I just read the beautiful priestly vocation story of Msgr. Charles Pope, a wonderful priest here in the D.C. archdiocese. An excerpt:

In high school I was made aware of a Church choir that was forming for High School kids. I didn’t like church music, I was a Rock ‘n’ Roll fan only. I couldn’t sing. But I did notice that there were some very pretty girls singing in that High School Church Choir. So, in my sophomore year of High School I joined. This would be a good way to meet those girls and have a chance to date them. And sure enough, I was able to date several of them! (I even learned to sing). Now going to Church was far more interesting. I still didn’t love God all that much but the young ladies were a real draw. And through it all God was preparing me to meet my bride. Not necessarily the bride I expected, but my bride nonetheless.

Through the remainder of my High School years and into college I moved into musical leadership. I became a cantor, an organist, and eventually, in early college became the director of that Choir. Now I was planning music and pondering the spiritual message of the lyrics, learning more of the faith. I favored the spiritual classics over the modern but I got to know all the genres. One day my pastor said to me, “Charles Pope I think you are called to be a priest!” I laughed and asked if he’d like to meet my girl-friend. But something started that day. A seed was planted. No one had ever said that to me before and it touched a nerve.

One of the common threads of priestly vocation stories is that someone unexpectedly asks a young man to consider being a priest. How many men do not hear God’s call because no one spoke for Him?

Always be open to asking the young men you know to consider the call to the priesthood. Who knows, maybe you’ll end up in a story like this one.

In case anyone was wondering, here is my own scorecard based my previous post about being “really Catholic and über Catholic”:

6 1/2 “really Catholic” (the 1/2 is because our Mary statue is in our back yard)
1 “über Catholic”
2 neither

So I guess I’m a really, yet slightly-über, Catholic.

A few observations about Catholics I have made over the years:

1. You know you are really Catholic if…
   you name one of your daughters Mary.
   You know you are an über Catholic if…
   you name all of your daughters Mary.
2. You know you are really Catholic if…
   you go to Mass every day.
   You know you are an über Catholic if…
   you go to Confession every day.
3. You know you are really Catholic if…
   you want to send your kids to Steubenville.
   You know you are an über Catholic if…
   you want to live in Steubenville.
4. You know you are really Catholic if…
   you abstain from meat on Fridays.
   You know you are an über Catholic if…
   you abstain from food on Fridays.
5. You know you are really Catholic if…
   you use NFP – natural family planning.
   You know you are an über Catholic if…
   you use NFP – “no family planning”.
6. You know you are really Catholic if…
   you read Mark Shea’s blog faithfully.
   You know you are an über Catholic if…
   you refuse to read Mark Shea’s blog.
7. You know you are really Catholic if…
   you have at least five children.
   You know you are an über Catholic if…
   you have at least five children by your fifth anniversary.
8. You know you are really Catholic if…
   you only read books published by Ignatius Press.
   You know you are an über Catholic if…
   you only read books published by TAN books.
9. You know you are really Catholic if…
   you won’t send your kids to public schools.
   You know you are an über Catholic if…
   you won’t send your kids to Catholic schools.
10. You know you are really Catholic if…
    you have a Mary statue in your front yard.
    You know you are an über Catholic if…
    your Mary statue is registered with the FAA.

Feel free to add your own in the comments.

The Pope celebrated Vespers at a Melkite Catholic Cathedral in Amman on Saturday, and he spoke about the importance of Eastern Christians:

The Church herself is a pilgrim people and thus, through the centuries, has been marked by determinant historical events and pervading cultural epochs. Sadly, some of these have included times of theological dispute or periods of repression. Others, however, have been moments of reconciliation – marvellously strengthening the communion of the Church – and times of rich cultural revival, to which Eastern Christians have contributed so greatly. Particular Churches within the universal Church attest to the dynamism of her earthly journey and manifest to all members of the faithful a treasure of spiritual, liturgical, and ecclesiastical traditions which point to God’s universal goodness and his will, seen throughout history, to draw all into his divine life.

The ancient living treasure of the traditions of the Eastern Churches enriches the universal Church and could never be understood simply as objects to be passively preserved.

For those who would like to read more about the Melkites, you can go to the home page for the Eparchy of Newton, which is the diocese of the Melkite Church in America.

Rich Leonardi is reporting that my hometown diocese of Cincinnati is, for the first time, investigating a possible miracle attributed to someone being considered for sainthood:

Tom Siemers’ doctor pulled him aside 20 years ago and told him he should be dead.

The doctor, a neurosurgeon, said every attempt he’d made to fix a massive hemorrhage in Siemers’ brain in 1989 had failed. Surgery. Drugs. Cutting-edge technology.

Nothing seemed to work.

Despite his grim prognosis, Siemers not only survived but fully recovered.

“So what happened?” Siemers asked.

The doctor just shook his head and pointed heavenward.

A team of investigators from the Catholic Church now is trying to determine whether divine intervention is indeed the most likely explanation for Siemers’ recovery from a ruptured aneurysm, which left him unconscious and near death for more than a month.

Siemers, the chairman of Franklin Savings, is the star witness in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati’s first-ever investigation into a possible miracle attributed to someone under consideration for sainthood.

The prospective saint is Blessed Sister Frances Schervier, founder of the Franciscan Sisters of the Poor and the person Siemers’ family credits for his survival.

Blessed Sisers Frances Schervier, pray for us!

I love this new video from CatholicVote:

Boy, those guys are good.

I’ve just posted my reflection on this Sunday’s readings, in which I discuss the pruning God does to those who follow him.

The Pope’s trip to the Holy Land highlights one of the great tragedies of our time: the mass exodus of Christians from the Holy Land. Christians are a small minority in that area of the world, and their numbers have shrunk drastically in the past decade. Unfortunately, most Western Christians don’t even realize that there is such thing as an Arab Christian, and we do little to support our brothers and sisters there.

Please pray for Christians in the land of Christ, and if you are interested in learning more about them (and possibly supporting them), I would recommend contacting the Catholic Near East Welfare Association.

Edith Humphrey, an Anglican laywoman and Professor of New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, has announced that she is becoming Eastern Orthodox. Humphrey has been a leading voice for classical Anglicanism and one of her areas of expertise has included Eastern Orthodoxy.

Her conversion is another in a long line of recent academics leaving a community founded in the 16th century for an apostolic communion. Others include Jaroslav Pelikan (Lutheran to Orthodox), Peter Kreeft (Calvinist to Catholic), and Francis Beckwith (Catholic to Evangelical back to Catholic). In many ways, all these converts can trace their heritage to John Henry Newman, who is on track to be beautified by the Catholic Church soon.

God bless you, Dr. Humphrey, and Cardinal Newman, pray for us!

President Obama’s mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, was recently baptized by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (aka the Mormons).

She’s been dead for 14 years.

This is an example of the bizarre practice of the Mormon church called “baptism for the dead,” in which Mormons posthumously baptize people by proxy. (Many people don’t realize that this is a primary impetus for their famed genealogy work; as they discover their ancestors they perform these proxy baptisms for them.)

I had some discussions with Mormon missionaries recently, and when this topic came up their sole source for this belief is 1 Corinthians 15:28-29:

When everything is subjected to him, then the Son himself will (also) be subjected to the one who subjected everything to him, so that God may be all in all.

Otherwise, what will people accomplish by having themselves baptized for the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, then why are they having themselves baptized for them?

There are many problems with the Mormon exegesis of this passage (for one, nowhere does Paul actually condone the practice, he just mentions it in the context of another discussion), but I think the bigger problem is that this is an extreme example of sola scriptura (which is ironic, since Mormons claim to reject sola scriptura). Nowhere is there any evidence that the Christian Church practiced a “baptism for the dead” at any time in its history. Furthermore, the Church’s practice of baptism has never allowed for a “proxy” in the place of the recipient, especially in a situation in which the recipient doesn’t even know about it! This would run counter to the underlying reason for baptism, i.e. one’s personal inclusion into the family of God. And baptizing a dead person is contrary to the teaching of Scripture that baptism brings new life to the believer. Yet in spite of all this the Mormon church yanks this verse out of context and develops an entire doctrine out of it (this is similar to the fundamentalist invention of the “rapture”).

The Catholic understanding of Divine Revelation is more holistic: we believe that there are two means by which revelation has come to us – Scripture and Tradition – and we believe that, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the Church is the authoritative teacher of that revelation. This three-pronged approach helps to prevent such egregious cases of ripping verses out of the context of the life of the Church. Read Dei Verbum for a beautiful exposition of the Church’s understanding of Divine Revelation.

For a more detailed explanation of the problems with “baptism for the dead,” see this page from Catholic Answers.

This interview with Mennonite pastor Shane Hipps, author of Flickering Pixels: How Technology Shapes Your Faith, is quite interesting:

From the Printing Press to the iPhone

An excerpt:

Talk about the telegraph.

The telegraph more than anything broke the historic connection between transportation and communication. Prior to the telegraph, the fastest [that] information could travel was about 60 miles an hour, maybe the speed of a locomotive. Suddenly, with the telegraph, communication is instantaneous. It also divorces context from information…

So the Internet is an extension of the telegraph in that it only accelerates the availability of universal information?

And it creates a permanent puberty of the mind. We get locked in so much information, and the inability to sort that information meaningfully limits our capacity to understand. The last stage of knowledge is wisdom. But we are miles from wisdom because the Internet encourages the opposite of what creates wisdom—stillness, time, and inefficient things like suffering. On the Internet, there is no such thing as waiting; there is no such thing as stillness. There is a constant churning.

As a Catholic technology professional, I am always interested in how technology intersects with our life of faith. I am not a Luddite, but I also do believe that society should be more intentional in its consideration on whether to use a new technology. Just because we can do something does not mean that we should do it. We rarely think of the long-term consequences of a new technology. For example, how many people realized the dramatic impact that automobiles would have on how our neighborhoods would be configured and our personal social networks? Rarely does technology transform our lives in the way its initial proponents think it will (I’m still waiting for the “paperless society” we were promised thirty years ago. And wasn’t TV supposed to bring families together?).

As Catholics, we should embrace new means to spread the Gospel, but we should also recognize the negative spiritual consequences new technologies can have and realize that they can be dangerous tools if used improperly.

Reason #4,503,294 to kill your TV:

Study: Children Who View TV Targeted for Adults Engage in Sexual Activity Earlier

I found this to be a wonderful little video:

H/t: Creative Minority Report

Recently, Little Flowers Foundation – the non-profit I co-founded which helps Catholic families with adoption expenses – passed $150,000 in grants given to adoptive families. Here are some statistics of what LFF has done in the past 7 years:

• Given away $153,790 in grants.
• Helped 26 Catholic families with their adoption expenses.
• Assisted in the placement of 45 children, many of them with special needs.

You can find out more about LFF’s mission here. If you wish to donate, you can do so online here.

The rise of the Swine Flu has started the inevitable debates about which is more sanitary – receiving communion on the hand or the tongue? I’m not a doctor, so I don’t really know the answer to that question – and I’ve heard convincing arguments for both practices. My own opinion is that you can’t avoid contact with other people, so you just have to accept that living involves a bit of risk.

I have always received on the tongue and I have taught my own children to do the same (the picture on the right is my daughter receiving her First Communion this past Saturday – isn’t it beautiful?). I accept the legitimacy of receiving in the hand – if the Church approves a practice, then it is fine by me. I also don’t think one is more “traditional” than the other. For example, Cyril of Jerusalem in the 4th century taught his catechumens to “make their hands a throne to receive the king.”

Yet my own personal preference is to receive on the tongue. I have two main reasons for doing so. The first is that it is a special sign of reverence for the Blessed Sacrament. By treating this food differently than all other foods, I am reminding myself of the unique nature of the Bread of Life. It is not just another meal in which I feed myself, but instead it is the food which brings eternal life.

Another reason is that by receiving on the tongue I am acknowledging that my reception of the Eucharist is completely an act of God. When I receive on the tongue, all I do is open my mouth to receive the host – I am completely dependent upon the priest (or Eucharistic minister) to put the Eucharist in my mouth. Likewise, without God’s grace, I would not even be at Mass receiving His Son – I am completely dependent upon Him to be there.

I have heard some say that receiving in the hand is more “adult-like,” in that you actively participate in taking the host and consuming it. But I prefer to receive on the tongue for exactly the opposite reason: I am acknowledging that I am a child of God and I need to be fed by Him. When I receive communion, I need to be completely submissive and receptive, just like a little child.