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EPISODE#17
CATHEDRAL SQUARE: GUEST IS FR. JUAN NAVARRO

On today’s podcast episode, Fr. Christopher welcomes Fr. Juan Navarro to the studio. Among other things, Fr. Juan shares about his background and long history of service to the diocese. His key roles today are as follows: Diocesan Consultant for Evangelization and Diocesan Consultant for Faith Formation.

What exactly does all of this entail? Tune in and find out!

Be sure to share this podcast with a friend!

 

 

 

 

Originally broadcast on 10/19/19

DESPITE HUMAN SINFULNESS, GOD’S PROJECTS WILL ENDURE, POPE SAYS

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The Catholic Church will endure, despite the frailty and sins of its members, because it is God’s project, Pope Francis said.

Continuing his series of audience talks about the Acts of the Apostles and the early Christian community Sept. 18, Pope Francis looked at the story of Gamaliel, a Pharisee who tried to teach members of the Sanhedrin a key aspect of “discernment,” which is not to rush to judgment, but rather to allow time for something to show itself as worthy or not.

 

 

As recounted in Acts 5, Gamaliel told the Sanhedrin not to execute the apostles for preaching Christ, “for if this endeavor or this activity is of human origin, it will destroy itself. But if it comes from God, you will not be able to destroy them; you may even find yourselves fighting against God.”

“Every human project can initially drum up consensus, but then go down in flames,” the pope said. But “everything that comes from on high and bears God’s signature is destined to endure.”

“Human projects always fail, they have a (limited) time, like we do,” he said. “Think of the great empires. Think of the dictatorships of the past century; they thought they were so powerful and dominated the world, and then they all crumbled.”

The most powerful governments and forces today also “will crumble if God is not with them because the strength human beings have on their own is not lasting,” the pope said. “Only the strength of God endures.”

The history of Christianity and of the Catholic Church, even “with so many sins and so many scandals, with so many ugly things,” illustrates the same point, the pope said. “Why hasn’t it crumbled? Because God is there. We are sinners and often, often, we give scandal,” but “the Lord always saves. The strength is God with us.”

The story also shows just how much courage the presence of the Holy Spirit brings, the pope said. When Jesus was arrested, the disciples “all ran away, they fled,” but after the Resurrection, when he sent the Spirit upon them, they became courageous.

Pointing to the 21 Coptic Orthodox beheaded on a beach in Libya in 2015, Pope Francis said the same courage is still seen today in martyrs, who continued to repeat the name of Jesus even as their fate becomes clear. “They did not sell out their faith because the Holy Spirit was with them.”

In the Acts of the Apostles, Gamaliel tells the Sanhedrin that if Jesus was an imposter, his followers eventually would “disappear,” the pope said, but “if, on the other hand, they were following one who was sent by God, then it would be better not to fight them.”

The “wait and see” attitude of Gamaliel is a key part of discernment, Pope Francis said.

“His are calm and farsighted words,” part of a process that urges people to “judge a tree by its fruits” rather than acting hastily, the pope said.

Pope Francis asked people at the audience to join him in praying that the Holy Spirit would “act in us so that, both personally and as a community, we can acquire the habit of discernment” and learn to notice God acting in history and in our brothers and sisters.

ACTOR GARY SINISE DESCRIBES HIS ROAD TO THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

WASHINGTON (CNS) — Gary Sinise, the actor perhaps best known for playing Lieutenant Dan in the 1994 movie “Forrest Gump,” followed a rather unusual path to becoming a Catholic.

In a Feb. 4 telephone interview with Catholic News Service from Los Angeles, Sinise told his story.

“At one point in the late ’90s, I remember my wife (Moira) was doing a play, ‘The Playboy of the Western World.’ She was playing a woman in a tavern. She had just gone through sobriety, and she was new to her sobriety as she was playing this woman defending her life in a tavern,” Sinise said.

“At one point, she went to a Catholic church looking for an AA meeting. This little French woman, she asked her, ‘Where’s the AA meeting?’ She looked at her (Moira) and said, ‘You should become a Catholic,'” he added. “Something happened to her at that moment — I don’t know, something that had been aligned within her. Her mother was Catholic, but she fell away from the church and married a Methodist. She was not raised in any particular faith.”

After his wife finished the play, she met Sinise in North Carolina, where he was shooting a movie with Shirley MacLaine.

“There was a hurricane coming to Wilmington,” Sinise recalled. “Well, she was telling me this story, and I’m telling here we’ve gotta get out of here and drive to Charlotte and we’ll fly to Los Angeles. While we’re driving, the hurricane was blasting behind us. She turns around and says, ‘I’m going to the Catholic Church and I’m going to become a Catholic.’

“I laughed and said, ‘Wait a minute. We just moved across the street from a public school.’ ‘Yes, and I’m going to send our kids to a Catholic school,'” he added. “Sure enough, when we go home she went to the RCIA program at our local Catholic church.”

For the next year, his wife was in the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults program. “We started going to Mass,” Sinise said. “My wife was confirmed in Easter 2000. … The following year that little church became a sanctuary, a place of great comfort” following the 9/11 terror attacks in 2001.

Oh, and “our kids started attending the school there,” he added.

Sinise himself joined the church in 2010.

“I surprised my family. I’d gone through the confirmation classes and whatnot myself behind everybody’s back and I didn’t tell anybody that I was doing it,” he said.

“On Christmas Eve 2010 I told the family I was taking them to dinner at Morton’s Steakhouse and have Christmas Eve dinner,” he said. “And on the way there, I pulled into the church, and everybody asked, ‘What are we doing here?’ I said come on in. We walked into the church. The priest was there, and he confirmed me. It was beautiful.”

This is one of the many tales Sinise tells in his newly published book, “Grateful American.” In the memoir, he details his life growing up in the Chicago suburbs, from being a bratty kid to trying out for a play in high school and catching the acting bug, to helping establish the still-going-strong Steppenwolf Theater Company in the Windy City, as well as his many adventures in films and on stage.

“It’s an autobiography for sure, but it’s a life-changing story,” Sinise told CNS. The 9/11 terror attacks were a pivot for him. “Something happened when I went from actor to advocate for our nation’s defenders,” he said.

A look at the Gary Sinise Foundation’s website, www.garysinisefoundation.org, includes a page listing his appearances and visits at military bases and hospitals — a list so extensive that Sinise seems to be the Bob Hope for the current generation.

“That service to others was a great healer to a broken heart after that terrible day, when we saw that terrible thing happen and we were all afraid and we were all wondering what was going to happen to our country,” Sinise said. “There’s something to my book where I talk honestly and say that that particular day was turning a point for a life of service.”

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH’S FIGHT AGAINST RACISM

Washington D.C., Aug 23, 2017 / 03:02 am (CNA/EWTN News) – Catholic bishops from around the country recently condemned the white nationalism at rallies in Charlottesville, Virginia.

But what might be lesser known is that the Church has spoken out against racism through the centuries, and still calls for conversion from it.

“If we want a different kind of country in the future, we need to start today with a conversion in our own hearts, and an insistence on the same in others,” Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia said after the Charlottesville rallies.

White nationalists had held a “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Va. from Aug. 11-12, to protest the city’s planned removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee.

White supremacists from various extremist groups like the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis participated in torch-lit rallies on Friday night and a daytime rally on Saturday, chanting racist messages like “Jew will not replace us,” and “blood and soil,” a historically white supremacist slogan used by the Nazi Party in the days of Hitler.

A diverse coalition of counter-protesters, from religious leaders to members of “Black Lives Matter” to the anarchist group Antifa, formed around the white supremacist rally.

Violence broke out between the rally and the counter-protest, culminating with a 20 year-old man from Ohio driving a car into the counter-protest killing one woman and injuring 19. The man was eventually charged with second-degree murder.

In the wake of the racist rally, Catholic bishops spoke out against violence but also specifically condemned racism, including a joint statement by Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and Bishop Frank Dewane of Venice, Fla., chair of the bishops’ domestic justice and human development committee, condemning “the evil of racism, white supremacy and neo-nazism.”

From the earliest days of the Church, Christian teaching has opposed the promotion of one person above another because of their genetic or ethnic background.

In his letter to the Galatians, Saint Paul wrote that “through faith you are all children of God in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free person, there is not male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus (3:26-28).”

As the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace explained in its 1988 document on racism, “The Church and Racism: Towards a More Fraternal Society,” early in the history of the Church, distinctions were made between people on basis of religion, not race.

That began to change with the discovery of the “New World,” the letter said, as nations colonizing the Americas tried to “justify” the killing and enslavement of indigenous peoples with a “racist theory.”

Pope Eugene IV issued a papal bull in 1435, Sicut Dudum, condemning the enslavement of African Christians in the Canary Islands, a year after his bull Creator Omnium threatened excommunication for those enslaving Christians. Thirty years later, in Regimini Gregis, Pope Sixtus IV excommunicated those aiding in the transport of Christian slaves from Africa.

Dominican Priest Bartolome de las Casas initially helped start the slave trade in the Spanish colonies to relieve the mistreatment of the Indians there in the 1500s, but later decried what he called the “spine-chilling barbarity” directed at indigenous persons by Spanish Conquistadors in his 1542 letter “A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies.” He actively worked to stop the slave trade that he once helped.

Pope Paul III, in his 1535 encyclical Sublimus Dei, issued a strong condemnation of theories that the indigenous peoples of the Americas were sub-human. He said that any argument that the natives were “created for our service” and were “incapable of receiving the Catholic Faith” was the work of “the enemy of the human race, who opposes all good needs in order to bring men to destruction.”

He added that “we consider” that “the Indians are truly men and that they are not only capable of understanding the Catholic Faith but, according to our information, they desire exceedingly to receive it.”

In 1839, Pope Gregory XVI condemned the slave trade once again and forbade Christians from partaking in it. He wrote that “we warn and adjure earnestly in the Lord faithful Christians of every condition that no one in the future dare to vex anyone, despoil him of his possessions, reduce to servitude, or lend aid and favor to those who give themselves up to these practices, or exercise that inhuman traffic by which the Blacks, as if they were not men but rather animals, having been brought into servitude, in no matter what way, are, without any distinction, in contempt of the rights of justice and humanity, bought, sold, and devoted sometimes to the hardest labor.”

However, more sophisticated racist ideologies were hatched beginning in the 18th century, the 1988 Vatican letter explained. These theories tried to base racial superiority in science. Yet as white nationalism and other racist ideologies became the source of political and moral disagreement in societies throughout the world, the Popes and the Vatican continued to condemn racial discrimination and racist ideologies.

In the 1937 encyclical Mit Brennender Sorge, Pope Pius XI condemned the Nazi government and its “so-called myth of race and blood.”

“Whoever exalts race, or the people, or the State, or a particular form of State, or the depositories of power, or any other fundamental value of the human community – however necessary and honorable be their function in worldly things – whoever raises these notions above their standard value and divinizes them to an idolatrous level, distorts and perverts an order of the world planned and created by God; he is far from the true faith in God and from the concept of life which that faith upholds,” Pope Pius XI wrote.

He also called out the creation of a state that defines itself “within the narrow limits of a single race,” and said that only “superficial minds” could fall into believing such concepts.

His successor Pius XII, in his 1939 encyclical Summi Pontificatus, decried these racial ideologies as one of the “errors which derive from the poisoned source of religious and moral agnosticism.”

“The first of these pernicious errors, widespread today, is the forgetfulness of that law of human solidarity and charity which is dictated and imposed by our common origin and by the equality of rational nature in all men, to whatever people they belong, and by the redeeming Sacrifice offered by Jesus Christ on the Altar of the Cross to His Heavenly Father on behalf of sinful mankind,” he said.

Later popes, from Bl. Pope Paul VI to St. Pope John Paul II to the current Pope Francis, have all decried racial discrimination, especially discrimination against one’s fellow countrymen.

The Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace document of 1988 stated that “racism and racist acts must be condemned.”

“Respect for every person and every race is respect for basic rights, dignity and fundamental equality,” the document stated. It clarified that this respect for all races “does not mean erasing cultural differences,” but that “it is important to educate to a positive appreciation of the complementary diversity of peoples.”

The document also pointed to the anti-Semitism that led to the horrors of the Holocaust, and the necessity for a moral call from the Church against racism even in areas with laws against racial discrimination.

The U.S. Bishops have issued statements against the racism found in many areas of American society, both overt and structural remnants from the era of slavery and of Jim Crow and segregation.

In their 1979 document “Brothers and Sisters to Us,” the bishops decried racism not only as the sin “that says some human beings are inherently superior and others essentially inferior because of race,” but as a sin that denies “the truth of the dignity of each human being revealed by the mystery of the Incarnation.”

Individual bishops and groups of bishops have also written periodically in response to events motivated by racism or revealing the deep racial wounds still within our society. In response to the events last weekend, Bishops around the country – including the U.S. Bishops’ conference as a group – decried the use of Nazi and racist symbolism.

“Racism is a poison of the soul,” said Archbishop Charles Chaput, of Philadelphia in response to the rally. “It’s the ugly, original sin of our country, an illness that has never fully healed.”

GROWTH OF U.S. HISPANIC POPULATION A BLESSING FOR CHURCH, SAYS SPEAKER

WASHINGTON (CNS) — Hispanics in the Catholic Church are not a problem to be solved, but a blessing and an opportunity, said Hosffman Ospino in a Jan. 31 talk at The Catholic University of America in Washington.

The growing number of U.S. Hispanic parishioners puts a new face on the church, forces it to renew itself, pushes it to redefine its commitment and presents dioceses with a challenge, he said.

Ospino is a professor of theology and religious education at Boston College and director of graduate programs in Hispanic ministry there. He is well-known as a leading voice in Hispanic ministry and theology.

More than 20 million immigrants from Latin America and the Caribbean are transforming the U.S. Catholic experience, according to Ospino. He calls this phenomenon a “tsunami.”

Hispanics are the fastest-growing community in the U.S. They make up the largest minority group in the country and, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, they will surpass the 132 million mark by 2050. By then, Hispanics will represent 30 percent of the nation’s total population, according to data from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

But the church has not reacted at the same speed to welcome them, according to Ospino. “Dioceses, schools and parishes have been on ‘cruise control’ for more than 70 years and a renewal, a new dynamic, is needed,” he said. “We have to read the signs of the times in light of our faith.”

Immigrants bring along families, friends, talent and treasure, he said. They form groups that adapt to faith communities, thus nurturing the church.

“They look for places to live, opportunities for advancement, and (they) did not cross the border, for the border crossed them,” Ospino said.

Explaining the immigrant experience, he stressed how common it is to find those who are part of such a long and difficult integration process say: “I’m an American, and I am Hispanic.”

Ospino also mentioned the Fifth National Encuentro on Hispanic/Latino Ministry to be held in September 2018 in Fort Worth, Texas. It will be the culmination of parish, diocesan and regional encuentros, in which the U.S. Catholic bishops anticipate more than 1 million Catholics participating over the next two years.

“We become the church we serve, that’s why the U.S. church has become a Hispanic church,” said Ospino, who is a new columnist for Catholic News Service. His monthly column, written in English and Spanish, is titled “Journeying Together/Caminando juntos,” explores topics of interest to both Hispanic and non-Hispanic Catholics.

Latino Catholics represent 71 percent of the country’s Catholic growth. During the 1960s, 10 percent of Catholics identified themselves as Hispanic; today approximately 30.4 million people in the United States self-identify their religion as Catholic and their ethnicity as Hispanic or Latino.

Ospino explained that growth comes from the nation’s Southern and Western region. He said 38 percent of parishes with Hispanic ministry are located in the South, and 23 percent are in the West. Catholic Hispanics are throughout the nation, but there numbers are growing in places such as Hawaii and Alaska, he said, adding that Canada, too, is seeing growth in its Hispanic population.

Catholic education is key to passing on the values of the Catholic faith values to succeeding generations and strengthening those values. Ospino urged school construction where Hispanics live. “It’s a unique opportunity to build and rebuild the church,” he said.

He also cautioned that because Hispanic Catholics have switched to other religions, the church cannot take it “for granted that Hispanics are to continue in Catholicism.” “The church’s present and future depend on them, so it’s important to redefine pastoral plans and commitments” to serve Hispanics, he said.

The National Catholic Educational Association reports that 15.3 percent (296,903) of students registered for the 2014-15 school year were Hispanic. That means that from the total school-age Hispanic population (12.4 million nationally), just 2.3 percent attend a parochial school. So 97 percent of school-age Hispanics grow up in a Catholic home but do not benefit from a Catholic education.

“Only 10 percent of those registered in Catholic universities are Hispanic,” Ospino added.

In the face of the booming Hispanic population, the church is called to offer Catholic education to that population, he said. Acknowledging the cost of Catholic education and the closure of numerous Catholic schools because of a lack of resources, Ospino said one solution is more lobbying for a tuition tax credits to help families meet those costs.

Saying the Hispanic church is the present and future, Ospino said church leaders should pay attention to where Catholicism is growing. Statistics show that more than most other groups in the church, Hispanics as a group baptize their children and see that their children receive first Communion, but at the same time church ministry shows resistance to that reality, he said.

“There’s a lot of energy and possibilities among immigrants,” said Ospino, referring to Hispanic youths. Hispanic immigrants’ average age is 28 years. About 60 percent of Catholics under 18 are Hispanics. Ninety-three percent of them were born in the U.S. and are not committed to the church life.

The U.S. Catholic Church is one of the most culturally diverse institutions in the country, and it will become even more diverse, according to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, based at Georgetown University. A USCCB-commissioned study released in late 2016 said, “Parishes, schools and colleges, hospitals, charities and other ministries need to adapt and prepare for this growing diversity.”

“We have to change the concept from a church that serves Hispanics to a church that is Hispanic, because Hispanics ‘are’ the church,” remarked Ospino.

 

Acosta is a reporter at El Pregonero, the Spanish-language newspaper of the Archdiocese of Washington.

 

WE’VE ALL GOT IT WRONG ABOUT WOMEN IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

Rome, Italy, Nov 16, 2016 / 03:02 am (CNA) – When it comes to talking about women and their role in the Church, discussion tends to focus almost exclusively on getting ordained or being placed in high ranking, decision making positions.

However, amid all the buzz, it’s easy to get lost in the debate and miss the fact that the entire discussion is rotating around the wrong axis.

In simply addressing ordination or curial positions – a line that reduces both women and the discussion about them to clericalism – everyone on both sides of the issue has overlooked that the question is actually much larger, and demands a much greater involvement on the part of the laity.

Ana Cristina Villa, a consecrated laywoman with the Marian Community of Reconciliation who works in the office for women of the new mega-dicastery for Laity, Family and Life, told CNA that what a woman does in the Church is “not just a role, but a vocation…it’s what God calls women to do in the Church.”

She said that as it stands, women don’t really have a big presence in important or decision making positions, “so that should be promoted, and current Canon Law allows this in a good number of ways,” but she also cautioned that the discussion surrounding women in the Church is wider, involving the laity as a whole.

Villa, who is from Colombia but has lived in Italy for close to 20 years, said she sees that many people in their daily lives still move forward with the attitude that “the Church should do this,” but when they refer to the Church, they “are speaking of the clergy.”

“I think that is a big distortion for the vocation of women, because women are obviously not the clergy,” she said, explaining that “when you get into this discussion about women in the Church you have to understand that there is a wider context.”

In her view, Catholic faithful need to grow in their understanding that, “according to their own vocation,” all “baptized are the Church and all baptized are called to feel the Church as their own and to contribute to the Church.”

“It’s the laity in the Church,” she emphasized, “and the laity have to grow in their sense of responsibility which comes from their baptism, and their baptism makes them full members of the Church.”

Although a lot of headway has already been made in this area, Villa said the Church “still needs to go much more down that path.”

She emphasized the need for stronger mutual cooperation, “because when laity and clergy collaborate on a mission they bring each other’s gifts to problems or situations they need to face, and it is mutually enriching and it makes the Church more present.”

If it is always priests in the Church and never a layperson, and if priests “are always taking responsibility for things where laity are competent, then this mentality that the Church is priests keeps growing and expanding,” she said, noting that this is more common in countries with stronger traditional Catholic roots such Italy and as those in South America.

However, on the other hand, Villa noted that when it comes to women specifically, they are already doing a lot in the Church, most of which is largely unknown.

Women, she said, “are already doing a lot and many times they do it in silence, just responding to God’s vocation wherever God puts them…but there is always a lot happening,” especially in mission territories.

Just because a woman teaching catechesis or caring for the sick in a poor country isn’t visible to the rest of the world, it “doesn’t mean she isn’t there and that the Church isn’t growing because of her daily work and giving of herself,” Villa said.

It’s important to know that these things are already happening, she said, but cautioned that while on one hand it’s good to make them visible, “on the other hand you wonder, is it really necessary to make them visible? For whom?”

“God knows. God calls them, they are responding and the Church is growing because of them,” she said, explaining that not all women are meant to be in the global spotlight.

“When they come out to the public like Mother Teresa, that’s wonderful, but not all of them are called to have a public dimension to their vocation,” she said, and pointed to the example of women contemplative orders, who are “always hidden,” but sustain the Church constantly with their daily prayer and devotion.

“They are there in the monastery living their daily fidelity…they sustain the Church and nobody knows about it,” she said, explaining that this is part of the beauty of how women serve, and that this must be valued.

Villa’s instinct that a dangerous and largely unrecognized clericalism often drives the discussion on women, as well as her insistence that those who adopt this attitude have got it wrong, mirror Francis’ own take on the issue.

When Pope Francis told journalists on the way back from Sweden Nov. 1 that women will never be ordained priests, he was likely acting against “the ‘disease’ of clericalism, and the danger of clericalism setting the tone for discussions of women in the Church,” John Allen of Crux wrote.

“Despite the fact that he stands today at the apex of the clerical pecking order, there’s a sense in which Pope Francis is the most anti-clerical pontiff in Catholic history,” Allen said, adding that “one has the sense when he uses the word ‘clericalism’ that he’s virtually talking about the sin against the Holy Spirit.”

Pope Francis’ innate disdain toward clericalism, particularly surrounding women, can be seen from almost the beginning of his pontificate. In an interview with Vatican Insider in December 2013, Francis responded to a question on whether or not he’d ever consider naming a woman a cardinal.

In his answer the Pope said that “I don’t know where this idea sprang from. Women in the Church must be valued not ‘clericalised.’ Whoever thinks of women as cardinals suffers a bit from clericalism.”

Throughout the three years since, Francis has consistently called for a more “incisive” feminine presence in the Church, yet has refrained from limiting this presence to a mere position.

In a May 16, 2015, speech to men and women consecrated of the diocese of Rome, the Pope said that when people tell him “women must be dicastery heads,” his immediate thought is “Yes, they can, in certain dicasteries they can; but what you are asking is simple functionalism.”

Simply putting a woman in charge of a department “is not rediscovering woman’s role in the Church. It is more profound,” he said, explaining that while women are certainly able to hold leadership positions and that this is happening more often, “this is not a triumph.”

“This is a great thing, (but) a functional thing,” he said, noting that “what is essential to the woman’s role is – speaking in theological terms – acting in a manner which expresses the feminine genius.”

“When we face a problem among men we come to a conclusion, but when we face that same problem with women the outcome will be different. It will follow the same path, but it will be richer, stronger, more intuitive,” he said.

“For this reason women in the Church should have this role, they must clarify, help to clarify the feminine genius in so many ways.”

When we look at what Pope Francis says, it’s obvious that what he envisions for women is not just structural insertion into the Church, but involves opening doors so that the very fiber of what makes a woman “womanly,” her most unique and innate qualities, can flourish.

One of these qualities Francis has never ceased to bring up with praise and adulation is that of intuition and maternity; i.e., that natural maternal instinct each woman has no matter her state or position in life.

In his speech to the men and women consecrated of Rome, the Pope pointed to maternity, saying it isn’t just having children, but involves accompanying people in their growth: “maternity is spending hours next to a sick person, a sick child, a sick brother; it is spending one’s life in love, with that love of tenderness and maternity.”

“On this path we will find even more the woman’s role in the Church. Mary’s love and the love of the Church is a concrete love! Concreteness is the quality of this maternity of women.”

In a speech to theologians in 2014, after appointing several women to the Vatican’s International Theological Commission, an advisory body which assists the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in examining questions of doctrine, he said women have the ability to prompt reflections that men cannot.

“By virtue of their feminine genius, women theologians can take up, for the benefit of all, certain unexplored aspects of the unfathomable mystery of Christ,” he said, and urged commission members to take “full advantage” of the specific contribution that women give to “the intelligence of faith.”

In a 2015 address to the Pontifical Council for Culture, Francis said that women “know how to incarnate the tender face of God, his mercy, which translates into availability to give time more than to occupy spaces, to welcome instead of excluding.”

While speaking to journalists on board his return flight from Sweden Nov. 1, the Pope said that when it comes to theology and the mysticism of the Church, Mary’s role is more important than that of the Apostles on the day of Pentecost.

Women, he said, “can do so many things better than men, even in the dogmatic field,” but he clarified how it is still a separate dimension from that of priests and bishops in the Petrine dimension.

Again and again Pope Francis has repeated the same message that Villa herself expressed: women are more than just what position they hold, and the discussion on them is much wider than what it’s been reduced to.

While the question still looms as to what he will do with the female deaconate, having formed a commission to study the issue and its relevance in modern Church life, it’s clear that he won’t proceed with a “clerical” vision in mind, yet is open and willing to investigate what the different options for women might be.

So, all in all, it’s safe to say that the discussion on women in the Church has so far been fairly limited, and it’s clear that a shift in focus in needed. It seems that we’re only beginning to scratch the surface of what the debate should really entail, and with Francis at the helm, we’re guaranteed to have a few surprises.

 

ST. ANTHONY CLARET PARISH CAPS YEARLONG CELEBRATION

Established in 1955 as part of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and later becoming part of the newly formed Diocese of Orange, St. Anthony Claret in Anaheim will cap off a yearlong celebration of its 60th anniversary this weekend. The Oct. 23 – Oct. 25 festivities lead up to the feast day of the parish’s namesake, St. Anthony Claret, on Sunday, Oct. 25.

“Our 60th anniversary has been a great time of excitement and renewal,” says parish administrator Fr. Bill Cao. “It’s given us an opportunity to celebrate our origins and the mission of our patron saint — and also to reflect and plan on what we want to be as a faith family going forward.”

In addition to a thanksgiving Mass celebrated by Orange Diocese Bishop, the Most Rev. Kevin W. Vann on Sunday, Oct. 25, other festivities include a parish-wide dance (Oct. 23) featuring popular Latin music acts Los Angeles Negros and L.A. Sonora Dinamita, a concert (Oct. 24) by the Philippine Chamber Singers of Los Angeles, and a solemn procession (Oct. 25) through the surrounding Anna Drive neighborhood.

The second-oldest Catholic Church in Anaheim was built on what were avocado fields surrounded by Orange groves. Today, some 3,000 worshipers attend one of eight masses each weekend.

In 2009, the parish school closed after 52 years in operation; however, the classrooms continue to be in constant use throughout the week by one of 25 active ministry groups (including 10 choirs), and for religious education and sacramental preparation – approximately 800 children and 300 teens per year.

The parish’s devout and joyful personality will be on display during the nine days leading up to its namesake’s feast day on the 25th October. Known as a “novena,” by Catholics, the period of Oct. 17-24 will illustrate our belief in unity in diversity as each day a different language or age group takes the lead in leading that night’s prayers. The yearlong jubilee will culminate with a night of dancing (tickets also available to the general public) on Oct. 23 (6 p.m.-11 p.m.) with entertainment provided by the well-known and popular Chilean pop ballad band Los Angeles Negros and the Colombian cumbia group L.A. Sonora Dinamita.

On Saturday, Oct. 24, the parish’s Filipino community invites the public to purchase tickets to the performance (6:45 p.m.-9 p.m.) from the choral singing group Philippine Chamber Singers of Los Angeles. The night will include musical contributions from St. Anthony’s parish choirs and popular Filipina vocalist Lara Avengoza (currently starring as Princess Jasmine for Disneyland’s “Aladdin” show).

Finally, on Sunday, Oct. 25, the entire community will come together to live out the call to witness to the love of God in the second annual procession through the Anna Drive neighborhood. Last year, Anaheim Mayor Tom Tait was among the 1,000-plus walkers and he is an invited guest as well this year. The Rosary procession immediately precedes the 12:15 Mass to be presided by Bishop of Orange, Kevin Vann.

“The goal is to have communities of reconciliation,” says Fr. Bill Cao. “Healthy families, to form leaders, and to see our multi-culturalism as a true strength.”

For more information on the events noted, contact the parish at (714) 776-0270.

IT’S THE WATER

Most Catholics do it without a conscious thought: step inside the church, dip the fingers lightly in the available holy water font and make the Sign of the Cross. It’s a habit as automatic as shaking hands or salting French fries.

The gesture, of course, speaks volumes: the life of faith, commitment and devotion captured in simple movement. Pair it with the water and it becomes one of the most powerful declarations in all of Christianity.

So what is it about that water?

Throughout the history of Christianity, holy water has been one of the most potent, visible and easily accessible symbols of the faith. As a sign of cleanliness and purification, water has been used in many ancient and modern religious traditions in ways that find imitation in the modern Church. The ancient Greeks, Romans and Egyptians used it for cleansing rituals, as did the Brahmins of India and Native Americans. The laws of Moses enumerated in the Old Testament contain several references.

For Catholics, holy water—water blessed by a priest—is known as a “sacramental,” a sacred sign that bears a resemblance to the sacraments. “Unlike a sacrament, a sacramental does not itself confer the grace of the Holy Spirit,” writes Father William P. Saunders, the President of the Notre Dame Institute. “Nevertheless, like a sacrament, a sacramental helps the faithful to sanctify each moment of life and to live in the paschal mystery of our Lord.”

For the modern Catholic, holy water is heavily freighted with meaning and exists as a symbolic reminder of three things:

  • Repentance of sin. The ritual washing background of holy water comes into play here, says, Father William, who quotes Psalm 50, which reads in part, “Have mercy on me, O God, in your goodness; in the greatness of your compassion wipe out my offense. Thoroughly wash me from my guilt and of my sin cleanse me.” St. John the Baptist underscored this sentiment in calling people of his time to conversion. This is occasionally recalled during the course of the Mass, he adds, when the priest sprinkles the congregation with holy water.
  • Protection from evil. Catholic tradition has long held that holy water is a substantial force for keeping evil at bay. A proponent who wrote specifically about this in 1562 is Saint Teresa of Avila: “From long experience I have learned that there is nothing like holy water to put devils to flight and prevent them from coming back again. They also flee from the Cross, but return; so holy water must have great virtue.”
  • Baptism. “In making the Sign of the Cross with the holy water, we are mindful that we are called to renew those baptismal promises of rejecting Satan, all his works, and all his empty promises, and to profess our creedal faith,” writes Father William. “Once again, we repent of sin, so that we can offer our prayers and worship to God with pure and contrite hearts.”

The reminder of baptism is almost ubiquitous when holy water is used in Catholic ritual, says Father Gerald Horan, OSM.

“The notion of blessed water as a physical reminder of baptism goes back quite a ways in the Church,” says Father Gerald, the Episcopal Vicar for Faith Formation for the Diocese of Orange. “We use it in many ways within the celebration of the sacraments. In funerals, we sprinkle the body with water at the beginning of a funeral ceremony, and we bless the rings of marriage with holy water during the wedding ceremony. In all of those it’s meant to be a reminder of the baptismal sacrament.

“It was a very ancient monastic custom that every night before the monks went to bed after the Salve Regina that the abbot or prior of the monastery would bless the monks with holy water. There are a lot of blessing ceremonies in which holy water might be used: the blessing of ground for a new church, the dedication of a new building. Holy water connects all these things to the memory and mystery of our involvement in the life of the Church.”

The modern practice of keeping holy water in the home—often in a designated font near the front door or in vials throughout the house—“harkens back to that old monastic custom,” says Father Gerald, particularly when parents use holy water to bless their children before leaving for school in the morning or, particularly, at bedtime.

The use of holy water is believed to date to the first century, writes Father David O’Connor, the pastor and founder of the St. Mary Basilica Archives in Natchez, Miss., and some accounts relate its early use to Saint Matthew.

Water in general was “a practical necessity of daily life in the ancient world,” says Father Gerald, and “there was a kind of overlap between physical washing and spiritual washing. It was such a basic element.”

Then there is the famous water of Lourdes. According to the story of Saint Bernadette Soubirous, to whom a vision of the Blessed Virgin is said to have appeared at the grotto of Lourdes in 1858, Mary asked her to “Go drink at the spring and wash yourself there.” For more than a century and a half, pilgrims have come to the small town of Lourdes in southern France to bathe in the water at the grotto or drink it in hopes of a miraculous cure for a variety of ailments.

“The water of Lourdes is not to be confused with holy water,” according to the website dedicated to the shrine. “It’s normal water, slightly calcareous, comparable to any other water from similar springs.

“The water of Lourdes has become popular because of the miracles. [A total of] 50 official miracles are apparently linked to the use of this water… In the Catholic faith, God heals through the natural elements and the sacraments, with the help of the Virgin Mary and the prayer of the Christians. Consequently the water is a sign and not a fetish. Bernadette Soubirous has said: ‘This water is considered as a drug…but you have to keep the faith and pray. This water couldn’t do anything without faith.’”

Bishop Kevin Vann recently visited Lourdes with a group of Knights and Dames of Malta from the Diocese of Orange and, he says, “we blessed with holy water the hands of the caregivers of the sick who accompanied us in one of our first liturgical celebrations. This was followed by the communal celebration of the Sacrament of the Sick.

“The powerful symbol of water is ever-present in Lourdes. The visits to this spring over the years are always accompanied by the faith and prayers of millions. The visit to the baths are always accompanied by prayer and a ritual that mirrors the liturgical rite of the Sacrament of Baptism and rites of Penance.

“The use of Lourdes water here, and the taking of it home, is not a superstition, but a clear reminder that the prayer of those on pilgrimage to Lourdes, seeking the intercession of the Mother of God for interior and physical healing, extends to all whom we love and pray for.”

THE CHURCH VS. THE KLAN IN ORANGE COUNTY

They passed themselves off as nuns and monks—Catholics who had fled convents and quit monasteries.

They spun lurid tales of degradation and sexual promiscuity they allegedly had witnessed.

Their actual identities?

Members of the Ku Klux Klan.

Their audience?

Anyone who would listen, predominantly in Anaheim.

The period?

Nearly a century ago.

The history of Catholicism in Orange County includes the very colorful period from 1922 to 1925 when a group mostly associated with terrorizing the South after the Civil War with its hatred of blacks gained a stronghold in Anaheim.

But unlike the white-hooded and violent members of the South’s KKK bent on restoring “white rule” in the former states of the Confederacy, Klansmen who briefly rose to prominence and power in Orange County were members of a revivalist offshoot who concentrated their efforts in the political sphere and were non-violent and law-abiding citizens, according to historical documents at the Anaheim Public Library’s Heritage Center.

These card-carrying KKK members—estimated to number, at their peak, about 300 in Anaheim, when the city had 10,000 residents—weren’t so much filled with hatred of Catholics as they were determined to spread their fundamentalist Protestant vision of society, which included being anti-alcohol at a time when predominantly Catholic Anaheim had a long tradition of manufacturing beer and wine.

“It had to do with politics and alcohol, mostly,” retired Anaheim Police Department Sgt. Rick Martinez, a city history buff, says of the role of the KKK in the early 1920s in Orange County.

But there certainly was no shortage of anti-Catholic activity by the Ku Klux Klan in Anaheim and a few other nearby cities—Fullerton, La Habra and Huntington Beach—between 1922 and 1925, according to historical documents.

The most notorious incident was the placement of a fiery cross in front of the main entrance to St. Boniface Catholic Church in Anaheim.

And in another incident, members of the KKK were suspected of effectively sealing up St. Boniface by thoroughly tarring the church’s doors and keyholes, according to an account in the July 1965 issue of Orange County Illustrated.

Christopher N. Cocoltchos, in his 1979 doctoral dissertation in history at UCLA, says white Protestant KKK members disliked Catholicism for its alleged hierarchical control of thought and behavior.

Cocoltchos interviewed a KKK member who told him, “I don’t like the Catholic religion. I don’t like the idea of taking everything through the pope… Why not go straight through (God) Himself—which we (Protestants) learned to do. It’s more appealing to me than the way Catholics do it.”

Monsignor Michael Heher, pastor of St. Anne Church in Seal Beach, notes that he’s far too young to personally know about the KKK in Orange County. He shared a story, however, about the Dominican Sisters of St. Catherine’s Academy in Anaheim.

Shortly after the sisters first arrived from Germany at St. Catherine’s, the KKK paid them a visit one night, according to the story Monsignor Heher relates.

Not knowing who the visitors were, the sisters presumed their flaming crosses meant they were some sort of welcoming party. So they opened up their crates and pulled out their china and made them coffee.

“The KKK didn’t know what to make of that, and left,” says Monsignor Heher.

The Klan rose to prominence in Anaheim with the arrival, in June 1922, of the Rev. Leon C. Myers, a transplant from Oregon who took charge of the First Christian Church in Anaheim and spread his Klan agenda starting with a men’s Bible study.

Myers sponsored “bitter” anti-Catholic propaganda during his pastorate, according to the Orange County Illustrated story.

And the Orange Daily News, in a May 11, 1925 article, quotes Meyers saying, “The Ku Klux Klan is the only hope for America.”

Myers and his supporters were able to secure, in 1924, four of five seats on Anaheim’s equivalent of a city council, the Board of Trustees. And by then the Anaheim Police Department had 10 KKK members, including the chief of police, Bert Moody.

Throughout Anaheim, signs with the acronym KIGY were posted, for “Klansman, I Greet You.”

An estimated 20,000 people—mostly from the Inland Empire and other parts of California—flooded what is now Pearson Park in Anaheim for a huge KKK rally in July 1924 that was peaceful but that sparked a tide of resentment that ultimately would lead to the Klan’s downfall in Orange County, historical documents show.

One of the main groups that helped defeat the Klan in Anaheim was the Knights of Columbus, which worked together with other community organizations to coordinate efforts to remove Klansmen from positions of power.

A special election on Feb. 3, 1925 ousted four members of the Ku Klux Klan from the Anaheim council. Moody then quit and the other KKK officers were fired.

And soon the KKK vanished from Anaheim and Orange County.

‘RENDER TO CAESAR THE THINGS THAT ARE CAESAR’S…’

It wasn’t exactly official, but the first basic tax code relating to religion may have been put forth by Jesus. In speaking to a group of Pharisees in the Gospel of Mark, he gives a memorable answer when asked if it was lawful to pay a poll tax to the Roman emperor: “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

Today, the Church that Jesus founded—and nearly all the other churches of the many denominations and faiths in the United States—continues to pay taxes to the government. But, because of a long-standing provision in the federal tax code, the Church also enjoys exemptions from taxation that is usually applicable to profit-making businesses.

To keep that exemption, the Church and all its various entities, from charities to schools to individual parishes, must conform to a specific set of Internal Revenue Service code sections that apply not just to churches, but to all nonprofit organizations.

This has not prevented the Catholic Church, and other denominations in America, from becoming the focus of periodic calls for the government to repeal churches’ tax-exempt status. The most common arguments for this are that the exemptions prevent the federal government from collecting a large source of revenue, and that churches engage in political activity forbidden by the IRS code.

But, says Robert Redwitz, there have been no successful challenges to the exemption provisions of the tax code. “I know of none,” he says, “and I’ve been in practice for more than 40 years.”

Redwitz, the senior managing partner of Robert R. Redwitz and Co., an accounting and consulting firm with offices in Irvine, San Jose and La Jolla, says tax exemption is “a huge, huge issue, because it doesn’t only relate to churches. Churches are only one subpart of the whole tax exempt strata of entities that are at the very core of the United States.”

While churches and charities often are what many people think of when they hear the words “tax-exempt,” the IRS exempts “many different types of organizations from paying taxes,” writes Dimitri Cavalli on “The Catholic World Report” website. These include “labor unions, chambers of commerce, social clubs, and “social welfare” organizations such as the National Organization for Women (NOW), American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and the Human Rights Campaign (HRC). Along with churches and charities, the IRS provides the coveted 501 (c) (3) nonprofit status to scientific, literary and educational organizations.”

In fact, according to data collected by the National Center for Charitable Statistics, there are more than 1.5 million registered nonprofit organizations in the United States today, with combined total assets of nearly $5.7 trillion as of August 2012.

To remain a recognized tax-exempt organization, churches, like all nonprofits, must hew to a list of specific requirements. Nonprofits, says Redwitz, “must be organized and operate exclusively for religious , charitable, scientific, educational or literary purposes” and must pass three tests for validity:

  • An organizational test, which requires that the entity’s articles of organization specifically limit its purpose to one or more exempt purposes. This, says Redwitz, means that a church cannot operate a side business for profit.
  • An operational test, which requires that an entity must be operated exclusively for one or more exempt purposes. Again, no for-profit side businesses.
  • A private benefit test. This means, says Redwitz, that a genuine nonprofit is an “organization that…serves a public rather than a private interest. That’s pretty important. If I set up a nonprofit exclusively for my own benefit, it’s not going to qualify as a nonprofit.”

It was that public nature of religion, says Redwitz, that was likely behind the original granting of nonprofit status to churches.

“I think what our federal legislators originally were trying to do was to exempt from taxation those activities that were for the general support and benefit of individuals, as opposed to private individuals or special interest groups,” he says. “Usually there’s language that says that if it’s providing a public benefit and/or a relief of services that government would otherwise be providing—in the area of hospitals and things of that nature where it’s relieving the federal government of public service obligations—that falls into the criteria of an exempt organization.”

And, says Redwitz, “tax-exempt” does not mean that churches pay no taxes at all. Sales taxes, use taxes and public assessments such as water bonds must be paid, even if a nonprofit is exempted from 100 percent of its core property taxes (to earn this exemption, a nonprofit must “show every year that the facilities that it owns are in fact being used for exempt purposes,” says Redwitz.)

Churches “are not totally exempt from every tax that’s in our system, for sure,” says Redwitz.

Still, periodic demands for repeal of churches’ exempt status occur, often propelled by perceptions that churches are engaging in political activities that are prohibited by the tax statutes—stumping for the election of candidates or lobbying for legislation. However, churches and other nonprofits may “praise or criticize candidates, elected officials, political parties and their stands on public policy issues and controversies without specifically telling people to vote for or against them,” writes Cavalli. Also, heads of nonprofits can exercise their individual rights as private citizens without putting their organizations’ tax-exempt status in jeopardy. “If any Catholic cardinal or bishop wished to make an endorsement in [an] election, he could have legally done so by writing an op-ed for a secular newspaper or appearing in studio on a television or cable news program,” writes Cavalli.

And nonprofits can lobby, as long as lobbying is not a “substantial” part of their regular activities. “The fact that a nonprofit’s lobbying on a piece of legislation may have generated considerable media attention and even criticism—such as the Catholic bishops’ lobbying in 2009 against the inclusion of abortion coverage in ObamaCare—does not mean that it violated the IRS’ limits,” writes Cavalli.

Fortunately for churches, the U.S. government has not behaved like modern-day Pharisees, actively seeking to negate nonprofits. Since 1990, only one church—which used its own assets to buy newspaper ads in 1992 calling for Christians to vote against Bill Clinton—has had its tax-exempt status revoked by the IRS.