I really didn’t plan on writing about Senator Kennedy on my blog, but the events of his final days and his death just have too many lessons for us all.

It has come out that Senator Kennedy, shortly before his death, wrote a private letter to Pope Benedict. In it, he asks for the pontiff’s prayers:

I pray that you have all of God’s blessings as you lead our Church and inspire our world during these challenging times. I am writing with deep humility to ask that you pray for me as my own health declines. I was diagnosed with brain cancer more than a year ago, and although I continue treatment the disease is taking its toll on me. I am 77 years old, and preparing for the next passage of life.

As this was a private letter, I think there is no reason to assume that this was anything other than a sincere desire for prayers on the Senator’s part. However, the letter also contains some odd self-justification:

I know that I have been an imperfect human being, but with the help of my faith I have tried to right my path. I want you to know Your Holiness that in my nearly 50 years of elective office, I have done my best to champion the rights of the poor and open doors of economic opportunity. I have worked to welcome the immigrant, to fight discrimination, and expand access to health care and education. I have opposed the death penalty, and fought to end war. Those are the issues that have motivated me and been the focus of my work as a United States Senator.

When I read that part, do you know what it reminded me of? My own confessions before God. How often do I go to God in prayer saying, “Lord, forgive me for my impatience with my family. You know how much I sacrifice for them and give up my own desires for them, so please help me be more patient.” I will even justify myself in sacramental confession: “Father, I got angry at my children, because they were really being uncontrollable and disobedient.”

How often do we justify ourselves before God, even when we are trying to be humble and contrite before Him? We so often are unwilling to allow anyone else to justify their actions, yet we are quick to justify our own. Shouldn’t it be the other way around?

I have not commented publicly about the death of Senator Edward “Ted” Kennedy, although I have read a large number of comments about the man and his legacy, with commentators both canonizing and demonizing him. I can’t help but be disturbed by much of what I read.

On the one hand, there have been many Catholics who have treated Senator Kennedy like he was the second coming of Louis IX, the saintly king of France. I almost expected some of them to be shouting “Santo Subito!” at his funeral. They laud his work for civil rights, education and health care in this county and consider him to be one of the great American politicians and a credit to the Catholic religion. Needless to say, these people have been those who agree with the late Senator’s liberal political views.

On the other hand, there have been many Catholics who have treated Senator Kennedy like he was the devil himself. I actually saw a Facebook comment in which someone called him a “murderer” and another mentioned that it must be very hot where the Senator is now. They declare confidently that Kennedy’s Catholic faith was all a sham and he didn’t take his religion seriously. Needless to say, these people have been those who disagree with the late Senator’s liberal political views.

So why am I disturbed by this polarized commentary? It is not because I have some fear or hatred of political partisanship. Frankly, I think political partisanship on a certain level is good, as it keeps all politicians – both liberal and conservative – honest (or at least closer to honesty than they would be without it). Our two-party system is genius because it prevents too much power from being placed in too few hands. So I have no problem with people agreeing or disagreeing with the political positions of the late Senator.

Rather, I am disturbed because it seems that too many people have allowed their political views to seep into their view of the Catholic Faith. They have allowed the temporal to overcome the eternal. Those Catholics who have unabashedly lionized Senator Kennedy should recognize that his unqualified support for legalized abortion is in direct contradiction to the Catholic respect for the dignity of the human person, and that the late Senator’s private life (which all too often became public) was in many ways not one to be emulated by those trying to follow Christ. Prayers for the Senator’s soul are more in order than instant canonizations.

Likewise, those who have demonized Senator Kennedy should also pause to consider their attitude. I will admit right here that I disagree with almost every single political position held by the Senator. Yet at the same time it would be complete hubris on my part to deny that this man took his Catholic faith seriously. Just because he held political positions abhorrent to me does not mean that I have the right to deny that he was a Catholic. As a public figure, his political positions are fair game for criticism and debate; however, the state of his soul and his status as a Catholic are not. Calling him a “murderer” devalues the word itself, as his support for legalized abortion, while terrible in so many ways, is not the equivalent to being a murderer. If Senator Kennedy was a murderer, what does that make someone like abortionist George Tiller – a really, really bad murderer?

Other than Senator Kennedy’s position on abortion and gay “marriage” I cannot think of any of his political positions that explicitly contradicted the Catholic Faith. I personally believe most of his other political views to be harmful, counter-productive, and perhaps even destructive to our country’s well-being, but those are prudential views in which Catholics are allowed to disagree. Yes, his positions on abortion and marriage are serious, and I in no way want to diminish them, but the uncomfortable reality is that we are living in an age where it is possible for someone to hold to such positions while sincerely attempting to practice their Catholic faith. Senator Kennedy was a child of this confused age, and all of its problems cannot be placed upon his shoulders.

In the end, I cannot help but think that Senator Kennedy was a flawed man, like all of us, with some terrible political views, but ultimately a fellow Catholic who, like all the deceased, is now in need of our prayers.

It is always amazing when a single person converts. The grace of God acting in the life of an individual to change his entire way of life is something beautiful to behold.

But when an entire congregation of a church decides to convert en masse, it is really incredible. A few years ago I read the story of Alex Jones, a pentecostal pastor who along with many in his congregation converted to the Catholic Church. A week ago, here in Maryland, a Charismatic Episcopal priest and entire congregation converted to Western Rite Orthodoxy.

Last weekend, at a service at St. Basil the Great Orthodox Church in Poquoson, Va., Bishop Thomas Joseph ordained James K. Hamrick into the holy priesthood of the Western Rite Orthodox Church.

It was a moment Hamrick’s congregation in Lewistown has been waiting for since early spring. On April 10, his small flock at the former Charismatic Episcopal Lamb of God Church converted en masse to the Antiochian Orthodox faith, which includes both Western Rite and Eastern Orthodox churches.

At Hamrick’s urging, the 40-member congregation, which worships in a church built in 1883 by Methodists, was officially accepted as an Orthodox mission in March. After preparation, members went through the sacramental rite of chrismation into the Antiochian Orthodox faith. Further highlighting their transformation, the congregation adopted a new name: St. John the Baptist Orthodox Church.

This weekend, Hamrick will lead an Orthodox Sunday Mass for the first time at the church, marking the final step for the 45-year-old priest and his congregation as Maryland’s first Western Rite Orthodox church.

If you are not familiar with Western Rite Orthodoxy, you can read about it here.

May God bless Fr. Hamrick and all members of the St. John the Baptist Orthodox Church! I pray that your embrace of apostolic Christianity will lead you into a deeper relationship with our Lord.

St. Augustine, who died on this day in 430 and whose feast we celebrate today, wrote in the first paragraph of his Confessions the famous exclamation,

You have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.

This beautiful statement of each person’s destiny in God has been quoted countless times and has been the feeling of many who have converted to the Lord over the centuries. Its meaning is clear: we were made for God and only in God will we find peace and contentment.

Yet a deeper understanding of Augustine’s view of gravity, believe it or not, actually brings out a deeper understanding of this passage. In Augustine’s world, the law of gravity was not understood quite like it is today. Instead, an object was considered to have a “weight” which moved it towards its proper place in the universe. In Book 13 of Confessions, Augustine writes,

A body by its weight tends to move towards its proper place. The weight’s movement is not necessarily downwards, but to its appropriate position: fire tends to move upwards, a stone downwards. They are acted on by their respective weights; they seek their own place. Oil poured under water is drawn up to the surface on top of the water. Water poured on top of oil sinks below the oil. They are acted on by their respective densities, they seek their own place. Things which are not in their intended position are restless. Once they are in their ordered position, they are at rest.

Did you notice those last two lines? “Things which are not in their intended position are restless. Once they are in their ordered position, they are at rest.” For an object like oil or water, this occurs naturally based on their “weight” or density. But what is the “weight” of man? Augustine answers this in the next paragraph:

My weight is my love. Wherever I am carried, my love is carrying me. By your gift we are set on fire and carried upwards: we grow red hot and ascend. We climb “The ascents in our heart” (Ps. 83:6), and sing “the song of steps” (Ps. 119:1). Lit by your fire, your good fire, we grow red-hot and ascend, as we move upwards “to the peace of Jerusalem” (Ps. 121:6). “For I was glad when they said to me, let us go to the house of the Lord” (Ps. 121:1). There we will be brought to our place by a good will, so that we want nothing but to stay there for ever.

So, for Augustine, every object – including man – has a weight which brings it to its “ordered position”, its “place” in the world. For man, his weight is love, and that weight will be restless until it finds its rest in God, who is Love.

From the earliest days of the Church, Christians have identified certain sins as more serious than others. For example, if a baptized Christian committed the sin of murder or adultery in the early Church, they would have to perform penance for years before being readmitted to the Eucharist.

Eventually, there came to be the “Seven Deadly Sins”, which include:

1) Lust
2) Gluttony
3) Greed
4) Sloth
5) Wrath
6) Envy
7) Pride

Each culture emphasizes, both in its practice and denunciation, different sins. For example, in our own American culture, Pride has been elevated to a good, while Lust and Greed are celebrated yet paradoxically also vigorous condemned. Envy and Wrath are seen as evils, although little understood, and Sloth appears to have little chance of gaining a serious foothold in our over-worked society.

That leaves Gluttony. There is no question that this sin is popularly indulged, as we are the most obese nation in the history of the world, yet how often have you heard any condemnation of gluttony from the pulpit or popular culture?

Sandow Birk - Gluttony

Because we are so obese, we are obsessed with weight loss, but this is not due to a rejection of gluttony but instead is based in pride and envy (and vanity): we don’t want to appear unattractive, so we indulge in every weight loss program that can be created in order to look good. Yet we want a diet that does not fundamentally change our inordinate desire for food; in fact, a diet often reflects a person’s obsession with food.

Like any sin, gluttony’s most serious danger is that it places something in the created order (in this case, food and drink) above the Creator. There is nothing wrong with enjoying food, but when the enjoyment of food becomes the priority (over the subsistence that food gives us) and when we persistently overindulge in food beyond our needs, then we have begun to fall into the sin of gluttony.

St. Augustine in his Confessions writes a moving passage about the struggle against gluttony (Book 10, par. 46-47, emphasis added):

You have taught me, good Father, that “to the pure all things are pure” (Titus 1:15); but “it is evil for that man who gives offense in eating” (Rom. 14:20); and that “every creature of thine is good, and nothing is to be refused if it is received with thanksgiving” (1 Tim. 4:4); and that “meat does not commend us to God” (1 Cor. 8:8); and that “no man should judge us in meat or in drink.” (Cf. Col. 2:16). “Let not him who eats despise him who eats not, and let him that does not eat judge not him who does eat.” (Rom. 14:3). These things I have learned, thanks and praise be to you, O my God and Master, who knocks at my ears and enlightens my heart. Deliver me from all temptation!

It is not the uncleanness of meat that I fear, but the uncleanness of an incontinent appetite. I know that permission was granted Noah to eat every kind of flesh that was good for food; that Elijah was fed with flesh; that John, blessed with a wonderful abstinence, was not polluted by the living creatures (that is, the locusts) on which he fed. And I also know that Esau was deceived by his hungering after lentils and that David blamed himself for desiring water, and that our King was tempted not by flesh but by bread. And, thus, the people in the wilderness truly deserved their reproof, not because they desired meat, but because in their desire for food they murmured against the Lord.

Set down, then, in the midst of these temptations, I strive daily against my appetite for food and drink. For it is not the kind of appetite I am able to deal with by cutting it off once for all, and thereafter not touching it, as I was able to do with fornication. The bridle of the throat, therefore, must be held in the mean between slackness and tightness. And who, O Lord, is he who is not in some degree carried away beyond the bounds of necessity? Whoever he is, he is great; let him magnify your name. But I am not such a one, “for I am a sinful man.” (Luke 5:8). Yet I too magnify your name, for he who has “overcome the world” (John 16:33) intercedes with you for my sins, numbering me among the weak members of his body; for your eyes did see what was imperfect in him, and in your book all shall be written down.

Gluttony has never been considered by a Church a minor sin but instead it has been seen as a “deadly” sin: it can kill us spiritually. Just like sex, a disordered desire for food can become an obsession that consumes our lives. Do we recognize the dangers of food in our spiritual lives today?

I am often struck by how easily we American Catholics complain about our lot. If our priest doesn’t preach a good homily or if Confession isn’t held at a convenient time or Mass goes longer than an hour, we immediately lament at our terrible lot in life. Yet in other parts of the world, Christians must risk their life just to be able to have access to the sacraments.

In Egypt, a Coptic priest is risking his life in order to make the sacraments available to his small flock:

Two years ago [Rev. Estefanos Shehata] converted part of his family house into a space where these services could be performed and went to obtain a permit for its use. Authorities kept refusing to give a direct answer and finally told him to talk to the village’s Muslims because they didn’t want to be responsible for any problems.

Shehata then talked to the village’s Muslims, who he said have a good relationship with the Copts in the area, about the permit.

The Muslim in his village held a meeting with the elders of neighboring villages, and, to his surprise, they were “extremely angry” with his proposal and issued a Fatwa (religious edict) calling for his death.

“They told the Copts in the village that it takes just one bullet to get rid of me since there is no ‘blood money’ for killing a Christian,” Shehata wrote in the letter.

“I have been banned from my village for over a month now. I cannot even go [see] my mother.”

Pray for Rev. Shehata and all Christians around the world who are facing serious persecution for their faith.

Over at Catholic Exchange, Mark Shea discusses one of the most important questions of our day: the underlying philosophy of Star Trek. In an article entitled “The Stupid Prime Directive“, Mark addresses why warp technology will turn our race into a bunch of “leotard-clad UN conflict resolution counselors” and other vital issues. These are important topics and I urge everyone to read his article.

Now, I must admit: as a child, I loved Star Trek. The original series would run every night on a local station (in repeats) and I got to the point where I knew what episode it was from the first 30 seconds of the show. Whereas I never became a “Trekker” (I have never owned any pointy ears and I haven’t tried to learn the Klingon language), the idea of space travel and meeting aliens of all types fascinated me, as it did many young people of my era (especially young boys).

As I got older, I continued to watch the later Star Trek shows, such as The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine. I lost interest with Voyager and then the latest incarnation, Enterprise, didn’t appeal to me at all.

The more I watched the show, however, the more I began to question some of the fundamental assumptions behind it. How was it that humanity had overcome some of its base vices, such as greed? (There is no money in the 24th century, after all). How was it possible that the show revolved around conflict of some kind – including conflict between individual humans – yet humanity had somehow achieved peace and harmony on a macro scale? And then when the show tried to explain when this harmony broke out – with the advent of warp technology – I couldn’t help but laugh, for here was a truly modern religion: there is no Fall and it will be technology that will save us.

Although I still enjoy sometimes watching Star Trek (at least TNG and DS9), I have come to see its underlying assumptions about humanity to be more fantastic than the idea of warp travel and thousands of other alien races.

The diocese of Sacramento is following in the footsteps of a number of other dioceses around the country by running an evangelistic campaign to encourage fallen-away Catholics to “come home” to the Church. Using the incredible “Catholics Come Home” materials (if you have not seen their videos, you MUST do so – they are simply the best evangelistic videos ever produced), the diocese is hoping to encourage at least 100,000 (!) Catholics to return to the practice of their faith.

Here are some more details:

The diocese has an estimated population of 950,000 Catholics, but only about 136,500 attend weekly Mass.

Msgr. Murphy said he was bothered to see so many Catholics filling fundamentalist churches.

“I’m glad they’re going to church … but we want them back,” he said.

According to the monsignor, parishes throughout the diocese are preparing to address questions and concerns by returning Catholics.

Mike Halloran, executive director of the Catholic Foundation, told the Sacramento Bee that nearly 60 percent of the money for the $380,000 campaign had been raised. The money will go to the commercials only.

The ads will run in the Sacramento market 1,200 times over the six weeks from December 18 to January 31. Officials hope they will encourage 100,000 Catholics to return to church…

Catholics Come Home, Inc. was recently awarded the National Leadership Roundtable on Church Management’s 2009 Best Practices Award. Receiving the award, Peterson said his group was “blessed by God’s grace” and thankful to be recognized for its work.

He reported that the organization has now helped bring over 100,000 Catholics and converts back to the Church.
The “Catholics Come Home” ads first ran in the Diocese of Phoenix in 2008. During the campaign an estimated 90,000 Catholics returned to churchgoing. Ryan Hanning of the Diocese of Phoenix told the Sacramento Bee the diocese witnessed a 12 percent increase, the largest single year increase in the diocese’s history.

Hanning said that surveys of returning Catholics showed that most had left the Church because they had gotten too busy with daily life. A much smaller percentage cited church teachings on marriage and homosexuality as reasons for their absence.

Though Catholics make up an estimated 23 percent of the U.S. population, only 33 percent of them attend Mass on a weekly basis.

Based on the success of these campaigns in the past, I don’t see why every diocese in the country doesn’t use them.

St. Paul, pray for us!

Roland Joffe, the director of the classic 1980′s film “The Mission” (a beautiful movie that I highly recommend), is planning to direct a film on the life of St. Josemaría Escrivá, the founder of Opus Dei:

The film, titled “There Be Dragons,” is set during the Spanish Civil War and involves a young journalist’s discovery of his father’s connection with Escrivá during that brutal period in Spain’s history.

Joffe had initially turned down the offer to direct the film but reconsidered after viewing a video of Escrivá in conversation with a Jewish girl who wanted to convert to Catholicism.

Intrigued by Escrivá’s faith, his belief that everyone is called to holiness and that a person’s ordinary work is the path to sanctity, Joffe said, “I was very interested in the idea of embarking on a piece of work that took religion seriously on its own terms and didn’t play a game where one approached religion denying its validity.”

Joffe described himself as a “wobbly agnostic” to the NY Times, but added that “I do believe that rigid atheism is a rather intellectually short-sighted position.”

The film project is produced and financed in part by Opus Dei members and has enlisted an Opus Dei priest to consult on the set.

Rev. John Wauck, a professor at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome, is the on-set adviser, but Joffe has said that he has been given complete creative control in directing the film.

I have very little confidence in anything produced by Hollywood, but based on this report I am hopeful that this movie will be an accurate and moving depiction of the life of this saint.

Yesterday was the 250th birthday of William Wilberforce, the man who almost single-handedly got the slave trade abolished in England. Chuck Colson has a very nice commentary over at LifeSite in his honor.

William Wilberforce really should be an inspiration to all pro-lifers. The slave trade was deeply embedded in British society in his day and I’m sure that most believed it would never be abolished. Yet Wilberforce, year in and year out, “in season and out of season” (2 Timothy 4:2), worked against the abominable practice and eventually he was successful. For those of us who have been fighting to make abortion illegal again in this country – without apparent success – we should look to the work of Mr. Wilberforce as our model. We must never give up and we must never surrender. The lives of the most innocent among us depend on it.

The movie Amazing Grace is a fine movie about Wilberforce’s life, although as is typical in Hollywood, it minimizes the role his Christian faith played in his work against the slave trade.

Be sure to say a prayer today for the repose of Wilberforce’s soul.

When I first read this headline at Francis Beckwith’s blog:

C.S. Lewis Believed in Purgatory

I thought it said “C.S. Lewis Believed to be in Purgatory”. Then I thought, “Boy, Beckwith’s back in the Church less than two years and he’s already determining who is in purgatory. The nerve of some reverts…”

The Wall Street Journal recently had a wonderful article about the dangers of modern technology, in which the author reflects on how technology causes us to speed up our lives unnecessarily. Too many of us are now living life at a breakneck speed, and there is no question that this could have dramatic consequences for us as individuals and as a culture. This is a good example of how technology often changes our lives in ways that were unintended and perhaps unwelcome.

Now I’m sure that there are some readers of this blog who find it a bit ironic when I write about the dangers of technology on our spiritual, mental and physical lives. After all, this is a blog. And I’m on facebook, for goodness sake. How can I write against technology if I obviously embrace it?

I don’t consider myself against technology. Instead, I like to think of myself as deliberate about technology. What I mean by that is that I do not think we should embrace every technology as it is released unthinkingly. Instead, we need to deliberately evaluate each technology on its own merits (and demerits) and determine if it truly helps our lives in a meaningful way. This deliberation should go beyond the surface impact of a technology to the more subtle and possibly harmful ways a technology changes how we live.

For example, in the 1950′s the television was seen as a marvelous invention that would unite families and educate our youth. Does anyone still seriously believe that this is the case? No technology has probably done more to divide families and dumb-down children than the boob tube. My own family decided a few years ago to get rid of our television. We found that, on the whole, it was more detrimental to our family life than it was beneficial, as we definitely watched more television than we really wanted to due to the easy nature of being able to just flip on the boob tube and be lobotomized by its programming. Not having a TV in the house was a great decision, as it has freed up a great deal of time for more enriching (and family-uniting and educational) pursuits, and frankly, no one misses it.

Note that I am NOT saying that TV is immoral. There is no technology that is inherently immoral – it is how one uses a technology that determines the morality of the action. However, that does not mean that every technology must be embraced by those striving for holiness. As Catholics, we should evaluate each new technology and see how it impacts our own personal path to holiness. Is it causing us to waste our time? Is it leading us to view immoral actions? Is it subtly harming our ability to think deeply? Just because a technology is not inherently immoral doesn’t mean that it is healthy for us as Catholics looking to be saints.

Each technology decision we make should be just that: a decision. No one has to be involved with blogs, facebook, television, twitter or any other technology. One can live a fruitful, holy and even evangelical life without any of them (let me tell you from experience: one-on-one personal contact, not modern technology, is still the best form of evangelization). There are many marvelous things available via these new technologies, but none are required for a holy life. Of course, these are individual, prudential decisions. What might be spiritual dangerous for one person might be fine – and even uplifting – for another. But I do think too many people unthinkingly embrace new technologies without determining if it will help them in their walk with Christ.

We as Catholics should be striving relentlessly for holiness, so whereas reading a simple tweet or blog post or facebook update might be harmless, it might lead us to a situation where following such updates begin to consume a spiritually (and mentally and physically) unhealthy amount of our time. Let us be deliberate about the technology we consume and make sure we spend more time directly interacting with our family, friends, neighbors and even strangers than we do on our computers, phones, and ipods.

When I was in college, and still a Protestant, I was for a short time a member of Campus Crusade for Christ. I attended the weekly meetings, evangelized with the Four Spiritual Laws, and attended a small-group bible study. After about a year of this, I decided to leave the group: there was too much of a “cult” vibe for my liking.

Shortly after I left, I remember being visited by one of the leaders (the cool former sports-star who was the envy of the whole group and who I had never met previously). He brought one of his student helpers with him, and they proceeded to see if they could convince me to return. At first I didn’t mind, as it seemed to me that they were simply wanting to make sure my needs were met in the group. However, as the conversation progressed, one of them implied, not very subtly, that he believed that my salvation was in jeopardy, as leaving Crusade clearly meant (to him) that I was leaving Christianity. I strongly resented the insinuation, as I was having no crisis of faith, I simply didn’t want to belong to their particular group (and in fact I soon after this joined the Navigators, another evangelical student group). But it was clear that they saw my leaving Crusade as leaving the Christian Faith.

That encounter crystallized in my mind the potentially destructive nature of human groups within Christianity. It is true that wherever two or three are gathered in Jesus’ name, he is there with them, but forming a group also means that the effects of the Fall are multiplied as well. And yet our Lord made it clear that our salvation would be worked out not individually, but as a group. He gathered 12 men together to represent him after his Ascension (a grouping not without its own problems), and as Acts makes clear the first Christians were not a collection of individuals, but a united Body. St. Paul beautifully writes about the corporate nature of the Church and the need for all followers of Christ to be united to each other through Christ.

That is the beauty of the Church: it is the one human grouping in all of history which has the protection of the Holy Spirit to keep it from completely failing under the weight of sin. No other religious, political or social group can say that. That does not make the Church perfect; history makes clear that the Church’s foundations can be bent, but they cannot be broken. Other human groups might be beneficial to some people for a time, but only the Church has Christ our Lord as Head and is thus beneficial to all for all times.

Any Catholic who hasn’t had their head in the sand the past few months knows why I bring this up: the ongoing self-destruction of the Legion of Christ, a group that at least outwardly was supposed to help Catholics deepen their faith and lead them closer to Christ. Yet due to the diabolical actions of their founder Marcial Maciel (and I can think of no other word to represent the depravity of his crimes), its entire existence has come into question. This questioning has caused major heartburn for those who would still defend the Legion, but, quite frankly, no human group, no matter how much good it might have done, no matter how influential it is within the Church, is irreplaceable in the grand scheme of Salvation History. Only the Church is absolutely necessary, and the Church does not need the Legion to survive; if the Legion is not beneficial anymore, it should be removed from the Body like any cancerous tumor would be removed.

If the Legion were to be disbanded, that in no way would impinge on the truly good works that have been done by Legion priests or Regnum Christi members over the years – any faithful service done by them will be rewarded in the next life by our Heavenly Father (just like the dastardly deeds done by those within the Legion will be punished). But the good deeds of some do not justify the whole; history is riddled with cult-like groups which have performed good deeds (why else would anyone join them?) yet were destructive to the human soul.

When I was more involved in pro-life activism, I was dismayed when I realized occasionally that a pro-life group had outlived its usefulness. Even after the original charism of the group faltered, there would be those who believed that a group must survive no matter what. I do not subscribe to that view. Only the Church must survive; we must be willing to abolish any group that does more harm than good to the Church by its existence.

Should the Legion be disbanded? I will leave that up to the Vatican to decide, but any argument that they should continue for “the good of the Church”, i.e. that they are “too big to fail”, should be soundly rejected; the Church herself is the only grouping of people that can make that claim, and that is because her founder is too big – and too merciful – to let her fail.

In my work of evangelization, I have found that my greatest enemy is not hatred of the Catholic Faith, but apathy. I constantly encounter Catholics who may love their Faith, but they do not believe that it is in any way superior – or more true – than any other religion. They believe that just about any major religion will get you to heaven, as long as you practice it sincerely. Thus, what is the point of evangelization? If there is no bad news – i.e. everyone is not “okay” – there is no reason to preach the Good News. Why bother telling people about the Good News of Jesus Christ if they already have the “good news” of Muhammad or Buddha?

Newsweek recently ran an article which shows that my anecdotal evidence is all too accurate in getting the pulse of American Christians. Provocatively titled, “We Are All Hindus Now“, it states:

The Rig Veda, the most ancient Hindu scripture, says this: “Truth is One, but the sages speak of it by many names.” A Hindu believes there are many paths to God. Jesus is one way, the Qur’an is another, yoga practice is a third. None is better than any other; all are equal. The most traditional, conservative Christians have not been taught to think like this. They learn in Sunday school that their religion is true, and others are false. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the father except through me.”

Americans are no longer buying it. According to a 2008 Pew Forum survey, 65 percent of us believe that “many religions can lead to eternal life”—including 37 percent of white evangelicals, the group most likely to believe that salvation is theirs alone. Also, the number of people who seek spiritual truth outside church is growing.

This is a serious problem. The underlying assumption of the entire Gospel is that we are lost without God. Thus, we need the medicine He gives us through His Son, Jesus Christ. If we do not believe that we – and our neighbors – are sick, we will never go to the Divine Physician, nor encourage others to do so.

St. Paul, pray for us!

Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha is a favorite saint to my two oldest daughters, ages 12 and 10. They love her story and love to read books about her. Just about every year one of them dresses as her at our All Saints party. But every few months, one of them, with a somewhat indignant air, will ask me, “Why isn’t she a Saint yet?” They seem to feel that some major injustice is being committed against her by the fact that she is “just” a “blessed”. I try to explain to them the process of canonization, but usually they walk away with a grumble.

I can’t wait to tell them about this news from Fr. James Martin:

Kateri about to be Canonized?

According to Fr. Martin, the Vatican is investigating a miracle attributed to the “Lily of the Mohawks”. If approved, this would remove the last barrier to her being canonized a Saint of the Church. I can tell you this: if this happens, there will be much rejoicing in the Sammons household.

Blessed Kateri, pray for us!