Search

Results

Pope Francis endorses action to stop militants

24 Aug 2014 - Preaching the News for Sunday

We learn in the reading from the Book of Isaiah this Sunday that sometimes bad leadership must be resisted through forceful action, as when the Lord warned Shebna, “I will thrust you from your office and pull you down from your station.” Pope Francis on Monday endorsed military action to stop Islamist militants from attacking religious minorities in Iraq, a rare pronouncement that differs from the Vatican's usual guidance against the use of force. Francis cautioned that no country should act alone, and he called for an agreement within the international community, possibly through the United Nations, before embarking on a military campaign. He also warned against an all-out war, insisting that force could be justified only to "stop" the Islamic State, Muslim extremists who have forced Iraqi Christians and members of the Yazidi sect to convert to Islam. Those who refused have fled, and some have been executed by the militants.James Bretzke, a priest and professor of moral theology at Boston College, said Francis seemed to be going down the checklist of criteria needed to satisfy the "Just War" theory accepted by the church. The situation appears to be one of last resort, the pope is clearly calling for a "proportional" response, and he is calling for a "legitimate authority," such as the U.N., to make the final call for military action.Another papal scholar said Francis' statement, while rare, is not unprecedented in recent decades. Gerard Powers, a professor of Catholic peacebuilding at the University of Notre Dame, said John Paul II made similar comments in the 1990s when genocide was occurring in Bosnia.In both cases, Powers said, the popes were dealing with situations where groups were being targeted and killed, not broader wars between countries."It's not often that popes in recent memory have said that the use of military force was justified, to be sure," Powers said. "But it certainly fits with what the church has been teaching, and with what popes have been saying about humanitarian intervention situations."Homily hint: Can we accomplish any good through the use of military force? Perhaps the best we can do is to prevent a greater evil. It will require a force other than military, however, to take the next steps, those of healing and reconciliation. Building the peace is the hard work that must be done when the violence ends. Source: An article by Alan Gomez for USA TODAY

war church teaching on war just war

Restricted
Matches made in heaven sometimes fail on earth

28 Sep 2014 - Preaching the News for Sunday

After hearing the complaints of the house of Israel, the Lord asks in this Sunday’s reading from the Book of Jeremiah, “Is it my way that is unfair, or rather, are not your ways unfair?” A clash between traditionalist and reformer bishops over fair treatment for divorced and remarried Catholics has flared up in anticipation of a Synod on the Family that will examine the annulment process. Pope Francis has appointed a special commission to look at ways to make it less complicated for Roman Catholics to dissolve their marriages in the eyes of the church. The goal of the 11-member commission announced last week is to reform the process, “with the objective of simplifying its procedure, making it more streamlined.” Francis urged bishops to build unity and avoid fragmentation over the issue. “Don’t waste energy in disagreements and clashes, but in building and loving,” the pope said in a recent address. He celebrated the weddings of 20 couples recently, including those who have been openly living together and one who had a child out of wedlock, perhaps hinting at his preference for a more open approach. According to church law, Catholics can obtain annulments if they can show their marriage was not valid. But if they opt out of the annulment process, divorce in civil court, and then remarry the church may refuse them Communion. Five cardinals are publishing a new book reinforcing the sanctity of marriage next week, only days before bishops gather in Rome for the conference on the subject. The synod will consider other issues as well, including divorce, cohabitation, domestic violence, and gay unions. German Cardinal Gerhard Mueller, one of the authors of the book, Remaining in the Truth of Christ, has made it clear he believes no one has the power to sever the bonds of marriage. “When we are in the presence of a valid marriage, there is no way to sever that bond,” Mueller said. “Neither the pope nor any other bishop has the authority to do so, because it touches on a reality that belongs to God, not to them,” Mueller said. Vatican observers respond that while the pope may want to streamline the process that did not mean he wants to change church doctrine. Homily hint: We all know good and faithful Catholics whose marriages failed for one reason or another. Some opt for the annulment process. Others are intimidated or confused by the process and never pursue it. Perhaps some don’t really care, but many do, and likely would come forward if the process was streamlined and made more accessible. The Synod on the Family has an opportunity to accomplish that while staying true to church teaching. Source: Articles by Josephine McKenna for Religion News Service

synod of bishops annulments divorce and remarriage church teaching

Restricted
Archbishop claims Girl Scouts dishonor church teaching

28 Feb 2016 - Preaching the News for Sunday

Moses oversteps his bounds in this Sunday’s first reading, causing the Lord, in the burning bush, to warn: “Come no nearer!” St. Louis Archbishop Robert Carlson issued a letter calling on parishes to seek alternatives to Girl Scouts, arguing that the program and related organizations had overstepped the bounds of Catholic teaching in some of its advocacy positions. Carlson said issues such as reproductive rights and abortion separate the church from Girl Scouts and related organizations. The letter was a disappointment to Girl Scouts of Eastern Missouri CEO Bonnie Barczykowski. “Although we are a secular organization, we greatly value our long-standing partnerships with religious organizations across many faiths,” she said. Homily hint: Any time two independent organizations work together, a clash of cultures can occur. Let us hope that well-intentioned institutions that work to uplift humanity can find ways to work together, even when they may not agree on all points. For more: St. Louis archbishop urges cutting ties with Girl Scouts

girl scouts abortion church teaching

Restricted
Seek an encounter with the Divine

Short essays about observed trends in Roman Catholic life - Pastoral trends

It is not that church teaching is changing—our way of being formed in church teaching is being transformed. We used to believe that if we just taught enough doctrine, all would be well. The result would be orthodox believers. But that was actually not a result of the method, of the teaching of doctrine. It was because there were other supports—the extended family, a whole culture. It took a village and we never knew it. Today we find that just teaching the facts of the faith is not enough. It never was. It does not work. It never did. What worked was encounter and experience: encountering God, experiencing the presence of Christ in our lives, feeling the unity that only the Holy Spirit of God can bring. It is not that theology is changing—our theological method is being transformed, our very way of understanding. In the past, logical claims flowing from philosophy and theology could root the core teachings of our faith, leaving theological method to be a matter of abstract reason. This should not be rejected outright: faith and reason are friends, not enemies. But the point of theology is friendship, encounter, relationship. Theological method today increasingly turns to experience and encounter in specific contexts and people, flowing from a personal encounter with the One who is Revelation. It is not enough to know about Christ, today we must know Christ. We always did, of course. But this encounter was part of the same village that we can no long assume exists, a densely woven cultural world that could easily bring us to a matter-of-fact encounter with Christ. Today we need to seek such an encounter. Such intentionality is both the gift and the challenge of our time.

Authors Bryan Froehle

church teaching theology doctrine

Restricted
Exploring the word

03 Oct 2021 - Twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B

The first human words recorded in the Bible occur at the creation of the woman. The man had nothing to say about his own creation, perhaps subdued at the idea of conversation with the Creator. And then woman arrives on the scene, and the man, who has made no utterances apart from the day-in, day-out grind of inventing names for the animals, suddenly becomes positively poetic: “This one, at last, is bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh!” Because naming things has been the only occupation of his short life thus far, he promptly names this newcomer. He is literal about it, too, imagination probably flagging after long hours of saying, “Bluebird, blackbird, yellow-bellied sapsucker . . .” The newcomer is simply heralded as “woman,” the one taken out of the man. What else can this fledgling male say about woman, in his limited experience? He has no idea yet how far out of man she can be. Men have had other names for women since then, and women have come up with plenty of things to call the men in their lives as well. Like scripture says, the two cling to each other, need each other, and sometimes come together as closely as a single life. A lot more poetry has come out of that union. Yet all too often, these two are also deeply divided, like a bone dislocated from its fellow bone, or flesh torn away from flesh. In many lands, times, cultures, and contexts, men and women have been so far from each other as to be virtual enemies of the other’s fulfillment. For the sake of accuracy, it should be said that patriarchy more often prevents the progress of women, because institutions are better than individuals at getting their way. Yet the scene at the close of Genesis chapter 2 is tranquil and hopeful. The man has found his woman. He seems enthusiastic at the proposition. This time, it’s the woman who has nothing to say about the situation in which she finds herself. “Is it lawful for a husband to divorce his wife?” The Pharisees betray their patriarchal worldview when they put their question to Jesus. While it’s true that the ruling in Deuteronomy chapter 24 does presume that the man initiates divorce proceedings, the response of Jesus acknowledges that a woman might also divorce her husband. Josephus sides with the Pharisees in his description of who divorces whom, but Jewish texts from Egypt five centuries earlier suggest that Jewish women of the Diaspora, at least, had a procedure for divorcement. Roman women of the period certainly did, and Jesus (or Mark) was aware of that. What no one here mentions is that the circumstance of divorce described in Mosaic law is highly specific, not making the case for divorce so much as prohibiting a particular kind of remarriage, i.e., taking back an earlier wife who has had, in the meantime, a second husband. This particular wife has been “put away” twice because both husbands find “something obnoxious” about her, according to the Tanakh translation. (The NAB prefers “something indecent”; NRSV “something objectionable”; REV “something offensive”; the Douay and the KJV settled for “some uncleanness.”) My personal favorite is Today’s English Version, which says plainly “something about her he doesn’t like.” It’s not clear why a man would remarry such a woman, but this is no time for an analyst. This specific case regarding a vaguely unsatisfying woman was in time extrapolated into the full-scale machinery of chronic divorce. It is to this, we might imagine, that Jesus objects in such strong and absolute terms, throwing the Sixth Commandment into the balance for good measure. What’s lawful today Homiletic theory dictates that Sunday Mass is no time for catechesis. But when it comes to the church’s teaching on marriage (like Jesus, we don’t have teachings on divorce), so much misinformation abounds that it might be considered “good news” to offer clarifications. Matrimony is a sacrament of the church: a call to fidelity, a vocation to family life, a consecrated union for the betterment of the partners. The church is primarily concerned with the sacramental character of that bond and whether it is properly understood and lived out. Where a valid sacrament exists, nothing can diminish or deny it, just as consecrated bread and wine remains the Body and Blood of Christ, and the baptized remain baptized. Divorce, when it occurs, is not a sin. Marriages end for a lot of reasons that may include occasions and habits of sin, but the civil action of divorce does not negate a Catholic’s standing with the church. (The Council of Baltimore in 1843 did call for excommunicating the divorced, but that censure was removed by the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore in 1884.) Anyone convicted by a sense of moral wrongdoing, including individuals whose marriages have ended, should feel welcome to celebrate the sacrament of Reconciliation. Many believe they are automatically excommunicated if they remarry after divorce. The American bishops lifted that excommunication in 1977. Many fear that, should they pursue an annulment, it will “erase” their marriage and make their children illegitimate in the eyes of the church. Annulment is concerned with the validity of the sacrament and makes no claims about the reality of the civil marriage. The church concerns itself only with the sacramental bond. Applying the word “Let the children come to me” Jesus wasn’t setting a tender trap when he came down hard on the separation of husbands and wives. It is instructive that Mark segues immediately into Jesus welcoming the children, which is for church and society the fruit of marriage: to create a welcoming, nurturing environment for the next generation. Modern life (and its conventions and chemistry) has separated the institution of marriage from that of family. Marriage is now largely regarded as a matter of romance. Family is too often described in terms of choice, vanity, or affordability. Which catapults us into a generation in which we now find ourselves arguing the very definition of marriage. Somewhere in all this, the church is calling us to consider not gay bashing or a war on single moms, but the idea that matrimony is consecrated because life is sacred, and matrimony is the basket around which the next generation is woven. If we could all start there, we might get somewhere really good. Related scripture links Original teaching on divorce: Deut. 24:1-4 Upholding the absolute teaching on marriage: Luke 16:18 Exceptions to the absolute teaching: Matt. 5:31-32; 19:8-9; 1 Cor. 7:10-16 Other biblical uses of the teaching: Isa. 50:1; Jer. 3:1, 8 Catechism links Sacrament of Matrimony: CCC 1601-1658

Authors Alice Camille

patriarchy Divorce Adam and Eve church teaching on marriage Matrimony sacramental bonds

Restricted