We are told that early in his career, St. Francis of Assisi presented us with some exhortations.  These sum up what the Franciscan Order requires and are also a pretty good description of a Catholic life.

1. Love God

2. Love one’s neighbor

3. Turn away from sinful tendencies

4. Receive the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ and, as a result of the above

5. Produce worthy fruits of penance – a renewed life characterized by charity, forgiveness, and compassion.

 There is probably nothing in this summary that we were not taught as children.  But then, during our formation as Secular Franciscans, we learn that the original name of the Third Order Secular was The Brothers and Sisters of Penance.  And although the name has since changed, brothers and sisters of penance we still are.

 Let’s face it.  Penance and its sister Atonement is what scares us, especially when we see these words linked to something that has the unfortunate name of “Order” as in “taking them”.  No Catholic is probably going to argue that living a life of penance and atonement is a bad thing as such.  But the fact is, it’s the kind of thing that sometimes makes the words “vocation” and “conversion” synonyms for “crazy— but in a good way.”

 The Franciscan Orders are penitential orders and because we are used to thinking of Penance as the punishment the priest gives us after we go to Confession, leading a life of penance sounds like leading a life of suffering.  And since as far as I am concerned I am already leading a life of suffering, thank you very much, I think I’ll take a pass.

 And yet the Franciscans are known (and rightfully so) as a particularly joyful order.  So how does this penance produce this joy?  Have Franciscans found the secret formula for how much self-punishment cancels out Catholic guilt?  Or do Franciscans have a “vocation” (nod nod wink wink) for some sort of Holy Masochism?

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The plot thickens and turns “bizarre”:

…”A Republican invitation for Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to address Congress next month is highlighting the tensions between President Obama and Mr. Netanyahu and has kicked off a bizarre diplomatic race over who will be the first to lay out a new proposal to reopen the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

…”Last November, Representative Eric Cantor, Republican of Virginia, told Mr. Netanyahu that the new G.O.P. majority in the House would “serve as a check on the administration,” in a statement that was rare for its blunt disagreement on American foreign policy as conveyed to a foreign leader.”

My former student, Matt Emerson, has written a post for the Patheos Portal, entitled, “Catholics and the Practice of Law.” In it he cites an article of mine, entitled, “Billable Hours in Ordinary Time,” which contrasts the view of time in the lawyer’s “billable hours” framework with that of the Catholic liturgical and theological framework. Thanks to Matt, several people have asked me where they can get it.  Here is a link.

Palm Sunday in the Bronx was a lovely sunny morning. After celebrating the 9:00 a.m. Mass in Italian here at Saint Theresa’s (the 80 or 90 usually in attendance unsurprisingly doubled in size), I walked around the neighborhood and stopped at the house of an elderly lady whose limited walking ability did not allow her to come to church. It turned out to be her 93rd birthday and she obviously wanted to chat a bit.

I asked where she was from originally, and she replied, “Molise.” I said, “allora, Abruzzese;” but she corrected me, with a touch of pride: “Molisana!” I then inquired about the characteristics of “i Molisani.” And she replied: “Father, there are good and bad people in every place;” and quoted a proverb from her native region: “mangiando, bevendo, tradicendo!”

I thought of her during the gospel for today’s Mass:

While they were eating, he said, “Amen, I say to you, one of you will betray me.”

Deeply distressed at this, they began to say to him one after another, “Surely, it is not I, Lord?”

One after another.

What kind of commitment does your religious profession entail? Are you bound in obedience to the Provincial? Do you have to promise to yield to the local bishop’s authority? Did you commit to support the Franciscans financially even if there is no financial transparency? Aren’t you worried about getting more closely linked to them, when they might not yet have gotten their act together about the sexual abuse crisis?

Even if there was a spiritually rich local community, because of problems of governance in the church at all levels, I would be nervous at the prospect of associating myself to the church more closely in a formal way.  (Comment posted by Claire)

I would like to make two points before I address this. First, Franciscans are fond of saying that if you meet one Jesuit, you’ve met them all; but if you meet one Franciscan, you’ve only met one Franciscan. (I don’t know yet how fond they are of saying this when an actual Jesuit is present.) The point is that Franciscans have a tradition of rugged individuality. So please note that what I say is always my personal opinion and that I am not speaking for the Order. (Although now you can see that Secular Franciscans are allowed to have personal opinions.) Second, I have never been a joiner. I hate joining groups of any kind. The last group I joined voluntarily was the Cub Scouts when I was a child, and I’m still having second thoughts about that. Maintaining the illusion of my complete independence has always been very important to me all of my life. People who know me well were astonished that I joined a religious order. One person, an old high school friend who became a priest even blurted out something not altogether priestly when I told him my plans.

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The delight of a human heart at the light of truth, at the flow of wisdom–the delight of a human heart, of a believing heart, of a holy heart–there is no pleasure that can ever be compared to it, even by being called a lesser pleasure. If you say it’s less, then by growing it could become equal. I don’t want to say it’s less; I don’t compare them–it’s of another kind, it’s far different. What is it that you’re all now considering, that you’re all listening for, that excites you all, and that, when something true is said, delights you? What did you see? What did you grasp? What color appeared to your eyes? What shape, what figure, what size, what features, what bodily beauty? Not one of them. Any yet you love it. For how would you praise it if you did not love it? And how could you love it, if you saw nothing? Without my showing you any bodily form, features, color, lovely movements, without my showing any of these, you still see, love, and praise. If this delight in the truth is sweet now, it will be much sweeter then. (Augustine, Sermon 179, 6, 6; PL 38, 969-70)

PBS’ Frontline offers a stark view of the effects of priest sex abuse in Alaskan native villages. The focus here is on the human effects of abuse, not systemic analysis, and highlights one town where nearly 80% of the children were abused. The video is deeply moving. The victims’ pain–and their courage–is striking. I am grateful to all involved in its production.

In a thirteen-page letter [PDF], Cardinal Donald Wuerl, chairman of the USCCB Committee on Doctrine, explains his committee’s rationale for taking on Elizabeth A. Johnson’s Quest for the Living God (blogged about here, here, and here). The wide-ranging letter–while acknowledging the theologian’s “legitimate vocation”–re-emphasizes bishops’ authority to teach, govern, and sanctify, comparing their role to that of a referee–”it’s not the player who calls the ball out of bounds,” Wuerl writes, “but the referee.” (Mollie takes up that analogy below.)

It’s a strange document. The letter is addressed to “brother bishops,” but it’s framed as a response to Catholic Theological Society of America board members, who issued a statement criticizing the doctrinal committee’s review of Johnson’s book. The CTSA board, according to Wuerl, “seems to misread the legitimate and apostolic role of bishops in addressing the right relationship of theologians and bishops.” The cardinal doesn’t provide evidence for that claim. Read the CTSA statement. It explicitly recognizes the “distinct vocations of the theologian and the magisterium.” Why, then, does Wuerl spend several pages reminding the bishops of the scriptural and traditional grounding of their office? That is not in dispute. What remains to be seen is why the Committee on Doctrine issued a document that so badly misreads the work of a prominent theologian without bothering to ask whether they read her right.

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REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
AT EASTER PRAYER BREAKFAST

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Thank you. Please, please have a seat.
….
To all the faith leaders and the distinguished guests that are here today, welcome to our second annual — I’m going to make it annual, why not? (Laughter and applause.) Our second Easter Prayer Breakfast. The Easter Egg Roll, that’s well established. (Laughter.) The Prayer Breakfast we started last year, in part because it gave me a good excuse to bring together people who have been such extraordinary influences in my life and such great friends. And it gives me a chance to meet and make some new friends here in the White House.

I wanted to host this breakfast for a simple reason -– because as busy as we are, as many tasks as pile up, during this season, we are reminded that there’s something about the resurrection — something about the resurrection of our savior, Jesus Christ, that puts everything else in perspective.

We all live in the hustle and bustle of our work. And everybody in this room has weighty responsibilities, from leading churches and denominations, to helping to administer important government programs, to shaping our culture in various ways. And I admit that my plate has been full as well. (Laughter.) The inbox keeps on accumulating. (Laughter.)

But then comes Holy Week. The triumph of Palm Sunday. The humility of Jesus washing the disciples’ feet. His slow march up that hill, and the pain and the scorn and the shame of the cross.

And we’re reminded that in that moment, he took on the sins of the world — past, present and future — and he extended to us that unfathomable gift of grace and salvation through his death and resurrection.

In the words of the book Isaiah: “But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.”

This magnificent grace, this expansive grace, this “Amazing Grace” calls me to reflect. And it calls me to pray. It calls me to ask God for forgiveness for the times that I’ve not shown grace to others, those times that I’ve fallen short. It calls me to praise God for the gift of our son — his Son and our Savior.

And that’s why we have this breakfast. Because in the middle of critical national debates, in the middle of our busy lives, we must always make sure that we are keeping things in perspective. Children help do that. (Laughter.) A strong spouse helps do that. But nothing beats scripture and the reminder of the eternal…..

About three years ago my then four-year-old daughter developed a habit during Sunday Mass of needing to go to the bathroom just as the sermon started. I would take her down to the ladies room in the basement of the church and help her get through the very heavy door. There, she would spend a couple of minutes taking care of business and an additional ten or fifteen minutes washing her hands. I couldn’t stick my head through the door to yell “Hurry UP!” because once when I was about to, I opened the door and saw under the stalls the feet of (presumably) teenaged girls who were down there hiding from Mass with their I-Phones.

So each Sunday I had this strange block of time on my hands.  Near the bathroom door there was a pillar with cork sides that seemed to be used for posting way-out-of-date community notices. Being utterly desperate for something to read while I was waiting for my daughter, my attention was drawn to a yellowed brochure with a hundred thumb-tack holes in it for the local Third Order (Secular) Franciscan group, whose multi-parish community was based in my parish. I had heard of Secular Franciscans and knew that they were probably a cult of hippies who liked to gather together to hold hands and sing Kumbayah. Clearly this was not a group for me.

But my daughter’s tiny bladder kept leading me to the basement and the brochure, Sunday after Sunday. After I had read it about twenty times, I made a Firm Commitment to myself to go to one of their meetings (which were held each third Saturday after the morning Mass). I would see what they were really about, if only for some possible entertainment value.

Like many of my Firm Commitments, I blew this one off when the time came and then felt guilty about it….

Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday the USCCB’s Committee on Doctrine issued a statement, signed by committee chair Cardinal Donald Wuerl, in response to the recent flap over their critique of Elizabeth Johnson’s Quest for the Living God (click here for all dotCommonweal posts on the subject). It’s called “Bishops as Teachers: A Resource for Bishops,” and you can read it here (PDF).

As with the aftermath of the bishops’ position in the the debate over the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, I find myself asking, “Can the bishops ever be wrong?” Following the health-care-reform debate, that question was asked in Commonweal by Daniel Finn (“Uncertainty Principle”) and Richard Gaillardetz (“The Limits of Authority”), and it’s worth going back to their analyses in the light of this new document. “Bishops as Teachers” defends at length the bishops’ special competence as authoritative teachers of the faith. But what if they make a bad call? Is anyone who says “I think you got this wrong” automatically undermining, or denying, the bishops’ authority to teach what is right?

Cardinal Wuerl offers an analogy: Read the rest of this entry »

At the auction or market of faith the kingdom of heaven is being offered for sale to you. Review and gather the riches of your conscience, bring the treasures of your heart together in agreement. But you buy without cost if you acknowledge the graciousness of the grace that is being offered to you. You are spending nothing, and acquiring something great. Don’t think of yourselves as cheap, for your Creator, the Creator of all things, considers you so dear that every day he pours out for you the most precious blood of his only Son. (Augustine, Sermon 216, 3; PL 38, 1078).

Over the weekend there were reports that the Qaddafi government had started using cluster bombs in civilian areas in Misurata, the only rebel stronghold in western Libya. The New York Times reported:

The use of such weapons in these ways could add urgency to the arguments by Britain and France that the alliance needs to step up attacks on the Qaddafi forces, to better fulfill the United Nations mandate to protect civilians.

The article notes that cluster bombs, because of their indiscriminate nature and the risk they pose to civilians, “have been banned by much of the world.” That doesn’t include Libya, whose government hasn’t signed the international convention on Cluster Bomb Munitions. And, as you know if you read Tobias Winright’s Commonweal article “Predictably Horrific,” it doesn’t include the United States either. The NYT notes, “[T]he United States has used cluster munitions itself, in battlefield situations in Afghanistan and Iraq, and in a strike on suspected militants in Yemen in 2009.” (The Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting blog senses a double standard in the NYT‘s description of the horrors of “indiscriminate weapons” and downplaying of U.S. reliance on same.)

Of course, attacking one’s own people is particularly barbaric. But can we call it a humanitarian crisis when Qaddafi uses cluster bombs without calling into question our own refusal to disavow them?

Apropos of our earlier speculation about US-Pak relations, Jane Perlez has this set of tidbits in April 18 New York Times. Probably less than 5 percent of what’s really going on.

On Pat Lang’s blog a regular contributor is FB Ali (I believe a retired Pakistani military man); his post today has the general outlines of the Times story, but with far more detail about the relationship between the three nations. A key paragraph here, but the whole is worth a read.

“Pakistan believes that both the US and Karzai have shown themselves to be more friendly towards India than Pakistan. Therefore, in pursuit of its security goal, it has tried to preserve the Afghan insurgency as a viable force in both the current war and the future ‘peace’, in order to influence through them the final outcome of the Afghan conflict. Believing that the US will ultimately tire of a long, inconclusive war and depart (and aware that it is likely to remain financially dependent on the US for quite some time), Pakistan has tried very hard to get the US to accept it as a ‘strategic partner’ and guardian of US interests in the region (offering to help in satisfactorily ending the Afghan war and guaranteeing the resulting arrangement). However, instead of a partner the US has insisted on treating it as a client state, which riles the Pakistanis no end. On the other side, the US is royally ticked off that Pakistan doesn’t behave as any half-decent client state should.”

Let the cantor go up, then, but let that man sing from the heart of everyone of you, and let each person be that man. For although you all say that, because all of you are one in Christ, it is the one man who is saying it. He doesn’t say, “To you, O Lord, we have lifted up our eyes,” but “To you, O Lord, I have lifted up my eyes.” You should consider that it is each of you who is saying that, but the one chiefly speaking is that single man who is spread throughout the whole round world. That one man is speaking who says elsewhere, “To you have I cried from the ends of the earth when my heart was in anguish” (Ps 60:3). Who is it who is crying from the ends of the earth? Who is that man spread out to the ends of the earth? An individual person can cry out in his own region, but from the ends of the earth? But the inheritance of Christ of which it was said, “I will give you the nations for your inheritance and the ends of the earth for your possession” (Ps 2:8), it is she who cries out and says, “From the ends of the earth I have cried to you, when my heart was in anguish.” [Augustine, In Ps 122, 1-2; PL 37: 1630-31]

The following is extracted from a sermon Augustine gave to the competentes, those enrolled for baptism at the Easter Vigil.

Approach him, then, with crushed hearts, because he is “near to those who have crushed their hearts, and he will save the lowly of heart” (Ps 33:19). Eagerly approach him that you may be enlightened. For you are still in darkness, and the darkness in you. You will be light in the Lord who “enlightens every one who comes into this world” (Jn 1:9). You have been conformed to the world; be reformed for God. May you at some point grow tired of your Babylonian captivity. Look! That mother Jerusalem in heaven comes cheerfully to meet you on your way and to invite you, and she implores you to “desire life and to love to see good days” (Ps 33:12), days such as you have never had in this world, and never will have. In this world, in fact, your days were disappearing like smoke; for them to be increased was for them to be decreased, for them to grow was to become less, for them to rise was to vanish. You who have lived for sin for many and evil years: desire to live for God, and not for the many years that eventually must come to an end, rushing toward destruction in the shadow of death, but for good years, akin to that true and vigorous life when no hunger, no thirst, will weary you, because faith will be your food and wisdom your drink. For now in the Church you bless the Lord in faith; but then in full sight you will be watered from the overflowing fountains of Israel. (Augustine, Sermon 216 , 3; Pl 38, 1078-1079)

The word “realize” is central to Blessed John Henry Newman’s pastoral vision. The challenge we face as Christians is to realize the grace that God so lavishly bestows upon us in Christ. To “realize,” not merely notionally or cognitively, but with our whole being: body, mind, and heart.

Here is an excerpt from one of his sermons, on “The Difficulty of Realizing Sacred Privileges,” that I find most apt as we begin Holy Week.

Alas, that while we thus grow in knowledge in matters of time and sense, yet we remain children in knowledge of our heavenly privileges! St. Paul says, that whereas Christ is risen, He “hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” [Eph. ii. 6.] This is what we have still to learn; to know our place, position, situation as “children of God, members of Christ, and inheritors of the kingdom of heaven.” We are risen again, and we know it not. We begin our Catechism by confessing that we are risen, but it takes a long life to apprehend what we confess. We are like people waking from sleep, who cannot collect their thoughts at once, or understand where they are. By little and little the truth breaks upon us. Such are we in the present world; sons of light, gradually waking to a knowledge of themselves. For this let us meditate, let us pray, let us work,—gradually to attain to a real apprehension of what we are. Thus, as time goes on, we shall gain first one thing, then another. By little and little we shall give up shadows and find the substance. Waiting on God day by day, we shall make progress day by day, and approach to the true and clear view of what He has made us to be in Christ. Year by year we shall gain something, and each Easter, as it comes, will enable us more to rejoice with heart and understanding in that great salvation which Christ then accomplished.

The rest is here.

[To anyone in the vicinity of Morristown, New Jersey: I will be offering a presentation on "The Challenge and Promise of Newman" at the College of Saint Elizabeth Monday evening (April 18th) at 7:00 p.m.]

Just to stir the pot a little… Catholic conservatives frequently distinguish between disagreeing with the Church’s views on abortion/gay marriage/stem cell research and a departing from the Church’s views on the death penalty/torture/war/economic justice.  The idea, as then Cardinal Ratzinger laid out in his July 2004 letter on receiving communion, is that the former are intrinsically evil, whereas the evil of the latter positions depends on some degree of prudential judgment:

For example, if a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment or on the decision to wage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion. While the Church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia.

There are lots of questions about this distinction that have been raised here and elsewhere.  I don’t want to get into those again in this post.  My question is a different one.  What are we to do when a Catholic politician seems to reject the principle underlying the prudential judgment?  For example, there may be “legitimate diversity of opinion” about waging THIS particular war or applying the death penalty in THIS particular case.  But what if the politician rejects the broader exhortation to “seek peace, not war”?  Surely — in the magisterium’s view — there is no room for legitimate diversity of opinion on that more general matter of principle. Similarly, while there may be a great deal of legitimate diversity of opinion concerning how best to promote the well being of the poorest, surely (on the magisterium’s view of its own authority) there is no legitimate diversity of opinion concerning the mandate to structure social policy toward that end.  Thus, a Catholic politician who said that he was structuring social policy precisely because government has no obligation towards the poorest, could not be said to differ from the Church on a matter of mere prudential judgment.

I take it no one would disagree with the foregoing.  Perhaps my next assertion will be more controversial.  Read the rest of this entry »

Now what is God’s house is also a city. For God’s house is the people of God, God’s house is the temple of God. And what does the Apostle say? “God’s temple is holy, which you yourselves are” (1 Cor 3:17). For all the believers are the house of God, not only those who exist now, but also those who existed before us and have fallen asleep, and also those who will exist after us, who have yet to be born, down to the end of the world, gathered into a single reality, countless but counted by the Lord, about whom the Apostle says: “The Lord knows who are his own” (2 Tim 2:19)–those grains that now groan among the chaff and will make a single mass when the threshing floor is winnowed at the end (Mt 3:12)–the entire number of holy believers, to be changed from being human beings to being equal to God’s angels, they, too, to be joined to the angels who now do not wander but await us when we return from our wandering–all of these together making up the single house and single city of God. This is Jerusalem.

This city has guardians. As it has builders who work to build the city, so also it has guardians. To their role belongs what the Apostle says: “I fear that as the serpent seduced Eve by his cleverness, so your minds may be corrupted away from the chastity that is in Christ” (2 Cor 11:3). Paul guarded them; he was a guardian; he watched, as much as he was able, over his people. Bishops do this, too. Bishops are set in a higher place so they can supervise and as it were guard the people. The Greek word episcopos in Latin means supervisor, because he supervises, that is, he looks down from above. He’s also like a vine-dresser: as he has a higher place so he can guard the vine, so a bishop has a higher place. And from that high place we will have to face a dangerous accounting unless we stand here with a heart that places us humbly beneath your feet and unless we pray for you that the one who knows your minds guard them. We can see you entering and leaving, but we have no way of knowing what is in your hearts or what you do in your homes. How, then, can we guard? Only as men, as much as we can, as much as we have been given. And because we guard as human beings and cannot perfectly guard you, do we therefore remain without a guardian? Of course not. For where is he of whom it is said: “Unless the Lord guard the city, he labors in vain who guards it.” We work at guarding, but our effort is in vain unless he who sees your thoughts guards you. He guards you when you are awake, and he guards you when you sleep. (He slept once on the cross; but he sleeps no more.) Be Israel: because the one who guards Israel neither sleeps nor will sleep (Ps 120:4). So then, brothers and sisters, if we wish to be guarded beneath the shadow of God’s wings, let us be Israel. We guard you by the office we have received, but we wish to be guarded along with you. We are like shepherds for you, but we are sheep along with you beneath that Shepherd. We are like teachers for you from this place, but we are your fellow students beneath that single Teacher. [Augustine, Enar. in Ps 126, 4; PL 37:1669]

Here’s a handy set of charts on taxes, national and comparative. No forthing (or frothing) at the mouth, please.

After entertaining chapters on the on-the-job education in the faith that he got while presenting and defending Catholicism as an eager participant in the Catholic Evidence Guild, Frank Sheed devotes the seventh chapter of his The Church and I; to “The Catholic Intellectual Revival” in the twenty years between the two World Wars. He remarks:

In the explosion which accompanied and followed Vatican II there grew up a contempt for the pre-conciliar Curch which might have had some application to the time before Benedict XV, but had none to the twenties and onwards. In those years the intellectual activity was enormous. Without it Vatican II would have been impossible.

Fr. M.-D. Chenu made much the same point from a French perspective.

In the central section of the chapter Sheed recalls the names of people on “the nation’s reading lists” who converted to Catholicism: Read the rest of this entry »

While trying to put some order into my bookshelves, I came across Frank Sheed’s The Church and I, his somewhat autobiographical recollections of his “experience of the Church,” and now I can’t put it down. (The epigram is from G.K. Chesterton: “We’re all in the same boat, and we’re all seasick.) Before I move to another point in a separate post, I reproduce the lovely poem Sheed quotes from Siegfried Sasson describing the poet’s conversion:

This, then, brought our new making. Much emotional stress—
Call it conversion; but the word can’t cover such good.
It was like being in love with ambient blessedness—
In love with life transformed—life breathed afresh,
though yet half understood.

There had been many byways for the frustrate brain,
All leading to illusions lost and shrines forsaken…
One road before us now–one guidance for our gain—
One morning light—whatever the world’s weather—
Wherein wide eyed to waken.

It’s unfortunate that President Obama  agreed to extend a school voucher program in the District of Columbia only as an 11th-hour concession to avoid a shutdown of the federal government. It gives the impression that the vouchers  program was not effective enough to stand for approval  in the light of day.

Under the leadership of Arne Duncan, the U.S. Department of Education opposed the program, saying it had not raised student achievement. But the department’s own study had a startling result: 91 percent of the students who accepted the scholarship graduated from high school, 21 percentage points better than other students. All of these students were black or Hispanic, and came from families earning under $20,000 a year.

Since improving high school graduation rates is a major goal of Duncan and the president, it’s hard to see how they can justify dismissing the D.C. voucher program. Many studies have found that high school graduation is closely associated with future success. The study also showed that reading scores were higher for the voucher students, although not at a statistically significant margin. Parental satisfaction with the child’s school was also higher, as was the parents’ sense that students were safe.

Duncan has championed charter schools, which have produced mixed results. At the same time, these schools have drawn many students away from Catholic schools in urban areas, further endangering Catholic education. Given the huge amounts of money the  administration is pouring into charter schools, the very least it could do is to support a successful experiment in school vouchers without having to be coerced into it.   Read the rest of this entry »

The Lord is gracious and merciful, patient and plentiful in mercy. The Lord is sweet to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works (Ps 144:8-9). If he were not so, there would be no recovery for us. Consider yourself: a sinner, what did you deserve? Scornful of God, what did you deserve? Was there anything but punishment, anything but suffering? You see what was owed to you, and what he gave out of utter graciousness. Forgiveness was given to a sinner; the justifying spirit was given; that charity and love was given in which you do all good things; and over and above these, he will give eternal life also and communion with the angels–and all of it out of mercy. Never flourish your merits, because your merits themselves are his gifts: And they shall rejoice in your righteousness (Ps 144:7) . Gracious and merciful is the Lord: you have done all things out of grace. [Augustine, In Ps 144,11; PL 37:1876]

Today working-class hero Gov. Scott Walker visited Capitol Hill to testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee in a hearing titled “State and Municipal Debt: Tough Choices Ahead.” Now that those pesky public employees have been stripped of their right to bargain collectively, Wisconsin has “a progressive option,” Walker explained. “We’re giving state and local governments the tools they need not just to balance the budget for the next two years but for generations to come.” Or at least until the Democrats get back into office.

Needless to say, House Democrats let Walker know how offensive they found his actions. They also had some questions about the role of outside money in his campaign against public-sector unions. Gerry Connolly (D.-Virgina) asked about the prank phone call in which a local blogger pretended to be David Koch. ”He said ‘I’ll tell you what Scott, once you crush these bastards I’ll fly you out to Cali and really show you a good time. You responded to that by saying ‘All right, that would be outstanding.’ What did you mean by that?”

Nothing, Walker explained. Just trying to get off the call. No implied reward. Then, he added: “I don’t even know where Cali is.”

Ha’aretz reports what the U.S. media dare not speak: “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will give a Mideast peace policy speech in front of U.S. Congress in late May, Haaretz learned on Thursday, in an attempt to counter a speech expected to deal with U.S. Mideast policy by President Barack Obama.”   Does this make Netanyahu co-president? or co-secretary of state?

UPDATE on the invitation to speak from MJ Rosenberg at Media Matters: “Leave it to House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA). With President Barack Obama expected to deliver a major speech outlining a new (or, at least, revised) Middle East peace strategy soon, Cantor decided it was time to invite Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to deliver a speech before a joint session of Congress.

“This is one of the benefits of having a Republican House at the same time that a Likud prime minister is in office in Israel. The two right-wing parties can work together to thwart any Democratic president’s attempt to advance U.S. national security by brokering Middle East peace.”

Judge Richard Goldstone has long been an esteemed jurist  in South Africa and internationally. Here is a round-up of recent articles that discuss his change of views about Israeli targeting of civilian in the war in Gaza and the controversy that has followed.

Goldstone’s fellow commissioners, though pressured to change their minds, refuse to do so. “The statement by Mr. Goldstone’s three colleagues shows that they share none of his second thoughts about the report and that they are eager to prevent his essay from being used to cast aside the report entirely, as the Israeli government and some members of Congress are hoping it will.” New York Times. Here is their complete statement as published in the Guardian.

The Forward had this story recounting the pressures reportedly placed on Goldstone to back down from the reports’ findings.  The Forward.

Roger Cohen looks at the report of Mary McGowan Davis who Goldstone cites as the source for his change of views. Cohen thinks Goldstone has misread Judge Davis’s report. New York Times.

Here again is Judge Goldstone’s op-ed piece  in the Washington Post that started the controversy.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York has joined the stampede to repudiate the Goldstone Report and in this interview looks forward to PM Netanyahu’s speech to Congress. Has she no shame? Ha’aretz interviews her.

A full story from Ethan Bronner (NY Times) about Judge Goldstone’s struggle with the controversy: “Interviews with two dozen people who know him suggest a combination of reasons: the hostility from his community, disappointment about Hamas’s continuing attacks on civilians, and new understanding of Israel’s conduct in a few of the most deadly incidents of the war.”

The latest Commonweal includes a review by yours truly of Don Brophy’s biography Catherine of Siena: A Passionate Life (“The Rest of Her”), which subscribers can read now or save for Catherine’s feast day on April 29. It begins:

The head of St. Catherine of Siena, who died in 1380, is on display in a reliquary in Siena’s church of San Domenico. The relic is slightly ghoulish, though in remarkably good shape for being more than six hundred years old. A thumb of Catherine’s is also exposed for veneration in a case nearby. The rest of her body lies in Rome, in a tomb in the Dominican church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, near the house where Catherine died.

A reader sent an email yesterday to let me know I’d overlooked a piece: “I think Catherine’s forefinger is in the Venice Cathedral — or at least it was there many years ago!”

Brophy doesn’t mention any relics in Venice (as far as I recall), but I know bits of saints have a way of ending up in unexpected places — and I recall seeing more than two “index finger of John the Baptist” reliquaries on my last trip to Italy. So I turned to Google to check this out. While I couldn’t find anything about a finger at the cathedral, I did learn that Venice’s Basilica of Santi Giovanni e Paolo — aka “San Zanipolo” — has, or claims to have, the left foot of St. Catherine in a reliquary. I even found a photo (happily indistinct).

If you’ve never had the pleasure of visiting Siena — and I do recommend it; the connection to Catherine is but one of its charms — here is a photo of Catherine’s head, so you can judge for yourself whether “ghoulish” is the right word. (Here is her thumb.) I was excited to see the relics on my visits — and disinclined to photograph them myself — but I must say I found it easier to pray at the tomb in Rome, with its tasteful statue of Catherine’s (entire) body in repose.

Now I know I have to get to Venice on my next Italian pilgrimage! Have you encountered any memorable relics in your travels?

There follows in this long Psalm something that we ought, with God’s help, to consider and discuss: Set before me a law, O Lord, the way of your justifications, and I will always seek after it (Ps 118:33). The Apostle says: “The law is not made for the just person, but for the unjust and disobedient” (1 Tim 1:9-11). … Well, was the person who says, “Set before me a law,” the kind of person Paul says the law was made for? Of course not. If he were that sort of person, he would not have said in the previous verse: “I have run the way of your commandments, when you enlarged my heart.” But if the law is not made for a just person, then what is it that he is praying for when he asks that a law be set before him? Perhaps he does not wish the law to be set before him in the same way as when it was set before a stiff-necked people, on stone tablets and not on “the fleshly tablets of the heart (2 Cor 3:3), according to the old covenant that engenders into slavery (Gal 4:24) and not according to the new covenant about which Jeremiah the prophet wrote: “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, and I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not according to the covenant which I made with their fathers on the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, because they did not remain in my covenant, and I no longer cared for them, says the Lord. For this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel: After those days, says the Lord, I will give my laws in their minds and I will write them in their hearts (Jer 31:31-33).

Now we see how the Psalmist wants a law set before him by the Lord, not as the law was once made for the unjust and the disobedient, people belonging to the old covenant, and written on stone tablets. No, he wants the law that is meant for holy children of the free Jerusalem–the one that is above–, for the children of the promise, for the children of the eternal inheritance, the law that is given in the mind and written on hearts by God’s finger, the Holy Spirit, not a law that people keep in memory but neglect in their lives, but a law that they know because they understand it, a law that they do by loving, not confined in the narrow ways of fear but with all the breadth of love. One who does what the law requires out of fear of punishment and not out of love of righteousness does so unwillingly; and what he does unwillingly he would prefer, if it were possible, that it not be commanded, and so he is no friend but an enemy of a law which he wishes did not exist. A person whose will is thus unclean is not cleansed by such observance of the law. He cannot say what the Psalmist says: “I will run the way of your commandments when you enlarged my heart,” because that enlarging refers to the love that the Apostle says is the fulfilment of the law (Rm 13:10). (Augustine, In Ps 118/11, 1; PL 37, 1528)

Therefore have I loved your commandments above gold and topaz (Ps 118: 127). This is what grace does: we fulfill out of love commandments that we could not fulfill out of fear. For by God’s grace, “love has been poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Rm 5:5). That is why the Lord himself said: “I did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it (Mt 5:17), and the Apostle, too: “The fullness of the law is love” (Rm 13:10). (Augustine, In Ps 118/26, 8; PL 37:1579)

Just posted to the home page, “A President, Not a Ref”:

President Barack Obama has finally decided to take his own side in the philosophical struggle that is the true engine of this nation’s budget debate.

After months of mixed signals about what he was willing to fight for, Obama finally laid out his purposes and his principles. His approach has difficulties of its own, and much will depend on execution. But the president was unequivocal in arguing that the roots of our fiscal problems lie in the tax cuts of the past decade that we could not afford. And he raised the stakes in our politics to something more fundamental than dry numbers on a page or computer screen.

“We are rugged individualists, a self-reliant people with a healthy skepticism of too much government,” he declared. “But there has always been another thread running throughout our history–a belief that we are all connected; and that there are some things we can only do together, as a nation. We believe, in the words of our first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, that through government, we should do together what we cannot do as well for ourselves.”

Read the rest right here.