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Christian Witness, Perspective, Political

Catholic when convenient

Anthony Stevens-Arroyo dissects Roman Catholic pundits who love the Bishop of Rome when he speaks their creed and who cast him into a corner when they disagree. True, the Pope can and does err, and Roman Catholic dogmas never declared the Pope infallible in his personal pronouncements, his personal political views, or even his personal theological perspective. That said, he does speak for the Church and is charged with teaching things consistent with the Catholic faith. Sometimes he teaches things people just don’t like. A person’s personal likes and dislikes matter little in the face of such teaching.

From Mr. Stevens-Arroyo’s Washington Post column: Vatican Insiders and Outsiders

Like most large organizations, the Catholic Church experiences both insiders and outsiders… The insider role to the Vatican has been played for more than a decade by George Weigel, the official biographer of Pope John Paul II and a trusted spokesperson for the conservative right-wing in U.S. politics. But in the law of political changes, today’s insider can become tomorrow’s outsider. That, I think, has been the turnaround for Weigel.

Named official biographer for Pope John Paul II, Wiegel was given unparalleled access to the Vatican and to the persons and places surrounding the pontiff. But Weigel was not content in producing a quality biography (Witness to Hope, 1999): he decided to parlay his access with the church into an influential role among neo-conservatives. His insider status with the Vatican allowed him to wax expansively in the conservative media about “what the pope really meant.” Almost without exception, Weigel considered the pope’s thinking to be in line with Republican Party politics.

Weigel then set up shop at Washington’s Ethics and Public Policy Center, one of many “think tanks” within the Beltway. His opinions were regularly posted by the National Review, the birthplace of “Mater, Sí­; Magistra, No!” While no doubt his political job paid the bills, it also aligned him with the authors of the classic Cafeteria Catholic dismissal of papal authority in matters of social justice. The compromise was painfully evident when first John Paul II and then his successor, Benedict XVI, condemned the invasion of Iraq. Weigel voiced the line that “abortion was an intrinsic evil” which meant no deviation was possible, but that waging an unjust war or supporting the death penalty were areas where good Catholics like himself could openly differ with papal teaching. Weigel’s postings became more ideological and less insightful, I think. Clearly, with the majority of Catholic voters supporting Barack Obama for president in 2008, Weigel had been turned into an outsider in Washington. Then Weigel’s response to Pope Benedict’s social justice encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, revealed that he had been turned into an outsider for Vatican goings-on as well.

Weigel apparently believed that he could accept the parts of the encyclical with which he agreed politically and dismiss the rest of the pope’s teaching. He inferred that Pope Benedict had not been honest with the world’s Catholics but instead had succumbed to ideas foisted on him by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace According to Weigel, Pope Benedict produced a document in which certain passages were “golden” (as in GOP) and others were “red” (as in Communist). When discussing the pope’s call to lessen world poverty through international cooperation, Weigel opined that “it may mean something naïve or dumb.” Weigel concluded that rather than an expression of the Ordinary Magisterium of the Church, Caritas in Veritate was “an encyclical that resembles a duck-billed platypus.” One wonders if the inability to find coherence in a papal document is the fault of the pope or of prejudgments from analysts like George Weigel…

The mixing of politics and faith leads to an internal dichotomy and eventually to self-serving philosophies and theologies. Perhaps Mr. Weigel and those similarly situated should reconsider what it means to be Catholic, and particularly Roman Catholic. Catholicism often entails hard choices and a reordering of perspectives.

Christian Witness, ,

Going to Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, KFC, or Long John Silver’s? Support YUM Brands Workers

Please help secure justice for workers who have been fired from YUM Brands fast food restaurants throughout the Midwest.

More than 100 workers in the greater Chicago area have been fired by Pizza Hut, purportedly based on SSA no-match letters. All of these workers have been told by Pizza Hut management to re-verify their eligibility for employment, or they would be fired. Many have worked at Pizza Hut for more than a decade.

These firings could signal that thousands of YUM Brands workers across the country are in jeopardy of losing their jobs.

Deliver a message to your local YUM Brands restaurant that their employees deserve to be treated with dignity and respect and the company needs to stop the unjust firings now!

Here’s what you can do:

  • Bring a group of concerned people to deliver this flyer [pdf] or a personal message to a local YUM Brands restaurant.
  • Call Pizza Hut President Scott Bergren at (972) 338-7700 and express concern and disappointment about Pizza Hut’s campaign against Latino workers.
  • Send a letter to: Scott Bergren, President and Chief Concept Officer, Pizza Hut, Inc., 14841 N. Dallas Parkway, Dallas, TX, 75254.
  • Talk to the management at a local Pizza Hut and convey the same message of concern and disappointment with the company’s treatment of long-time, loyal employees.

For more information, contact the Workers’ Rights Center in Madison, Wisconsin (a member of IWJ’s national network of worker centers) or the Chicago Workers’ Collaborative at (773) 655-0815.

Christian Witness, Perspective, Poland - Polish - Polonia

Poles “are distancing themselves from systematic religious practices…”

From Reuters: Fewer Poles going to church, most still believe: poll

WARSAW (Reuters) – Fewer Poles attend church services every week or have confidence in the papacy than a decade ago but levels of religious belief remain very high in Poland, according to a survey published on Thursday.

Poland is probably the most religiously observant country in Europe and its churches are generally packed on Sundays, in strong contrast to the empty or half-empty pews commonly found in many other parts of the continent.

The poll, published in the Rzeczpospolita daily, showed 37 percent of Poles go to mass every Sunday, down from 42 percent in 1998, but the number of people going to church on a less regular basis showed a small increase.

Confidence in the papacy has slipped to 80 percent from 91 percent in 1998, when Polish-born Pope John Paul II led the Catholic Church, the poll showed. German-born Pope Benedict XVI took over the church in 2005 after John Paul’s death.

The poll, conducted by the Institute of Sociology attached to Warsaw’s University of Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski, showed 81 percent of Poles count themselves religious believers, against 86 percent in 1998.

A further 11 percent still feel attached to Catholic traditions even if they are not sure about belief, it said. Only three percent described themselves as non-believers, unchanged from 1998.

In line with church teachings, more than two thirds of Poles are opposed to abortion, up slightly from 1998, and more than half oppose divorce, also up from 11 years earlier.

“Poles are not abandoning (religious) belief… but are distancing themselves from systematic religious practices,” Slawomir Zareba, the professor and priest who organized the poll, told the newspaper.

The Catholic Church played a key role in preserving a strong sense of national identity among Poland’s 38 million people during decades of atheistic communist rule.

I saw this coming seventeen years ago as friends complained about clergy focusing on politics rather than the spiritual life, including from the pulpit. Back then Sunday attendance was still de rigueur — people actually questioned you if they didn’t see you at Sunday Mass. The children of those people are now foregoing ecclesiastical marriages and church attendance.

I also predict that the Church will loose more and more adherents as the new crop of clergy coming out of Polish seminaries forego the hidden wife/girlfriend for the hidden boyfriend. There has been a seed change in many of the seminaries.

The Polish Church’s focus on politics and its internal hypocrisies will have a far greater affect on attendance and adherence than membership in the E.U. and migration will ever have. It is too bad really. In cases like this the Church only has itself to blame.

Christian Witness, , , , , , ,

The theological economist

The Bishop of Rome issued his encyclical Caritas in veritate (Charity in Truth) on the subject of Christian teaching on economics. The Rev. Thomas J. Reese, S.J. comments on it in the Washington Post. A few excerpts here:

“Profit is useful if it serves as a means towards an end,” he writes in Caritas in veritate (Charity in Truth), but “once profit becomes the exclusive goal, if it is produced by improper means and without the common good as its ultimate end, it risks destroying wealth and creating poverty.”

He decries that “Corruption and illegality are unfortunately evident in the conduct of the economic and political class in rich countries…as well as in poor ones.” He also says that “Financiers must rediscover the genuinely ethical foundation of their activity, so as not to abuse the sophisticated instruments which can serve to betray the interests of savers.”

…Benedict disappointedly acknowledges that “The world’s wealth is growing in absolute terms, but inequalities are on the increase” [italics in text].

“The dignity of the individual and the demands of justice require,” he affirms, “that economic choices do not cause disparities in wealth to increase in an excessive and morally unacceptable manner, and that we continue to prioritize the goal of access to steady employment for everyone.”

In his encyclical, Benedict calls for charity guided by truth. “Charity demands justice: recognition and respect for the legitimate rights of individuals and peoples,” he says. “Justice must be applied to every phase of economic activity, because this is always concerned with man and his needs,” he writes. “Locating resources, financing, production, consumption and all the other phases in the economic cycle inevitably have moral implications. Thus every economic decision has a moral consequence.”

The encyclical notes the globalization that has taken place since Paul’s encyclical was issued over 40 years ago. Alas, “as society becomes ever more globalized, it makes us neighbors but does not make us brothers.” True “development of peoples depends, above all, on a recognition that the human race is a single family working together in true communion, not simply a group of subjects who happen to live side by side.” The goal of such development is “rescuing peoples, first and foremost, from hunger, deprivation, endemic diseases and illiteracy.”

Sounding like a union organizer, Benedict argues that “Lowering the level of protection accorded to the rights of workers, or abandoning mechanisms of wealth redistribution in order to increase the country’s international competitiveness, hinder the achievement of lasting development.”

Rather the goal should be decent employment for everyone, which “means work that expresses the essential dignity of every man and woman in the context of their particular society: work that is freely chosen, effectively associating workers, both men and women, with the development of their community; work that enables the worker to be respected and free from any form of discrimination; work that makes it possible for families to meet their needs and provide schooling for their children, without the children themselves being forced into labor; work that permits the workers to organize themselves freely, and to make their voices heard; work that leaves enough room for rediscovering one’s roots at a personal, familial and spiritual level; work that guarantees those who have retired a decent standard of living.”

…

While Benedict acknowledges the role of the market, he emphasizes that “the social doctrine of the Church has unceasingly highlighted the importance of distributive justice and social justice for the market economy.” He unflinchingly supports the “redistribution of wealth” when he talks about the role of government. “Grave imbalances are produced,” he writes, “when economic action, conceived merely as an engine for wealth creation, is detached from political action, conceived as a means for pursuing justice through redistribution.”

Although Benedict’s emphasis in the encyclical is on the theological foundations of Catholic social teaching, amid the dense prose there are indications, as shown above, that he is to the left of almost every politician in America. What politician would casually refer to “redistribution of wealth” or talk of international governing bodies to regulate the economy? Who would call for increasing the percentage of GDP devoted to foreign aid? Who would call for the adoption of “new life-styles ‘in which the quest for truth, beauty, goodness and communion with others for the sake of common growth are the factors which determine consumer choices, savings and investments'”?

Benedict believes that if people understood God’s love for every single human person and his divine plan for us, then believers would recognize their duty “to unite their efforts with those of all men and women of good will, with the followers of other religions and with non-believers, so that this world of ours may effectively correspond to the divine plan: living as a family under the Creator’s watchful eye.”

I say Amen! amen! It will be interesting to watch as Roman Catholic and other Christian business people and political leaders dance their way around this, or more likely choose to ignore it. The reaction will be much the same as that of Roman Catholics and other Christians who ignored, countermanded, or attempted to out theologize and teach John Paul II on the Iraq war.

Christian Witness, PNCC,

New Ordinary for the Western Diocese leaves Stratford, Connecticut

From the Connecticut Post: Kopka leaving Stratford parish to head West

Kopka Named Diocean Bishop of the Western Diocese of the Polish National Catholic Church in Chicago, covering eight states

STRATFORD — Bishop Anthony Kopka and many of his parishioners at St. Joseph’s Polish National Catholic Church still recall his first sermon on Father’s Day in 1982, when the congregation was in Bridgeport and the 26-year-old priest came strolling into the church carrying his clergy shirt and collar on a hangar, with a few dozen people in attendance.

It will be far different for Kopka when he delivers his final sermon Sunday at 4 p.m. in front of an expected crowd of 400 people at St. Joseph’s parish, 1300 Stratford Road, before departing for his new job in Chicago on Tuesday.

He won’t be carrying his clothing on a hanger this time, and there will be plenty of tears from those who eagerly awaited his arrival 27 years ago after being without a priest for more than a year.

Kopka will be adorned in the full black Bishop’s Cassock and floor-length robes, with red trim, and a brass headdress of miter and crosier — centuries-old symbols of regalia for bishops.

Kopka, now 53, has been named Bishop of the Western Diocese of the Polish National Catholic Church in Chicago, which covers eight Midwestern and southern states and 30 parishes. He’ll also be pastor of All Saints Cathedral in Chicago. It’s a big change from overseeing a couple of hundred people for most of his time at St. Joseph’s, before being named auxiliary bishop of the Eastern Diocese in November 2006 that covers four New England states, including Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Manchester.

“It’s a very emotional time. I have loved every minute of my 27 years here and it’s not easy to leave,” said Kopka, getting uncharacteristically choked up several times during an interview this week. “I grew up in New Castle, Pennsylvania, but after all my wonderful experiences here — being part of the community and raising a family — I will now forever say I’m from Stratford.”

Kopka said he is ready for the new challenge.

“I believe God has been preparing me for this for a long time,” Kopka said. “I want to help take our church into a new era that goes beyond just (Polish) ethnicity and appeals to all those searching for an alternative. Our church tends to be more liberal in its doctrine as priests and bishops are allowed to marry and have families, which I think is important because we can relate to the same everyday problems that face other people.”

Dolores Smith, 68, who has been a church member her entire life and is chairwoman of a gala party Sunday that will celebrate Kopka’s tenure, said the party will include 20 members of the clergy from the area, as well as Mayor James R. Miron, State Rep. Terry Backer, D-Stratford, and Supt. of Schools Irene Cornish.

Smith said it will be tough to replace a pastor who has led the congregation for nearly three decades, including the move from Bridgeport in 1989, “who has made such an impact on the community with his outreach and leadership.

“I still remember that first sermon he gave like it was yesterday,” Smith said. “Bishop Anthony was so young and hopeful, and had this wonderful big smile that has been comforting us all these years. It’s very bittersweet to see him go, but we know God will send us the right person to replace him, just like when he was sent to us all those years ago.”

When Kopka arrived church membership was dwindling, as parishioners were becoming scared to come to Barnum Avenue and Harriet Street on the east side of Bridgeport. He said car break-ins, muggings, threats to churchgoers and women being accosted resulted in the congregation voting overwhelmingly in 1988 to move to the Lordship section of Stratford, where the church owned a parcel of land.

A new church was built and opened in January of 1989. “It was the right decision and turning point in helping to revive church membership, which has more than doubled to over 200 since that time,” said Smith. “We now have members in more than 20 communities and much of the credit for that has to go to Bishop Kopka, who has been a sparkling presence in the area and made our church a community center where so many events have taken place.”

While Kopka didn’t want to give away too much about his final sermon, he said the theme would be uplifting and hopeful.

“I’m going to talk about how much we have grown together, how we all have gifts from God and because we’ve shared them with each other we have all grown in our faith and relationships,” Kopka said, again having a hard time holding back the tears. ” I hope to use that same theme as a model in all the parishes I’ll be overseeing.”

Kopka’s new assignment, which covers the largest geographic area of the church’s five regions in the country, includes Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Missouri, Florida and a mission in the State of Washington. Bishop Kopka replaces Bishop Jan Dawidziuk, who is retiring on June 30.

The Polish National Catholic Church was established in 1897 in Scranton, Pa., with members breaking away from the Roman Catholic Church. Today, there are more than 25,000 members in America.

Among the many local boards Kopka has served on include a stint as chairman of the Ethics Commission and president of the Stratford Clergy Association, chaplain for the Stratford Police Department, and coordinator of youth groups of Stratford congregations for the Bridge Building Initiative of the Council of Churches of Greater Bridgeport.

Kopka and his wife Darlene, have two grown daughters, Kristen, 25 and Lauren, 23, who both live in Stratford and plan to remain here. “It’s great because when I come back and visit, we know we have a place to stay,” Kopka said.

Christian Witness, Perspective, PNCC, , , ,

The ecumenical Dutch Touch that leads to unity

Fr. Robert Hart of the Continuum Blog has an interesting article on the “Dutch Touch” and Anglican Orders. In The Dutch Touch: A study in irrelevance he says:

Frankly, Saepius Officio, written in 1897 by the Archbishops of England (Canterbury and York) said everything that needed to be said in defense of our Orders, and the best summary anywhere is that of Bicknell.

As for the subject of the Infusion itself, it is a relic of an innocent age of ecumenical hope, that innocence and hope that would suffer destruction for the official Anglican Communion in 1976. If the Infusion may help someday between orthodox Anglicans of the Continuum and Rome or, restart some ecumenical relations with the Polish National Catholic Church, then maybe it will not have been a big wasted effort after all.

Until such a time, who cares?

Two observations: First, I think that ecumenical contact between orthodox Anglicans and the PNCC would be a fine thing. We offer the Declaration of Scranton as a point of unity between national churches, and as a structural building block in accord with the National Church philosophy expounded by Bishop Hodur.

The interesting thing about the word continuum is that it means a connection that surpasses the here and now. At core it is a continuation of a Church’s traditions, practices, and character (of course only important if they are Catholic in character and in fact). I have said before, including to local clergy of the TAC, swimming the Tiber will eventually lead to the dissolution of everything that you are. Simply put, the weight of the Roman Church will subsume the TAC and any other Continuum Church that joins it, just as Anglican Use parishes will disappear within two generations.

I also think that there is another issue that gets lost in the whole swimming the Tiber spirit within the TAC, “Is that what your people really want? Just as among clergy some will say yes, but I believe that a majority will see what I see, that ‘who they are’ will slip away.

My second observation, and I congratulate Fr. Hart for making the point, is “who cares.” That is really the point if your Church believes itself to be Catholic. Like the Orthodox Churches we need to place less emphasis on what Rome thinks of us and more on what we think of ourselves (and no emphasis on what some over-the-top on-line R.C. pundits and detractors think of us). The full body of Catholic Churches are, in their varied external manifestations (those whose ecclesiology, polity, and praxis are Catholic), the totality of the Church, which is truly universal.

Christian Witness, Fathers, Poetry, ,

June 7 – The Athanasian Creed by St. Athanasius of Alexandria

Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic Faith. Which Faith except everyone does keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly. And the Catholic Faith is this: That we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity, neither confounding the Persons, nor dividing the Substance.

For there is one Person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is all one, the glory equal, the majesty co-eternal.

Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Ghost. The Father uncreated, the Son uncreated, and the Holy Ghost uncreated. The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible,and the Holy Ghost incomprehensible.

The Father eternal, the Son eternal, and the Holy Ghost eternal. And yet they are not three eternals, but one Eternal.

As also there are not three incomprehensibles, nor three uncreated, but one Uncreated, and one Incomprehensible. So likewise the Father is Almighty, the Son Almighty, and the Holy Ghost Almighty. And yet they are not three almighties, but one Almighty.

So the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God. And yet they are not three gods, but one God.

So likewise the Father is Lord, the Son Lord, and the Holy Ghost Lord. And yet not three lords, but one Lord.

For like as we are compelled by the Christian verity to acknowledge each Person by Himself to be both God and Lord, so are we forbidden by the catholic religion to say that there are three gods or three lords.

The Father is made of none, neither created, nor begotten. The Son is of the Father alone, not made, nor created, but begotten. The Holy Ghost is of the Father, neither made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding.

So there is one Father, not three fathers; one Son, not three sons; one Holy Ghost, not three holy ghosts.

And in this Trinity none is before or after another; none is greater or less than another; but all three Persons are co-eternal together and co-equal. So that in all things, as is aforesaid, the Unity in Trinity and the Trinity in Unity is to be worshipped.

He therefore that will be saved must think thus of the Trinity.

Furthermore, it is necessary to everlasting salvation that he also believe rightly the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. For the right Faith is, that we believe and confess, that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and man; God, of the substance of the Father, begotten before the worlds; and man, of the substance of his mother, born in the world; perfect God and perfect man, of a rational soul and human flesh subsisting. Equal to the Father, as touching his godhead; and inferior to the Father, as touching His manhood; who although He is God and man, yet he is not two, but one Christ; one, not by conversion of the godhead into flesh, but by taking of the manhood into God; one altogether, not by confusion of substance, but by unity of person. For as the rational soul and flesh is one man, so God and man is one Christ; who suffered for our salvation, descended into hell, rose again the third day from the dead. He ascended into heaven, He sits on the right hand of the Father, God Almighty, from whence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead. At His coming all men will rise again with their bodies and shall give account for their own works. And they that have done good shall go into life everlasting; and they that have done evil into everlasting fire.

This is the Catholic Faith, which except a man believe faithfully, he cannot be saved.

Christian Witness, Perspective, Political,

Take Action: Tell the Appropriations Sub-Committees No Military Aid to Israel

picasso-peaceI’ve just sent letters to Members of Congress on the Appropriations Subcommittee that deals with foreign aid letting them know I oppose the President’s request for $2.7755 billion in military aid to Israel for FY2010. Israel routinely violates the U.S. Arms Export Control Act and Foreign Assistance Act by using U.S. weapons to commit human rights violations against Palestinians. Join me in taking action to oppose more military aid going to Israel by clicking here.

Thanks to the Young Fogey for pointing to this.

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