Brutally Honest

Ever heard of Mary Stachowicz?

Likely, the answer to that question is no.  I certainly had not.  Until yesterday when I read about Illinois Bishop Thomas Paprocki's decision to debate a progressive Catholic nun on the topic of gay marriage before a crowd heavily leaning in favor of:

The Jesuit alumni of Arizona, which organized the event, called it “Two Catholic Views on Marriage,” but in his remarks Bishop Paprocki was quick to point out that was a misnomer. “I corrected that, since there is only one authentic Catholic view,” said the bishop. “There are two views being presented here tonight by two people who are baptized Catholics, but only one of those views, the one I will present, is consistent with Catholic teaching, while the other view clearly dissents from Catholic teaching.” 

Bishop Paprocki began his address to the crowd powerfully noting the media discrepancy in covering the Matthew Shepard murder and that of his own former secretary, a mother of four, who was killed by a homosexual man for urging him to change his gay lifestyle.

"A Google search on the Internet for the name 'Matthew Shepard' at one time produced 11,900,000 results," said the bishop. "Matthew Shepard was a 21-year-old college student who was savagely beaten to death in 1998 in Wyoming. His murder has been called a hate crime because Shepard was gay."

He continued: 

A similar search on the Internet for the name “Mary Stachowicz” yielded 26,800 results.  In 2002, Mary Stachowicz was also brutally murdered, but the circumstances were quite different. 

Mary, the gentle, devout 51-year-old Catholic mother of four urged her co-worker, Nicholas Gutierrez, 19, to change his gay lifestyle. Infuriated by this, as he later told police, he allegedly beat, stabbed and strangled her to death and then stuffed her mangled body in a crawl space in his apartment, located above a Chicago funeral home, where they both worked.

I know about Mary Stachowicz, not from the Internet, but personally, because Mary was my secretary at the parish where I was pastor before I was named a Bishop.

She worked part time at the funeral home and part time at the parish. One afternoon, she didn’t show up at her usual starting time. This was unusual because she was always on time. A call to the funeral home disclosed that her car was still in their parking lot and her purse with her car keys was still at her desk, but there was no sign of Mary. 

As Mary’s family and friends prayed and worried about her disappearance, Gutierrez prayed with them. Three days later, her mutilated body was discovered in a crawl space in his apartment. 

Both murders were senseless and brutal, and I condemn them both unequivocally. However, the fact that there are over eleven and a half million more Internet stories about Matthew Shepard than Mary Stachowicz indicates where popular sentiment lies today on the question of same-sex relationships. Shepard’s story has received such widespread attention because his homosexuality was the chief motive for his murder.

Mary’s murder was widely ignored by the media, despite the fact that she died as a martyr for her faith. 

Bishop Paprocki was unabashed in saying, “the Church’s teaching on homosexuality and marriage is Catholic because it is true, not true because it is Catholic. “

He said: “In other words, the conclusion that same-sex relationships should not be afforded legal status is because it is based on the truth, not just on Catholic teaching. Yet, saying that makes this conclusion all the more controversial. If it were based simply on Catholic teaching, opponents could say in our pluralistic context, ‘You Catholics are entitled to your opinion, but that is not binding on others.’ Instead, saying that truth is the reason that same-sex relationships should not be afforded legal status is offensive to those who deny the existence of truth, who prefer to live in a world dominated by what Pope Benedict XVI termed a ‘dictatorship of relativism.’”

Counter-cultural stuff made all the more so by the reference to Mrs. Stachowicz' death and the media silence surrounding the circumstances.

Truth is under assault.  Truth needs an advocate.

What side of this battle do we find ourselves supporting?

"... the most persistent and pernicious heresy within Catholicism"

Fr. Longenecker is stirring the proverbial pot... and is suggesting we should not be good:

When we put being good first instead of being holy first we are replacing sanctification–the process by which God makes us holy from the inside out–with mere human virtue. The problem with mere human virtue is that it is—well, merely human virtue. It doesn’t change us on the inside. “Jes ’cause ya wear a ten gallon hat  don’t mean you’re a Texan…” Just because you do good doesn’t mean you’re being transformed into the image of Christ Jesus.

The next problem with being good (and only being good) is that you are proving the atheists’ point. They like to observe that you don’t need to be a Christian and go to church in order to be good. They’re right of course. People are dumb. When we as Catholics stress good works  and brag about all we’re doing to feed the hungry and clothe the naked, they conclude that the main thing about Christianity is helping poor people. But are they dumb? We’ve told them that this is the main thing. We’ve skewed the priorities. In fact they’re not dumb. They’re smart. They’ve drawn the conclusion from what we’ve told them. They think the main thing about being a Christian is to feed poor people, and they then conclude that you don’t need to go to church to do that.

Then we wonder why no one goes to Mass anymore.

The idea that being good is enough is the most persistent and pernicious heresy within Catholicism. The ghost of Pelagius still haunts our hallowed halls, and we need to hear again and again that we shouldn’t just be good, we should be better, and not just better, but best.

This is what the church calls the “universal call to holiness”–that each one of us are called first and foremost to be holy. To be holy is not to be extra pious and prudish and prayerful, but to become who God truly intended us to be. Through prayer and sacrifice and devotion we draw nearer to God, and as we draw nearer we become more like the One we worship. This is the primary work of the Christian, and as that work is done we are driven out to do the good works that are the mark of our calling.

I've got not being good down.  I'm pretty damned good at not being good.

It's one of numerous reasons why I've committed to go to Mass each week.  Not just because I'm not good, but because I need to be better, but because I know God expects the best of and from me.

So if you're one of those who's noticed I'm not being good, rest assured I'm aware.

But also be aware that I'm attempting to do something about it.

Through Him, in Him and with Him.

Lord, let it be so. 

Why do I love Catholicism?

Because I'm allowed to see things now I know I would've missed before and in that seeing, learn something deep, something profound.

Mark Shea is seeing something in himself, thanks to his faith, that ought to be eye-opening for any faithful person but particularly a faithful Catholic:

... over the past several years, I have engaged in a number of arguments on a number of questions that have brought to the surface some pretty deep rooted habits of soul.  I have remarked on them in the past and tried to repent of them (sincerely, I might add, but of course the problem with besetting sins is that they are besetting: think about that sin you’ve confessed a hundred times and seem to make no progress with.  Frustrating, ain’t it?)

Anyway, it all kind of came to a head this weekend on Sunday, starting at Mass.  The hymn was, appropriately enough for Corpus Christi, “Taste and See”.  As I was praying it just got more and more apparent to me that the message I’m getting back from so many quarters is, if you will, “You taste bitter”.

And I couldn’t argue with that.  I do taste bitter. And for that I am deeply, profoundly sorry, because it is through my fault, through my fault, through my own most grievous fault that I do.  I’ve become bitter in much of my interaction with people.  And bitterness is a root that “defiles many” according to Hebrews.  In my case, I think I have defiled quite a number of hearts who came here looking for the gospel and instead just got Mark Shea getting increasingly cynical and angry about all sorts of stuff.  You can’t eat food, including food for the soul, that is bitter.  My apologies to all to whom I have done this.

There’s more, so bear with me.  I mentioned things living under the rocks.  One of the things that lives under the rocks in my heart has been a deep and abiding fear, a kind of heart conviction about the universe that long predates any conscious relationship with God I formed as an adult (recall that I was no raised Chrisian). I’m not saying it’s a truth about the universe. I’m saying it’s something more like a broken bone in my soul that never knit right. And what it comes down to is a pattern of assuming that I am, at best, a tool of God, not a son of God and certainly not somebody God loves.  And with that has been a fear that, at the end of the day, once my utility to God is spent I would be tossed away like a candy bar wrapper.

Observant readers will grasp that this has more than a little to do with my intensely strong reaction to the notion of using people as means to ends–as though the person himself is merely a tool.  Hence my intense reactions to such questions as abortion, torture and the whole Live Action thing, all of which involve reducing people to things or means to an end.

But there’s a bitter irony in all that too.  Because while I have been busy (for instance) arguing all that stuff here, I really saw this weekend that I have myself long had a habit of reducing other people to means to ends, depersonalizing them, and treating them with little or no respect.  It works this way:

If I am arguing with somebody who seems to me to merely be in intellectual error (like somebody getting their sums wrong or having an honestly mistake idea) I will treat that one with respect.  But when I feel as though I am engaged with somebody who is wilfully refusing to get the point, I will generally reach a point where I decide “Okay, you refuse to listen honestly or reply honestly, so I will henceforth respond to you only for the sake of those third party bystanders watching the conversation who will listen.  You have just been reduced to a Thing: a means to the end of talking to them.”

In addition, my attitude toward Public Figures is much the same.  I tend not to see them as human beings, but as sort of semi-fictional characters.  People who don’t fully exist but who are In the News and therefore symbols or representatives of ideas.

Do read the entire piece.

There's much to learn while watching someone else learn.

Go and watch and learn.

Coming back to that problem within Islam

Yesterday I wrote about the courage of Tony Blair, the former prime minister of England, when he proclaimed:

"There is not a problem with Muslims in general. Most in Britain will be horrified at Lee Rigby's murder."

"But there is a problem within Islam - from the adherents of an ideology that is a strain within Islam. And we have to put it on the table and be honest about it."

So loyal reader, and those who've simply stumbled by, can we be honest, dare I say brutally honest, about this?

H/T to Michael Barber over at The Sacred Page who has a contrasting video well worth your time.

Seriously.

You can't handle the Truth

That's what came to mind when I read Fr. Longenecker's piece about lamenting parents whose children no longer go to Mass:

What’s the problem? The problem is not now. The problem is back then. The problem is how we have educated a whole generation of young Catholics. We’ve driven them off with being nice. The Catholic Church over the last fifty years in the USA has become just another nice American institution. Nice like McDonald’s. Nice like Disneyland. Nice like the Mall. Nice like the neatly trimmed suburbs.

We’ve made catechesis nice. It’s all about the sacraments and being nice and the church and being nice and peace and justice and being nice and forgiveness and hugs and being nice. That’s all very nice… but there is another aspect to the gospel which we’ve quietly forgotten. We’ve forgotten that part about, “If anyone would be my disciple he must take up his cross and follow me.” Or that part which says, “The world will hate you as it has hated me.” or “Broad is the way that leads to destruction, but narrow is the gate and few there be that find it.”

So our children aren’t dumb. They grow up and they figure that if it’s all about being nice that you don’t have to go to church to be nice. You can be nice without church. You don’t have to be Catholic to be nice. You can be a nice Methodist if you want. So if they want to be nice they just go along being nice without church, and they believe that because that’s actually what we taught them even when we didn’t know that is what we were teaching them.

Because we never told them it would be difficult and that it would require discipline and that they should have some backbone and determination if they were going to make it in the spiritual life, they learned that lesson, and therefore when it did turn out to require a little bit of grit and determination and difficult things like confession and self discipline and prayer–they went scooting off because they thought it was all about being nice and praise and worship songs that made you feel good and a warm comfy sermon from Father about loving each other more. That’s what they thought it was. That’s what we taught them it was, and when it turned out that being a Catholic required some backbone and self sacrifice and dedication they were disappointed like we are all disappointed when our expectations are shattered. Never mind that they were false expectations to start with.

They felt like they were sold a bill of goods. Everybody said the  Catholic faith was all nice and warm and cozy and when it turned out different they scoot off to a church where they are made to feel warm and cozy, and who can blame them?

I think our catechesis should be more realistic. It should be more like boot camp than fat camp. We should tell the confirmation kids up front that they shouldn’t sign up unless they’ve got the backbone to do so. We should tell them up front that being a Catholic is a serious business of soul making and if they aren’t going to be there 100% they shouldn’t bother. Keep your lukewarm Christianity. We want intentional disciples or no disciples at all.

Fr. Longenecker has more, including a follow up piece.

I know of too many Catholics who no longer regularly attend Mass.  And who seemingly don't see it as a problem.

I find that deeply tragic.

I also know of a couple of boys of mine who don't go to Church at all.

I find that deeply heartbreaking.

Lord reveal Yourself to each of those who've chosen to go their own way.

Helping Oklahomans out once again

It was less than two weeks ago that I put up this post, listing charities who were helping those in need in Oklahoma.

Now they've been hit again, this time with 9 dead:

Five tornadoes — one a half-mile wide — struck the Oklahoma City area Friday evening, terrorizing communities already battered by deadly storms this spring.

The Oklahoma Office of the Chief Medical Examiner told NBC News seven adults and two children are confirmed dead, including a mother and her small child. At least five people killed were in vehicles and may have been trying to flee as dark clouds gathered and warning sirens wailed, authorities said. 

Hospitals in Oklahoma City reported 104 injuries, including five critical patients.

Horrific stuff.

Once again I reach out to readers, as I'm sure many others are doing, asking that you consider helping out, not matter the amount.

Catholic Charities in Oklahoma is who I recommend but I'm sure there are other trustworthy organizations that can help if you look.

Please help if you can.  Please pray.

Carry on.

"The sincere man, therefore, is one who has the grace to know that he may be instinctively insincere..."

I'm not sure how to introduce this post in a manner that effectively communicates what I want it to communicate so bear with me as I trudge along anyway.

Frank Weathers has two interesting and related posts up... one two days ago and the other yesterday that will serve as a backdrop to where I'm going next.

They're both about the HHS Mandate and the need, from Frank's perspective and one I agree with, for the Archdiocese of New York, led by Cardinal Timothy Dolan who I respect, to come clean about allegations being made by the New York Times that strongly suggests Cardinal Dolan is opposing something now that he's in essence been doing for quite some time.  Please see the two posts if you're lacking information about any of it.

What I found fascinating is something Frank found in a book by Thomas Merton called No Man is an Island on truth and its complexity:

Truthfulness, sincerity, and fidelity are close kindred. Sincerity is fidelity to the truth. Fidelity is an effective truthfulness in our promises and resolutions. An inviolate truthfulness makes us faithful to ourselves and to God and to the reality around us: and therefore it makes us perfectly sincere.

Sincerity in the fullest sense must be more than a temperamental disposition to be frank. It is a simplicity of spirit which is preserved by the will to be true. It implies an obligation to manifest the truth and to defend it. And this in turn recognizes that we are free to respect the truth or not to respect it, and the the truth is to some extent at our own mercy. But this is a terrible responsibility, since in defiling the truth we defile our own souls.

Truth is the life of our intelligence. The mind does not fully live unless it thinks straight. And if the mind does not see what it is doing, how can the will make good use of its freedom? But since our freedom is, in fact, immersed in a supernatural order, and tends to a supernatural end that it cannot even know by natural means, the full life of the soul must be a light and strength which are infused into it supernaturally by God. This is the life of sanctifying grace, together with the infused virtues of faith, hope, charity, and all the rest.

Sincerity in the fullest sense is a divine gift, a clarity of spirit that comes only with grace. Unless we are made “new men,” created according to God “in justice and the holiness of truth,” we cannot avoid some of the lying and double dealing which have become instinctive in our natures, corrupted, as St. Paul says, “according to the desire of error.” (Eph. 4:22)

One of the effects of original sin is an intuitive prejudice in favor of our own selfish desires. We see things as they are not, because we see them centered on ourselves. Fear, anxiety, greed, ambition, and our hopeless need for pleasure all distort the image of reality that is reflected in our minds. Grace does not completely correct this distortion all at once: but it gives us a means of recognizing and allowing for it. And it tells us what we must do to correct it. Sincerity must be bought at a price: the humility to recognize our innumerable errors, and fidelity in tirelessly setting them right.

The sincere man, therefore, is one who has the grace to know that he may be instinctively insincere, and that even his natural sincerity may become a camouflage for irresponsibility and moral cowardice: as if it were enough to recognize the truth, and do nothing about it!

How is it that our comfortable society has lost its sense of the value off truthfulness? Life has become so easy that we think we can get along without telling the truth. A liar no longer needs to feel that his lies may involve him in starvation. If living were a little more precarious, and if a person who could not be trusted found it more difficult to get along with other men, we would not deceive ourselves and one another so carelessly.

But the whole world has learned to deride veracity or to ignore it. Half the civilized world makes a living by telling lies. Advertising, propaganda, and all the other forms of publicity that have taken the place of truth have taught men to take it for granted that they can tell other people whatever they like provided that it sounds plausible and evokes a kind of shallow emotional response.

Americans have always felt that they were protected against the advertising business by their own sophistication. If we only knew how naive our sophistication really is! It protects us against nothing. We love the things we pretend to laugh at. We would rather buy a bad toothpaste that is well advertised than a good one that is not advertised at all. Most Americans wouldn’t be seen dead in a car their neighbors had never heard of.

Sincerity becomes impossible in a world that is ruled by a falsity that it thinks it is clever enough to detect. Propaganda is constantly held up to contempt, but in contemning it we come to love it after all. In the end we will not be able to get along without it.

This duplicity is one of the great characteristics of a state of sin, in which a person is held captive by love for what he knows he ought to hate.

If this doesn't impact you, might I ask you to read it again?

This blog is called Brutally Honest largely because I'm someone who has, for quite some time, dare I say most of my life, been in trouble for my tendency to be frank, something I see to be virtuous and necessary in this day where duplicity seems to be the trait du jour.

But Merton has clearly called me out in that my honesty, my frankness, my bluntness, all in pursuit of what I consider to be virtue, might in fact, by instinct, be much less that truthful.

I was, I am, gobsmacked at the moment by the revelation.  

It's something I need to seriously chew on and digest.

For my soul's sake.

Maybe you do as well.

Carry on.

Not simply a sign or a symbol

Fr. Barron explains the Catholic doctrine of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist:

"The biggest reason I don't just de-pope myself is that I fell in love with the Catholic Church."

Eve Tushnet with a fascinating read over at The Atlantic:

As Liza Mundy's article "The Gay Guide to Wedded Bliss" showed in the interview with Pastor Delman Coates of Mt. Ennon Baptist, and even more so with the Very Rev. Gary Hall of the National Cathedral, many Christian churches are beginning to integrate gay marriage into their theology. Their preexisting theology—not only on marriage but on creation, embodiment, and Scriptural interpretation—has begun to shift to match the new unisex or gender-neutral model of marriage. With so many more options for gay Christians, why stick with the fishhook? Here is an attempt at my own answer.

The biggest reason I don't just de-pope myself is that I fell in love with the Catholic Church. Very few people just "believe in God" in an abstract way; we convert, or stay Christian, within a particular church and tradition. I didn't switch from atheistic post-Judaism to "belief in God," but to Catholicism: the Incarnation and the Crucifixion, Michelangelo and Wilde, St. Francis and Dorothy Day. I loved the Church's beauty and sensual glamour. I loved her insistence that seemingly irreconcilable needs could both be met in God's overwhelming love: justice and mercy, reason and mystery, a savior who is fully God and also fully human. I even loved her tabloid, gutter-punching side, the way Catholics tend to mix ourselves up in politics and art and pop culture. (I love that side a little less now, but it's necessary.)

I didn't expect to understand every element of the faith. It is a lot bigger than I am. I'm sure there are psychological reasons for my desire to find a God and a Church I could trust entirely: I don't think I have a particularly steady moral compass, for example. I'm better at falling in love than finding my way, more attuned to eros than to ethics. Faith is no escape from the need for personal moral judgment; the Church is meant to form your conscience, not supersede it. There are many things which, if the Catholic Church commanded them, I think would have prevented me from becoming Catholic. (More on this below.) But I do think it was okay to enter the Church without being able to justify all of her teachings on my own.

At the time of my baptism the church's teaching on homosexuality was one of the ones I understood the least. I thoroughly embarrassed myself in a conversation with one of my relatives, who tried to figure out why I was joining this repressive religion. I tried to explain something about how God could give infertile heterosexual couples a baby if He wanted to, and my relative, unsurprisingly, asked why He couldn't give a gay couple a baby. The true answer was that I didn't understand the teaching, but had agreed to accept it as the cost of being Catholic. To receive the Eucharist I had to sign on the dotted line (they make you say, "I believe all that the Catholic Church believes and teaches" when they bring you into the fold), and I longed intensely for the Eucharist, so I figured, everybody has to sacrifice something. God doesn't promise that He'll only ask you for the sacrifices you agree with and understand.

At the moment I do think I understand the Church's teaching better than I did then—but check back with me in a few years. Right now, the Biblical witness seems pretty clear. Both opposite-sex and same-sex love are used, in the Bible, as images of God's love. The opposite-sex love is found in marriage—sexually exclusive marriage, an image which recurs not only in the Song of Songs but in the prophets and in the New Testament—and the same-sex love is friendship. Both of these forms of love are considered real and beautiful; neither is better than the other. But they're not interchangeable. Moreover, Genesis names sexual difference as the only difference which was present in Eden. There were no racial differences, no age difference, no children and therefore no parents. Regardless of how literally you want to take the creation narratives, the Bible sets apart sexual difference as a uniquely profound form of difference. Marriage, as the union of man and woman, represents communion with the Other in a way which makes it an especially powerful image of the way we can commune with the God who remains Other. That's a quick and dirty summary, but it seems to me more responsive to the texts, more willing to defer to historical Christian witness, and more attuned to the importance and meaning of our bodies than most of the defenses I've read of Christian gay marriage.

But being embedded in Catholicism colors my reading of the Bible—that is actually what tradition is supposed to do—and shapes my sense of which elements of Christian history are essential and which are wanderings from the path. So the main reason I'm planning on celibacy for the foreseeable future is just that I'm Catholic and lesbian and them's the rules, bud.

Do read it all.

Good stuff.

If you're happy and not smiling, clap your hands!

Clap, clap:

Several years ago, an ex-Catholic writer thought she would spend a year sampling all the different churches she could find, one per week.  I haven't read the resulting book, but I do remember hearing her say that Catholics certainly don't smile very much during Mass -- and what a shame that was. I suppose it varies from region to region, but she's right about her observation.  In all the Catholic churches I've been to, I've only seen smiles during Mass on a few occasions:  during the sign of peace (which often feels like an interruption or intermission in the middle of Mass, rather than a part of it); during a homily, if the priest cracks a joke; when there is a "milestone" sacrament, such as First Communion or matrimony, during the Mass; or if something unexpected happens, like a squirrel wanders in or a kid yells out something cute.

In other words, Catholics do smile during Mass, but not, in general, because of what's actually going on in the liturgy itself.  Isn't that kind of odd?  I mean, if we're sitting there hearing the Good News and then lining up to be literally fed with the literal food of salvation.  If that's not a time to rejoice and be glad, then when is the time?

Well, I said I agreed with the church-hopping author about her observation, but I don't agree that all this non-smiling is a sign of anything bad, or something that needs changing. 

A couple of years ago, I was telling my brother about my plans for that year's vegetable garden.  "Oh, why don't you just skip it this year?" he asked.  I was baffled.  Skip my garden?  Why?

"Because you worry about it so much!" he explained.  "It gives you so much anxiety and trouble."  For a minute, I didn't even know what he was talking about.  But then I had to admit that he was right.  Most of the time, when I talk about my garden, I talk about the grubs, the beetles, the hassle of dealing with all those endless rocks that keep drifting up to the surface.  Will there be a late frost tonight? I don't know what's gone wrong with my peas this year.  I think I need a more gentle method for transplanting.  I think I tied up the tomatoes too tight!  Oh, gosh, it's time to thin the seedlings, which always makes me feel like such a monster.  That's it, I'm going to try hand-pollinating those pumpkins one more time tonight, and if they don't get with the program, I give up.  Stupid pumpkins.

...

But in my garden I am happy.  So, so happy.  All winter long, I think about my garden, and all through early spring, I suffer while I wait and wait for the last of the snow to melt.  I sneak out back just to lean over the soil and sniff deeply when the evening dew is sinking in.  I have dorky conversations with worms and grasshoppers.  I know exactly how many leaves are on each pepper plant, and rejoice over each new one.  When I see my little girls wandering into the yard, still in their nightgowns, and finding themselves a snack of string beans, I think I'm going to die of satisfaction.  But no, I am not necessarily smiling -- especially when I'm actually working in the garden, digging, weeding, breaking up the soil, looking for something ready to pick.

Simcha Fisher's going somewhere and you should go with her.

You'll enjoy it.  And you might not necessarily be smiling.