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I’m not perfect, so why aren’t you?

As a pastor I find I have many different types of people to shepherd. Some are proud, and some have no self-esteem. Some are weak, and some are strong. Sojesus-good-shepherdme are trying very hard to be the best they can be, and some are convinced they are already perfect. It’s not easy. I have to love all of them and shepherd each one as his or her needs require. For some that means offering encouragement and lifting them up. For others, it means awakening in them the realization that they need to change. Some need to face the consequences of their choices, and some need to move beyond them. If I am to be a faithful shepherd, I need to know each sheep individually and what they are dealing with, and the more I know about them, the better I can help them. There is no one magic approach that will heal everyone.

One of the biggest challenges I face is trying my best to see where each person is on that journey and how to help them go further. I must confess that it is not always easy. I am not always sure where someone is on the journey. I can best help my people by knowing who they truly are, warts and all. If I know what is really going on in their hearts, perhaps I can say something specific that will make a difference. Without this knowledge, I can only offer general platitudes.

Some people can be frustrating, especially those who see no need for any further growth. They think they are perfectly fine just where they are. That group includes the two extremes: those who don’t worship God because they think their life is just fine and don’t think they need him, and those who think they have arrived at perfection and have no need for any further growth. I find both of those groups difficult because they will not be guided; they don’t need any help. The people in between are where the real graces happen, with those who see the need for growth and want to be helped. Their weaknesses and needs may be as far apart as the tundra is from the tropics, but as long as they want to be better, there will be growth toward God.

Lately I have come across a trend, especially in newcomers to the faith and in people who have become painfully aware of their sinfulness: even if they have been forgiven in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, they still tend to view those who have been there before them as better than they, and they don’t feel worthy to be counted among them. I can imagine St. Paul going through that when he first met Peter, James, and John. After all, Paul had persecuted the faith and was trying to destroy it until Jesus converted him in dramatic fashion on the way to Damascus. With all of his sinful past, how could he now be counted as equals with the Apostles? But Peter denied Jesus three times, and James and John wanted to sit at Jesus’ right and left in His glory. They were not without sin. Every saint has his past, and every sinner has his future. Jesus has an uncanny ability to see past our weaknesses to the good we can do when we realize He knows all too well our sins and allow Him to work through us in spite of – perhaps even because of – our sinfulness. As St. Paul says, “when I am weak, it is then that I am strong.” (2 Cor. 12:10) An ideal example of this is the recovering drug addict who has been sober for many years and is now running a program to help others with an addiction to overcome them. His awareness of his past and of how Jesus pulled him through gives him the desire and the ability to minister to others who are on that same journey. He might even feel that Jesus allowed him to go down that dangerous path so that he would be able to help many others to leave that road and start out on the right way. It can be the man who was once addicted to pornography who now runs a program to free others from their enslavement. He understands their pain and their weakness, and has a more burning desire for them to be freed from their burden.

I am a human being with my own sins, and sometimes someone confesses something to me that I have personally dealt with in the past or even at present, and I find myself in a good position to offer them advice that I have gleaned from my own struggle with that particular sin. But no one falls prey to every sin possible, and I’ve discovered over the years that I have learned a lot about the sinfulness of the human person from what I have heard in confession, and even if I never myself fell prey to a certain sin, the lessons I have learned from those who have puts me in a better position to understand and guide another. For this reason, I always tell people never to be afraid to bring your worst sins and fears to a priest in confession. We deal with the weaknesses of human nature on a regular basis and can usually appreciate what you’re going through, even if we haven’t been there ourselves. For example, my parents are thankfully still healthy, but I have counseled enough people dealing with invalid parents to know that they can find it frustrating and that they often lose patience with them. Although I am not married, I have dealt with enough people who are tempted to be unfaithful so as to be able to say something constructive to them. I have worked with teenagers for many years, and I know the strange, dumb, and embarrassing things they sometimes do, especially when it comes to sexuality: from the one fighting compulsive masturbation, to the one who took naked selfies and accidentally emailed them to someone, to the one who was caught by their parents in the midst of a sexual act, the list goes on and on. I always tell people the same thing: if there is anyone you should NOT be embarrassed to share your worst sins with it is a priest in confession. Remember that he has the power to offer you the forgiveness of Christ.

Sometimes I discover that people have quite the reverse attitude toward what they think they should appear to be in the eyes of their pastor and what they in fact should do. Perhaps because they respect their priest so much they want Father to think they are holy, and if Father should discover they have any faults or sins they would be mortified and it would ruin his opinion of them. But that would be like so wanting the doctor to believe you’re healthy that you don’t tell him when you are sick! If anyone needs to know your illness it is the doctor. Similarly, if anyone needs to know your weakness and sins it is your priest. My job is not to pretend you are perfect, but to see you as you are, to love you as you are, and to try to help you become perfect.i'm not a perfect person

But sometimes people worry that, if they tell Father their sins and he remembers them, every time he sees them he will be recalling their sins and he’ll be ashamed of them. I can’t speak for every priest, but I can tell you what I feel. What I said above about the pastor needing to know his sheep and tend to them as they are applies here. If I pretended that my parishioners were a gathering of perfect people I’d be sorely deluded. My job is not to judge people nor is it to feel ashamed of them, as if their sin was somehow a reflection upon myself. The more in fact that I know about a person, the better position I am in to be able to respond properly to their needs. If I do in fact remember something someone told me in confession (which, by the way, I can’t even repeat to them), it only serves to help me know them better and respond in a more understanding manner to their needs. I find that the people who receive the most peace of mind are those who tell the full truth about themselves to their priest, trusting that he is there to help them and that he wants to help ease their burdenconfession-4. I will not feel like a failure if you confess your sins to me, nor will I lose respect for you because I know of all the horrible and sordid things you have done; on the contrary, I will feel like a failure if you were afraid to come to me! When I deal with a person and hear his confession on a regular basis, I end up developing a more complete understanding of him and end up loving him all the more. Everyone needs a place where they can divulge their deepest sins and failings. Who better to bring them to than your priest?

A parish is not a gathering of saints but of sinners trying to become saints. While we are all at different stages in our journey to holiness – to being the best version of ourselves that we can be – we will never be perfected until we enter into Heaven.

So don’t be afraid of your pastor or any priest with whom you have a good relationship knowing your faults and weaknesses. Don’t be embarrassed. The more he knows of you the more he can help you, and the more you know he knows of you, the more easily you will be able to share other problems with him, and the better he can help you grow in holiness and peace of mind.

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Was William Shakespeare Catholic? The evidence suggests he was.

I’ve come across theories in the past that suggested that Shakespeare was Catholic and that there is evidence of it in his works. This recent article gives strong support to the theory. 

The Catholicism of William Shakespeare

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Ample evidence supports the claim that the Bard of Avon was a lifelong Catholic

b y Jo s e p h Pe a r c e

This year, we have been commemorating the 400th anniversary of the death of one of the world’s greatest writers, William Shakespeare (1564-1616). For those who have long admired his brilliance and Christian imagination, the evidence that he was a believing Catholic in a time of persecution is very exciting. Broadly speaking, the evidence for Shakespeare’s Catholicism is biographical, historical and textual. The biographical and historical evidence is found in the documented facts of his life and of the turbulent times in which he lived, and his plays and poems offer further, textual evidence of his Catholic convictions.

PASSING ON THE FAITH

Born in 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon, England, Shakespeare lived at a time when the practice of Catholicism was illegal. In 1534, King Henry VIII had declared that he and his successors  would lead a state- controlled church and that only this  state-imposed religion would be tolerated. Priests were tortured and put to death, as were those who tried to hide them from the tyrannical government. Recusants — those who refused to attend the services of the state religion — were fined heavily. Shakespeare’s mother’s family, the Ardens, were among the most famous recusants in the whole of England. Shakespeare’s father, John, was fined for his recusancy in 1592 and had retired from his career in politics rather than swear allegiance to the state religion. Several scholars, most  notably John Henry de Groot, have detailed the evidence for John Shakespeare’s Catholicism, including the fact that he signed a “testament” to his Catholic faith, which had been written by St. Charles Borromeo and was probably smuggled into England by Jesuit missionaries. As for Shakespeare himself, evidence suggests that he remained a Catholic throughout his life.

During Shakespeare’s youth, the religion of the nation was far from a settled question. In 1568, when he was only 4 years old, Mary, Queen of Scots, fled to England, raising hopes of an eventual Catholic succession. These hopes were then dashed by Mary’s imprisonment on the orders of Queen Elizabeth I. The Northern Rebellion, led by the Duke of Norfolk and the Earl of Northumberland in support of Mary, was crushed ruthlessly the following year. More than 800 rebels — mainly Catholics — were executed. Several scholars have suggested that the Northern Rebellion inspired Shakespeare’s two-part Henry IV.

There has been much scholarly debate about what Shakespeare was doing as a young man between 1578 and 1582, the so-called “lost years” prior to his marriage to Anne Hath- away. According to John Aubrey, one of the earliest sources available, Shakespeare “had been in his younger years a schoolmaster in the country.” Scholars including E.A.J. Honigmann, J. Dover Wilson and Stephen Greenblatt have found evidence that Shakespeare might have spent time at Hoghton Tower, a recusant household in Lancashire. In that case, he would likely have met the Jesuit martyr St. Edmund Campion shortly before Campion’s arrest in June 1581 and subsequent execution. Having returned to Stratford, where he married and had three children with his wife, Anne, it seems that Shakespeare was forced to leave his hometown. Scholars such as Heinrich Mutschmann and Karl Wentersdorf (Shakespeare and Catholicism, 1952) have demonstrated that a vendetta was directed against him by Sir Thomas Lucy, the local lord of the manor. As Queen Elizabeth’s chief Protestant agent in the area, Lucy led searches of local Catholic houses, including very probably Shakespeare’s own home. In May 1606, Shakespeare’s daughter, Susanna, appeared on a list of recusants brought before Stratford’s church court. This fact, discovered in 1964, signifies that Catholicism had been passed from one generation of the family to the next, further suggesting that Shakespeare himself had remained a Catholic throughout his life.

MARTYRS AND ‘GOD’S SPIES’

After his arrival in London, Shakespeare enjoyed the patronage of the Earl of Southampton, a known Catholic who seems to have had Jesuit martyr St. Robert Southwell as his confessor. Shakespeare likely knew the Jesuit priest prior to the latter’s arrest in 1592, the year in which Shakespeare’s father was fined for being a recusant. In fact, there are many allusions to Southwell in Shakespeare’s plays. A thorough discussion of the plentiful textual evidence for Shakespeare’s Catholicism in his plays and poems is not possible in this brief survey. Here are just a couple examples. Southwell wrote a poem titled Decease Release about the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, whom many Catholics believed to be a martyr for the faith. In the poem, written from the queen’s viewpoint, Southwell casts her as “pounded spice,” the fragrance of which ascends to heaven: “God’s spice I was and pounding was my due.” Although the poem was clearly Southwell’s tribute to the executed queen, its first-person voice gave it added potency following Southwell’s own martyrdom in 1595, toward the beginning of Shakespeare’s career. Like the queen of whom he wrote, Southwell was also “pounded spice” or “God’s spice,” whose essence is more pleasing and valued for being crushed. In King Lear (1605), the title character’s use of the phrase “God’s spies” is a clear punning reference to “God’s spice.” It is also a veiled reference to Jesuits, such as Southwell, who though “traitors” in the eyes of the Elizabethan and Jacobean state were “God’s spies.” They, too, became “God’s spice,” ground to death that they might receive their martyr’s reward in heaven. “Upon such sacrifices,” Lear tells Cordelia, “the gods themselves throw incense.”

Romeo and Juliet and The Merchant of Venice were written in the same year in which Southwell was martyred, and both plays contain symbolically charged references to the Jesuit’s life and work. In the latter play, for instance, several scholars have suggested that Antonio is a thinly-veiled personification of a Jesuit. This adds a crucial allegorical dimension to the courtroom scene in which Shakespeare effectively recreates Southwell’s trial. From the vantage point of Catholicism, the very “justice” emanded by Shylock becomes uncannily close to the “justice” meted out by Elizabeth’s court to Southwell. Shylock demands that, according to the law, he has a right to cut a pound of flesh nearest to the heart of Antonio. In Southwell’s case, the law demanded that Jesuit “traitors” should be hanged, drawn and quartered. The prosecutors not only demanded a pound of their victim’s flesh, nearest his heart, but they actually obtained it, physically removing the heart and casting it into the fire. As Southwell’s ghostly presence can be observed through- out The Merchant of Venice, one can read Portia’s beautiful “quality of mercy” speech as a plea to Queen Elizabeth to show the Jesuits mercy.

THE ‘NOTORIOUS’ GATEHOUSE

The most convincing biographical evidence for Shakespeare’s Catholicism is one of his final acts in London before retiring home to Stratford: his purchase of the Blackfriars Gatehouse in 1613. The history of this property reveals that it was, as Mutschmann and Wentersdorf described it, “a notorious center of Catholic activities.” As its name indicates, the Dominican Order owned it until the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII. It was inherited by Mary Blackwell, a relative of St. Edmund Campion. Other tenants included Mary Bannister, the sister of St. Robert Southwell, and Katherine Carus, the widow of a defiantly recusant judge. According to a contemporary report sent to Lord Burghley, Carus died there “in all her pride and popery.” In 1585, around the time that Shakespeare first arrived in London, Mary Blackwell was accused of recusancy. The following year, a government informer reported his suspicions that the house had become a center for secret Catholic activity: “It has sundry backdoors and bye-ways, and many secret vaults and corners. It has been in time past suspected, and searched for papists, but no good done for want of knowledge of the backdoors and bye-ways of the dark corners.” In 1598, acting on another report that the gatehouse was a hive of recusant activity, the authorities raided the house. Jesuit Father Oswald Tesimond (alias Greenway) stated in his autobiography that he paid a surreptitious visit to the gatehouse on the day after the raid, being informed that priests had remained undiscovered in the house during the search. In 1605, during the Gunpowder Plot to blow up the House of Lords, Jesuit Father John Gerard asked if he could use the gatehouse as a “safe-house” for the plotters to meet in secret. After the plan was discovered, Father Gerard, now the most wanted man in England, appeared in desperation at the gatehouse, disguised with a false beard and hair and stating that he did not know where else to hide. Unlike many of his Jesuit confrères, Father Gerard escaped his pursuers and slipped out of the country in disguise. Shakespeare leased the Blackfriars Gatehouse to John Robinson, son of a Catholic gentleman of the same name. It was reported in 1599 that John Robinson senior sheltered a priest, Father Richard Dudley. By 1613, the other Robinson son, Edward, entered the English College at Rome to become a priest. It is clear that Shakespeare knew that he was leasing the gatehouse to a recusant Catholic. As Ian Wilson surmised in Shakespeare: The Evidence, Robinson was “not so much Shakespeare’s tenant in the gatehouse, as his appointed guardian of one of London’s best places of refuge for Catholic priests.” Furthermore, John Robinson was not merely a tenant but also a valued friend. He visited Shakespeare in Stratford during the poet’s retirement and was seemingly the only one of the Bard’s London friends present during his final illness, signing his will as a witness. Shakespeare died on St. George’s Day, April 23, 1616, leaving the bulk of his wealth to his daughter Susanna. Other beneficiaries included several friends who, like Susanna, were known to be recusant Catholics. These legacies support the Anglican clergyman Richard Davies’ lament, in the late 1600s, that Shakespeare “dyed a papist.” It is equally clear that he lived as a papist, providing Catholics even greater reason to commemorate his life and work.

JOSEPH PEARCE is director of the Center for Faith & Culture at Aquinas College in Nashville, Tenn., and a member of Msgr. Andrew K. Gwynn Council 1668 in Greenville, S.C. His books include The Quest for Shakespeare (2008), Through Shakespeare’s Eyes (2010) and Shakespeare on Love (2013).

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Finding common ground in the abortion debate

There is almost certainly no issue that evokes more anger than the topic of abortion. People on both sides of the issue frequently resort to name-calling and valueless retorts that are meant more to put the other person down rather than to reach any common understanding. When we resort to this path, nothing constructive happens. Instead, we need to look for some common ground and discuss matters cyellingalmly and respectfully. I had an example of that very recently. I was in a discussion on Facebook with a woman who was obviously very much pro-abortion and she started out by using many of the well-rehearsed soundbites that are meant only to disparage and not to lead to constructive argumentation. After some back and forth where I refused to follow suit and kept responding to her attacks with calm argumentation, we did end up reaching some common ground. She mentioned how men who take the time to father a child have to also be there for the child once the baby is born. Many times men get a woman pregnant and then run to the hills. I absolutely agree with her on that! Certainly, if you’re going to father a child you better be there to take care of the child as well. I told her I understand that a woman whose baby’s father will not be there for her is in a difficult situation, but when the solution we come up with is to kill the baby, we have to say “Stop! That is not an acceptable solution! find another!” Sadly, the woman chose to end the discussion there, but we were at least on amicable terms by the end. If the conversation had been able to continue I would have wanted to say the following to her: it is certainly true that men have to take responsibility for their actions, but so do women. In the overwhelming majority of abortion situations we are not talking about a woman who was abused or raped or became pregnant after being in involved in sexual activity that was against her will. Most of the time the women were willing participants in the sexual act and thus they must take equal responsibility for what happened. If you’re going to engage in the act that leads to the conception of the new life then you better be willing and ready to accept the ramifications of that decision, which is that you may become pregnant, and if you do become pregnant and did not want to be, then either you raise the baby your choice brought into existence or you give it to someone who will raise it, but the baby should not be asked to pay the ultimate price by giving up its life so that the mother can have an easy solution to her misdeed. I don’t know if she would have agreed with me, but I know that she would at least have been open to hearing me out.

In the above case the woman was pro-abortion for ideological reasons. Other times it is more personal. Let me share with you a conversation I had many years ago with a young woman while I was in college. I had written a letter to the school newspaper against abortion and that evening in my room I received a phone call from a very irate collegiate who was screaming into the phone with venomous comments about all the horrible things I allegedly thought of women simply because I was against abortion. Within a minute or two a friend of hers got on the phone and was a little more levelheaded. She apologized for her friend’s behavior and at least attempted to discuss the issue calmly and rationally. She said to me, “Let’s imagine you go to a party in school and you are drinking and you do some drugs, you end up having sex with a boy and you get pregnant. Do you expect the girl to have that baby?” I said “Absolutely!” She asked, “Why? She didn’t realize what she was doing.” I replied by saying, “There was an awful lot of irresponsible behavior going on there. If you go to a party and you drink and do drugs and you can’t control yourself, you’re responsible for what happens to you in those situations, and asking a child to give up its life just because you were careless one night is totally unacceptable.” She then asked me if I had a girlfriend. “Yes” I responded. “Well suppose you got your girlfriend pregnant, wouldn’t you want her to have an abortion?” I said to her “Well that would never happen because my girlfriend and I are not sexually active. We both believe that the sexual act is the seal of the covenant of marriage and we choose to abstain from sex until we are married.” She then responded “Well then suppose you are married and you wife got pregnant and you didn’t want to have a baby?” I answered “I would never get married if I did not think I could welcome a child, because one of the reasons for marriage is to raise children and have a family. And if I was ever worried about taking care of another baby, I would do whatever it takes to provide for my child, and if I reached the conclusion that I could never be able to provide for it properly, I would give it up for adoption, but I would never kill it!” She then said “Wow! If everyone believed what you believe there would be no need for abortion!”

I had awakened in her the understanding of taking responsibility for your actions, but she still was not convinced that abortion was wrong. We then continued the conversation with other things and she tried to use the arguments that the fetus is not a human life yet, so therefore abortion is okay. I responded to her “Well, we could argue back and forth as to when life begins and neither one would probably be able to prove the point. But even if I were to grant your point or it could be proven definitively that the fetus is not yet a human life, do you agree that, left to run the course that is already in action, the fetus eventually will become one?” “Certainly!” She responded. I said, “So whether the child is already alive or is in the process of becoming alive, haven’t you taken the child’s life either way?” I then said to her, “Imagine this example: somebody is running in a track meet and they won. They are awarded the medal. But you are not happy that she won the medal and so you come up with a fake reason to have the person disqualified that the judges believe, and she has lost her prize. In another situation the person is running to the finish line and you trip them before they get there so that someone else crosses the finish line first and they don’t win. Either way you have made them lose their prize. Does it really matter much whether the person had already won the prize and you took it away or if you stop the person before they got to the finish line? Either way they’ve lost.” The woman responded “But that person can always get up and run in another race.” I answered “Yes, but the child cannot! That was the only chance the child had at life and you took it away from her.” Afterward she confided in me “Wow I see I see your point.” She then said “Well the reason I gave you that example about somebody doing drugs and drinking is because that’s what happened to me. I did that and got pregnant and I had an abortion.” Gulp! If I’d have known beforehand that she was speaking from her own experience I might have tried to soften my point. Anyway, I found out she was Catholic and told her to speak to our college chaplain who was very compassionate and understanding. I told her he could help give her some peace with her decision. She thanked me and said she was going to. I never spoke with her again but we ended the conversation on very friendly terms and when we avoided the name-calling and the sound byte catchphrases that her friend had used we were actually able to make progress. Perhaps I even changed her mind about abortion, and even if I inadvertently exposed her guilt, she could find healing, which she couldn’t do by yelling worn-out slogans.

talkingNo matter what the issue may be, I always urge people to avoid using expressions that are meant only to ridicule and silence discussion and instead engage in constructive dialogue that will help the parties understand each other. We may not come to an agreement and we may not change someone else’s mind, but we will always have a greater understanding of what the person’s concerns are and perhaps be able to address them in a way that may leave room for future progress. Respectful constructive dialogue always leads to a better understanding and increased respect, and maybe will change the other person’s mind . Name-calling and flinging mud never does.

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How about some airplane humor???

There has been so much tension these past few weeks that we can use a humor break. I hope you enjoy it!  Click here for an enjoyable 3-minute video

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Tolerance: an right American virtue and attribute – unless you’re liberal!

I find it so sad to see the number of liberal groups and individuals who are threatening violence at Donald Trump’s inauguration this week. Observe how the people demanding that others tolerate their opinions, practices, etc. have absolutely no todisruptj20-640x480lerance for anyone who disagrees with them and some groups have actually been formed to disrupt the inauguration and damage public property! read the story here. I know the election was extremely contentious and anyone who didn’t like Donald Trump will not be happy on Friday. But look: I was very upset when Barack Obama won the election twice in a row. But the American people had spoken and our political process had run its course legitimately. I didn’t start screaming that he was “not my president” nor did I threaten to destroy anyone’s property; I just accepted it and prayed that he wouldn’t make any bad decisions or policies as president. If Hillary Clinton had won the election I would have been very upset and fearful for our nation’s future, but I would have begrudgingly accepted the outcome as I did with Obama and would never have threatened violence against anyone.

Those who are carrying on, refusing to accept the results of the election, and threatening violence, are showing themselves to be immature sore-losers. They have lost any semblance of credibility in my eyes.  Apparently there is no such thing as a true liberal. Liberals always pontificate to people with more traditional views that we have to be open and accepting of people who don’t see things our way. But they can’t do the same.  Liberals love to call anyone who disagrees with them “hate-filled.” But who is actually doing the hating and threatening the violence? It is not the people with traditional Christian values; it is the liberals who aren’t getting their way.

All of this threatened violence could be quelled by one word from Obama or Hillary condemning it. But you don’t hear a peep out of the White House or Chappaqua. Why are they so silent?

What liberals are really saying is that we all have to have respect only for liberal opinions. Traditional conservative values have no grounds for respect according to them. But that does  not represent the values of our founding fathers and the Constitution, who valued the free exchange of ideas and in the long run cooperated for the well-being of our new nation even if they disagreed vehemently with each other (cf. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson). Rather, this new liberalism reeks of totalitarianism, Communism, Nazism, Fascism, and every other malicious “ism” that threatened freedom during the 20th century. The more these sore losers carry on, the more glad I become that Hillary didn’t win, as her minions are becoming increasingly the people of “my way only”. It’s amazing that the party that accused Donald Trump of wanting to divide America is doing far more to divide us than he ever could. They are advocating violence and are threatening destruction in order to get their way. Sounds a lot like Kristallnacht to me!

I didn’t vote for Barack Obama and I disagreed vehemently with many of his policies, but he WAS my President, whether I liked it or not. Whether or not you like Donald Trump, as of Friday he IS your President. Deal with it!

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Dear Abby encourages a two-year-old boy to be clothed in dresses and pink clothes!

I don’t normally read Dear Abby because I rarely agree with the advice she gives, but today’s headline caught my attention and I was horrified at what I read. Did anyone else see it? Here is the column for today:

DEAR ABBY: My brother and sister-in-law have been dressing my 2-year-old nephew, “Charlie,” in dresses and pink clothes. They say these are what the boy has chosen. To me, a toddler will pick out whatever gets his attention at the moment, and children that age have only a rudimentary understanding of gender.

It would be one thing if Charlie were old enough to understand and still insisted he felt more comfortable in girls’ clothing. But at his age I feel what they’re doing will only confuse him. Keep in mind, I do not believe this is a transgender issue. I think people who are transgender should dress and act the way they feel. I just feel that age 2 is too young to determine this.

My parents (the boy’s grandparents) are worried and angry. My sister-in-law knows this upsets my mother and yet it’s like she’s taunting her with texts and pictures of Charlie in pink and/or dresses.

Should we be worried about this or should it be none of our business? Are we overreacting? Would it be best to approach my brother to tell him our concerns? — TOO YOUNG TO UNDERSTAND

DEAR TOO YOUNG: It is likely that Charlie is going through a phase and doing something he has seen other people do. But more important than what his mother buys for him is how others respond to it. A family’s negative reaction sends a strong message. If Charlie is innocently testing out his/her authentic self, his grandparents’ negative response will signal that they disapprove of who he is, which could have lasting ramifications for him.

Counselors at PFLAG (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) have told me that many parents say that, looking back, they realize that by disapproving, they had sent their child the message that they couldn’t accept him/her. One child had suicidal thoughts at the age of 5 because of it. (And yes, sometimes children that young do act on the impulse.)

Hello??? The child is two years old!!! What two-year-old chooses his own clothing for the day? It is obvious to any sane person that the decision to dress the child in pink and dresses is the parents’ and not the toddler’s.

Why are these parents behaving in this way? Are they trying to encourage him to grow up believing he’s actually a girl? Did they perhaps want a girl but got a boy instead? What their rationale is I certainly cannot say, but whatever it is, what they are doing to the child is downright cruel. What parent would want to encourage their child to grow up gender confused?

As for Dear Abby’s response, this is a clear example of what I have repeatedly said is the dangerous afterbirth of an overly accepting attitude toward gender confusion. What started out as a perhaps noble attempt to understand and be compassionate toward those who are gender-confused has deteriorated into an effort to encourage people to be whatever gender they choose to be. There are even some people who will tell you that can change from day to day. “If I want to be a woman today, I’ll be a woman, and if tomorrow I want to be a man I’ll do so.” Don’t believe me? Look at one case that took place in a Ross department store in Texas.

A female customer complained that a man was changing in the ladies’ fitting room. When confronted by the manager, the man said “he was identifying as a woman today” and the manager told the woman who had complained that he had the right to change in there. see video here  Target has also had serious problems with abuses due to their policy openly welcoming people to use whatever bathroom they feel better matches their identity. See this link: click here

When it comes to a toddler (as it is in this case), whatever the motive of the parents is, trying to force their child to identify with the opposite gender is unconscionable! It is an unthinkable kind of violence to do such a thing to a child.

I think it’s time the world wake up and face reality: we are male or female down to every gene in our body, and with the exception of the rare case of people with genetic abnormalities, our gender was determined at the moment of our conception and does not change because we feel differently. Feelings don’t dictate reality; only facts do, and encouraging people to choose whatever gender they want to be is an insult to the Lord who “created them male and female” (cf Gen. 1:27).

 

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12 Cardinals and Bishops Condemn Gender Theory Madness. Great Quotes.

This post appeared on the webpage of TFP

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Bentley Hatchett II

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The truth cuts through error like a sharp sword.  These twelve Catholic cardinals and bishops have spoken out against gender theory, clearing the toxic fog spread by the transgender movement and its biology deniers.  In clear terms these prelates call gender theory what it really is: destructive, anti-reason, neo-Marxist, tyrannical, a form of spiritual terrorism and demonic.

Please share these quotes:

Most Rev. James D. Conley
Bishop of Lincoln, Nebraska

Bishop Conley

“We are living in a time when ordinary human reason is quickly being replaced by ‘the barren thorns of passion.’ Our entire culture has been caught up in a kind of sentimentalized and relativized tyranny of tolerance: we vilify and condemn, ever more quickly, any sense of reasonable and ordered social policy. We have a vague sense that endorsing certain fashionable kinds of social and emotional disorders—including transgenderism—is a mandate of justice, or a victory for civil rights…

“But the Church will not deny that God created us male and female. We will not confuse respect and compassion with capitulation to a tragic delusion. Our Catholic schools will continue to teach and live the truth, because of our care for every student. We can only help students grow in holiness when we help them to live in accord with the truth. We will continue to do that, no matter the cost.”

(Source: Southern Nebraska Register)

Cardinal Robert Sarah
Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments

“[In France] they corrected me, they said I cannot use the word ‘deviation’, but I would not know which other word to use [about gender theory]… Even fools recognize that, between a man and a woman, there is a difference and a complementarity. Man is nothing without a woman and vice versa. This is not my own position, this is the position of the Church, and all Christians, all families are called to fight against this deviation.”

(Source: LifeSiteNews.com)

Cardinal Raymond Burke
Patron of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta

Cardinal Raymond Burke

“Gender theory is an invention, an artificial creation. It is impossible to have an identity that does not respect the proper nature of man and that of woman.  It is madness that will cause immense damage in society and in the lives of those who support this theory. With gender theory, it is impossible to live in society. Already today, in certain places in the United States, anyone at all can change identity and say, ‘Today I am a man; tomorrow I will be a woman.’ That is truly madness. Some men insist on going into the women’s rest rooms. That is inhuman. In the schools, you can imagine the confusion. […] Nowadays there is enormous confusion, which is based on the false idea that there are practically an infinite number of possible sexual orientations. The twofold expression of the human person is not heterosexuality and homosexuality, but male and female. This is the authentic theology of anthropology: that God created man: ‘male and female he created them.’”

(Source: LifeSiteNews.com)

Cardinal Rubén Salazar Gómez
Archbishop of Bogota, Columbia

Cardinal Gomez

“We reject the implementation of gender ideology in the Colombian education, because it’s a destructive ideology, [it] destroys the human being, taking away its fundamental principle of the complementary relationship between man and woman… Individual rights can’t go against the rights of the community… [we must] proclaim the family as the cell of social life.”

(Source: Crux)

Cardinal José Francisco Robles Ortega
Archbishop of Guadalajara, Mexico

“The future of humanity is played in marriage and the natural family is formed by a heterosexual couple… The proliferation of the mentality of gender ideology… denies the natural reciprocity between a man and a woman.”

(Source: Crux)

Most Rev. Demeterio Fernández González
Bishop of Cordoba, Spain

“[G]ender ideology is an atomic bomb that wants to destroy Catholic doctrine, the image of God in man, and the image of God the Creator.”

(Source: Crux)

Most Rev. Rudolf Voderholzer
Bishop of Regensburg, Germany

Bishop Rudolf Voderholzer

“Gender theoreticians use the equality issues in order to introduce in society a notion of man that goes far beyond specific concerns of equality and, finally, paradoxically, leads to the dissolution of that which ought to be protected, specifically the intrinsic value of male and female existence. The gender theory implies a denial of the nature of man and woman and, hence, also the exclusion of the belief in God, the good Creator… the essence of man and woman is the potential to become a father and the potential to become a mother, respectively. These are not exchangeable roles, but, rather, gifts from the Creator, and, in the last instance, a calling… gender theory [is] an ideology that completely opposes reality and the integrity of human nature.”

(Source: Catholic News Agency)

Most Rev. Thomas Paprocki
Bishop of Springfield, Illinois

Most Rev. Thomas Paprocki

“The transgender activists would have you believe that their politically correct ideology is based on science; however, the American College of Pediatricians has pointed out that transgenderism is classified as a mental illness and therefore has warned legislators and educators that conditioning children to accept transgenderism as normal is child abuse. They advised, ‘When an otherwise healthy biological boy believes he is a girl, or an otherwise healthy biological girl believes she is a boy, an objective psychological problem exists that lies in the mind, not the body, and it should be treated as such.’

“… People who are confused about their gender identity—especially children and adolescents—should be treated with compassion and provided counseling rather than being further confused by activists promoting their political ideology.”

(Source: Courageous Priest)

Most Rev. Frederick Bernard Henry
Bishop of Calgary, Alberta — Canada

Most Rev. Frederick Bernard Henry

“What is at stake [in the fight against gender theory] is the very order of creation […]

“The primordial divine plan was spoken of clearly by Christ himself: ‘Have you not read that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female?’ (Mt.19:4). At the core we see the father and the mother, a couple with their personal story of love: ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and they shall become one flesh’ (Gen.2:24). The result of this union is that, both physically and in the union of their hearts and lives, and eventually, in a child who will share not only genetically but also spiritually in the ‘flesh’ of both parents. The family is thus the place where parents become their children’s first teachers.”

(Source: Catholic Diocese of Calgary)

Most Rev. Thomas J. Tobin
Bishop of Providence, Rhode Island

“I go back to the very basics and in the book of Genesis we read, ‘God created the human family.’ Male and female, he created them. There was no third option.”

(Source: NBC 10 News)

Most Rev. Andreas Laun, O.S.F.S.
Auxiliary Bishop of Salzburg, Austria

Most Rev. Andreas Laun, O.S.F.S.

“Gender ideology, which is so popular today in the so-called highly developed world, is not rational.  The foundational thesis of this sick ‘product of reason’ is the end result of radical feminism, to which the homosexual lobby has attached itself. It is claimed that there are not only man and woman, but other ‘genders.’

“[…] They want to force us all to believe in this fully absurd, new gender-fairy tale! But, is there really a ‘self-chosen gender?’  Experience points to a simple answer: NO!…

“[I]s gender theory demonic?…It is obvious, after seeing the many draconian laws in favor of the new gender ideology, ones that simply rape our God-made natures, ones that ‘change the form’ of people only show one thing:  Their proposers want to be like God. They desire to ‘create’ new, self-made men. In the meantime, the Slovak, Polish, Croatian, Portuguese, and bishops from Italy and other lands have lifted their voices in protest. They are all united in their message: Gender ideology is a threat to civilization itself, especially the Church. The gender ideologues are a sort of spiritual ‘Taliban’ and they even have their own ‘sleeper cells’ ready to go into action at any time!…

“Yes, gender ideology is the destruction of man.”

(Source: Kath.net – translation is ours.)

Joint Statement of the Polish Bishops’ Conference

“The gender ideology (movement) is the product of many decades of ideological and cultural changes that are deeply rooted in Marxism and neo-Marxism endorsed by some feminist movements and the sexual revolution. This ideology promotes principles that are totally contrary to reality and an integral understanding of human nature.”

(Source:  Rorate-Caeli Blog)

Council of European Episcopal Conferences (CCEE)
(representing 45 countries in Europe)

“The Church does not accept ‘gender theory’ because it is an expression of an anthropology contrary to the true and authentic appreciation of the human person.”

(Source: Zenit.org)

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI

People dispute the idea that they have a nature, given by their bodily identity, that serves as a defining element of the human being. They deny their nature and decide that it is not something previously given to them, but that they make it for themselves.
According to the biblical creation account, being created by God as male and female pertains to the essence of the human creature. This duality is an essential aspect of what being human is all about, as ordained by God. This very duality as something previously given is what is now disputed. The words of the creation account: “male and female he created them” (Gen 1:27) no longer apply.

(Source: Vatican website)

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‘I made a huge mistake’ – Why one radical feminist changed her mind on abortion

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Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Dec 19, 2016 / 03:58 am (CNA).

– Brazilian feminist Sara Winter used to work to legalize abortion. She was one of the founders of a radical group that carries out offensive topless protests at churches.

Now, she says people should learn from religious women who put their faith into action – and reject the powerful forces promoting abortion in her country.

What changed her mind? The birth of her child.

“I understand I made a huge mistake, and I ask forgiveness from the bottom of my heart. The way to achieve public policy changes for women has nothing to do with mocking people’s religions,” she said in a Facebook post late last year.

“What I was missing was love (which changed when I became a mother), love that came to me after having reflected a lot on today’s militant feminism,” she said.

Sara Winter is the pseudonym of Sara Fernanda Giromin. Three years ago she was one of the founders of the Brazilian branch of Femen, a radical feminist organization of sometimes violent, often offensive activists who protest topless in favor of abortion and LGBT activism.

Winter asked for forgiveness “from all those people, whether religious or not, that I offended during a feminist protest last year involving a same-sex kiss in front of a church in Rio de Janeiro.”

Last month she denounced international funding to promote abortion in Brazil. She asked forgiveness for having been “part of that scheme to get abortion legalized.”

“But I never knew that all that talk about legalizing abortion in Brazil had been the work of organizations controlled by tycoons, rich men interested in reducing my country’s population.”

Sara confessed that she had always thought that an abortion was “something every woman should be able to get.”

“I’m not waving that flag any more. I don’t agree with women being jailed for having an abortion, I think they should always be treated with compassion, but I’m against the promotion of abortion being carried out by the feminist NGOs.”

The young woman also encouraged feminists “to learn from women who are religious.” While feminists are “putting on ridiculous protests (I myself used to be one of them) which are embarrassing to women, there are women of faith with homes protecting rape victims, and other women giving life by providing housing, taking in women in dangerous situations, and providing all kinds of assistance.”

“There are a lot of NGOs and institutions that need a helping hand and volunteers to care for the victims of violence, so let’s get going, help them, do your part. Take care of, assist and love other women,” she encouraged her readers.

Sara first began to speak about this radical turnabout in her life in October 2015.

“I regret having an abortion and today I’m asking for forgiveness,” she wrote on Facebook at that point, almost one month after the birth of her second child. Since her baby was born, she said, “my life has taken on new meaning.”

“I don’t want you to go through the same thing I did,” she told her readers.

Years before, she underwent an abortion using a drug provided by a feminist.

“I almost bled to death and had very serious complications,” she recalled, adding that the person who came to her aid in those circumstances was a man who had “no connection to radical feminism.”

On abortion, she urged, “feminism should be focusing more on taking care of women instead of putting their lives at risk.” She said her prior abortion had caused difficulties early into her second pregnancy.

Sara has also become a critic of transgender ideology. She explained that she has no animus against people who say they are transgender, but she added, “I don’t think that changing your clothes, getting silicone breast implants and making the transition with hormones and surgery can change anybody’s sex.”

By mid-November, Sara was urging Brazilian feminists to “respect women who are religious believers.” Although she has no religious affiliation, she said that “one of the things I regret in my life is pulling away from God and devoting all my time to militant feminism.”

“Having faith is not a retrogression and other people’s religion needs to be respected,” she urged.

Sara said that she has faced a hostile reaction from the feminist faction she has abandoned.

“You have no idea of the reprisals I’ve been a victim of coming from the feminists,” she wrote. “I’m afraid of even stepping out on to the street with my baby, but I have faith that all this is going to go away.”

In early December last year, Sara published a short digital book about “seven times I was betrayed by the feminist movement.” The book is a compilation of the bizarre experiences she says she had as part of the Brazilian feminist movement, involved orgies, alcohol, drugs and misuse of funds.

For every book sold, she has offered to donate a Brazilian Real (about 25 cents) to “initiatives helping women in violent situations and against abortion.”

She said the main reason Brazilian people do not like the feminists is because many of them act hysterically and use social media “to mock and humiliate religious people, preach hatred against men, besides being extremists and disrespectful of other people’s religious heritage.”

“I’m just as guilty. I used to be like that too, but thanks be to God I’ve been healed,” she said.

This article originally ran on CNA Jan. 6, 2016.

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Virginity Linked to Greater Health in Teens, Says United States Centers for Disease Control (CDC)

This article originally appeared in the National Catholic Register

Virginity Linked to Greater Health in Teens, Says CDC

Posted by Glenn Stanton on Saturday Dec 17th, 2016 at 12:01 PM

The sexual choices and values our young people hold have real-life consequences far beyond sexuality itself.

Article main image

In my nearly 25-year career at Focus on the Family as a social science researcher, I am constantly amazed and encouraged in my faith at how what God requires of us in our familial and sexual lives is never contrary to good, honest science. The two correspond in remarkable ways. And why shouldn’t it?  When sociologists study the behaviors of man without agenda, they unwittingly discover the rightness of God’s wisdom and care in His directions to us. The scholars just don’t realize it. We as believers should.

This is demonstrated in a new report from the United States Centers for Disease Control (CDC). It’s the first ever of its kind, examining a very large and diverse array of health behaviors of high school students according to their self-reported sexual activity. What makes this report particularly interesting, beyond its categorization by sexual activity, is it examines widely varied safety and health behaviors from bike helmet and seat belt use to substance abuse, diet, doctor’s visits, exercise and even tanning bed use. The two major conclusions from the report are quite stark:

  • The virginal students rate significantly and consistently better in nearly all health-related behaviors than their sexually active peers. They do so by remarkably stunning measures.
  • Teens who have sexual contact with the same or both sexes have remarkably lower percentages of healthy behaviors overall than their heterosexually active peers.

An additional report conducted by Child Trends, a Washington, DC-based think tank focused on children’s health, adds to the robust research literature on this topic. It finds that teens from homes where mother and father have a healthy relationship, both have warm, monitoring relationships with their children and the family has regular, dependable schedules and practices at home are substantially less likely to be sexually active by every measure.

Here’s a sampling of various measures the CDC examined and the health disparities between the three categories of students: virginal, heterosexual and same-sex or bi-sex sexually active.

Seat Belt Use: Opposite-sex-active (OSA) teens are 143% more likely to never or rarely wear a seat belt than their virginal peers. Same-sex/bisexual active (SS/BA) teens are 317% more likely than their virginal peers.

Passenger w/ Drinking Driver:  OSA teens are 94% more likely to ride with a driver who’s been drinking than their virginal peers. SS/BA teens are 115% more likely than virginal students.

Dating Violence: OSA teens are 260% more likely to experience some form of physical violence in dating relationships than virginal peers. SS/BA teens are 683% more likely than virginal youth.

Smokes Daily: OSA teens are 3300% more likely to smoke daily than virginal peers. SS/BA teens are 9500% (you read that right) more likely than their virginal classmates.

Ever Binge Drank: OSA teens are 337% more likely to ever binge drink than virginal peers. SS/BA teens are 375% more likely than virginal their peers.

Pot Use: OSA teens are 336% more likely to be currently using marijuana than their virginal peers. SS/BA teens are 483% more likely than the virginal.

Ever Injected Illegal Drug: OSA teens are 500% more likely to have ever injected a non-prescription drug than virginal peers. SS/BA teens are 2333% more likely.

Felt Sad of Helpless: OSA teens are 48% more likely to report feeling so sad or helpless almost every day for 2 or more weeks in a row that they stopped doing some of their usual activities compared to their virginal peers. SS/BA teens are 181% more likely to feel this way compared to virgins.

Tanning Beds: OSA teens are 282% more likely to use indoor tanning beds than their virginal peers. SS/BA teens are 364% more likely than virginal peers.

Eat Breakfast Daily: OSA teens are 24% less likely to eat breakfast daily than virginal peers. SS/BA teens are 48% less likely than virginal classmates.

Eight Hours Sleep: OSA teens are 21% less likely to get 8 hours of sleep a night than virginal peers. SS/BA teens are 34% less likely than virgins.

Asthma: OSA teens are 24% more likely to have ever had asthma than virginal peers. SS/BA teens are 48% more likely.

Physical Fight: OSA teens are 133% more likely to have been in a physical fight than virginal peers. SS/BA teens are 187% more likely.

Dentist Visit: OSA teens are 8% less likely to have visited the dentist in the last year than virginal peers. SS/BA teens, 20% less likely.

It is intriguing to note how many of these health measures have no seemingly direct relation to sexual activity and decision making itself, even tangentially; things like seat belt use, eating breakfast daily, smoking, dentist visits, illegal drug use, suffering from asthma, etc. Obviously, there’s a curious and meaningful relationship between our teens’ sexual values/activity and a substantial number of unanticipated but very consequential health behaviors.

What is more, this data seems to challenge the popularly held charge that same-sex and bi-sexual sexually active kids have these more troubling measures and higher risk of attempted suicide because their sexuality is not affirmed by the larger society. This is used as accusation against those of us who cannot support any non-marital sexual behavior. We are told that people like us are responsible for such tragic outcomes. It’s no minor charge. But is it true?

If it were, it would follow that opposite-sex sexually active kids are taunted and rejected for their sexuality as well given their remarkably high levels of unhealthy behaviors and higher levels of suicidality than the virginal. This, of course, it would also mean that the virginal are the most widely accepted, celebrated and encouraged students at school. Does anyone believe that?

This “accept-our-sexuality-or-we-die” accusation also faces stiff challenge by the fact that even in the most gay-affirming countries in the world, these imbalances in health measures and suicidality are present. In fact, there is nowhere in the world where the hetero and homosexual measures, in general are close. That is seen in research of same-sex identified adults in places like Scandinavia, the Netherlands and Switzerland. See here, here, and here for example.

It’s difficult to determine from this CDC report alone just how these various measures are related to one another. Does sexual activity drive the increase in other negative health behaviors, vice versa or if at all? This data does not say. But the fact that the CDC measured all these health behaviors by sexual activity and distributed it to health professionals around the world in this major report certainly indicates their relationship is of significant interest to health-care workers.

These findings should be very concerning to all parents and professionals concerned with our teens’ general health and well-being. The sexual choices and values our young people hold have real-life consequences far beyond sexuality itself. Thus, there are indeed compelling reasons to encourage teens to choose not to be sexually engaged with peers of the opposite or same-sex.

Our children should know there’s very compelling scientific evidence on so many levels showing how saving the precious gift of their sexuality for the safe harbor of marriage is not about old-time moralism or unhealthy sexual repression. Just the opposite is true. Chastity is related to so many substantial measures of human health and well-being that it should be strongly appreciated by parents, health and education professionals as one of the most important health boosting factors for our nation’s young adults.

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Getting people to go to Church on Sunday: addressing the malady and not merely the symptom

This article was published in the ChristLife Magazine at the request of Dianne Davis and David Nodar of ChristLife.

As Christians, our “mission statement” is very clear: “Go out and make disciples of all the nations. Baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Teach them to carry out everything I have commanded you, and know that I am with you always, even until the end of the age.” (Matt. 28:19-20) Any parish that is truly striving to be faithful to our call to be disciples and to have a missionary spirit rather than simply being stuck imakediscipleswpn maintenance mode struggles with the question of how to bring in people who have left the faith as well as reach people who have never known Christ. When we especially think of the question of people who have left, there are so many different ways we have tried to reach out to them. My experience, however, has convinced me that we’ve been addressing the symptoms and not the malady. Lots of people, for example, say that they’re bored at mass or they don’t get anything out of it. While this is true, we’ve responded in all the wrong ways to try to make them “get something out of mass.” We’ve brought in puppets and balloons, we’ve told jokes and done shtick, all to no avail. As a priest I’ve tried all the gimmicks that are touted with the promise that they will get people to come to mass. Perhaps they work for a time, but none of them offers the permanent effect of faithful discipleship. I was told for example that if you want to get teenagers to come to mass you need to have a rock mass. So we did that. We got all of the teenagers who had ability to play musical instruments together and set up a rock mass once a month on a Sunday night and we rocked the church! That place was jumping and many of the people there enjoyed it very much. But what we noticed month after month was that it never brought any other teenagers back to church. The teens who told their friends about it found it was not enough to get them to start coming to mass. They weren’t staying away because they didn’t like the music – that was the reason we told ourselves. The real reason was that they didn’t come to mass because they saw no value in it. When it comes to little children and getting their parents to attend mass, we were told that we should have special masses for children because their parents will come. This is true – to an extent. When children are doing something at mass the parents will come, but that doesn’t make them come back the next week.

I have come to realize that all of the things that we’re trying to do to bring people back are simply addressing the symptom and not the malady. People are not staying away from church because they don’t like the music or because the priest is boring; those are the excuses they use. No, they are staying away because they don’t realize why we go to mass in the first place and why they need to be there. Most people don’t like to go to the doctor, but they go because they know it is important for them to do so. They don’t complain that they don’t like the music they play in the waiting room or that the doctor is boring and doesn’t tell jokes. If someone actually were to use that as an excuse for why they don’t go to the doctor, I doubt that anyone would tell doctors to learn good jokes and start playing different music in the office. Why, then, do we think this is the answer for how to bring people back to mass? This is not to say that we don’t strive to provide prayerful music, homilies, etc., but that we don’t make this an end in itself.

I have come to believe very firmly that the only way we are going to get people to return faithfully is to get them to see that “I need a regular relationship with Jesus that I will find not by praying on my own at home, but that I will find when I come to church every Sunday to receive the Eucharist for the forgiveness of my sins, to unite myself with Christ in his suffering, death, and resurrection, and be strengthened by my fellow Christians as we journey together to follow Christ and be a community.”

We’ve had lots of wonderful programs that have attempted to provide precisely this, yet many of them in my opinion have failed. I’ve used lots of retreat programs that had people giving personal witness talks about the power of Christ in their lives and the things he’s done for them, and they can be very powerful. The problem is that not everybody’s witness talk is appropriate, and some are questionable in their content or in their interpretation of what God actually did for them. I’ve heard peoplediscovering-christ say things that have made me cringe. In order to make sure every talk is appropriate the priest has to listen to every talk through beforehand to accept, modify, or reject it. Not only do most priests not have the ability to dedicate that much time to this, when he does suggest changes, some people’s feelings get hurt. Other times programs tend to become a clique. The people bind nicely to each other in the name of the program, but not in the parish and in the church, and it ends up creating a sub community of the parish rather than encouraging participants to be active members of the Church Universal. They tend to refer to each other as “my ‘Such-and-Such’ Program brothers and sisters”, but not “my fellow parishioners”, and certainly not, “my fellow Catholics.” Being members of the ministry program frequently becomes the end in itself to the exclusion of parishioners who are not part of the program. When this happens the program has failed in its stated purpose. It has brought people closer to each other but not together in Christ. They may strive to bring other people into the program, but it often becomes apparent that they are more interested in membership in the program rather than in the Church. ChristLife is different.

We started using Christ life a year ago, and like any other program I was optimistic but also skeptical, because I’ve been down this path before. What pleases me about ChristLife is that the heart of the program is not personal witness by individual volunteers but rather the videos that ChristLife provides. The videos are solid in their theology, but also touching. They have a way of communicating the need for Christ in his Church in a common sense manner that combines the beauty of being part of a community with an authentic encounter with Jesus. The programs do not turn in on themselves, having the people do merely a group huddle, but are founded firmly on Christ. Yes, there is certainly group sharing, and yes there is a great sense of community, but it is a community founded on Christ and not merely on membership in the group. We had members as young as twelve and as old as their eighties who started seeing the work of Christ in each other. ChristLife does what we want to do as a parish and what we need in a program: it brings people together in Christ. So many of the other programs have brought people together but the “in Christ” portion of it was somehow missing.

I am very happy with using ChristLife in our parish, and we are now planning to use it as our pre-catechumenate in hopes that people will experience the need for Christ and develop a desire to know and follow him before entering into the formal catechesis of the RCIA process. ChristLife is far less expensive than many of the programs that we have tried and the support from the Christ life staff is fantastic. The people on the ChristLife staff see their work as a ministry and not merely an occupation. I strongly encourage the use of ChristLife in every parish, as I think it is the only program out there that truly addresses the real malady and doesn’t merely spend time putting Band-Aids on wounds.