January 9, 2006VOL. 44, NO. 1Oakland, CA

• Will we ever stop playing with bullets?

•Remember Katrina? Apparently the federal government doesn’t

•In the midst of life’s storms, light a prayer candle

•Document on seminarians points out necessary reform

Will we ever stop playing with bullets?

By Father Joe Bragotti, MCCJ

Gun shy people need not apply. That was my recurring thought as I traveled through a remote portion of South Sudan with Bishop Paride Taban of Torit.

Sudan’s civil war was still going on at the time and we could visit the bishop’s beleaguered flock only with the help of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA). That meant traveling with them, sharing food and lodging with them, being with fully armed men 24/7.

One memorable evening in a SPLA base, a local woman prepared a delicious supper (actually the day’s only meal) of goat meat, millet mush, beans and peanut sauce for the two of us and the top officers. The table was a crate of rocket-propelled grenades, the chairs were smaller crates of hand grenades and AK 47 bullets. Nobody smoked during that meal.

The next day we went to a liberated area where we were received by an enthusiastic crowd of Christians who hadn’t seen a visitor, let alone their bishop, in some years. The local catechists had done the groundwork. There were babies and catechumens to be baptized, adults to be confirmed, marriages to be blessed. Mass was said under the old kitoba tree.

At the offertory we sat down and people, according to local custom, filed up individually to place their offering in a large basket set before the altar. It surprised me that just about everyone came up to put something in the basket. I didn’t think people in that remote area could have much money.

Well, the mystery was solved at the offertory procession. When the basket was placed on the altar, we realized that it was not full of money, but bullets of every imaginable caliber. The bishop, who had just finished preaching on peace and reconciliation, was not very happy with the collection, but bravely carried on with the Mass.

Later he complained loudly to the catechists about the idea of offering to the God of Love such instruments of death. It was then that we found out that people hadn’t had access to currency in years and bullets were the only “currency” they had in common.

When evening came it was time for singing, dancing and … fireworks.
Fireworks?! Well, close to it. The faithful, catechists included, brought out their guns and began to shoot in the air with mindless abandon. “Aren’t you wasting precious currency?” asked the bishop. “Not really,” a catechist volunteered. “We are shooting your offertory collection to ensure that what we gave to God won’t kill anyone.”

As I look at the world today – especially during this month of January that started with a World Day of Peace and will end with eight days dedicated to Christian Unity – I ask myself: Have we learned anything yet?

Will we ever stop playing with bullets?
Why can’t we shoot the entire lot into the air (or safely at a target range) and be done with it?
If you are still struggling with the New Year resolutions, let me make a suggestion. Forget about dieting. You know it won’t work. Look around your parish or your town and find some group that works for peace. Join it or at least support it.

We have tried war. Isn’t it about time we gave peace a chance?

(Father Joe Bragotti is missions director of the North American Province of the Comboni Missionaries.)

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Remember Katrina?
Apparently the federal government doesn’t

By Steve Pehanich

Remember the Alamo? Remember the Maine? These famous – some would say infamous – rallying cries mobilized our nation against a common foe.
We have always been very good at that, whether it was the tyranny of an eccentric English king or the demagoguery of Hitler.

Remember Katrina? Not enough people in the Federal government apparently do. Since the hurricane hit in late August, many of the cries for help are still going unanswered. Consider the following:

• To pay for disaster recovery (estimated at $70 billion), Congress proposed cuts in food stamps, foster care, Temporary Aid to Needy Families, child support, Medicaid and other social programs along with a tax cut (estimated at $70 billion).

The poor are being asked to sacrifice to help those who are poorer.
Even some of the staunchest partisans in Washington couldn’t swallow Congress’s proposition. Following Federal budget moves is often like trying to watch the classic con game, three-card monte. This time, however, the slight of hand was just too transparent.

• Estimates are that as of the end of November as many as 6,000 people were still missing. Most, thankfully, are “lost” in the paperwork; but many bodies have not been recovered yet.

Catholic Charities USA’s Volunteer of the Year – Helen Brown – a New Orleans resident, missed her award ceremony in September because it took weeks to locate her in a Kalamazoo, Michigan, shelter.

• Our first line of defense – FEMA – was completely overwhelmed. Politics played a crucial role in FEMA’s inability to meet the needs of the victims.
The US Catholic Conference of Bishops publicly stated that FEMA gave them the “run-around” when asked for information on forthcoming aid.

• Evacuees are spread across the United States. Many do not want to return to their impoverished former homes, finding opportunities more abundant in other states like ours.

The list of bizarre twists and turns, unfortunately, could go on.
Does our nation have the will to mobilize to help the millions of people who are suffering? We cannot forget them, particularly since so many are the poor, elderly and ill.

“The moral test of a society is how it treats its most vulnerable members,” says the U.S. bishops’ document, “Economic Justice for All.”

“The poor have the most urgent moral claim on the conscience of the nation. We are called to look at public policy decisions in terms of how they affect the poor.”

By those standards – and by many more – our government failed in the Gulf Coast, and by extension so did we as United States citizens.

It is not just a failure to support those impacted in August by the hurricane, but a failure of years and decades in which we allowed poverty to fester and grow in this nation despite our enormous resources, our wealth and our ingenuity.
It’s a failure in where we’ve placed our priorities as a nation. Are we not outraged?

Faith communities, fortunately, have responded to the challenge. Parishes, Catholic Charities, and the equivalent organizations from other faiths are responding. From San Diego to Redding, thousands of families are being assisted. And the pattern is repeated in almost all other states.

Donations for relief of hurricane victims have topped $100 million at Catholic Charities USA. Add to that, local parishes across our state who have established partnerships with parishes in the affected area.

Unfortunately, this is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Our Federal government needs to step up, too.

Decisions by any democratic form of government start with the electorate. You hear a lot about special interests – definitely an important issue – but the biggest special interest is “we the people.”

Our individual decisions – and eventually our national and local priorities – are shaped by the personal choices we make daily – by our fears, our hopes, and the concern for our well-being and that of others.

That concern needs to extend to our neighbors – the people in our own communities who suffer from the “violence” of poverty; as well as the people who are abandoned in the Gulf States.

People of faith will make a difference in this disaster, but we will need our government’s total commitment to make the Gulf States whole again. It will take years and require massive mobilization, but it can be done if we “remember Katrina!”

(Steve Pehanich is executive director of Catholic Charities of California.)

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In the midst of life’s storms, light a prayer candle

By Julie McCarty

I lit a candle today, a simple cream-colored pillar resting in a humble glass base. I was feeling annoyed, hurt, and confused about a certain situation. This situation shocked and horrified me, but it was something over which I have little or no control. When I tried to pray about it, my emotional circuit overloaded—I just couldn’t find the words to express myself to God. So, I lit a candle.

Lighting a candle is something I learned from my Irish grandmother. As a preschool age child, I was fascinated with Grandma’s fancy prayer candle that glowed in the dark of her bedroom when I spent the night at her house. It was a little votive light inside a red glass container. The glass rested in an elaborate golden-colored metal frame studded with sparkling jewels. I assumed this was real gold and jewels, like those worn by kings and queens in my fairy tale books.

Standing in Grandma’s darkened room at night, the patterns of red and gold light dancing on the walls and illuminating the statue of Mary, I felt the same awe I had when my dad turned on the Christmas tree lights.

One time when I visited Grandma during the daytime, the wind suddenly picked up and the sky grew dark. A thunderstorm was approaching, something my relatives took fairly seriously in those days. Their homes were exposed on rural hillsides that made them a good target. Besides the danger to humans, there was the unspoken fear that livestock and stored crops, on which one’s livelihood depended, might perish in a fire started by lightning.

Before the storm reached us, Grandma brought her prayer candle into the living room. As she lit it, she explained to me that one should always pray for people who are caught outside during bad weather. There were farmers working in the fields who might not be able to get inside in time. People who were out driving in cars might be facing slick roads. (No cell phones back then to check on family members, only prayers!)

After pausing quietly for a few moments, Grandma returned to her ordinary tasks of the day, but the flame of the candle continued to burn, reminding us of our prayer intention.

Forty years later, I no longer think to light a candle in a storm. I grab a flashlight instead, not with the noble pursuit of praying for others, but in case I lose that treasured possession called electricity! But Grandma’s example was not in vain. I still light a candle when I have something special on my mind to place before the Lord.

Prayer candles remind us that Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12). Christ is so essential that he is like the sun that brings life to all creation. Without the sun, our entire global ecosystem would collapse overnight. For the Christian, Christ is crucial.

It is God’s plan that we, too, become bearers of this light of Christ. “You are the light of the world,” says Jesus (Matt. 5:14). Our baptismal candles, lit from the Easter candle, signify that we are to be filled with the light of Christ. We are called to empty ourselves of all greed, envy, lust, hatred, and the ruthless drive for power, so that our hearts may be open, like a votive candleholder, to receive more fully the flame of God’s Spirit.

Christ’s light continues to burn throughout all centuries, a flame of love that, like the burning bush, is not consumed. God’s love is ever-faithful, ever-true. Christ is the Light who brings wisdom and prudence in dealing with all the challenges we face. Christ is always waiting for us, a candle burning bright amidst the storms of life.

(Julie McCarty is a freelance writer from Eagan, Minnesota, with a master's degree in Catholic theology. Her syndicated column, “The Prayerful Heart,” appears in diocesan newspapers around the country. Contact her at soulwriting@yahoo.com.)

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Document on seminarians points out necessary reform

By George Weigel

Now that the initial dust over the Congregation for Catholic Education’s recent Instruction on homosexuality and candidacy for the priesthood has settled, three points seem worth underscoring.

The first point is one of historical and theological context.
On Dec. 8, 2005, the Church marked the 40th anniversary of the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council – a reforming Council intended by John XXIII to prepare the Church for what John Paul II would later call a “springtime of evangelization.”

Historically, we must remember that every great period of reform in Catholic history has included a reform of the priesthood and the consecrated life. Theologically, we must understand that there can be no “reform” of any facet of Catholic life without reference to “form:” in this case, the “form” in question is the priesthood understood as an iconic embodiment of the eternal priesthood of Jesus Christ.

Christ’s eternal priesthood, in turn, involves Christ’s spousal relationship with his bride, the Church. Keeping those truths of history and theology in mind is essential for reading the recent Instruction from Rome correctly – which is to say, as a reforming document.

The second point is one of cultural context.
Living chastity is no easy business in the sex-saturated culture of the contemporary West. It’s impossible to walk through a mall, turn on your computer or television, or browse through a bookstore without being bombarded by sexual imagery of every imaginable sort. The challenge of living chastely in these circumstances is a tough one for everybody: single, married, or celibate, lay or ordained.

That is one important reason why the appropriate authorities in the Church – pastors, diocesan vocation directors, seminary faculty, seminary rectors, religious superiors, and, above all, bishops – must be as certain as humanly possible that a man is capable of living the demanding vocation of chaste celibate love before he is called to Holy Orders.

That responsibility cannot be out-sourced to psychologists and psychiatrists. Why? Because, in the final analysis, it’s a judgment of pastoral prudence, not a clinical judgment. The evaluation of clinicians can be helpful in forming a judgment about a man’s capacity for living chaste celibate love in today’s sexual free-fire zone. But the final call rests with the Church’s pastoral authorities. And as the Long Lent of 2002 made unmistakably clear, it is a responsibility that cannot be shirked.

Candidates for the priesthood, whether diocesan or religious, also have a responsibility here, particularly given the challenging cultural circumstances in which they propose to serve. Any prospective candidate for ordination should be prepared and willing to demonstrate his capacity to live chaste celibate love before he asks the Church to confirm his vocation to the ordained ministry.
Indeed, a willingness to do so might be considered an important sign of whether or not a man’s sense that God is calling him to a priestly vocation is a true discernment.

The third point takes us to the bottom of the bottom line.
Will this document make any difference? That is, will it help foster a genuine and enduring reform of the priesthood? That is entirely up to local bishops, in the case of the diocesan priesthood.

A bishop must take the time and trouble to know his seminarians before he issues the canonical call to Orders. If a bishop’s first real encounter with a man he is to ordain happens on the day of that man’s ordination, something is seriously wrong.
As for men’s communities of consecrated religious life, no Roman document can substitute for courageous leadership by religious superiors, calling all under their authority to live the “more excellent way” by honoring the majesty of their vows.

In the providence of God, the Long Lent of 2002 could not have been meaningless: it was, in retrospect, a call to the entire Church to take the reform of the Church’s ordained ministry with the urgency Vatican II proposed. The recent Instruction is a response to that call, and should be welcomed as such.

(George Weigel is a senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C.)

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