now his immense pastoral and canonical gifts will be put to the service of the universal Church.
St. Louis certainly put Archbishop Burke’s canonical training to the test, as in just a few years he’s had to deal with just about everything under the sun, from renegade parishes to the “ordination” of women. But what brought him national attention was his principled refusal to give Holy Communion to Sen. John Kerry, Read the rest of this entry »
Topics: Archbishop Burke, Canon Law, Eucharist, Politics, Bishops | 10 Comments »
The Heart of a Father
By Leon Suprenant | June 27, 2008
In the Church we have the beautiful feasts of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, with the heart symbolizing the immense love of our Lord and His Blessed Mother for each one of us.
As Catholic husbands and fathers, we might also consider meditating on the heart of St. Joseph, the third member of the Holy Family. His heart is an apt symbol of the love he contributed to the mystery of the redemptive Incarnation that was unfolding under his watch. And now that same masculine vigilance and love, once focused on his beloved wife and the Christ child, is bestowed on each one of us, as he is universally invoked as the patron of the Catholic Church.
At the outset of St. Luke’s Gospel, we learn that part of St. John the Baptist’s role in preparing the people for the imminent coming of the Messiah was to turn the hearts of fathers to their children so as to make ready for the Lord a people that was truly prepared for Him (Lk. 1:17). In St. Joseph, we find a father whose heart is already exquisitely calibrated.
His heart is always in the right place, and God was able to accomplish great things through this eminently just and faithful man.
St. Joseph’s fatherly heart jumps off the page throughout the biblical accounts of Christ’s childhood. Let’s take a brief look at just one such familiar episode: the Finding of Jesus in the Temple (Lk. 2:41-52). Read the rest of this entry »
Topics: St. Joseph, Fatherhood | 1 Comment »
Taking Our Medicine
By Leon Suprenant | June 26, 2008
All of us have had the experience of realizing that we have sinned. We understand that what we did was wrong, and we can readily discern the negative effects of our actions. We then sincerely ask the Lord for His mercy and we try to make things right with anyone we may have hurt.
As Catholics we appreciate the gift of divine mercy and peace that is ours through the Sacrament of Reconciliation, which “offers a new possibility to convert and to recover the grace of justification” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 1446). In other words, we realize we’re spiritually sick, and so we desire the appropriate remedy.
As we make our Act of Contrition, we “firmly resolve with the help of God’s grace to sin no more.” We’re banking on God’s help, but in this prayer we’re telling Our Lord that we are absolutely serious about avoiding sin in the future. In other words, we’re committed to doing whatever we can to help reverse the cycle of sin in our life, to wipe it out at the source.
Given our commitment to “sin no more,” it would be extremely helpful to have some understanding of the underlying causes of our sins. Read the rest of this entry »
Topics: Conscience, Spiritual Theology, Confession | No Comments »
Catechesis for Dummies
By Leon Suprenant | June 25, 2008
Since its publication in 2006, and even more so in recent months as I’ve grown increasingly accustomed to using it, I’ve thought the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church is a godsend to all who are involved in teaching (and learning) the Catholic faith.
Of course, being a document of the Holy See and published in the United States by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops isn’t the recipe for a best-seller. Surely the book’s title is accurate, as a “compendium” is a brief summary of a larger work, but it’s not as accessible or endearing as The Catechism for Dummies or Cliff Notes for the Catechism. I’ve found it shocking that many Catholic school teachers and catechists are still unfamiliar with the Catechism itself, let alone its “compendium.”
But marketing concerns aside, I want to provide five reasons why everyone who is interested in teaching (and learning) the Catholic faith should own a copy of the Compendium: Read the rest of this entry »
Topics: Catechism of the Catholic Church, Catechesis | 1 Comment »
Are We There Yet?
By Leon Suprenant | June 24, 2008
I doubt that there are any of us with children old enough to speak who haven’t heard (I daresay more than once) from the deep recesses of the car, “Are we there yet?”
Rather than get annoyed by this persistent question, I usually seize the opportunity to tease them a little bit. I explain to them in convoluted ways that we’re never going to be “there.” We’re always going to be “here.” Once we arrive at our destination, it will cease to be “there,” but will suddenly turn into “here.”
Of course, I’m trying to teach my little ones about the proper use of adverbs. But I’m not just playing fun word games with them. I’m getting them to consider a basic fact of human existence: In this life there’s always going to be a crucial distinction between “here” and “there,” between where we are and where we’re going.
As Christians, even though we appreciate the significance of our earthy lives, we realize that we’re still “here,” but we want to get “there”–to the glories of heaven with our Triune God and the throngs of angels and saints. We all resonate with these words from the sacred liturgy: “When will I come to the end of my pilgrimage and enter the presence of God?” (Antiphon 1, Monday Morning Prayer, Week II). In other words, when are we going to get there? Read the rest of this entry »
Topics: Pilgrimage, Hope | No Comments »
Spiritual Cataracts
By Leon Suprenant | June 23, 2008
Today’s Gospel is the familiar passage from Our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount, in which He advises us to remove the large beams from our own eyes before trying to remove the tiny specks from our neighbor’s eye. This lesson has long been a source of fruitful meditation for me.
After Mass a few years in which that same Gospel was read, I decided that I would try to illustrate the point of the lesson to my children.
What I did was blindfold two of my daughters after dinner, and they took turns trying to lead the other around the basement. Quite predictably, there were many humorous collisions and wrong turns. It was truly a case of the blind leading the blind–or in the case of my fair-haired daughters, the blonde leading the blonde! But when one of them was able to remove her blindfold, she was easily able to lead her sister from point A to point B.
The children learned that while it’s a very good thing to help others in need, we have to allow the Lord to help us first. Read the rest of this entry »
Topics: Words of Encouragment, Christian Living | 1 Comment »
The Conversion Value of Natural Family Planning
By John Kippley | June 20, 2008
Ever since the publication of Humanae Vitae on July 25, 1968, a great fear has cast a sickly hue over the pastoral work of the Church. This malady is simple to diagnose but difficult to cure. It can be stated this way: “We fear that if we teach that it is immoral to use unnatural forms of birth control, our parishioners will vote with their feet, the pews will be emptied, and how will we pay the bills?”
There are two primary reasons why that fear can be realistic. First, in recent years the educational ministries within the Church have generally failed to build faith in the Church as the Body of Christ. All too many Catholics have a liberal Protestant view of the Church as just a religious organization in which one feels comfortable. If it starts to preach something I find uncomfortable, I can simply shop around for another church. And no matter what my church says officially, I can interpret my Bible to mean whatever I think it means. Read the rest of this entry »
Topics: Conversion, Contraception | No Comments »