The Dawn Patrol

Reaching the wounded souls who dwell 'close to the Heart of Christ'

2012-01-30T00:20:00.002-05:00

As an author, I find myself writing the sort of books I wish had been there for me at different points of my life. That was the case with my first book, The Thrill of the Chaste, and it is even more so with my upcoming book My Peace I Give You: Healing Sexual Wounds with the Help of the Saints.

My Peace I Give You is for adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse, to help them find healing through the examples of saints who bore wounds like theirs, but in a larger sense it is for everyone who suffered from a lack of love while growing up. My parents split up when I was five, and, as I wrote in The Thrill of the Chaste, my young psyche suffered from emotional brokenness on many levels. Because of those experiences, when, in 2005, I made the decision to become Catholic, I was eager to learn the foundations of Church teaching on God’s design for love, marriage, and family. It seemed to me that if I could better understand what had been missing from my young life, I could find the path to adult wholeness.

The teachings that John Paul II called his catechesis on human love, popularly known as the theology of the body, were extremely attractive to me because of the beauty with which he spoke of the family as a sharing in Trinitarian love. That interest led me to attend Catholic young-adult events where speakers attempted to boil down the Holy Father’s highly philosophical catechesis into ordinary language. Although each speaker had his or her own unique gifts, they shared a common and admirable goal. They wanted to show that the Church’s teachings against contraception and abortion, and for marital love and fidelity, were part of a divine plan intended for our happiness—both in this life and in the next.

I learned a lot from those speakers. They helped fuel my desire to research the Church’s teachings more deeply, which led to my earning a master’s degree in theology (and now continuing towards a doctorate). But I also heard something that deeply troubled me. Some speakers, seeking to capture the spiritual meaning of the family’s participation in Trinitarian love, ended up extrapolating beyond John Paul’s words.

John Paul speaks of how God, by enabling spouses to make a loving gift of self to one another, “makes them capable of the greatest possible gift, the gift by which they become cooperators with God for giving life to a new human person.” In this manner, he intimates that the spouses, in the act of procreation, cooperate in God’s creative love.

Many millions of children, however, are the fruit not of procreative love, but of parents’ lust, or one-sided affection, or selfish desire to own a child as if it were a possession and not a person. If that were not so, the Holy Father would not have felt the need to explain how human love is intended to be in the divine plan. And it is precisely this point—the failure of so many parents to consciously participate in God’s love—that is missed by some Catholic speakers. As a result, they unwittingly give the impression that not only should children be the fruit of their parents’ mutual self-gift, but also that they must be the fruit of such a gift. Listeners like myself, who come from broken or abusive families, are left with the distressing impression that we were deprived of God’s love in our very origin, our very creation.

Witness, for example, this talk at a conference on John Paul’s teachings, particularly an exchange that takes place during the question-and-answer section:

In the talk, the speaker describes the child as “a sort of physical correlate of the spiritual fecundity of the [parents’] union; it indicates how great the love is, how deep a love it is, that it can actually produce a new human soul” (30:08).

She reinforces her point by quoting John Paul II’s Familiaris Consortio, which describes fecundity as “the fruit and the sign of conjugal love, the living testimony of the full reciprocal self-giving of the spouses.”

“So,” she adds, “I would venture to say that maybe here we have found the most foundational reason that God has given man a human body.

“We can’t create out of nothing. But we can actually share part of who we are in the bodily dimension of our being. And really, insofar as we are our bodies, mother and father, husband and wife, really communicate themselves when they co-create; they infuse themselves into this new being the way the Father and the Son infuse themselves into the being of the Holy Spirit. And now the child is really part and parcel of the love between the parents, which has, in a sense, burst the bonds of the communion; it’s so great that it overflows into the being of a new human person.”

The point made is a theological one. Understood in context, it may be taken as a sincere, academically informed effort to distill John Paul’s teachings. But not every theological point is a pastoral point. Truth is truth, but if we place too much emphasis on one part of the truth—in this case, the parents' sharing in God’s creative love—we risk missing another, more important part: Whether or not a child’s parents intend, in the act that leads to procreation, to make a gift of love to each other, their intention has no effect whatsoever on the spiritual identity of the child who proceeds from their union. “The Church teaches that every spiritual soul is created immediately by God—it is not ‘produced’ by the parents” (CCC 366).

The speaker knows that. But it is not her main point. And so, a pastoral problem emerges. About 55 minutes into the video, a young woman raises her hand to ask a question. Her voice indicates that she is on the verge of tears. The following exchange takes place:

YOUNG WOMAN IN AUDIENCE: “Hi, um—so I’m actually the product of donor conception. My parents never met. I have no idea who my father and my mother—I have no idea who my father was. And I have a little bit of a problem, um, with when your parents were never in love. And, um, in this way, I feel like, breaking it down so that, if—if the couples just love each other enough, they’ll be rewarded with a child. Whereas I think that the parents’ loving each other is really a gift and a necessity for the child. It’s such a torment when your parents never love each other and connect to each other. So, um, I’m having a problem; it’s like the child is the—you know, the little prize you get when you love deep enough.”

SPEAKER: “I’m not sure I see a question there. Would you mind just stating your question again, or ...?”

I don’t want to be too hard on the speaker. She is addressing the audience on an academic level, and is simply not prepared for the effect that her highly romanticized account of Church teachings may have on someone whose conception was bereft of romance. To her credit, after the young woman in the audience restates her question, the speaker eventually (after expounding further on spousal love) acknowledges that “even if the child is conceived outside of a particular act of love, God who is love and the origin of all persons is there, loving this child into existence” (59:00).

My point is that the foundational truth of God’s fatherly love for every human being needs to be the first thing we say when speaking about human conception—not the last. And if we’re handing down John Paul’s teachings, we need to know what the late Holy Father actually has to say to those who suffer what the young woman in the audience suffered—the "torment when your parents never love each other and connect to each other":

I wish to add a further word for a category of people whom, as a result of the actual circumstances in which they are living, and this often not through their own deliberate wish, I consider particularly close to the Heart of Christ and deserving of the affection and active solicitude of the Church and of pastors. There exist in the world countless people who unfortunately cannot in any sense claim membership of what could be called in the proper sense a family. (Familiaris Consortio 85)

John Paul II's message to those deprived of familial love is not that they are somehow less loved by God. Instead, he insists that they are, in his own words, particularly close to the Heart of Christ.

That foundational, fatherly love of the Creator for every human person, the love described by John Paul II, is what I needed to hear about when I sought healing in the Church. It is what I am now seeking to bring to other wounded souls with My Peace I Give You: Healing Sexual Wounds with the Help of the Saints. Please pray for me as I prepare for the apostolate I am undertaking with the book’s publication in April, and please join me in praying for everyone who seeks to spread and teach the Catholic faith. O Crux ave, spes unica; hail the Cross, our only hope.

My teaching moment

2012-01-23T15:42:00.000-05:00

Meeting Father Canavan for the first time at the Human Life Foundation's October 2006 award dinner. Top, Canavan makes me (center) and Lynette Burrows laugh. Next I try to conceal my displeasure as a priest I do not recognize interrupts my conversation with Canavan. (It is Father Richard John Neuhaus.)

Father Ed Dowling S.J., speaking of what happens when the faithful get rusty, quoted a priest friend of his who said that when we get to heaven, the first thing we shall say is, “My God, it’s all true.”

I catch myself feeling a similar shade of functional agnosticism during the times when I miss loved ones who have passed on. It happened the week before last, when I gave three talks over three days at the Pontifical College Josephinum. I wished very badly that Father Francis Canavan S.J., the great Fordham University professor emeritus of political science who died in February 2009 could see me as I gave my first-ever academic-level lectures. Then I had to remind myself that if (as I believed) he was in heaven, Father Canavan could see me. More than that, he could see me as God sees me, with clearer and deeper vision than he ever had during his earthly life.

One of my last memories of Father Canavan is of straining to hear his faint voice over my cell phone while standing in the foyer of Pat Troy’s Irish pub in Alexandria during a Theology on Tap event on a cold night in January 2009. I was worried about the 91-year-old priest because he had left me a shaky-sounding voice mail that seemed urgent. When I reached him, it turned out that his concern was over my having told him, in our last conversation, that I did not think myself capable of teaching, let alone becoming a college professor.

A few weeks earlier, I had sent him a paper I wrote for my Theological Virtues class on the meaning of St. Ignatius Loyola’s Suscipe prayer. It was the first paper I wrote after entering the M.A. program in theology at Dominican House of Studies. My vocational plan, as I had told Father Canavan, was to stop at the master’s degree and then work in campus ministry. It seemed like the most natural thing to do, since the success of my book The Thrill of the Chaste had led to my speaking on chastity at college campuses. What was more, having recently survived thyroid cancer, it seemed most wise to get a degree that would lead as quickly as possible to a full-time job (as opposed to my freelance writing and speaking), so that I would not have to worry about being without health insurance.

All those goals of mine Father Canavan had supported until he read my Suscipe paper. Somehow, reading my account of how praying St. Ignatius’s words facilitates the return of love to God, he got the idea that I was called to be a professor at a Catholic college. He pointed out to me that there were a number of small colleges, such as Magdalen, Thomas Aquinas, and Christendom, that were trying to embody a strong Catholic identity. “Faithful Catholic colleges need faithful Catholic professors,” he said—and they wouldn’t have them unless people of my talents got the education necessary to teach. Therefore, I had to continue towards a doctorate—and he would do everything he could to gently but firmly encourage me in that direction.

So his seemingly urgent voicemail message on that winter’s night turned out to be merely part of his ongoing lobbying campaign. As I stood in the foyer of Pat Troy’s, trying to stay as far as possible from the noise from the packed bar while staying warm inside the front doors, I tried to explain to him over the long-distance connection that the idea of teaching was too scary. To me, it like being a parent except that one had thirty children and no spouse. It seemed a tremendous responsibility. Although nearly single member of my family had the gift to fulfill it, I believed the "teaching gene" had passed me by.

Father Canavan granted that teaching was scary. He proceeded to tell me how daunted he was when he was thrust into the task as a scholastic (that is, a Jesuit seminarian). After the first class he taught, to a group of boys (either to high-schoolers or young collegiates, I can’t recall), one of his students, who had been unruly, told him frankly that he was a terrible instructor. Canavan’s response was to ask the student what he was doing wrong. The student was only too happy to inform him, and he took the criticism to heart. From then on, the student was well behaved.

I was touched beyond words to hear Father Canavan's recollection of the humility he had as a scholastic, and to realize that he had kept that same saintly humility throughout his life.

So I told Father Canavan that I would continue studying towards a doctorate, and find out if I had a vocation to teach. Although I have been blessed to receive the prayers and support of many friends and family, it is fundamentally because of his faith in me that on January 12 of this year, three years to the day after that phone conversation with him, I had the confidence to give the first of my talks at the Josephinum.

The newness of my experience at the Josephinum was not that I was speaking—I have given about 120 talks on chastity and conversion—but that my teaching was not my own. This time, I was asked to speak on John Paul II’s teachings on celibacy. So my talk on January 12 was a two-hour lecture to the seminary’s theologate (those completing their theological and pastoral studies), was on “Celibacy and Communion in John Paul II’s Catechesis on Human Love.” Two days later, I gave a one-hour version of the same talk to the collegiates (men discerning the priesthood while pursuing an undergraduate degree) and pre-theology seminarians. In between, on January 13, I gave an additional two-hour talk to the theologians, on “Pastoral Care for Those Seeking to Overcome Habits of Sexual Sin and for Those Seeking Healing from Childhood Sexual Abuse.” That talk included the reading of a chapter of my upcoming book My Peace I Give You: Healing Sexual Wounds with the Help of the Saints.

I don't know where to begin describing what it meant for me to give those talks and witness the response, because the entire experience was filled with signal graces. There was the applause, which was wonderful—both my second and third talks received standing ovations. There was also the gratitude that the seminarians expressed personally. For example, after every one of my talks, a different seminarian thanked me for discussing “sacramental theology.” To me, having been immersed in a Thomistic study environment for the past three and a half years, it’s all simply “theology,” minus the qualifiers. It was a joy to discover that, just by passing on what I had been taking in at school, I could help seminarians gain insight into the meaning of the sacraments they would soon be celebrating.

It was even a joy when, during the break in the middle of my second talk, a seminarian suggested to me, rightly, that one of my points could have been put more finely. I’m usually very sensitive to correction, even when it is minor, so it was strange to find myself reacting so happily. All I could think about was how wonderful it was for God to be calling men to the priesthood who have such a hunger for the truth.

But the most amazing gift was something that I had never before experienced in my years as a speaker. Every time I give a talk, I pray beforehand that I may be given the grace to love my audience. Likewise, every time in the past, when I went before an audience, it was with the will to love them. But even though God accepts our will to love others, and can bring grace from it, it is not the same as actually loving them.

What I felt in every talk I gave to the Josephinum seminarians was that I really loved them. It was a completely new feeling, and was, more than anything, what made the experience there vocational. That was what I wanted to tell Father Canavan about. I am beginning to know something of the love he felt, the love he shared with me and all he mentored. And I want to keep passing it on. Suscipe, Domine.

Please pray for me as I continue my studies at the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception towards the degrees I need (STB and STL) in order to pursue a pontifically licensed doctorate. Please also pray specifically for my vocation. Thank you and God bless you.

Support from a Sister

2012-01-17T23:45:00.001-05:00

Today I had the pleasure of discovering that Father V of Adam's Ale and Sister Brigid Ancilla Marie of the Sisters of Life are conspiring to say lovely things about my upcoming book My Peace I Give You: Healing Sexual Wounds with the Help of the Saints.

Father V's Tuesday Quote of the Week (actually several quotes) includes these words from Sister Brigid about My Peace I Give You: "I hear your friend Dawn is getting ready to publish a new book ... Mother [Agnes Mary Donovan] wrote the foreword. I believe the book will be a great source of healing for many. Praise God!"

My Peace I Give You, which comes out in April, is my effort to help adult victims of childhood sexual abuse find healing in Christ through the examples of saints who were themselves abused. I'm very encouraged to hear that Sister Brigid has such high hopes for it. You can read other praise for the book here and pre-order it from Amazon here.

Quote of the day

2012-01-12T20:44:00.001-05:00

"In the circles I used to keep in London, owning up to choosing to be Catholic is a little like admitting you’re racist or homophobic or sexually repressed. Like most British women these days, I had become sexually active at about the same time as I learned to drive a car, and with the same pragmatism: 'The time is right: I need to get around if I’m not to be left behind.' Chesterton wrote that sex would be the final heresy. Indeed, for me the central stumbling blocks to entering the Church was doctrine relating to homosexuality, masturbation and contraception. I felt I could never belong to a church so didactic in its beliefs, so narrow in its view of sexuality. ...

"As a poet ... I had analysed sexual mores. There are those, Catholic and non-Catholic, who see the explicit nature of my writing about sex as at odds with my new beliefs. But those poems, which investigate violence and sexuality, are hardly a eulogy to the joys of casual sex. Physicality and sexuality have always haunted me; I began to understand that this was because of the inescapable unity of body and soul.

"My need for all the senses in experiencing something is apparent in what I write. I came to realise that the smell, the taste, the touch, the sound of God outfoxed the mind. I could rationalise, but all my rationalising couldn’t alter the profound rationality of my encounter with God. They write of intellectual, spiritual, and moral conversions. But it was through the heart – by which I mean the most instinctive, sensitive part, the ultimate reasoning – that God won me."

— Atheist-turned-Catholic Sally Read, "Outfoxed by God"

P.S. Ms. Read, if you are reading this, please write to me via my feedback form. I'm a fellow Chesterton-loving convert, very moved by your story, and would like to send you my upcoming book My Peace I Give You: Healing Sexual Wounds with the Help of the Saints.

Why-o, why-o, why-o would I ever leave Ohio?

2012-01-12T16:21:00.004-05:00

Just a quick note to let regular Dawn Patrol readers know that I am having a grace-filled time today at the Pontifical College Josephinum in Columbus, Ohio, having given a talk to seminarians on "Celibacy and Communion in John Paul II’s Catechesis on Human Love" as part of a three-day seminar the school is holding on celibacy. My talk tomorrow will focus on how priests and pastoral caregivers can help people who are victims of sexual abuse or who are struggling in their efforts to be chaste. I will draw from my books The Thrill of the Chaste and the upcoming My Peace I Give You: Healing Sexual Wounds with the Help of the Saints.

The Josephinum is a beautiful place, decorated with stunningly detailed tiling and woodwork crafted lovingly by German and Irish immigrants during the Depression. Even more beautiful is the faith, vigor, and joy of the seminarians. Catholic News Agency was right when it reported that the school is "undergoing a renaissance." Speaking here helps to inspire me as I continue my studies towards a doctorate, as this is the sort of institution where I would love to teach.

* * *Once My Peace I Give You is published in April, I hope to give many more talks for victims of childhood sexual abuse and their pastoral caregivers. If you would like me to speak at your college, parish, bookstore, book club, etc., please contact me via my feedback form. I would particularly like to speak to unwed mothers and to prisoners (both being populations that include a high ratio of victims of childhood sexual abuse) and do not charge for talks to those audiences so long as my transportation and accommodations are covered.

Read more about My Peace I Give You on the Ave Maria Press website.

Clearing up some myths about virgin saints

2012-01-06T23:01:00.004-05:00

A friend who is a victim of childhood sexual abuse alerted me to a bit of incorrect information offered by Father Z on his blog What Does the Prayer Really Say? on the subject of what is required for a saint to qualify as a virgin saint.

You can read Father Z's mistaken answer here and my correction in his comments section here. [Update, 1/9/11: Father Z's original post stated, "To be given the title 'virgin' the woman had to be physically a virgin. Full stop." He has since corrected it, as I had requested, to add that an exception is made in the case of women who lost physical virginity against their will.]

Bottom line: St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas taught that virgins who are raped do not forfeit their virginity. What is more, according to Aquinas, a holy virgin who is raped not only retains her virginity; she receives a second crown in heaven for having endured the outrage of being violated. He adds that she remains a virgin in the eyes of the Church even if her rape results in her bearing a child.

That is the doctrine of our glorious Church, and more people need to be made aware of it. There are a lot of Catholics out there who are hurting because they suffered sexual abuse and are under the misapprehension that the Church perceives them as being stained by what was done to them against their will. It is my hope that my upcoming book My Peace I Give You: Healing Sexual Wounds with the Help of the Saints will dispel such myths and help victims find the healing that is available only in and through Christ in His Church.

Praying all the way to the Banke

2012-01-06T01:02:00.001-05:00

It seems like my life has finally come full circle.

When I was a 18-year-old agnostic Jewish sophomore at New York University, I never set foot in a Catholic church if I could help it. All my free time and energy was spent trying to track down and interview my personal gods—members of the 1960s group the Left Banke, of "Walk Away Renee" fame. I didn't know the meaning of "vocation," but I had a mission: to write the definitive history of the Left Banke for a rock magazine (part of which is now available online).

Flash forward a quarter-century to December 10, 2011, and I'm now a Catholic author studying towards a doctorate in theology, while the Left Banke are not only back together, they're performing at the Basilica of Old St. Patrick's Cathedral. And who has invited them there, but none other than students of New York University—they're the special guests of the NYU Drama Cantorum's Christmas concert. What is more, they sound fantastic.

What a delight to see the excitement on those students' faces. It's worlds away from the reaction I got from my fellow NYU students at the time that Prince and Bruce Springsteen were topping the charts, when I tried to explain to them why they should listen to a baroque-pop group whose hit streak ended before they were born.

Another strange reality check for me is finding myself thinking as I watch these videos, But ... but ... they're performing secular pop music in front of the Blessed Sacrament! (Again, not a thought that would have entered my mind in my hipster days.)

Yes, they are. Perhaps I shouldn't be happy about the historic basilica's being put to secular use. But I don't know how anyone who loves music can listen to musicians, young and old, commune this beautifully, without experiencing a taste of divine joy.

'Halo' again

2012-01-03T20:55:00.000-05:00

Today I received a very pleasant surprise: an op-ed I wrote with William Doino Jr. last February for the Busted Halo website was named the site's most popular story of 2011.

Previewing My Peace

2011-12-31T23:07:00.000-05:00

On Thursday night, I had the great pleasure of giving the first-ever preview of my upcoming book My Peace I Give You: Healing Sexual Wounds with the Help of the Saints to about 30 teens and young adults at a private home in Maryland.

My host was John Olon, who teaches honors philosophy and moral theology to juniors and seniors at St. Mary's Ryken, a Catholic prep school in Leonardtown. John and his wife, Nhan, are parents of a large family who feel called to be spiritual parents as well. They regularly host gatherings of young people—most of them being John's current or former students—to discuss theology and philosophy over a homemade dinner.

This was the third time in the past two and a half years that I addressed the group. Before I agreed to address them for the first time, in the summer of 2009, John had to nudge me a bit. Normally, I decline invitations to speak to teens, as experience has shown that I do not have whatever it takes to connect with high-schoolers. (Just ask the teens in London, Ontario, who, after my tour of the city's Catholic high schools, formed a Facebook group: "Dawn Eden, Never Come Back to Canada!") But after that first talk, no more nudging was necessary. For one thing, these teens are terrifically bright (just look at what John teaches them). For another, unlike high-school assemblies, they are there only because they want to be there. The fact that the talks take place at a loving Catholic home abuzz with W.C. Fields' least favorite things (children and dogs) also creates a wonderfully welcoming vibe.

I was going to use the evening as an opportunity to practice giving the kind of talk I'll be giving on My Peace I Give You when it comes out, but changed my mind at the last minute. Instead, I decided to simply read a chapter of the book—the first time I had ever done so in public.

My Peace I Give You is intended to help adult victims of childhood sexual abuse find healing in Christ through the lives and witness of the saints. (You can read advance praise for it here.) I read to the group a chapter titled, "The Love That Transforms: Learning the true meaning of spiritual childhood—with St. Thérèse of Lisieux."

Although Thérèse, unlike some of the other saints I discuss in My Peace I Give You, did not suffer sexual abuse in childhood, she underwent a severely traumatic experience at a young age. Her healing process entailed a purification of memory—not forgetting the past, but learning to see it in light of God's loving plan for her life. While she was never without suffering, she learned, with the aid of divine grace, to unite her suffering to that of the crucified Christ, and so attained a joy that could not be taken away.

As you can see in these photos, the people who came to hear me were generous with their attention. I was profoundly encouraged by their reactions to my chapter—so encouraged that I would like to give more readings between now and when My Peace I Give You comes out in April. Since I hope to give talks around the world upon the book's publication, it is very helpful for me to learn which aspects of it most resonate with people. For that reason, if anyone would like me to read a chapter of My Peace I Give You to their church group, reading club, or campus ministry between now and the end of March, I am willing to do so free of charge, anywhere in the world, so long as my transportation and accommodations are covered. Potential sponsors can reach me via my feedback form.

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A very happy New Year to everyone reading this blog, especially all who have prayed for me or have otherwise supported me in my studies and writing. I am sending up prayers tonight for all Dawn Patrol readers, with much thanksgiving.

Dorothy's day

2011-12-28T00:01:00.000-05:00

Eighty-four years ago today, on a cold winter's morning in Tottenville, Staten Island, Dorothy Day was received into the Catholic Church.

I developed a devotion to Servant of God Dorothy Day, whose cause for canonization, while reading her autobiography The Long Loneliness. Learning about her spiritual journey, particularly how she came to accept God's mercy after confessing her abortion, led me to feature her in a chapter of my upcoming book for adult victims of childhood sexual abuse, My Peace I Give You: Healing Sexual Wounds with the Help of the Saints. I discuss how, in her initial reluctance to believe that God had truly forgiven her, she experienced feelings analogous to those of victims whose childhood abuse causes them to doubt the depth of the Father's love for them.

Over time, as she drew nearer to the Lord through weekly confession and daily Mass, Dorothy grew to comprehend the sheer gratuity of divine love and mercy. More than that, like her beloved patron St. Therese of Lisieux, she sought to share that Eucharistic love with others, as in this excerpt of her conversion memoir, From Union Square to Rome:

"[It] is hard to understand the love of God for us. We pray daily to increase in the love of God because we know that if we love a person very much, all things become easy to us and delightful. We want, rather unreasonably, sensible feelings of love. St. Teresa [of Avila] says that the only way we can measure the love we have for God, is the love we have for our fellows. So by working for our fellows we come to love them. That you understand, for you believe that you are working for them when you give hours every morning to the distribution of literature, climbing tenement-house stairs, knocking at doors, suffering rebuffs, enduring heat and cold, weariness and hardships to bring to them what you consider a gospel which will set them free.

"And if you and I love our faulty fellow-human beings, how much more must God love us all? If we as human parents, can forgive our children any neglect, any crime, and work and pray patiently to make them better, how much more does God love us?

"You may say perhaps: 'How do we know He does, if there is a He!' And I can only answer that we know it because He is here present with us today in the Blessed Sacrament on the altar, that He never has left us, and that by daily going to Him for the gift of Himself as daily bread, I am convinced of that love. I have the Faith that feeding at that table has nourished my soul so that there is life in it, and a lively realization that there is such a thing as the love of Christ for us.

"It took me a long time as a convert to realize the presence of Christ as Man in the Sacrament. He is the same Jesus Who walked on earth, Who slept in the boat as the tempest arose, Who hungered in the desert, Who prayed in the garden, Who conversed with the woman by the well, Who rested at the house of Martha and Mary, Who wandered through the cornfields, picking the ears of corn to eat.

"Jesus is there as Man. He is there, Flesh and Blood, Soul and Divinity. He is our leader Who is always with us. Do you wonder that Catholics are exultant in this knowledge, that their Leader is with them? 'I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world.'"

"Let it be printed"!

2011-12-23T02:01:00.001-05:00

It's not the Catholic version of the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval, but an Imprimatur still counts for something. Taking its name from the Latin word for "Let it be printed," an Imprimatur shows that an author has submitted his book to his bishop, and that the work has been judged to be free from doctrinal and moral error. And now, I am elated to have the first Imprimatur of my career, from my own bishop, Cardinal Wuerl, for my upcoming book My Peace I Give You: Healing Sexual Wounds with the Help of the Saints. The cardinal granted it on December 14, the feast of St. John of the Cross, after it received a Nihil obstat from his censor deputatus, Father Carter Griffin (who is himself an author).

When I wrote my first book, The Thrill of the Chaste, although I was preparing to enter the Church, I did not seek an Imprimatur for fear of unnerving my publisher, which was a Protestant-owned company. Things are different with My Peace I Give You, as I am signed to a Catholic publisher, Ave Maria Press, and they are very supportive of my desire to show obedience to my bishop.

Having this episcopal acknowledgment is very important to me because I have high hopes for the apostolate to the wounded that I am embarking upon with the book's publication. It is a new stage of my life, and, unlike the previous stages, I want it to be through, with, and in Christ and His Church from start to finish. While God is not bound by the sacraments, the grace of Christ is ordered so that it flows down to us through the successors of the apostles—and I need lots of grace if I am to help the Church in its healing mission. So the Imprimatur is reassuring in that it affirms and strengthens my spiritual connection to the "principal parts of the members of the Lord" (Mystici Corporis Christi 42).

* * *

Another thing I am very thankful for this Christmas is my grades. (At right, you can see me hitting the books in 2009; a more recent photo is here.) Currently I am studying at the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception at Dominican House of Studies towards an STB, which is a prerequisite for the sacred theology doctorate that I hope to earn. My ultimate goal is to become a professor of theology at a small Catholic college (helloooo Belmont Abbey, Benedictine College, Our Lady Seat of Wisdom Academy, Dominican Institute of Ibadan, are you reading this?). School is harder than it has ever been, but I am loving it more than I ever have, and getting the best grades of my life.

When I looked at my GPA for the Fall 2011 semester, I wanted to cry for joy. It was 3.8. For comparison, I seem to remember that my high school GPA was 2.89, and my undergraduate one was not much better. For me to do as well as I am doing at age 43, when my memory capacity and energy level are far from what they were in my NYU days, I cannot help but think that it is a vocational sign. Finally, after many twists and turns, I am doing what I was meant to do. Father Canavan was right; God is writing straight with crooked lines.

If you are among those Dawn Patrol readers who has prayed for me or supported me in other ways during my journey, please know that I am sending up joyful prayers of thanksgiving for you this Christmas and New Year's.

Speaking My Peace

2011-12-14T00:55:00.000-05:00

When I was writing my upcoming book My Peace I Give You: Healing Sexual Wounds with the Help of the Saints (read more about it here), I was looking forward to recording it as my first audiobook.

Several people had requested an audiobook of my first book, The Thrill of the Chaste [that's me at left, signing a copy of The Thrill in 2007], and I had regretted not making one, especially after discovering through family and friends that it is not only the vision-impaired who enjoy audiobooks. People who do a lot of driving like to listen to them during car trips, for example, and frequent flyers enjoy them in flight. What is more, in writing My Peace I Give You, I realized that, given that it is intended not only for adult victims of childhood sexual abuse, but also their family, friends, and pastoral caregivers, it would be good if there were the opportunity for people to listen to it together. In particular, I thought that married readers who were abuse survivors might benefit from listening to it with their spouse, as it could enhance communication.

After carrying these hopes, I learned that, although the publisher of My Peace, Ave Maria Press, has many promising plans for enabling the book to reach its audience, an audiobook is not one of them. They do not publish audiobooks and do not have plans to enter that end of the business. Like many publishers, they have found that there is just not sufficient demand.

Disappointed, I thought about recording an audiobook and marketing it myself. But, as a full-time graduate student in theology (currently working towards an STB and STL, so that I may enter a pontifically licensed doctoral program), I have neither the means to invest in ten hours in a recording studio, nor the technology to record at home.So I was very happy yesterday, on the feast of one of my Confirmation saints,* Lucy—patroness of the blind—when I realized that there was another possible solution to making My Peace I Give You available in audiobook format that I had not considered.

I am blessed to know many people in the world of Catholic nonprofits, particularly members of religious orders. Perhaps a nonprofit or religious order that has a means of making recordings (as many do in this digital age) would let me record the book, and would make it available, in exchange for my giving them my entire author's royalty for the audio format. Then they could easily market the audiobook on Amazon and other websites, or through any means they wished, to benefit their own apostolic work.

For my part, I would be delighted to donate my royalty for an audiobook, as well as my time recording it, to support a religious order or other nonprofit. Dawn Patrol readers have been very generous in helping me when I have needed funds for school; it would be nice to be able to likewise help out an apostolate that does good work. (Note that there would remain the need to pay my agent his share of royalties, and my publisher might also assert licensing rights—though I don't foresee either cost being prohibitive, especially if the licensee is a nonprofit.)

As it happened, almost immediately after the idea came to me yesterday, I ran into a friend who has contact with the Xavier Society for the Blind. He said he would approach them with my offer. In case they are not interested, if you represent a Catholic nonprofit or religious order and would be interested in publishing the audiobook of My Peace I Give You, please contact me via my feedback form.

* My Confirmation saint is Lucy; I claim both the Roman martyr and St. Lucy Filippini as patrons.

Quote of the day

2011-12-12T11:42:00.001-05:00

From an excellent story in today's New York Times about one of the greatest voices of the 1960s:

Even when [Dion DiMucci] first felt the thrill of a hit record, he would still stop at the church and talk with Msgr. Joseph Pernicone, who pushed him when he was a teenager to think about the meaning of love or happiness.
"He once asked me, 'Dion what would make you happy?'" Dion said as he settled into a pew at the back of the church. "'Well, there’s this girl Susan I’d love to get close to. And while you’re at it, throw in a hit record and a Thunderbird.'"
"No, Dion. The virtuous man is the happy man," the monsignor replied.
"I had no idea what he meant," Dion said. "But he told me, it’s the predisposition to do the right thing at the right time in the right way for the right reason."
He sat and looked around the sanctuary, which was bathed in a soft, golden light.
"I wouldn’t be sitting here right now if not for him," he said. "I got lost in my life. But I eventually came back to what he taught me."

Making room in a wounded heart for the infant Christ

2011-11-27T14:42:00.001-05:00

In the spirit of my upcoming book My Peace I Give You: Healing Sexual Wounds with the Help of the Saints, I have written an Advent reflection for adult victims of childhood sexual abuse and those who minister to them. Read it on the Catholic News Agency website: "Making room in a wounded heart for the infant Christ."

Looking up to heaven

2011-11-16T14:25:00.004-05:00

Last night, I had the great joy of seeing Ray Davies perform a show that included his beautiful composition "Waterloo Sunset," originally recorded by his band the Kinks in 1967. Here he is speaking about the song earlier this year and performing it with the backing of a choir:

Speaking about the song in the above video, Davies talks about how he wrote it from the perspective of a shut-in—a person isolated at home, gaining an experience of "paradise" as he gazes through his window at the gorgeous sunset that extends over a London Underground station bustling with commuters.

In my upcoming book My Peace I Give You: Healing Sexual Wounds with the Help of the Saints, I examine the lives of saints who suffered the isolating effects of abuse, particularly those who were sexually abused in childhood. Davies' song, in its poignant beauty, captures an experience those saints knew—something that helped them, in and through their woundedness, to draw closer to the wounded Christ. It is the healing power of the wonder the soul feels upon witnessing the splendour of creation.

St. Josephine Bakhita as a young child was kidnapped, enslaved, and beaten. Yet, even after being so traumatized that she forgot her own name, she retained the memory of the awe she experienced before her world was turned upside down: "Seeing the sun, the moon and the stars, I said to myself: Who could be the Master of these beautiful things? And I felt a great desire to see him, to know Him and to pay Him homage..."

Years later, when Bakhita was baptized, she recognized that this Master was not only the Creator, but that He was also something much more personal—her loving Father. Filled with joy, she would often kiss the baptismal font at the church where she was received, saying, 'Here, I became a daughter of God!'"

By holding onto her childlike sense of wonder, Bakhita was ultimately able to see that even her most painful memories fell within the scope of God's loving providence, which permits evil only to bring forth a greater good. It is the same perspective to which St. Ignatius of Loyola invites us in his contemplation on the Nativity. Ignatius invites us to consider Mary and Joseph "as going a journey and laboring, that the Lord may be born in the greatest poverty; and as a termination of so many labors—of hunger, of thirst, of heat and of cold, of injuries and affronts—that He may die on the Cross; and all this for me."

The protagonist of Davies' song, shut away from the world, has "no friends"—yet, as long as he gazes on "Waterloo Sunset," he is in paradise. Is it that he senses in the sunset a kind of love—and that it is, somehow, a personal love? I think of Alice in Through the Looking Glass, looking at the snow falling outside her window and musing to her pet kitten, "I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently?"

G.K. Chesterton wrote, "A man can no more possess a private religion than he can possess a private sun and moon." But he also wrote of being "frightfully fond of the universe and [wanting] to address it by a diminuitive," because things that are small are more romantic. I think that is what Davies captures in his image of "millions of people swarming like flies 'round Waterloo underground" while he is enraptured by the sunset. He knows it is not his "private sun"—it shines over all those faceless people. But for him, at that moment, the sun has a face, and it is love.

When childhood sexual abuse victims become footballs

2011-11-10T23:55:00.010-05:00

For adult victims of childhood sexual abuse, news items like the ones currently flooding the media on the Penn State scandal can have unintended consequences.

On the one hand, such stories, if done well, can perform an important public service of raising consciousness about the grave harm that has been committed against an estimated one in four women and one in six men. Today's excellent story by ESPN columnist Rick Reilly, "Remember the Children," is a case in point.

On the other hand, any media coverage that gives details of childhood sexual abuse can cause victims stress, triggering painful memories and, for some, flashbacks.

The current stories are heavy on outrage, which is good—the public should be outraged. But talking about abuse without giving guidance for those who have suffered it can ultimately re-victimize people who have already been hurt so much—turning them into political footballs, if you will. Those living with the wounds of abuse need to learn that there is hope for healing.

Christians know that healing is to be found in and through Christ. As a Catholic, I have found the source of healing to be in and through Christ and His Church—in prayer, in the sacraments, and in communion with one another and all the Communion of Saints.

Priests and pastoral caregivers should be aware that those who have endured childhood sexual abuse are likely to have highly painful memories stirred up by the Penn State scandal, and they should be prepared to help them.

A good clue to what such victims go through is expressed by ESPN's Riley. Writing of those abused at Penn State, he highlights their vulnerability to anger, misplaced guilt, and broken relationships with loved ones: "The road these boys are on now is endless and buckled and uphill. Some will hate their parents for not protecting them and hate themselves for hating them. They will hate the pervert for tricking them and hate themselves for being tricked."

About two-thirds of cases of child sexual abuse are committed by a member of the child's family, and most of the remaining cases are committed by someone known to the family. What that means is that nearly every such case has an impact on the child's relationship with his or her parents. Even if the parents did not commit the abuse or do anything to enable it, they may respond to it in such a way as to aggravate the pain of the already wounded child. For example, they may imply to the child that he is in some way responsible for the abuse he received, or they may—perhaps seeking to protect the family member or friend who is responsible—chide him for making a big deal out of it.

One way that priests and pastoral caregivers can work to alleviate such suffering is to help victims understand the nature of forgiveness—particularly the difference between forgiveness, which we are commanded to practice always and everywhere, and reconciliation, which is not subject to the same command. I discuss this distinction in chapter 5 of my upcoming book My Peace I Give You: Healing Sexual Wounds with the Help of the Saints.

It is an important distinction to make, because very often people who were abused by their parents, or whose abuse led to a strain in their relationship with their parents, fear that their failure to fully reconcile keeps them from being right with God. They know the Lord's Prayer—"forgive us our trespasses as we forgive ..."—and they know the commandment to honor thy father and mother, and they worry that, when they avoid closeness with the parent who hurt them, they are remaining in sin.

They may seek help through the Sacrament of Penance, confessing resentment towards a family member, only to be told by their confessor—who does not know the larger context—to simply "forgive." For the penitent who thinks forgiveness requires reconciliation, such an instruction may only aggravate his sense of hopelessness—as though God were ordering him to put himself at risk of further emotional or physical harm.

What needs to be said is that the forgiveness mandated by the Lord's Prayer is, first and foremost, an interior forgiveness. Although forgiveness is by its nature directed towards reconciliation, it is fulfilled even if it never reaches that ultimate object. That is because forgiveness works in one direction, while reconciliation is a two-way street.

So, forgiveness is open to reconciliation, but the one who forgives takes into account the necessity of not putting oneself or one's offender in a near occasion of sin. If the offender is abusive, reconciliation is neither commanded nor even recommended. Beyond making an interior act of forgiveness, the most loving thing a victim can do for an abuser is to avoid giving him or her an opportunity to continue in abuse.

There remains the problem of finding the strength to forgive. The good news is that forgiveness, being an act of grace, does not depend on our own efforts. It is a work accomplished not by us, but in us, through the Holy Spirit that we received in our baptism. Our job is to ask the Spirit to forgive through us, turning our will to make us want God's best for the offender.

As can happen when grace acts upon human nature, such forgiveness is not necessarily an overnight affair; more likely, it will take time. But once the work begins, it bears fruit by enabling the victim to see her suffering within the context of Christ's abiding love for both the abuser and the abused. The Catechism expresses this comforting truth beautifully: "It is not in our power not to feel or to forget an offense; but the heart that offers itself to the Holy Spirit turns injury into compassion and purifies the memory in transforming the hurt into intercession" (CCC 2843).

RELATED: Deacon Greg Kendra profiles Deacon Scott Hurd and his new book Forgiveness: A Catholic Approach.

Finding Peace

2011-11-08T00:27:00.002-05:00

This week, I hit a happy milestone: My second book became available for pre-order on Amazon.com.

"Dawn Eden’s work My Peace I Give You is a modern-day Confessions and is intended to touch the heart of anyone who suffered from any kind of harm or loss in childhood—or anyone sensitive enough to say that life sometimes hurts. It is honest, sincere, and hopeful, weaving one’s hurts and losses into the complete and comprehensive Good News of Jesus Christ. This is the kind of theology that is accessible to the human heart. I hope you will find here as much grace as I did. Thank you Dawn."

+Gregory John Mansour, Bishop of the Eparchy of Saint Maron of Brooklyn

A beginner's guide to Father Daniel A. Lord S.J.

2011-10-28T22:50:00.018-04:00

After Father Joseph Mary Wolfe MFVA read Father Daniel A. Lord S.J.'s article "Cancer Is My Friend" in his homily on EWTN yesterday, many people were moved to search online for the article. I know this because their web searches led them to some of the posts I have written on this blog about Father Lord (1888-1955), whose life and witness is a great source of inspiration to me. (Click the "Daniel A. Lord" tag below to see those posts.)

Since several readers have also written to me during the past day to ask for information about Father Lord, here is a brief "beginner's guide" to help those who would like to get to know him better:

Articles: Via Google News' archive, here is Father Lord's "Cancer Is My Friend." For more background on his life, see David J. Endres' article in America, "Dan Lord, Hollywood Priest."

Audio: A spoken-word LP record by Father Lord titled So I'm Dying of Cancer! is available online as a free download (right-click the album title to download). The first half of the recording features an interview with Father Lord from June 1954, five months after his diagnosis with terminal cancer, while the second half is a talk of his that was apparently given before his cancer diagnosis, perhaps in February 1953 (judging by the Sunday Mass reading he mentions). If you thought Father Joseph Mary's homily was inspiring, listen to this recording to hear the same message in Father Lord's own voice. It was generously put online by Kliph Nesteroff of Classic Television Showbiz, who owns the only copy of the LP known to exist.

Another type of audio offering of Father Lord's work that is available for free online comes via a very thoughtful woman known only as Marie Therese, who has created audiobooks of three of his novels. (That link will take you to the listing of the novels' titles; click on an title to see options for downloading the book.) I've listened to one of them so far, Red Arrows in the Night, and found it very engaging. It's a delightful World War II-era spy thriller with heroes and a heroine who find time for attending morning Mass together.

Books and pamphlets: The best books to start with are Father Lord's autobiography Played by Ear and Letters to My Lord, a posthumous work comprising letters he wrote to God in January 1954, before and after his diagnosis with terminal lung cancer. Both are beautifully written, with Letters to My Lord being particularly poignant (a brief excerpt is here, adapted into the form of a poem). Used copies of both titles are available cheaply from online stores, and Played by Ear is available as a free download from the Internet Archive.

Although Father Lord wrote many books, he was better known in his time for writing about three hundred pamphlets, which had combined sales in the tens of millions. I have found two websites that offer free PDF files of some of them. To make your search easier, here are specialized links that will take you to Google's lists of the Father Lord pamphlets to be found on each of the following sites: CatholicPamphlets.net and pamphlets.org.au. (Note that these sites' webmasters have re-typed the pamphlets, so the text you are reading is not necessarily the original text. Usually, save for some typographical errors, the re-typed versions are faithful to the originals, but one webmaster occasionally inserts his own commentary in brackets, which can be intrusive, as with "That Wonderful Sunday Mass.")

If you would like to see what Father Lord's pamphlets originally looked like, "All American Girl," a vocation story about a Carmelite, is available as a free download from the Internet Archive. (That link will take you to a page that lists all the Father Lord downloads available from the archive, which also include the beautiful children's pamphlet "The Story of Christmas," as well as Played by Ear and the audiobooks already mentioned. Two links for "All American Girl" are listed—click the one that's farther down the page, as the first one doesn't work.)

I hope these links help you get to know and love Father Lord as I do. His work has greatly inspired me, particularly in writing my upcoming book My Peace I Give You: Healing Sexual Wounds with the Help of the Saints (due April 2012 from Ave Maria Press). In particular, his apostolic spirit, which is so contagious, has increased my desire to bring those who are suffering an understanding of God's fatherly love. One day, after I complete my studies in theology, I hope to postulate his cause for canonization, as I believe that, like his heroine St. Therese, he is spending his time in heaven doing good on earth.

UPDATE, 10/29/11: Some readers are looking for more of Father Lord's writings on how his cancer diagnosis became an occasion to draw nearer to God. The "Cancer Is My Friend" story linked above is essentially a shorter version of an article he published in the July 1954 issue of Catholic Digest titled "My Good Angel of Death." If you would like to read the longer piece, I would recommend e-mailing Catholic Digest's editors and asking them to post it on the publication's website. They have posted articles from their archives in the past, so perhaps they would post the Father Lord one if they knew there was a demand for it. You can find the editors' names, along with links to their e-mail address, at the "Meet Our Team" page at CatholicDigest.org.

* * *
I am currently studying towards a sacred-theology licentiate—a post-M.A. prerequisite for a sacred-theology doctorate—at the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception at Dominican House of Studies. After completing my doctorate, I hope to become a professor at a small Catholic college. Since my school does not offer scholarships for lay students, I am always grateful for donations; click here if you would like to give towards my studies.

EWTN homilist revives interest in Father Daniel A. Lord S.J.

2011-10-27T12:41:00.014-04:00

UPDATE, 10/29/11: Because so many people have found this blog looking for Father Daniel A. Lord S.J.'s article "Cancer Is My Friend," I've moved the link to that article, along with additional information about its author, to a new post: "A beginner's guide to Father Daniel A. Lord S.J."

The recent interest in Father Lord was sparked by a homily by Father Joseph Mary Wolfe MFVA that was broadcast October 27 on EWTN. Father Joseph Mary discusses Father Lord and reads "Cancer Is My Friend" at about 8 minutes 40 seconds into this clip:

I am very grateful to Father Joseph Mary for bringing Father Lord's inspiring witness to a new generation, and placing it so movingly within the light of this week's Mass readings.

Moving foreword

2011-10-25T23:01:00.006-04:00

I was elated yesterday to receive the foreword written for my upcoming book My Peace I Give You: Healing Sexual Wounds with the Help of the Saints by Mother Agnes Mary Donovan S.V. of the Sisters of Life. Mother Agnes Mary was my first choice to write the foreword, as I have seen firsthand how her order aids women who have been abused or otherwise rejected by those close to them. She herself also is familiar with the effects of childhood sexual abuse from her work in psychology; she holds a doctorate and was a developmental-psychology professor at Columbia University's Teachers College. It is a blessing to have her support as the book moves closer to its April 2012 publication.

If you are a journalist and would like to receive updates or a review copy of My Peace I Give You, please write me via my feedback form and I'll forward your contact information to Ave Maria Press's publicity department. You can also contact the department directly.

* * *

While waiting for My Peace I Give You to hit the stores, I continue to study towards an STL (an intermediate degree needed before attaining a doctorate in sacred theology), and am also writing concert reviews for the Weekly Standard. My latest review is of the wonderful show that Loretta Lynn performed recently in Washington, D.C.

First Things first

2011-10-17T23:54:00.001-04:00

I was very happy to discover a kind mention of my first book, The Thrill of the Chaste, in a review on First Things' website of Wesley Hill's Washed and Waiting. Father Leonard R. Klein, the director of Pro-Life Activities for the Diocese of Wilmington, Delaware, writes:

Neither marriage nor the rejection of marriage guarantees happiness. Sexual intimacy is not a certain cure for loneliness or for anything else that goes wrong in the tragedy and comedy of human existence. This context of [Hill's] celibacy needs further reflection. I expect and hope there will be a book that will push the matter forward, much in the mode of Dawn Eden's The Thrill of the Chaste.

I hope so too. It is good to hear of other people writing about the experience of conversion of lifestyle, and particularly the freedom that comes from no longer expecting sexual intimacy to fill the spiritual hole that cannot be filled. Although my next book, My Peace I Give You: Healing Sexual Wounds with the Help of the Saints (due in April from Ave Maria Press), is not focused on chastity as was The Thrill, I continue to explore ways to heal the disconnect between what we most deeply desire and how we seek it.

Cover story

2011-10-12T23:06:00.004-04:00

Today my editor at Ave Maria Press sent me the cover that the publisher's art department designed for my book My Peace I Give You: Healing Sexual Wounds with the Help of the Saints, which is due out in April (click on the picture for a larger image). I am thrilled; it hits all the right notes. Among the things I like about it are the intimation of going from darkness into light, which is very appropriate for its intended audience of adult victims of childhood sexual abuse. Also, the way that the chalk design traces an upward path—continuing beyond the reader's field of vision—matches the book's message of striving, with God's grace, towards a happiness that we can glimpse partially in this life.

The quote at the bottom of the cover is from James Martin S.J., author of My Life with the Saints: "A gift of healing to some of the most wounded people of our time." Others who have endorsed the book include Alice von Hildebrand, who writes that it "shows readers that there is healing not in repression or misplaced self-blame, but in hiding in the wounds of Christ."

Many thanks to those friends and Dawn Patrol readers who were praying for me as I was writing My Peace I Give You. I would be grateful if you would keep the book in your prayers, as my hope is that it will reach those who have long been suffering in silence. Watch this space for more updates, including new speaking appearances, as the book's publication nears.

If you are a journalist and would like to receive updates or a review copy of My Peace I Give You, please write me via my feedback form and I'll forward your contact information to Ave Maria Press's publicity department. You can also contact the department directly.

My 'yeas' I give you—Part 1

2011-10-05T00:56:00.004-04:00

One of the joys of completing a manuscript for a publisher is watching the blurbs come in. I am very thankful that several writers I admire, having read my upcoming book My Peace I Give You: Healing Sexual Wounds with the Help of the Saints (due in April from Ave Maria Press), are voicing their appreciation. Over the coming weeks, I will be publishing their blurbs here—starting with these:

"Dawn Eden tackles this most difficult of issues with tenderness and grace. She mixes practical advice with inspiration from the lives of the saints, and in doing so reminds us that there are no wounds so deep that the Lord cannot heal them."

— Jennifer Fulwiler, blogger at ConversionDiary.com

"Filled with wisdom and compassion, My Peace I Give You is Dawn Eden's gift to victims of childhood sexual abuse and anyone struggling with hurts inflicted by others. She offers inspiration from saints who were themselves abused but found healing in Christ, through whose wounds we too can be healed."

— Father Scott Hurd, author of Forgiveness: A Catholic Approach

Back on the beat

2011-09-26T12:33:00.003-04:00

After five years away from writing about music, the fiftieth-anniversary tour of my favorite rock band inspired me to contribute a concert review to the Weekly Standard: "Return of the Zombies." It's fun to be back in the rock-journalism game, if only briefly.

Besides my graduate studies in theology (on the way to an STL so as to obtain a pontifically licensed doctorate), I am currently working with my publisher, Ave Maria Press, to prepare for the publication of my next book, My Peace I Give You: Healing Sexual Wounds with the Help of the Saints. Today I received the proposed cover for the book, and am thrilled at how perfect it is. Will post it here once the publisher gives it the final OK.

Moving on up

2011-09-21T23:52:00.000-04:00

I received the wonderful news this week from Ave Maria Press that the powers-that-be have decided to move up the publication of my second book, My Peace I Give You: Healing Sexual Wounds with the Help of the Saints, by one month, releasing it in April rather than in May. It will be one of the "front-runners" of their spring catalog.

As noted, I'll be blogging regularly during the weeks to come, as the book's publication nears, and will also update my other websites, which I've neglected during the past year while pursuing graduate studies and writing.

Update on My Peace I Give You

2011-09-15T01:04:00.002-04:00

Thanks so much to everyone who prayed for me this summer as I wrote My Peace I Give You: Healing Sexual Wounds with the Help of the Saints. The latest news is that manuscript is now with the publisher, and it is set for a May 2012 publication.

During the weeks to come, as the book's publication date approaches, I will resume regular blogging, and intend to write about things I learned in writing My Peace I Give You. I have come to believe that a pastoral program to help adult victims of childhood sexual abuse—all such victims, not only those abused by clergy—is the missing piece of the Church's effort to build a culture of life.

If I wearied Richman ...

2011-09-10T23:33:00.004-04:00

... with my banal questions, he was too gentlemanly to show it.

Yes, that is me in April 1996—during my pre-baptismal years as a rock journalist—interviewing Jonathan Richman backstage at Maxwell's in Hoboken, New Jersey, for the Manhattan public-access cable show "Videowave."

In my defense, the "what is your favorite color" question wasn't my idea. I posed it on the advice of Richman's drummer, Tommy Larkins, who promised me I would get a good answer. He was right!

Watching the clip now, I remember how nervous I was. I felt I had no business doing the interview, as I did not own any of Richman's records, neither did I know much about his history. Thankfully, he was extremely kind and patient.

Bishop Laffitte, secretary of Pontifical Council for the Family, warns against 'vulgarizing' JP2's teachings on human love

2011-08-12T00:05:00.004-04:00

Catholic News Agency today published an interview with Bishop Jean Laffitte, secretary of the Pontifical Council for the Family, in which he warns against interpretations of the theology of the body in the English-speaking world that "focus only on sexuality," emphasize "mysticism," and imply a need for "gnosis."

Here are the links to the full interview and an article summarizing it:

"Interview with Bishop Jean Laffitte on Theology of Human Love"

"Bishop Jean Laffitte warns against overemphasizing sexual aspects of Theology of Human Love"

Father Angelo Mary Geiger F.I. observes that the bishop "makes a simple and very important point. The whole way the 'Catechesis on Human Love' has been cast in English speaking countries has swung the emphasis to body talk." Read Father Geiger's full commentary on his blog Mary Victrix.

One of the bishop's points appears to validate the conclusion of my master's thesis, "Towards a 'Culture of Chastity': Bringing Theology of the Body Catechesis into the Hermeneutic of Continuity."

The bishop says:

Personally, I am against any notion that we should reduce all difficult thought, or any difficult articulation of ideas, assuming in advance that people are unintelligent.

Perhaps at times we may encounter people who are not cultivated, who may not enjoy the habit of dealing with philosophical and anthropological topics on a regular basis.

However, a person of good faith always is able to be sensitive to mystery, because a person lives and experiences without necessarily knowing how to describe it. ...

It is essential to present these teachings with reverence, with meditation, with silence. We’re dealing here with an endeavor in genuine education, not merely a strict transmission of knowledge.

In my thesis's conclusion, I had commented upon the need to convey John Paul's teachings on sexuality in a manner more befitting their theological depth:

In a 2000 address to catechists and religion teachers, Cardinal Ratzinger warned of “the temptation of impatience, the temptation of immediately finding the great success, in finding large numbers.” This, he said, “is not God’s way. For the Kingdom of God as well as for evangelization, the instrument and vehicle of the Kingdom of God, the parable of the grain of mustard seed is always valid (see Mark 4:31-32).”...

He goes on to say,

"New evangelization cannot mean: immediately attracting the large masses that have distanced themselves from the Church by using new and more refined methods. No—this is not what new evangelization promises. . ."

West’s presentation has become, as Schindler says, “a problem for the Church,” as a result, I believe, of the “temptation to impatience” of which the Holy Father speaks. The hope of “attracting the large masses” led parishes and dioceses to seek his “new and more refined methods” of evangelization, without submitting his writings and talks to sufficient theological scrutiny. As a result, the primary instruction that millions of teenage and adult Catholics are receiving on Church teachings on sexuality is theologically compromised. In this light, it would be wise for those charged with overseeing the instruction of the faithful to reflect upon an old proverb, quoted by the Holy Father in that same address to catechists: “Success is not one of the names of God.”

If you are interested in reading more on the topic, the June/July issue of Inside the Vatican contains a new article of mine, "Pope Benedict XVI's Theology of the Body," as part of a special section of articles on the theology of the body. The other contributors to the section are Fr. Gregory Gresko OSB, Fr. Angelo Mary Geiger F.I., Fr. Thomas Petri O.P., and Fr. McLean Cummings. The magazine may be ordered online from insidethevatican.com.

In addition, my master's thesis is still available as a free download from Catholic News Agency. Click the link at the bottom of CNA's news article on the thesis to download it.

If you have benefited from my master's thesis and would like to support my studies towards a theology licentiate and doctorate, I am very grateful for your donation, as my school does not offer scholarships to lay students. Click here to donate.

Remembering Archbishop Sambi

2011-08-02T15:03:00.004-04:00

Archbishop Pietro Sambi, the Vatican nuncio to the United States who passed away last week at the age of 73, was not only a great diplomat, but also a man of great love. I am thankful to Catholic News Agency for letting me share a story of his generosity that reveals both his affection for the Jewish people and his deep friendship with Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger, a convert from Judaism. The story is available on CNA's Web site.

I am also very grateful for your prayers as I continue working to complete My Peace I Give You: Healing Sexual Wounds with the Help of the Saints in time for my publisher's deadline (now August 12). Please keep those prayers coming; I need them very much as I write.

Scroll down to my previous post or click here for a couple of other recent bits of news from Eden. If you are in the Baltimore/D.C. area, I hope to see you when I speak August 9 at the Baltimore Archdiocese Theology on Tap.

Summer with the saints

2011-07-09T23:29:00.004-04:00

Just a quick note to say thanks so much for your prayers as I labor to complete My Peace I Give You: Healing Sexual Wounds with the Help of the Saints in time for the publisher's August 1 deadline. Please keep those prayers coming. I need them!

Photo by Kristina Hernandez, June 17, 2011.

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Because of having to focus on writing, I have not been updating my other Web pages. If you are looking for information on my next speaking appearance, it will be August 9 at the Baltimore Archdiocese Theology on Tap—click the link for details.

* * *
I am very happy to report that the current issue of Inside the Vatican contains a new article of mine, "Pope Benedict XVI's Theology of the Body," as part of a special section of articles on the theology of the body. The other contributors to the section are Fr. Gregory Gresko OSB, Fr. Angelo Mary Geiger F.I., Fr. Thomas Petri O.P., and Fr. McLean Cummings. The magazine may be ordered online from insidethevatican.com.

My master's thesis critiquing the Christopher West/Theology of the Body Institute approach to teaching the theology of the body is still available as a free download from Catholic News Agency. Click the link at the bottom of CNA's news article to download it.

* * *
If you have benefited from my master's thesis and would like to support my studies towards a theology licentiate and doctorate, I am very grateful for your donation, as my school does not offer scholarships to lay students. Click here to donate.

Requiescat in pace: Jeffry Hendrix, 1954-2011

2011-06-28T12:50:00.007-04:00

Please pray for the repose of the soul of my friend Jeffry Hendrix, who passed away at 5:50 this morning, and for the comfort of Jeff's family.

Jeff was a Methodist minister who was received into the Catholic Church ten years ago. After being diagnosed with cancer three years ago, he wrote a book to help those preparing for death: A Little Guide for Your Last Days. In March, he told his story on EWTN's "The Journey Home." You can see the show in its entirety here. A news story where Jeff discussed his faith journey is online here. He had a personal blog, Chronicles of Atlantis, and contributed to a group blog, The Four Mass'keteers.

I had the great blessing of visiting Jeff for an hour and a half yesterday afternoon at hospice, along with mutual friend Michael McCleary. He was unable to move or speak, but his breathing and an attempt he made at vocalization showed he was alert. Michael and I prayed the rosary and the Divine Mercy chaplet, and I read Jeff chapters 14 and 15 of John's Gospel.

Before leaving, I pulled out my Catholic datebook and told Jeff that this week was the octave of Corpus Christi. I also told him which saints' feasts were on each day this week. The saint for Tuesday, I said, was Irenaeus, adding that it was he who said, "The glory of God is man fully alive." Besides knowing it from Irenaeus's writings, Jeff would have recognized the phrase as the inspiration for Chesterton's novella Manalive.

There is perhaps no other quote from a saint that better describes Jeff. How fitting that he should be born into life with God on Irenaeus's day.

More, including a beautiful photo, from the principal of the Catholic school where Jeff taught sixth-grade for ten years.

The Arlington Catholic Herald has an obituary and funeral details.

Pope on hope

2011-06-18T17:37:00.001-04:00

As I research my second book, My Peace I Give You: Healing Sexual Wounds with the Help of the Saints, I am discovering some beautiful writings of the Holy Father, including this from "Memory Awakens Hope," an essay written while he was Cardinal Ratzinger:

"[It] is only the person who has memories who can hope. . . . Recently a counselor who spends much of his time talking with people on the verge of despair was speaking in similar terms about his own work: if his client succeeds in recalling a memory of some good experience, he may once again be able to believe in goodness and thus relearn hope; then there is a way out of despair. Memory and hope are inseparable. To poison the past does not give hope: it destroys its emotional foundations."

Many thanks to those who have been praying for me as I write my book. Please keep those prayers coming; I need them! For more on My Peace I Give You, see my interview with Catholic News Agency and my blog entry announcing the book.

Prayer request

2011-06-17T18:47:00.001-04:00

UPDATE, 6/28/11: Jeffry has passed away. Please pray for his repose and for the comfort of his family.

Original post follows:

Please pray for my friend Jeffry Hendrix, blogger and author of A Little Guide for Your Last Days, who was featured in March on EWTN's "The Journey Home." I have requested prayers for Jeff before, as he is undergoing treatment for cancer. Recently his condition has worsened and he has asked for more prayers.

Here is Jeff's beautiful "Journey Home" testimony, in its entirety:

Many thanks to Catholic News Agency ...

2011-06-07T14:02:00.002-04:00

... for letting readers know about my upcoming book.

It is very encouraging to hear from people who are looking forward to My Peace I Give You: Healing Sexual Wounds with the Help of the Saints. Thanks so much to those of you who have answered my request for prayers as I write, including blogger Terry Nelson, who offers some helpful suggestions of saints whose stories fit my book's theme. Please keep those prayers coming!

A new chapter beginsSeeking your prayers as I write my second book

2011-06-01T14:52:00.004-04:00

I have some very happy news to share: Ave Maria Press, a ministry of the Indiana Province of Holy Cross, has commissioned me to write my second book, currently titled My Peace I Give You: Healing Sexual Wounds with the Help of the Saints and set for publication next spring.

This book has been on my heart for a long time. It comes from the desire to bring the joy of communion to those living with the spiritually isolating effects of childhood sexual abuse. The past few years of speaking to thousands of people about my first book, The Thrill of the Chaste, and communicating personally with many readers of that book, made me realize the particular need that abuse survivors have for this communion—which is really the Communion of Saints. It occurred to me that these people, who had suffered so much, could receive great healing if they came to know the lives and witness of saints who suffered wounds much like theirs.

When I first had the idea for My Peace I Give You, at the beginning of this year, it was not a surprise to learn that among those whom the Church has formally declared to be in heaven were people who were sexually abused as youths. The stories of the early martyrs are familiar enough; so too is that of Maria Goretti, who was fatally stabbed while resisting sexual assault. What surprised me was the sheer number of saints who experienced such abuse—there were many more than I had imagined—and how relevant their stories were to people living in the present day. In the United States of the 21st century, children may not know what it is like to be at the mercy of a pagan emperor, but many know what it is like to be at the mercy of their mother’s violent, alcoholic live-in lover, as was Blessed Laura Vicuña. They are not thrown to the lions, but many are thrown into a sexually invasive home environment, as was St. Thomas Aquinas. They may not know the breaking wheel, but many have their young hearts broken, like Blessed Margaret of Castello, whose parents abandoned her because she was blind and physically deformed.

Pope Benedict XVI observes that man needs to be saved from the sorrow and bitterness that cause him to forsake God. For this liberation to take effect, “transformation from within is necessary, some foothold of goodness, a beginning from which to start out in order to change evil into good, hatred into love, revenge into forgiveness” (General Audience, May 18, 2011). With My Peace I Give You, I hope to help readers gain this “foothold of goodness” through the stories of holy people who, having experienced the greatest sorrows that the world could offer, were yet able to turn their eyes toward heaven and be saved.

I ask your prayers as I write this book, which must be completed by the beginning of August, before I return to full-time study at the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception, where I am working towards a sacred-theology licentiate (a prerequirement for a pontifically licensed doctorate).

Thanks so much to everyone who has supported my work with prayers and encouragement. It is a great blessing to be able to have the opportunity, as a writer and speaker, to help people draw closer to the Mystical Body of Christ and find their identity in it.

* * *

During the writing process, I will be running the chapters of My Peace I Give You past people who have experience helping adult survivors of sexual abuse. If you are a priest, pastoral counselor, or therapist and could find the time to read and comment on one or more chapters of my book, I would be very grateful for your help. Please contact me via my feedback form.

If you would like to contact me for some other reason, please do not be offended if I respond very briefly, if at all. As I have written here in the past, I continue to battle the temptation to waste hours websurfing. Any e-mail usage puts me at risk of clicking on a link, then clicking on another link, and finding out all of a sudden that two or three hours of my day have gone down the drain. That is why I no longer participate in Facebook or any social media, except as a last resort for making contact with people who cannot be reached otherwise.

* * *

My next speaking appearances will be June 10-11 at the Northwest Catholic Family Education Conference in Seattle and August 9 at the Baltimore Archdiocese Theology on Tap.

Regarding other talks: I made a promise to God that if I had the opportunity to write My Peace I Give You: Healing Sexual Wounds with the Help of the Saints, I would make myself available to give talks to women who are in crisis pregnancies, and to abuse victims, at no charge, so long as my transportation and accommodations are covered. (If the talk is at a shelter, a room there is fine.) There is no expiration date on this promise; it is valid for the rest of my life.

During the past two months, I have had the blessing of speaking to mothers and mothers-to-be living in a home run by Several Sources Shelters in New Jersey, and at a home run by the Sisters of Life. I would like to give many more such talks. If you would like me to speak to women in crisis pregnancies, or to survivors of abuse, please contact me via my feedback form.

* * *

Since every writer needs to get out of the house, I am doing as much work as I can at places like Starbucks, especially as I can just take my notebook there and not have the distraction of the Internet. So a Starbucks gift card is tops on my wish list right now. If you would like to surprise me with one, my e-mail address is dawneden -at- gmail.com (replacing the -at- with an atsign.

* * *
My master's thesis critiquing the Christopher West/Theology of the Body Institute approach to teaching the theology of the body is still available as a free download from Catholic News Agency. Click the link at the bottom of CNA's news article to download it.

If you have benefited from my master's thesis and would like to support my studies towards a theology licentiate and doctorate, I am very grateful for your donation, as my school does not offer scholarships to lay students. Click here to donate.

Thursday's child

2011-04-22T01:37:00.011-04:00

Yesterday was my fifth "birthday." It was five years ago on the afternoon of Holy Thursday that Father Jacek Buda O.P. received me into full communion with the Catholic Church, and I received the Eucharistic Lord for the first time at Mass that evening.

If you are among the Dawn Patrol readers who was praying for me during the time before or leading up to my reception into the Church (or at any other time), thank you from my heart.

Thanks too, and a very happy Easter, to everyone reading this who has been moved to check up on me. I remain on blogging hiatus as I study towards a sacred-theology licentiate at Dominican House of Studies, the same institution where I received my M.A. last May. Once I earn the licentiate, I hope to earn a sacred theology doctorate from the University of Fribourg, with the ultimate goal of becoming a professor of moral theology at a Catholic college.

In other news:

It has long been my desire to give talks to women who are in crisis pregnancies—to help them as they seek to change their behavior and build new lives. However, I did not know how to adapt the message of The Thrill of the Chaste in a manner relevant to their situation—a situation that, given that these women are estranged from their families, often includes the experience of childhood sexual abuse. That changed recently when I had the blessing of speaking to mothers and mothers-to-be living in a home run by Several Sources Shelters in New Jersey.

I told my own story to the shelter's residents, but added a new angle, discussing how the experiences we had as children shape our adult identity. When we are mistreated by the people who are supposed to be forming us and protecting us, it leads us to a wrong understanding of who we are. Lacking a proper sense of identity, we lack the foundation to choose what is best for us, which leads us to make bad decisions. That's the bad news. But the Good News, I explained, is that, once we begin to understand who we are in Christ, we have the freedom and the power, with God's grace, to make decisions in a new way—founded on our realization of the great dignity we have in Him.

It was a deeply rewarding experience for me to frame the message of my book—that is, of unmarried chastity—in a manner helpful to women who have suffered so much. As I write this, I am scheduled to give a similar talk to residents of a home run by the Sisters of Life, and I would like to give many more such talks. If you would like me to speak to women in crisis pregnancies, or to survivors of abuse, please e-mail me. For nonprofit organizations, I am willing to do so at no charge so long as my transportation and accommodations are covered. (If the talk is at a shelter, a room there is fine.)

I have written a proposal for a book along the lines of the talk described above, which also brings in key aspects of the Christian life not covered in my first book, such as the Eucharist, the Sacrament of Reconciliation, and the Communion of Saints. The proposal is currently being reviewed by a publisher. Please pray for God's will with regard to this project. If I were contracted to write the book, doing so would deepen my apostolate, as it would give me a means of helping those who have experienced unavoidable pain find meaning and purpose in their lives. I would like to become an apostle to the weak in spirit in the way that my friend Jeffry Hendrix has become an apostle to the weak in body.[UPDATE, 6/1/11: The publisher has accepted the proposal--thank you for your prayers! See today's post for details.]

My master's thesis critiquing the Christopher West/Theology of the Body Institute approach to teaching the theology of the body is still available as a free download from Catholic News Agency. Click the link at the bottom of CNA's news article to download it.

If you have benefited from my master's thesis and would like to support my studies towards a theology licentiate and doctorate, I am very grateful for your donation, as my school does not offer scholarships to lay students. Click here to donate.

My friend Raving Theist, who guestblogged here as Raving Atheist prior to his conversion, continues to do wonderful work as webmaster and volunteer coordinator for author Ashli McCall, helping her minister to pregnant women who suffer from hyperemesis gravidarum. If you know a woman who has HG (an extreme form of morning sickness), please refer her to BeyondMorningSickness.com. Raving Theist or Ashli will connect her to a former HG sufferer who will offer guidance on treatment, and will also send her a free copy of Ashli's book Beyond Morning Sickness.

Photo by Mark Judge.

It's a Pan's world

2010-11-03T13:57:00.000-04:00

Check out my article in the latest Weekly Standard on the Darling deceptions that drive J.M. Barrie's women.

My master's thesis critiquing Christopher West now available for free from Catholic News Agency

2010-08-10T22:23:00.001-04:00

Following Cardinal Justin Rigali's homily at the Theology of the Body urging that the "rich content" of John Paul II's Wednesday catecheses "be mined and proclaimed," I have decided to make my master's thesis, "Towards a 'Climate of Chastity': Bringing Catechesis on the Theology of the Body into the Hermeneutic of Continuity," available to all, free of charge. The thesis critiques the presentation of John Paul II's theology of the body that has been popularized by Christopher West and the Theology of the Body Institute, which was founded to promote West's presentation.

Catholic News Agency has generously agreed to host the thesis on its Web site so that the paper may be downloaded for free. The link to download the thesis may be found at the end of CNA's interview with me. That article also has space for comments, if you would like to add your own thoughts to the discussion.

The version of my thesis available from CNA is a brand new revision that includes a new preface in which I answer some criticisms that have arisen since I first made the work available. In addition, since some West fans have claimed I do not give his teachings sufficient context, I have included additional examples from his work.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has encouraged me in my research, as well as everyone who has shown their support by donating to support my doctoral studies. (As I have previously noted, my goal is to become a professor of moral theology at a small Catholic college.) If you have benefited from my thesis and would like to support my studies, you may click here to donate.

Thanks also to those who have written me with any kind of feedback on my thesis, whether supportive or not. Submitting my work for public discussion has been a great learning experience. If you would like to contact me, I invite you to do so via my feedback form. Also, I am grateful for any and all "knee-mail"--that is, prayer. I am sending it heaven-ward daily for everyone who reads my thesis, and for everyone involved in the TOB discussion.

Theology of the Body and the mystical, magical trainA guest post from FATHER ANGELO MARY GEIGER F.I.

2010-08-09T11:37:00.007-04:00

Reprinted with permission from Mary Victrix:

Recently, the Theology of the Body Institute conducted its first national congress, during which the triumphal march of the new chastity catechesis pressed forward–in spite of the fact that the movement’s avatar, Christopher West, was absent, presumably to reflect upon his method of presenting the Theology of the Body. Perhaps I was naïve, but I thought West’s sabbatical meant that his critics had made some headway. Such progress, unfortunately, did not seem to be reflected at the congress. Dr. Janet Smith, for example, stated the following:

The 1st thing we need to know is God is chasing us down like a lover. Every lover is a pathological stalker. God is a stalker.

Am I quoting out of context? I would like to know in what context the comparison of God to a pathological sexual deviant would be appropriate. Please note that the above statement was published as a tweet by the congress organizers themselves. So this is what they themselves decided to feed the public.

Shock Treatment on Rails

The continuing shock treatment approach to Theology of the Body continues the tradition instituted by Christopher West. Criticisms are persistently met with accusations of personal attack, the exigencies of popular catechesis and the evolutionary quality of West’s work. The flamboyant, embarrassing and irreverent presentation of the Holy Father’s work has become the sacred cow of this movement in the United States.
So what is Christopher West up to, if he is not in the process of modifying his presentation? Well, apparently he is preparing to speak again on September 11, which will be a premature end to his six-month sabbatical.
So, the Theology of the Body Institute, steaming forward undaunted by opposition:

TOB is a locomotive: Lead, Follow or Get out of the way!

Meriting particular caution is that locomotive force by the name of Fr. Thomas J. Loya, one of the premier speakers of the Theology of the Body International Alliance, an organization which was honored by the TOB Institute at the congress. I wish we could say that the following statements of Father Loya at the conference were just hyperbole, or were taken out of context—after all they were recorded on Twitter:

TOB is not a big idea. It is THE big idea
For the last 500 yrs, we’ve been looking through a veil of unreality.
We have not really seen what the world looks like through true Catholic vision. JPII took away the veil to help us see!

But no, these remarks were not taken out of context. On the contrary, this is classic Fr. Loya. I was just watching one of his videos in which he remarked:

You cannot escape the Theology of the Body. It is everywhere. It is the answer to all of life’s questions.

I guess there is no use trying to get out of the way of the TOB runaway train. But I will try anyway.
With Faces and Bodies Unveiled

So what are we supposed to see when we put on the indispensible TOB lenses provided by the Theology of the Body Institute? When we shed the “veil of unreality,” in the light of the “mystical text” of the Theology of the Body, what are we to see?
To answer this question we need look no further than Father Loya’s stunning website. And yes, I mean stunning. It is a real eye opener. But I do not recommend you look: us old-school types—you know, the one’s living behind the veil of unreality—would call it an occasion of sin. Anyone who happens upon Taborlife.org will get a whole memory full for their imagination to play with: a naked woman and a couple having intercourse (along with bizarre images of tattooed bodies, sacred images of Jesus and Mary, a woman with a crystal ball and another covered in mud). No, it is not hardcore pornography and Father Loya has designed his animated banner so the viewer only gets fleeting glimpses of images superimposed with text (for example: “naked without shame,” “sexuality,” “truth,” “mysticism,” “nudity,” “hate,” “womb tabernacle”). But I am not sure the speed at which the images appear and disappear mitigates the experience. It is rather creepy, actually: agitated, subliminal and looped to play over and over again.
Then there is Father Loya’s radio show, A Body of Truth. Several slices of the body, in particular, a woman’s breasts, become the focus of attention of several of his shows. One is entitled “Breasts,” in which the said body part is displayed in the web page’s thumbnail without the woman’s face. The other is called “Less is More,” which contains in the thumbnail the Hooter’s restaurant logo, which caricatures a woman’s breasts.
In his show on “breasts,” Father Loya announces a “Vatican” initiative to have the Blessed Virgin Mary represented anew by artists with exposed breasts, feeding the infant Jesus. This is a traditional image that was quite popular before the Council of Trent, which attempted to regulate liturgical images more strictly. Images of Maria Lactans (Mary Breastfeeding) were never forbidden, and have remained in use in many places in Europe. In fact, the modern church of Maria delle Grazie (1956) in San Giovianni Rotundo, which was built to accommodate all the penitents who came to see Padre Pio has a very large image of Our Lady with Our Lord reaching for her exposed breast.
Actually, the so-called “Vatican” initiative is really the inspiration of certain editorial writers for the L’Osservatore Romano, the semi-official newspaper of the Vatican. Such opinion pieces do not represent the work of the dicasteries of the Holy See, nor are they any necessary indication of the will of the Holy Father.
What interests me in this regard is not the fact that these images are being defended in the Vatican newspaper. Rather it is the fact that their production is being proposed as a remedy for prudery and propaganda for breastfeeding. These purposes really have nothing to do with the goals of liturgical art.
In his show “Less is More,” Father Loya excoriates the Hooters restaurant chain for exploiting women by marketing their stores on the basis of men’s desire to gawk at women’s breasts. He makes it very clear that he totally disapproves of this exploitation.
A similar theme runs throughout both shows. It is not the exposition of naked breasts for all to see that concerns Father Loya, but the context and intentionality, or what he describes as “the sacramental world view.” He claims that we have a hang up, an obsession with women’s breasts because we have dissociated their beauty from their function. He suggests that the best cure for this obsession is for women to breastfeed in public. He actually believes this plan with clear up the whole problem men’s obsession with a woman’s breasts.
In the show on “breasts,” Father Loya suggests that the advent of science led man to devalue created things because they could be more easily manipulated and controlled. This undermined the sacramental worldview and cultivated in us an unhealthy dualism, which holds spiritual things to be good and physical things to be bad. In this context a woman’s breasts, allegedly, came to be looked upon as evil.
I find this analysis breathtaking. I would suggest Father Loya is creating a mythology to support what he misnames a “sacramental worldview,” which could be more properly described as a “magical worldview.” Does he really believe that the obsession of men with women’s bodies began in the 16th century?
What is totally overlooked in all this is the question of concupiscence and the wholesomeness of modesty. Of course, the body must be considered in the light of a sacramental worldview, and from the point of sexuality the sacrament that informs the worldview is Holy Matrimony. A man’s regard for his wife’s body is unique. Such regard is misplaced when men are encouraged to look any and all woman up and down and pretend it is a true sacramentalized perspective.
Reality Check

So Father Loya wants us to believe that reality is looking at naked people through the specs provided by the Theology of the Body Institute.
In a way, I suppose it is. Only in our age would a well-known Catholic speaker compare God to a pathological sexual deviant. Only in our age would the Catholic intelligentsia distinguish between pornography and “holy” preoccupation with the body with hair-splitting nuance (pornography vs. theo-graphy, according to West).
But apparently Father Loya is up for the task. The good father recently gave a conference at Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago during which he used a slide presentation to help the attendees distinguish between good nudity and bad nudity. According to Catholic columnist Matthew C. Abbott, who was there, Father Loya displayed “nude models (who were shown in, er, strategic positions so as to not reveal everything),” as well as

“soft-porn” ads, i.e. Hooters ads and other provocative photos, where he described, by pointing to various spots on the photographs, why those were the “bad/suggestive images” as opposed to the “good/innocent images” of, say, nudity on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (E-mail, August 4, 2010, quoted with permission.).

In fact, Father Loya, who was an artist at one time and admits to having spent several hours everyday for several years looking at naked people while rendering the human figure in art, guarantees that when anyone who is “sincerely searching to perceive the limitless principles of beauty in the human body and is furthermore ‘co-creating,’” there is “no room for lust.”

A true freedom in the Spirit, a true, lasting and integrated purity of heart comes not from “looking away” from the human body. Rather it is in learning to look “at” the human body with the eyes of God, with the deep soul of true Catholicism and the sacramental worldview.

We must never, ever look at pornography. But since we are immersed in a pornified world and surrounded by various degrees of soft porn our only way out is to fight fire with fire. We have to learn to see through the lens of the theology of the body. In terms of some practical advice I suggest a three part technique that I call, “see–pray–and pass on.”

Father Loya has also recommended, in more practical terms, how to implement this magical “three part” technique, with particular emphasis on the “see” part:

“Alright Look at her!! That’s right, look at her!! Look at her butt, her breasts, but don’t stop there. Look at every aspect of her magnificent femininity! Take her in completely and say, “How many are your works, O Lord, in wisdom you have made them all!” (Psalm 103).

Okay, ladies, are you now feeling uncomfortable riding the TOB train? Gentlemen, the chivalrous thing to do is to pull the emergency stop and then escort the ladies and yourselves off this ride to hell.
Both Alice Von Hildebrand and Dawn Eden have shown this approach to the question of concupiscence and modesty is foreign to Catholic tradition. In particular, Dawn Eden in her thesis shows how Christopher West and Father Loya have cloaked their own imaginative approach to modesty with the authority of John Paul II.
Mystomagic

In order to explain himself, Father Loya, makes an appeal to mysticism, an appeal which is more mystifying than it is enlightening. Father Loya claims that the Theology of the Body is “John Paul II reaching into the mystical foundation of reality.” Father Loya claims that mystical “means the most real.”

It means seeing things as they truly are as greater than the some of there parts as pointing to something beyond themselves. That’s reality people! Not what we live—until this weekend. We all become mystics.

Now, if this was being applied simply to our understanding of the nuptial meaning of the body, and to the exalted vision of the human person, of marriage and sexuality that is enshrined in the corpus of John Paul II’s Theology of the Body, then I would be right at Father Loya’s side. But in the above quote, he implies that the immersion of his listeners in his explanation of Theology of the Body is going to give them new eyes to see and with that new vision there will be “no room for lust.” It would seem to me that Father Loya is applying the mysticism of the Theology of the Body to the esoteric nature of the texts themselves. Elsewhere he writes:

The TOB, like all of John Paul’s thought, is dense and intellectual. But it is primarily mystical. And it’s this element that brings us to the “problem” of Christopher West and even the “problem” of the TOB itself.

This is precisely where popularizers like Christopher West and Father Loya have the average Catholic at a disadvantage. The highly intellectualized presentation of John Paul II is being sloughed off as mysticism. We are supposed to believe that because we have connected to these charismatic personalities who have become our channel to Theology of the Body—are they channeling John Paul II, perhaps?—that we have entered into the magical power of lust control. For five hundred years, according to Father Loya, we have been living in unreality. Now with the magical text of Theology of the Body, and with a wave of the hand of Father Loya over the rune covered pages, we see visions of holy naked bodies. Blessed be!
As this question continues to be discussed I hope the defenders of Christopher West take Alice Von Hildebrand’s remarks concerning the use of analogy very seriously. It is one thing to see in human sexuality a sign of things to come. That is a truly mystical approach. It is another thing for fallen men to rest in the beauty of the human body as though it were a mystical experience of God. That idea is not much different than the sex magic of Dan Brown, Aleister Crowley and Anton La Vey.
In any case, these popularizers simply are not clearly representing John Paul’s teaching. They are using his impenetrable philosophical language to push their own pet ideas.
Principle of Decency

The presentation of Father Loya at Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago was a Theology on Tap event, sponsored by the church’s young adults group. Unfortunately, the magisterium’s instructions on the passing on of sexual information to young people states that it should exclude all “material of an erotic nature.” This goes for information passed on to “children,” as well as to “young people of any age, individually or in a group.”
But it seems to me the principle of decency applies to all:

This principle of decency must safeguard the virtue of Christian chastity.

I don’t think this principle makes an exception for those who believe in magic.
In a particular way, the principle of decency applies to images, especially photographs and motion pictures. John Paul II indicates in the text of Theology of the Body that in photographs and film the image of the body is not “the model transfigured,” as it would be in the case of “the plastic arts, sculpture or painting,” but the “reproduction of the living man, minus his or her identity. Christopher West, unlike Father Loya, recognizes this:

A real danger exists of objectifying the naked body through artistic portrayal. John Paul describes this as the danger of anonymity, which is a way of “veiling” or “hiding” the identity of the person reproduced. Through photography in particular, the Pope observes that the body very often becomes an “anonymous” object, especially when the images of a person’s body are diffused on the screens of the whole world.

Perhaps Mr. West needs to speak to Father Loya about his website and travelling show and tell.
Orthodoxy and Orthopraxy

The Theology of the Body Institute is engaged in mystagogery disguised as orthodoxy and sentimental enthusiasm disguised as orthopraxy. According to “Katherine Blanchard, the Theology of the Body Institute’s director of development, the disagreement between the Institute and its critics

is really on a philosophical level, and we’re focusing on the practical application of the theology. We’ll let the academics work out the details and respect their conclusions. This is such an original message that there are always better ways to learn and teach about it. That’s what we’re here to do.

This is an obfuscation. This radically new approach to chastity formation, which suggests, as it does, that one may and should play fast and loose with the occasion of sin, is based on doctrinal sleight of hand. I am not sure which came first: playing fast and loose or the sleight of hand. My guess is that difficulties with concupiscence and conscience has lad some to use the Holy Father’s writings in a rationalistic way, in ways he never intended. Perhaps the “Spirit” of the Theology of the Body needs a good exorcism.

Leave a comment at Mary Victrix.

Alice von Hildebrand critiques Christopher West & credits my research

2010-07-21T22:43:00.013-04:00

[UPDATE, 8/25/10: If you are looking for my master's thesis, a critique of Christopher West's presentation of the theology of the body, it is now available as a free download from Catholic News Agency. See CNA's news story, or download the thesis directly as a PDF file.]

Dr. Alice von Hildebrand today published a essay critiquing Christopher West's presentation and style of catechesis against that of her late husband: "Dietrich von Hildebrand, Catholic Philosopher, and Christopher West, Modern Enthusiast: Two Very Different Approaches to Love, Marriage and Sex." She explains her motivations for writing the piece in an interview with Catholic News Agency.

Her courage, charity, and love of truth are a great inspiration to me, and I was honored to be among those whom she consulted while researching her essay. She writes in her acknowledgments at the end of the piece: "Dawn Eden also deserves notable mention: her in-depth knowledge of the work of Christopher West has been crucial to me. Through her scholarship, I made the acquaintance of several texts I had not read. I owe her a special thanks."

The scholarship to which Dr. von Hildebrand refers is my master's thesis, "Towards a 'Climate of Chastity': Bringing Catechesis on the Theology of the Body into the Hermeneutic of Continuity." My thesis defense, which encapsulates the major points of the 81-page paper, is available online.

If you would like to read the thesis itself, it is available as an eBook (PDF file) free of charge for priests, deacons, seminarians, and lay catechists who work in an official capacity for the Church (e.g. for a parish, diocese, or religious order). Those who qualify for a free copy are invited to write to request one to be sent by e-mail.

Others who would like to read my thesis are asked to donate $10 or more to a fund I have created to finance my studies towards a doctorate in sacred theology. Click here to donate, and I will e-mail it to you.

If you would like to read additional commentary on the theology of the body and Christopher West's interpretation of it, I highly recommend the writings of Father Angelo Mary Geiger F.I., who was likewise acknowledged by Dr. von Hildebrand in her essay.

Also available online are my recent Headline Bistro articles drawing upon my thesis to counter popular misinterpretations of the TOB: "Things the Holy Father Never Taught Me" and "Things the Holy Father Never Taught Me, Part 2."

Praise from Perth

2010-06-21T23:25:00.006-04:00

Dear Dawn,

Thank you so very much for sending me your work ["Towards a 'Climate of Chastity': Bringing Catechesis on the Theology of the Body into the Hermeneutic of Continuity"]. I've read it twice over this last weekend. This is fantastic stuff.

You write very well and have clarified a number of things that I was concerned about when I began reading Christopher West's work about five years ago.

I’ve since read both Love and Responsibility and the Waldstein translation of the Wednesday audience catecheses and found a certain incongruence with West's articulation and what our late, Great Pope was saying but, I was unable to articulate it in such fashion as you have here.

I am very thankful for what you have done as it has given me a language to aid me in forming the young people that I work with. This is greatly needed as we often use West’s DVD and audio resources here in our catechesis, and I have been looking for a way to articulate to the perhaps lesser informed the different nuances that exist within the TOB.

Thanks again and God bless you in your work.

Ave Maria!

Tom Gourlay

For more information about my master's thesis, including the text of my thesis defense, scroll down or click here.

My revised master's thesis on Christopher West's TOB is now available

2010-06-11T10:37:00.028-04:00

[UPDATE, 8/25/10: Since writing the following entry, I have made my thesis available as a free download from Catholic News Agency. See CNA's news story, or download the thesis directly as a PDF file.]

Today, in response to requests, I am making a revised edition of my master's thesis available as an eBook, as a gift to those who donate to support my doctoral studies. At the same time, it is available for free to priests, deacons, seminarians, and lay catechists who work in an official capacity for the Church (e.g. for a parish, diocese, or religious order).

It is titled "Towards a 'Climate of Chastity': Bringing Catechesis on the Theology of the Body into the Hermeneutic of Continuity." (I had made it available briefly before, but decided to pull it until after making my defense, so that I might revise it to incorporate the official readers' suggestions.)

The 81-page, heavily footnoted thesis is a critique of Christopher West's presentation that reveals the substance behind recent criticisms of his approach, contains new information (including how the Consilium charged with revising the liturgy after Vatican II effectively anathematized the Jungian phallic interpretation of the Easter Candle ritual), and makes positive suggestions for improving instruction on the TOB.

Those who qualify for a free copy of my thesis are invited to write to request one to be sent by e-mail. Others who would like to read it are asked to donate $10 or more to a fund I have created to finance my studies towards a doctorate in sacred theology. Click here to donate, and I will e-mail you the eBook (PDF file).

(Some requests for free copies have come in from people who do not work for the Church, but are "starving students." I ask them to consider prayerfully the possibility of aiding this "starving student"'s education by donating the cost of a pizza in exchange for her hard work.)

I greatly appreciate the support of those who read this blog during the years when I maintained it, and of all who have encouraged me in my studies. Your prayers and encouragement keep me going as I begin the long road towards a doctorate and, Deo volente, my further goal of teaching at a small Catholic college.

Following is the speech that I delivered when defending my master's thesis at the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception at Dominican House of Studies, Washington, D.C., on May 19, 2010:

Good evening. I am here tonight to defend my master's thesis, which is a critique of Christopher West's presentation of Pope John Paul II's theology of the body. By "Christopher West's presentation," I mean not only his own personal presentation, but also, more generally, the presentation he promotes through the Theology of the Body Institute, which trains priests and lay catechists to teach his particular interpretation of John Paul II.

I chose this topic, first, because the issues it encompasses—the promotion of the Catholic vision of marriage and family—are close to my heart, and second, because it is highly topical, given that West's presentation has recently been the subject of public debate among theologians.

In fact, after I completed my thesis, the subject became even more topical with West's unexpected announcement at the end of March that he was taking a six-month sabbatical, effective immediately. The Theology of the Body Institute, which is the nonprofit created to promote his presentation of the theology of the body, stated that West was taking this leave "to attend to family needs, and to reflect more deeply on fraternal and spiritual guidance he has received in order to continue developing his methodology and praxis as it relates to the promulgation of the Theology of the Body."

This is noteworthy because it marks the first time West has ever publicly affirmed a willingness to reflect upon his presentation, something that his critics have asked of him for nearly ten years.

My thesis is titled, "Towards a 'Climate of Chastity': Bringing Catechesis on the Theology of the Body into the Hermeneutic of Continuity."

The first half of the title, "Towards a 'Climate of Chastity,'" is a reference to Humanae Vitae. In that encyclical, Pope Paul VI called attention to "the need to create an atmosphere favorable to the growth of chastity so that true liberty may prevail over license and the norms of the moral law may be fully safeguarded." That passage was a key text for John Paul II in his Wednesday catecheses on the theology of the body.

The second half of the title, "Bringing Catechesis on the Theology of the Body into the Hermeneutic of Continuity," refers to a central point of my thesis. Christopher West asserts that the theology of the body is "revolutionary" because "previous generations of Christians" grew up under the burden of a "repressive approach" to sexual issues. His intention is to counter a popular myth—the idea that the Church is, as he puts it, "down on sex." However, in countering the one myth, he inadvertently fuels another—the idea that, in the wake of Vatican II, we are "building a new Church," a Church that is fundamentally different from that which preceded it. His praise on Pope John Paul II is predicated on the repeated assumption, sometimes explicit, that the preconciliar Church was stodgy and prudish. While he no doubt intends to promote charity and unity, his approach effectively encourages division and disdain for our past.

That is why I argue that his presentation on theology of the body needs to be reconciled with the "hermeneutic of continuity." That expression is drawn from the 1985 Extraordinary Synod of Bishops, which stressed that the Second Vatican Council "must be understood in continuity with the great tradition of the church, and at the same time we must receive light from the Council's own doctrine for today's Church and the men of our time. The Church is one and the same throughout all the councils."

Having said that, the very use of the words "hermeneutic of continuity" in my thesis title reflects a paradox inherent in applying theological analysis to popular catechesis and apologetics. West himself almost never resorts to language as obscure to non-theologians as "hermeneutic of continuity." He directs his words to the ordinary people in the pews. The one who dares to critique him on an academic level risks pretentiousness or even self-parody--like the Times of London music critic who praised a song from the Beatles' first album for its "Aeolian cadence."

Nonetheless, I am willing to take that risk, because Christopher West does not present himself as a mere apologist, seeding the ground for faith via rational arguments. Nor does he present himself as merely engaging in catechesis, which, as the Holy See has stated, consists of "transmitting the Gospel, as the Christian community has received it, understands it, celebrates it, lives it and communicates it in many ways." Rather, Christopher West presents himself as the definitive interpreter of teachings of John Paul II—teachings which, as I will explain shortly, he claims "will lead to a dramatic development of thinking about the Creed." He is essaying apologetics and catechesis and theology itself. As such, his approach merits serious critical analysis by theologians—especially in light of its overwhelming popularity.

Along with West's undeniable talent as an author and speaker, there is an element of marketing genius at work. As I noted, he presents himself as the definitive interpreter of Pope John Paul II's theology of the body. Until last year, when his then-ordinary Bishop Kevin Rhoades and Cardinal Rigali issued a public endorsement of his work, the main evidence that he offered for his teaching authority was that he was fulfilling an imperative laid out by George Weigel in his 1999 biography of John Paul II, Witness to Hope.

Weigel wrote that the theology of the body was a "theological time-bomb set to go off with dramatic consequences ... perhaps in the twenty-first century." He added, "John Paul's portrait of sexual love as an icon of the interior life of God has barely begun to shape the Church's theology, preaching, and religious education. When it does it will compel a dramatic development of thinking about virtually every major theme in the Creed."

From the start of his public career, Christopher West has marketed himself as carrying out this mandate. One sees this most recently in the promotional material for the upcoming TOB Congress sponsored by the Theology of the Body Institute, which was formed to promote West's presentation. The promotional material states that the conference is "building on the words of papal biographer George Weigel—that this teaching 'will affect every major theme of the Creed.'" The congress's workshops are structured around that same premise; the one on catechesis is actually titled, "Catechesis and the Creed in Light of the Theology of the Body." The overriding implication in that title—and with West's entire presentation—is that that the Creed is something to be viewed in light of the theology of the body, rather than vice versa.

Having explained why Christopher West's presentation of the theology of the body merits a theological critique, I will now summarize my thesis.

Chapter One begins with some biographical background on West. As mentioned, a foundational point of his presentation of the theology of the body is that John Paul II's teachings are "revolutionary" because "previous generations of Christians" grew up under the burden of a "repressive approach" to sexual issues. Because he uses his own experiences to support this point, it is relevant here to explore those aspects of his upbringing that informed his understanding of the attitudes he believes are ingrained in "most Christians."

West's understanding of what constitutes a normative Catholic upbringing may be shaped from his experiences during his late teens and early 20s living with his family in the Mother of God Community, a Catholic community in Gaithersburg, Maryland. At that time, during the late 1980s and early 1990s, the community's leaders exercised puritanical control over members' lives—including their dating. Eventually, in 1995, James Cardinal Hickey, the Archbishop of Washington, would order reforms to the community to correct its abuses of power. But those changes came too late for West, who, during his time in the community, was subject to its strict rules.

Christopher West told the Washington Post that, after spending years living in the community and submitting to its leaders' control of his social contacts, his work, and his studies, he realized, "It's a cult. I've been living in a cult."

Now, one certainly doesn't have to grow up in a cult to appreciate the dangers of a puritanical approach to sexuality. However, I have found in my research that West's experiences in the Mother of God Community appear to come into play in his interpretation of John Paul II's teachings on continence. I will return to this point when I describe the particulars of West's presentation.

The rest of Chapter One is taken up with a list I compiled, comprising ten major themes of West's presentation of the theology of the body. In Chapter Two, I examine the criticisms that his presentation has engendered, as well as his responses to those criticisms, and add my own critique. I conclude my critique in Chapter Three, identifying the aspects of West's presentation that I believe are in most serious need of modification, and recommending specific positive correctives.

I will now briefly list the ten major themes of West's presentation that I identify in Chapter One:

1. The TOB is an all-encompassing theology that requires theologians and religious educators to recontextualize "everything" about Christian faith and life.West says, "Indeed, a 'holy fascination' with our bodies as male and female is precisely the key that opens the holy door to the divine bridal chamber, allowing us to experience what the mystics call 'nuptial union' with God." He also says, "Sex plunges us headfirst into the Christian mystery."

2. The "sexual revolution" was a "happy fault." West praises the sexual revolution because, as a reaction against generations of repression and prudery, it "got us talking about our hunger." What Pope John Paul II did was redirect the discussion in the right direction. So, West says, "The Church looks at the sin of Adam and proclaims, 'Oh happy fault that won for us so great a redeemer.' We can look at the error of the sexual revolution and say 'Oh happy fault that has won for us so great a theology of the body.'"

3. "Dumpster" vs. "banquet." West likens using pornography to eating out of a "Dumpster," whereas the joys of sex according to the theology of the body is the "banquet." West says, "Why was [Playboy magazine founder] Hugh Hefner a successful 'evangelist'?" West asks. "Because eating fast food is a lot better than starving to death." Whereas Hefner was "just going to the wrong menu to feed the hungry," the TOB offers "the banquet of love that truly satisfies."

4. The nuptial analogy is the primary means by which the faithful should understand their relationship to God—and "nuptial" is to be envisioned in sexual terms. This leads to—

5. "[T]he whole reality of the Church's prayer and sacramental-liturgical life is modeled on the union of spouses." In participating in the liturgy, "we are called to deep, intimate, ecstatic joys with Christ the bridegroom." The faithful who "have eyes to see" are called to be "inebriated," getting "drunk in the Spirit" on the "new wine" of the "wedding feast of the Lamb." "In this 'blessed death' of holy intoxication, sexual desire passes-over [sic] from lust to an immeasurable love."

In this regard, West says that the Paschal Candle is intended to be a phallic symbol. I write, later in my thesis, that I was unable to find any source for this in Tradition. Since completing my thesis, I have found evidence that this interpretation is of secular origin and was condemned by the fathers of the Second Vatican Council. [N.B. Since making my defense, I've been corrected on this: It was the Consilium, which was charged by the Council Fathers with revising the Easter Vigil liturgy, that effectively anathematized the Jungian phallic interpretation of the candle immersion. The revised edition of my thesis that I have made available contains background on the Consilium's response to the Paschal Candle "phallacy," which was motivated not by prudery, but, rather, by theological considerations.]

6. "The joy of sex—in all its orgasmic grandeur—is meant to be a foretaste in some way of the joys of heaven."

7. "God created sexual desire as the power to love as he loves."

8. "Mature purity" enables "liberation from concupiscence." I will have more to say about this assertion shortly.

9. "The Song of Songs is of great importance to a proper understanding of Christianity." It shows "[h]ow we come to see the sexual embrace, the deep intimate erotic love of husband and wife, as a passageway into deep transforming intimate union with God."

10. The meaning of marriage is encapsulated in "intercourse."

These themes, taken in their entirety, imply that God's spousal love for His Church should be envisioned by the faithful in an explicitly sexual manner.

Now, there are certain elements of truth in these interpretations that cannot be ignored. To use a favorite phrase of John Paul II—"in a certain sense"—the liturgy is spousal. Likewise, in a certain sense, the sexual union of spouses may be said to image Trinitarian love. If West's theology stopped there, one could enter into discussion with him over the extent to which, in this day and age, it benefits the faithful to have explicitly sexual imagery introduced into their prayer life. One could also discuss how, in comparing the sexual union of spouses to the beatific vision, one might avoid the risk of either overselling sexual pleasure, or underselling heaven.

The problem, as I see it, is that West doesn't stop there. He believes that the true message of John Paul II's theology of the body is that sexual desire necessarily mediates desire for God.

The key word here is "necessarily." I am not denying that sexual desire can mediate desire for God. For West, however, there is no other way. This is why University of Dallas Professor Mark Lowery, back in November 2001, wrote in the National Catholic Register that, while West's intention clearly was to convey the truths of the faith, "his overarching lens or perspective" led to "the lurking danger of conveying that Christianity really is all about sex." In other words, as Lowery put it, instead of Christianizing sexuality, West risked "sexualizing Christianity."

The implication that sexual desire necessarily mediates desire for God is an undercurrent throughout West's oeuvre. One sees it particularly in his repeated insistence that every opportunity to sublimate sexual desire is an opportunity for holiness. I cover this in detail in my thesis. The Church has traditionally stated that chastity education should include instruction on avoiding occasions of sin. West states, by contrast, that mature purity is found only in those who are willing to "risk" concupiscence so that they might reap the benefits of "union with Christ and his Church." By "risking," he means specifically that men who struggle with lust should practice looking at beautiful women so that they might learn to raise their thoughts and feelings from lust, to joy at encountering the image of God in female beauty.

Now, borrowing a page from West himself—who is known for quoting classic rock songs in his talks—I would call this the Harry Nilsson approach to overcoming lust. Nilsson wrote and sang the hit song "Coconut," in which a woman puts the lime in the coconut, drinks them both up, and then calls the doctor to complain of a bellyache. The doctor's prescription is to put the lime in the coconut and drink them both up. The cause is the cure. So it is with Christopher West's prescription for men who lust after beautiful women: Look at beautiful women.

West's implication that sexual desire necessarily mediates desire for God also appears clearly in Heaven's Song, his 2007 book that is directed primarily toward aiding the reader's "sexual healing and integration." There, West insists "sexual love is the earthly key that enables us to enter into heaven's song." He elaborates, "[T] he road to holiness passes by way of sexual healing and integration. The way we understand our bodies and the union of man and woman has a direct bearing with the way we understand Christ's body and his union with the Church. Hence, if we are to enter in to proper union with Christ and his Church, the diseased images and ideas we have about our own bodies and sexual union must be healed. It can be a long and painful journey—and there is no detour."

What concerns me is West's insistence that the "long and painful journey" of sexual healing and integration has to precede holiness. As Mark Lowery noted back in 2001, sexual healing comes from grace—not the other way around.

Moreover, in a point also made by Lowery, grace does not always heal us of everything from which we would like to be healed. It is not a zero-sum game. Self-control is possible with the gift of the Holy Spirit, but, as Paul learned, God does not remove every thorn in the flesh.

A major concern of my thesis is the divergence between West's presentation and John Paul II's teachings with regard to continence. I mentioned earlier that West says mature purity is found only in those who are willing to "risk" concupiscence so that they might reap the benefits of "union with Christ and his Church." To underscore the importance of taking this "risk," he attacks the notion that an engaged couple wishing to stay chaste should "never spend any extended time alone together."

Now, the concern that engaged couples may be too chaste seems anachronistic in the wake of the sexual revolution. But remember that West spent his late teens and early 20s living in a community where engaged couples were in fact barred from spending time alone together. So this is a very real concern for him, and he is understandably eager to point out that Catholic teaching permits individuals a certain amount of latitude to responsibly exercise their freedom.

Unfortunately, in his desire to counter puritanical attitudes, West ends up promoting an ideal that has the net effect of promoting puritanism. I discuss this in detail in my thesis, and explain how it is based upon a misinterpretation of both John Paul II and St. Thomas, whose theology is the basis for John Paul's discussion of the virtue of continence. Essentially, West says that not only must an engaged couple be continent, they must possess the virtue of perfect chastity prior to marriage. That is, they should have no fear of being alone together, because they should have no lust for one another. West said in a talk just last year that an engaged couple who are merely continent cannot be called virtuous because "[t]here is no magic trick on the wedding day that suddenly makes what you do that night an act of love. If you could not be alone together the day before you got married and not sin, there is no magic trick, there is no waving at the wand at the altar, that suddenly makes your sexual behavior beautiful, true, good, lovely, and pure."

What is wrong with this picture? As I explain in my thesis, what is wrong is, (A) the implication that continence is an insufficient preparation for marriage, and (B) the claim that the sacrament of marriage in no way affects the development of virtue. In fact, the Church does not expect perfect chastity of couples before marriage, precisely because she recognizes that the grace of marriage is what enables couples to transform their imperfect virtue of continence to the perfect virtue of chastity. All that is required of an engaged couple is that they control themselves "in holiness and honor," as St. Paul writes in First Thessalonians.

By raising the bar so high, to the point where any feeling of lust is proof that one is not ready for marriage, West is effectively promoting the very angelism that he decries. In an age when Catholics—along with singles in general—are marrying later and later, such a misinterpretation of Church teaching has real pastoral implications. I see them when speaking on chastity to young adults. Twice when I have spoken in Manhattan, someone in the audience has asked me, "Why are Catholics in New York City so afraid of dating?"

I was last asked that when I spoke at Columbia University in March. The questioner added, "Catholics here in the city think that they can't date before marriage—they can only be friends. And these are Catholics who know the theology of the body."

Young Catholics who are told that they are not ready to marry until they have not only continence, but perfect chastity, are simply avoiding the rituals of courtship. I have since discussed this problem with others, including a priest who is a vocations director, and am confirmed that it is a genuine pastoral issue.

Towards the conclusion of my thesis, in suggesting positive correctives to West's presentation of the theology of the body, I emphasize the need for catechists to incorporate into the theology of the body the Church's teachings on suffering. Pope John Paul II himself said, in his final Wednesday address on the theology of the body, that catechesis on the topic would not be complete without addressing "the problem of suffering and death." If catechists do not account for this—if they present a vision of married life that is all about couples' sharing in Trinitarian communion, without articulating how they also share in Christ's sufferings on the Cross—then their words will be like those in the parable of the sower, that fall on rocky ground. As Our Lord said, "Those on rocky ground are the ones who, when they hear, receive the word with joy, but they have no root; they believe only for a time and fall away in time of trial."

I think it is significant that in 1984, the same year he would complete his catechesis on the theology of the body, John Paul produced his great Apostolic Letter Salvifici Doloris, "On the Christian Meaning of Human Suffering." In that encyclical, he wrote, "The eloquence of the parable of the Good Samaritan, and of the whole Gospel, is especially this: every individual must feel as if called personally to bear witness to love in suffering." It is the task of the catechist to seek out the connection between that witness to love mandated by Salvifici Doloris and the witness to love mandated by the theology of the body.

Would you like to read my entire thesis? See the "Download" link at the end of CNA's news story on it, or just click here to download the thesis directly as a PDF file.

Grace odyssey

2010-04-06T21:50:00.018-04:00

Although I'm still officially on hiatus from blogging, I would like to thank those of you who still check on this page and who pray for me, and let you know how my graduate studies are going.

I am overjoyed to report that not only am I set to graduate Dominican House of Studies, with an M.A. in theology in May, but I will also be entering the moral theology PhD program at the Catholic University of America in the fall.

[Update, 8/1/10: Since writing this post, I have decided, rather than entering CUA's program, to take the longer and more arduous track towards a pontifical degree (Sacred Theology Doctorate). Doing so will enable me to remain in the Thomist tradition that I grew to love through studying at the Dominican-run Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception at Dominican House of Studies. So I am returning to Dominican House in the fall to begin studies towards a licentiate in sacred theology (a necessary prerequisite for a pontifical doctorate), and hope to transfer to the University of Fribourg for the doctorate.]

It is hard to describe how it feels to have gone from being a rock journalist whose crowning achievements included conducting the last interview with Harry Nilsson, to being a graduate student in theology whose crowning achievements include a 70-page thesis titled "Towards a Climate of Chastity: Bringing Catechesis on the Theology of the Body into the Hermeneutic of Continuity."

When I was younger, lacking faith and suffering from depression, life seemed to progress painfully slowly. Now that I am over 40 and have survived cancer, it goes by so quickly that I can hardly catch my breath. When I do pause to think about all the things God has done in my life, what strikes me is how He has loved me through other people.

I think of the Australian psychology professor, Dr. Peter Birrell, who rang me up from Sydney after being impressed by an article I had written about my book The Thrill of the Chaste came out. At that time, I was still working as an editor and occasional writer for the New York Daily News. After some conversation, Dr. Birrell, who is Catholic, told me that, with my facility for language, I could learn to read Aquinas in the original Latin.

Newspaper journalists—not to mention chastity authors—do not receive compliments like that often.

I remember my response, because it was automatic and surprised even me. "I'd like to read Aquinas in the original Latin."

It came back to me today when I received my Latin midterm back—a translation of St. Thomas's sermon Ecce rex—the grade being an official confirmation of the doctor's prophecy. Dr. Birrell believed in me, and it is through his faith and encouragement, as well as that of my family and others I am blessed to know, that I have been able to achieve what I never imagined I would achieve.

Also coming to mind today, and just about every day, is Father Francis Canavan S.J., my beloved friend and mentor who, before passing away just over a year ago, urged me to continue my studies so that I might one day be a professor at a small Catholic college. I still miss him dearly, to the point of tears, and wish I could phone him to tell him the news of my acceptance into CUA.

There is much more that I would like to write, especially about how blessed I am to know the students and faculty at Dominican House, but I must get sleep for class tomorrow. If you are among those readers who have prayed for me, please know that I am very, very grateful.

A few quick notes:

As mentioned in my previous post, I would still like to make good on my promise to send a free copy of my book to any Catholic priests, seminarians, or religious who would like one. If you requested one and I did not follow through, or if you have never requested one and would like one, please write me via my feedback form.
A friend has suggested I post a link for anyone who might be moved to donate to help support me in my education. So, if you are so moved, here is a link to donate online, or you can write me at P.O. Box 57449, Washington, DC 20037.
If you would rather donate to a real charity, my favorite is BeyondMorningSickness.com, an apostolate of author Ashli McCall, whose book Beyond Morning Sickness is a lifesaver for pregnant women who suffer from hyperemesis gravidarum. BMS is technically not a nonprofit, but it's not a moneymaker either; Ashli sends a free copy of her book to anyone who requests one. Read the article I wrote about her or watch her on CNN.
I still give talks from time to time. For the latest tour dates, see my home page or the Appearances page at thrillofthechaste.com.

Au revoir, mes amis

2009-07-21T00:02:00.002-04:00

With a heart full of gratitude to the many people who have enriched my life over the past seven and a half years while I have maintained this blog, I am going on indefinite hiatus from blogging, effective now.

I have taken blog vacations before, but intend this one to be much longer -- for good, I hope.

When I started The Dawn Patrol in February 2002, it was with the goals of furthering my writing career and becoming a more social creature. With much thanks to readers, I have accomplished both goals beyond my wildest dreams, but now find myself at the point of diminishing returns.

Where writing is concerned, although I continue to freelance and would love to pen a second book if given the opportunity, right now I need to focus on my master's thesis. (I am preparing to enter my second year of M.A. studies and intend to earn a PhD, with the goal of becoming a moral-theology professor at a small Catholic college.) As far as being more social, although my blog continues to bring me into contact with wonderful people, the time I spend online now eats up my life to the point where I cannot well maintain the friendships I have -- let alone build new ones.

To be honest, I have suffered from an Internet addiction for the past several years. Just as there is no such thing for an alcoholic as "one drink," there is no such thing for me as a quick e-mail check and a perusal of the day's online headlines. If I sit down at the computer, I remain glued to it for hours on end. I might excuse myself by telling myself I am reading about important world events or doing research for school. But the truth is that I allow myself to be distracted by whatever comes to mind while I am at the computer, to the point where it becomes a self-medication for loneliness and boredom. And why do I become lonely and bored? Because I waste so much time on the Internet, of course.

St. Thomas Aquinas had a word for this vice that causes one to fail to moderate one's quest for knowledge: curiositas. With all the years of my life that I have spent in online curiositas, I have precious little wisdom to show for it.

There is no guarantee that forgoing blogging will make me become a better student, writer, or friend, but it will make it harder for me to excuse my spending so much time in the virtual world.

* * *

Although the topic has yet to be refined, the current plan for my master's thesis is to compare and contrast modern-day popular catechesis on marriage and sex with preconciliar popular catechesis on those topics. Although I expect to find ways in which modern-day catechists do a better job of explaining what the Church has always believed, my goal is to highlight pre-Vatican II approaches that are worth recovering.

For the preconciliar part of my research, I am using as a model the writings of Father Daniel A. Lord S.J. (1888-1955), particularly those from the collection of his works that is kept in the Special Collections section of the Georgetown University Library.

The Father Lord collection consists of 41 linear feet of material in 30 file boxes. Although it includes photographs and other memorabilia, more than 90 percent of it is Lord's manuscripts, published works, and letters. Even that is but a small fraction of his writings, especially given his prodigious correspondence. The Rev. Godfrey Poage C.P., who worked for Lord's Summer School of Catholic Action, later wrote of him:

In the five summers I spent with him I could not begin to calculate the number of letters he wrote. I recall how once he worked all day on letters as we travelled together across the country in a Pullman. At the station I mailed about forty letters for him and thought he was through for the day. Later that evening he came to my hotel room and inquired: "Do you know where there is a mailbox?" In his hand were seventeen more letters.

Lord's output included some 300 pamphlets, scores of books, and dozens of stage shows, including large-scale musicals whose casts numbered in the hundreds. As Father Poage observed, he often wrote them on the road, taking his typewriter on trains as he traveled the United States and beyond, giving talks and retreats. Sometimes he included his railroad mise-en-scene in his writings, as with the pamphlet "Man says -- 'If I Were God ...", composed June 1940:

As I write these lines, the Pennsylvania train is carrying me through the splendid valleys that lie between Pittsburgh and Harrisburg. They are so glorious I find it hard to keep my mind on the work in the typewriter before me. A variegated flow of glorious countryside rushes by my Pullman window: green, warmly clear, friendly hills that rise above foamy streams; farms that alternate ploughed fields with vineyards and the bright beauty of springtime orchards, mountains so rich in minerals that men are endlessly digging up the coal and steel ore that make possible the train I ride, clay pits from which are fashioned bricks and china for the bride’s wedding table, man-made canyons rendering unlimited-supplies of building material; little green and blue lakes that furnish prosperous cities with cool, clear, refreshing water.

Just a moment ago we swung around the famous Horseshoe Curve outside Altoona and, though I have seen it a score of times, I had to stop typing long enough to drink in the beauties that the gracious Creator has laid as surface drape over the rich resources stored away in the earth for the needs and luxuries of His children.

I shudder to think how many fewer boxes would be in Georgetown's Daniel A. Lord collection, had the author lived at a time when he could take a laptop on a train equipped with wi-fi.

* * *

There is one reason for forgoing blogging that I have not mentioned. I believe that, as a student of theology, and as one who hopes to become a better witness for the Faith, it will help me to become less involved in the day-to-day dialogue about "inside Catholic" issues whose importance becomes magnified out of proportion within the blogosphere's insular walls.

Last week, at the Envoy Institute Catholic apologetics conference, I was approached by a young man who told me he had been raised Catholic but was now attending a nondenominational Protestant church. He said he got a feeling out of the Protestant services that was greater than anything he had felt at a Catholic Mass.

"But you realize," I said, " that at the Catholic Mass, Jesus is really and truly present on the altar?"

I expected an argument. Perhaps the man would say, "He's present at my church just as much as He is in the Mass."

But he didn't. He looked at me innocently and said, "No. I didn't know that."

I told him what I could, and urged him to ask one of the priests present at the conference what was really happening during the Mass. He did end up speaking to a priest there -- for about nine hours, I am told, praise God.

The experience left me thinking that perhaps it was time to reorient myself towards learning how to explain the Church's deepest and most basic truths -- and spend less effort writing about things that, while perhaps important, are essentially tangential.

This is, again, something I am learning from Father Lord. Many of his writings, as well as the wonderful audio recording of a sermon he gave shortly before his death, stress the importance of giving people a principle of return. However necessary it is to communicate the Church's teachings regarding the way one should live, I see more and more that the most important thing to share is how to get back to God if one has fled from His arms.

* * *

There are many other things I would like to write, but I need to finish typing in time to get some sleep, and I want to put this behind me so that I may no longer feel a responsibility to blog.

Many, many thanks to everyone who has read this blog, and especially those who have prayed for me. You have done more for me than I could ever express. Everyone who reads this blog has been, and will continue to be, in my prayers. I am forever grateful for your prayers, and for the feedback and encouragement you have given me over the years.

I continue to give talks from time to time, and from now on will update dawneden.com and thrillofthechaste.com with upcoming dates. (The dawneden.com page is updated more frequently, as I update it myself, while thrillofthechaste.com is maintained by a friend.)

With my newfound time, I would like to make more flesh-and-blood friends, as opposed to virtual "Facebook friends." If you are in the Washington, D.C., area and would like to meet, contact me via my feedback form.

I also remain in hope of marriage. My feelings about this have not changed since I wrote an essay on the subject a few years ago. Since writing that piece, I have been encouraged by Father Peter Ryan S.J.'s article on discerning the elements of one's personal vocation. Father Ryan stresses that, while we are all called to holiness, God does not require us to succeed in our calling. What He does ask is that we put our best efforts into whatever He calls us to do. For me, this is a great comfort, because it answers the question of how one can believe one is called to marriage, and yet perhaps never achieve marriage. It is not a issue of "missing one's vocation," as some would have it. It is, in fact, living out one's vocation to strive, and giving God the sacrifice of accepting His mercy.

One last note: Last year, I offered a free copy of The Thrill of the Chaste to any Catholic priest, deacon, seminarian, or vowed religious who requested one. However, I failed to fulfill all the requests. If you requested a copy then and did not receive it, please let me know and I will remedy the error.

Lying in the hands of GodA guest post by DANIEL T. LUKASIK, Esq.

2009-07-21T00:01:00.001-04:00

Growing up in a Polish-Catholic home, I was more of a cultural Catholic than a church going sort. But, my alcoholic father would make us go with him sometimes. I think it gave him a sense of normalcy; a feeling that he could be with other people without throwing down shots of Jack Daniels at a local watering hole. Only later did I develop any real sense of my own spiritual search. I’m still on that journey. I often don’t know “where” I am going, but I am still walking.

All religions have a lot to say on the topic of suffering, but not so much on the topic of depression. I guess you could say that depression is a “form” of suffering. Personally, I think that doesn’t cut it. When someone says to me, “Well, everyone suffers,” I walk away misunderstood and feeling the worse for the encounter. Maybe there’s not much dialogue about depression in our churches because of the raw fear that faith can’t fix everything.

When I first became sick, I didn’t know I had “depression.” I just thought I was having one of life’s many existential emergencies. I would kneel and pray that God would take away my pain. But, it simply didn’t happen that way. Sometimes, I would God an ultimatum: “You either take away this damn pain, or I’m turning my back on you fella.”

I demanded “a” solution, an answer. One wasn’t forthcoming.

As time went on, something happened. I stopped trying to dictate so many of the terms of my recovery from depression. Instead, I just began to surrender myself. I began to see that God was bigger than my depression. It didn’t mean that I wouldn’t suffer now or in the future from it. But a light appeared in the cracks in depression’s armor. There’s a sense of joyous relief that comes when we stop the war against depression. We lay our burden down.

In the new album by the Dave Matthews Band, Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King, there’s a beautiful song [listen now] called "Lying in the Hands of God." In one part, Dave sings: “If you feel the angels in your head. Teardrop of Joy runs down your face. You will rise.”

At my best, when I feel “the angels in my head,” I weep with joy knowing that depression doesn’t have the final say in my life. Yes, there will be times when I suffer from it. But it doesn’t last.

In her article written for my Web site Lawyerswithdepression.com, Sister Kathryn James Hermes (who suffers from depression), author of A Contemplative Approach to Depression, wrote that prayer leads us to “. . . vulnerability – the learned powerlessness of the truly powerful who can simply be: simply wait, simply be present, simply wonder, simply trust, that much larger hands are holding us and knows for whom we work in view of a much larger plan that we cannot as yet understand.”

Depression is often a jumble of disjointed thoughts. We don’t know what we want or desire and even if we did, we don’t have the will or energy to take that first step towards these goals. But just as our thoughts are jumbled, so is our will –the precious spark of spirit that God blew into us the day we were conceived. It is still there beneath the rumble of our melancholy. We need to turn away from the voice of depression and towards the desire within us that seeks God mercy and direction. Thomas Merton, that great voice of contemplative monasticism, captures better than I can this aspiration in his prayer:

“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.

"But I believe that my desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope that I have that desire in all I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from this desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I know nothing about it.

"Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.”

Tune out the drumbeat of depression today. We don’t have to understand or control it all. Try lying in the hands of God awhile and rise.

Visit Daniel T. Lukasik's Lawyerswithdepression.com and his blog.

Did Sotomayor perjure herself?

2009-07-17T08:24:00.002-04:00

That's the question Jill Stanek is asking, in an entry that draws upon my liveblogging.

Comments closed; leave a comment at Jill's blog.

Liveblogging the Sotomayor hearings -- Day 4

2009-07-16T11:10:00.005-04:00

I am continuing to liveblog the Sotomayor hearings for my employer. She made a bombshell admission today, saying she was aware of the abortion advocacy of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, on whose board she sat for twelve years. See my coverage on the AUL Blog.

Comments closed; comment on the AUL Blog.

Liveblogging the Sotomayor hearings -- Day 3

2009-07-15T13:20:00.003-04:00

Visit the AUL Blog to see my continuous liveblogging of the Sotomayor confirmation hearings.

Comments closed; leave a comment on the AUL Blog.

More murder by Swiss euthanasia groupA guest post by WILLIAM NEWTON

2009-07-14T21:37:00.003-04:00

Reprinted with permission from William Newton's Blog of the Courtier:

I previously wrote about the so-called Schwerzenbach Clinic run by the euthanasia group Dignitas and their horrific practices. Today it has been reported that prestigious conductor Sir Edward Downes, who worked with the Royal Opera House Covent Garden and the Sydney Opera House among other classical music institutions, was killed by Dignitas at this clinic, along with his wife Joan. News reports indicate that Sir Edward, who was 85 years old, was nearly blind and losing his hearing while his wife was 74 years old and suffering from cancer. Their family, in a statement released to the press, appear to accept the decision of the couple to have themselves killed. London's Metropolitan Police are investigating the deaths, but British law does not, apparently, allow them to do much about the situation.

This is yet another sad example of the neo-pagan culture of death in which we have found ourselves. Two intelligent, accomplished people, who are suffering to some degree, decide to take a road to destruction with the help of those who are all too willing to oblige, for a fee. Today, the actions of groups like Dignitas are increasingly treated, not as the crime which they are, but rather a statement about personal choice and preference to the point of absurdity, as if one were selecting between different types of melon at the supermarket.

The creep of nihilism and selfishness into our culture continues unabated, and to what logical end no one can authoritatively say. As the Church teaches, those who decide to commit suicide, assisted or not, are very often so emotionally distressed that we must rely on God's mercy with respect to the fate of their immortal souls. However, this does not mean that we should sit back and allow a group such as Dignitas, which makes a mockery of the very concept of dignity, to run unchecked. I hope that parliamentarians in Britain finally take a serious look at redrafting the applicable laws of their country so that something can be done to go after this heinous organization.

AP ups the 'anti'

2009-07-14T13:44:00.002-04:00

Just posted to the Americans United for Life blog: "AP Editor: Sotomayor Used 'Pro-Choice Language' (As Does the AP)."

See the rest of my Sotomayor-hearing liveblogging on the AUL Blog.

Liveblogging the Sotomayor hearings—Day 2

2009-07-14T00:34:00.002-04:00

Keep up with the Senate Judiciary Committee's confirmation hearings for Obama's Supreme Court nominee via my liveblogging at the Americans United for Life Blog.

Comments closed; comment at the AUL Blog.

Father Thomas Berg gives in-depth interview on Legion visitation

2009-07-14T00:05:00.006-04:00

Father Thomas Berg, president of the Westchester Institute for Ethics and the Human Person, who left the Legion of Christ in April to be incardinated in the Archdiocese of New York, has given an interview to reporter Sandro Magister that is a must-read.

The charity he displays towards the members of the order that was his home for 23 years, and towards its lay arm, Regnum Christi, is deeply affecting, making his insights of the Legion's institutional errors and flaws all the more compelling.

Q: What are the issues you think should change in the internal culture of the Legion, especially related to the recently suppressed "vow of charity", meaning the vow not to criticize one's superiors?

A: At the core of serious problems in the internal culture of the congregation is a mistaken understanding and living of the theological principle - in itself valid - that God's will is made manifest to the religious through his superior. The Legionary seminarian is erroneously led to foster a hyper-focusing on internal "dependence" on the superior for virtually every one of his intentional acts (either explicitly or in virtue of some norm or permission received, or presumed or habitual permissions). This is not in harmony with the tradition of religious life in the Church, nor is it theologically or psychologically sound. It entails rather an unhealthy suppression of personal freedom (which is a far cry from the reasoned, discerned and freely exercised oblation of mind and will that the Holy Spirit genuinely inspires in the institution of religious obedience) and occasions unholy and unhealthy restrictions on personal conscience.

Furthermore, Legionary norms regarding "reporting to," "informing," "communication with," and "dependence on" superiors constitute a system of control and conformity which now must be considered highly suspect given what we know about Fr. Maciel. They furthermore engender a simplistic, and humanly and theologically impoverished notion of God's will (its discernment and manifestation) that breeds personal immaturity.

More seriously, the lived manner in which Legionaries practice obedience is laced with the kind of unquestioning submission which allowed the cult of personality to emerge around the figure of Maciel in the first place and covered for his misdeeds. Legionary seminarians are essentially trained to suspend reason in their obedience and to seek a total internal conformity with all the norms, and to withstand any internal impulse to examine or critique the norms or the indications of superiors.

Granted, the primary motivation behind such living of obedience is the ideal of total "immolation" of oneself for the love of Christ as embodied in the relentless living of all norms and indications of the superiors. This "immolation" of intellect and will is at the heart of the "holocaust" that the Legionary is invited to live for love of Christ and the Church. While the motivation is valid, and generations of Legionaries have pursued this in good faith, in the long run it not only proves profoundly problematic, but also explains the negative personality change which many, if not most, Legionaries undergo over time: the shallowness of their emotional expression, the lack of empathy and inability to relate normally to others in so many contexts, the general sense of their being "out of touch," etc. Only exceptionally do Legionary priests move beyond this, but only thanks to the multiple talents and human gifts they brought with them to the Legion.

Read the full interview.

Comments closed. Please pray for the Legionaries (current and former), the members of Regnum Christi, and the Apostolic Visitators.

We the papalU.S. repackaging of Church teachings on sex muddles the message

2009-07-13T00:00:00.009-04:00

A guest post by FR. ANGELO MARY GEIGER F.I.

In the light of John Paul II’s landmark teaching on human love in the divine plan, called Theology of the Body, there has been a recent effort in the United States to repackage the Church’s teaching on marriage and sexuality in “more positive” terms.

It is said that the Holy Father was reacting against “prudish Victorian morality,” especially prevalent in the United States, much in the same way that the sexual revolution was a reaction against “sexual repression.” The difference, we are told, is that John Paul II’s teaching consists of a beautiful vision for marriage, not the world’s pernicious justification of lust.

Now while this modern sex-saturated age benefits from the beauty of the truth of God’s original plan for conjugal love, we run the risk of going off the rails if we make prudery the bogeyman for our pornographic age. Modern man is not preoccupied with fear of the body and of sexuality. Modern man is largely afraid of suffering and of dying. This is also true within the Church.

Pope Benedict XVI critiqued modernity’s obsession with erotic love in his first encyclical, Deus Caritas Est, without denying a real problem with prudery:

“Nowadays Christianity of the past is often criticized as having been opposed to the body; and it is quite true that tendencies of this sort have always existed. Yet the contemporary way of exalting the body is deceptive. Eros, reduced to pure “sex”, has become a commodity, a mere “thing” to be bought and sold, or rather, man himself becomes a commodity. This is hardly man's great “yes” to the body. On the contrary, he now considers his body and his sexuality as the purely material part of himself, to be used and exploited at will."

The answer to this problem is not a new “holy” focus on all things erotic, but a subordination of eros to agape. In the Benedict XVI’s language eros is “possessive love,” not bad in itself, but in need of being put in the service of agape or “oblative” (sacrificial) love. God wants us all to be happy, but the way to happiness is through sacrifice.

The place we learn this more than anywhere else is at the foot of the Cross, where the Hearts of Jesus and Mary are united in the wedding banquet of the Lamb and through which we are united to God by our participation in these mysteries in the reception of Holy Communion. But first of all, the Cross is the mystery of oblative love. The Hearts of Jesus and Mary are opened for all mankind through the suffering and sorrow of their sacrifice. Theirs is a battle against our ancient enemy. While mankind has generally been the loser in this struggle, this new Man and Woman conquer by means of their fortitude, that is, by means of their willingness to face death. This is more agape than eros.

But the fruit of agape is eros, because victory leads to joy and life. Christ the King with His blessed Mother the Queen reign forever in the bliss of heaven because in this place of exile they overcame the enemy. This must be the standard of our own effort to subordinate eros to agape.

Most Catholics are not afraid of their bodies. They are afraid of death. By definition, the virtue of fortitude is endurance in the face of suffering and death. In reference to the cross and our participation in its mystery St. Bonaventure says: “Whoever loves this death can see God because it is true beyond doubt that man will not see me and live” (Itinerarium Mentis in Deum 7.6, quoting Ex. 33:20). Modern man needs to continue in the struggle against lust while striving also to see the beauty of God’s plan for love. The focus of our lives needs to be on the Cross where we find the Hearts of Jesus and Mary.

It seems to me that John Paul II’s Theology of the Body and Benedict’s XVI’s analysis of eros and agape fit hand in glove. We should avoid using the profound insights of either pope to conduct a local crusade. In the real battle we cannot afford to lose our focus.

Father Angelo Mary Geiger, a Franciscan Friar of the Immaculate, blogs at MaryVictrix.com.

Blogging for life

2009-07-13T00:00:00.001-04:00

Visit the Americans United for Life Blog starting this morning at 10 a.m., where I'll be liveblogging the Senate Judiciary Committee's confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor.

Comments closed; leave a comment at the AUL Blog.

Halo, it's me

2009-07-11T23:55:00.004-04:00

Check out my new article for Busted Halo, co-written with William Doino Jr., a plea for civility: "Catholics and the Culture of Hate." Many thanks to editor Bill McGarvey for giving me and Doino the opportunity to bring this issue to the public eye.

Busted Halo previously published an interview with me by McGarvey about my conversion and The Thrill of the Chaste/

Comments closed; please comment at Busted Halo.

Quote of the day

2009-07-10T03:20:00.002-04:00

"Dr. Edward L. Keyes advocates the teaching of sex-hygiene to children, because he thinks it is the kind of information that children are eagerly seeking. 'What is this topic,' he asks, that all these little ones are questioning over, mulling over, fidgeting over, imagining over, worrying over? Ask your own memories.'

"I do ask my memory in vain for the answer Dr. Keyes anticipates. A child's life is so full, and everything that enters it seems of supreme importance. I fidgeted over my hair, which would not curl. I worried over my examples, which never came out right. I mulled (though unacquainted with the word) over every piece of sewing put into my incapable fingers, which could not be trained to hold a needle. I imagined I was stolen by brigands, and became by virtue of beauty and intelligence spouse of a patriotic outlaw in a frontierless land. I asked artless questions which brought me into discredit with my teachers, as, for example, who 'massacred' St. Bartholomew. But vital facts, the great laws of propagation, were matters of but casual concern, crowded out of my life, and out of my companions lives (in a convent boarding-school) by the more stirring happenings of every day. How could we fidget over obstetrics when we were learning to skate, and our very dreams were a medley of ice and bumps? How could we worry over 'natural laws' in the face of a tyrannical interdict which lessened our chances of breaking our necks by forbidding us to coast down a hill covered with trees? The children to be pitied, the children whose minds become infected with unwholesome curiosity, are those who lack cheerful recreation, religious teaching, and the fine corrective of work. A playground or a swimming-pool will do more to keep them mentally and morally sound than scores of lectures upon sex-hygiene."

— Agnes Repplier, "The Repeal of Reticence" (1913)

Listen to me on Michigan Catholic Radio Sunday night—available online

2009-07-09T20:07:00.007-04:00

I had the great pleasure recently of taping an program for Michigan Catholic Radio host Kelly Luttinen's new radio series on the theology of the body. Kelly, who studied moral theology under Dr. Janet Smith at Detroit's Sacred Heart Seminary, is an exceptional interviewer with a sincere and well-informed passion for Church teachings as encapsulated by Pope John Paul II. She gave me the opportunity to speak in depth about my book The Thrill of the Chaste and the meaning of love, intimacy, and chastity. The show will run this Sunday evening, July 12 at 6:30 p.m. EST and repeat on Thursday, July 16, at 11:30 p.m. EST. Listen online at catholicradio.org.

* * *
NOTE: It has come to my attention that Regnum Christi, the Legion of Christ's lay movement, is using my name and image to promote my Michigan Catholic Radio interview on its Web site.

This is the first I have heard of the show's being used to promote Regnum Christi; the possibility of such promotion was not raised when I agreed to the interview. It is understandable that the movement would want to support the efforts of the show's host, who is a member. Nonetheless, I regret that my name is being used in Regnum Christi's self-publicity, particularly in light of the upcoming Apostolic Visitation of the Legion of Christ and the revelations that precipitated it. My appearance on the show should in no way be construed as an endorsement of Regnum Christi.

In recent months, out of respect for those individual members of the LC/RC whom I know and admire, I have been making an effort to refrain from public comment on the Legion or Regnum Christi pending the visitation's outcome. I am breaking my self-imposed silence only to make it clear that I object to any implied institutional endorsement.

Chaste into North Carolina

2009-07-09T00:00:00.001-04:00

Busy preparing for my talks at Patrick Madrid's Envoy Institute at Belmont Abbey College in North Carolina, which promises to be a delightful working weekend if ever there was one. If you're looking for something to read this a.m., check out the links I am posting at ConservativeGrapevine.com, where I am one of several bloggers filling in for the vacationing editor.

A life in black and white

2009-07-08T00:00:00.001-04:00

If you'd like to start your day with a smile and a tear, read this beautiful reminiscence by a parish priest on the occasion of his ordination anniversary.

Vine with me

2009-07-07T21:42:00.001-04:00

Check out my news recommendations as I guest-post this week on Conservative Grapevine.

Jacko attacko

2009-07-06T23:53:00.006-04:00

U.S. Rep. Pete King (R-N.Y.) offers a sane perspective on the media's Jackophilia.

I was a pro-life atheistA guest post by STEVE KELLMEYER

2009-07-06T00:10:00.003-04:00

Pro-life atheism? Most people would call that a contradiction in terms. But it isn’t. I was one, and there are more.

Although I was raised Catholic, Catholic grade school and high school filled me with an enormous disdain for the Faith. As a teenager, I realized that none of my teachers were able to answer any serious questions about the Faith.

“It’s a mystery!” they would say, which I soon realized simply meant "Shut up, please."

“You just have to believe!” they would say. “No, actually, I don’t,” I would think.

I noticed that only old women taught school, only old women and children went to church. The schools were no better. Apart from a couple of sterling examples, most of the men teaching in the Catholic high school were just on the make for female students. Apart from those same few sterling examples, most of the teachers were rejects from public schools. As for the Catholic theology I was taught, I have never liked glitter, glue sticks or collages. I wasn't impressed.

“I could just put away the things of children and become a man.”

So I did.

I wanted to be a scientist, be someone important, discover something new, be an adult. But, as number four in a family of eight children, my mother had taught me something very important very early on: babies were wonderful. Throughout my studies into genetics, biology, chemistry, I never knew if there was a God in heaven, but I knew there was a baby in the womb.

Atheists are not renowned for their logical consistency, and as a pro-life atheist, I certainly missed some points early on. At first, I was fine with fornication and contraception, but opposed to abortion, except in cases of rape, incest and fetal abnormality. I argued the points with others constantly.

An atheist history professor whom I greatly admired, and who had been trained by Jesuits as a teen, pointed out the inconsistency in my position. If a child exists from conception, then what difference should rape, incest or abnormality make?

He thought he had me.

He did.

Three days later, after long thought, I told him that I agreed with him. I couldn’t hold both positions at the same time. “So,” I concluded, “abortion for rape, incest or fetal abnormality is also unacceptable, and I now oppose that as well.” He wasn’t pleased.

As I argued the abortion position, I became aware of many other logical inconsistencies as well.

For instance, I began to realize that the assertion, “I can have sex without wanting a child” was logically absurd. It’s like saying, “I can eat ice cream all day without wanting to get fat.” Sure, you can. But what does your "want" have to do with it? The biological reality was going to hit you either way.

I thought it was a good analogy, but I quickly discovered a flaw. Having sex was different from eating cupcakes all day. Every time I ate a cupcake, I added calories to my body. Every time. But it is not the case that every act of sex creates a child. The analogy wasn’t perfect.

I gnawed on that for awhile.

And I began to see… something

Something I didn’t expect.

Ultimately, it was this point - the point that sex does not always create children – that converted me back to the Faith.

This is what I saw.

Precisely because sex does not always create children, yet it always holds the promise of creating children, that sex stands for something greater than itself. Because sex is designed to produce children, yet does not always produce them, the act is transformed from a simple biological action into… there was no other word for it… poetry.

Because sex contains not a hard reality, but only a future promise, it becomes a promise, the promise of the man to the woman "I will be with you always, even if this does produce that for which it is designed."

And by this act, the man gives himself not just to the woman, he gives himself primarily to the not-yet-conceived child.

It was the poetic biology of the thing that snared me.

Because I had some medical training, I knew the biology of sexual intercourse pretty well. The man doesn't become a father in the instant of orgasm. Indeed, it may not be for several days, he may not be in the country, he may not even be on the same side of the world when it happens. He becomes a father, but he does so long after the act is completed.

Precisely because the act of sex itself does not create anything, the act itself becomes its own symbol.

It is a commitment towards a future that the two participants don't even know will ever come into existence. If every act of sex always produced a child, it would have a much different meaning. But precisely because it does not, sex is transformed into a commitment to hope that such a future does come into existence, or at least not to hope that it does not.

This was the beautiful thing, the marvelous image of the human person, I saw hidden behind the veil of the sexual act. This both intrigued me and frightened me. It intrigued me because it was beautiful and it was true, and I had never heard tell of this explanation before this moment, when I explained it to myself. It frightened me because I knew there was only one organization in the world that taught about a promise to generations yet unborn.

When I answered my history professor, he didn’t like it, and I knew he wouldn’t, but I had to go where the logic took me. I had no choice.

Now, I had found an answer that sent me somewhere I didn’t like, but I had the answer, and I had to go where the logic took me. I had no choice.

I went to confession.

I received Jesus in the Eucharist.

I returned to the Faith.

Steve Kellmeyer is the author of numerous works of Catholic apologetics and is webmaster of CultureWarNotes.com. The above essay is edited from a talk he gave that is available on CD from Bridegroom Press.

'They took offense at him'A guest homily by the REV. JOHN JAY HUGHES

2009-07-05T00:00:00.002-04:00

Homily for 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B. Ezek. 2:2-5; 2 Cor. 12:7-10; Mark 6:1-6. AIM: To challenge the hearers to respond to Jesus Christ as we encounter him in his Church.

On Independence Day we celebrate more than two centuries of national history. We Americans have a reputation in the world for optimism. Our nation’s history has made us optimists. The earliest settlers all came from Europe. They needed huge amounts of optimism to build a new nation in the wilderness, and to push its frontier westward until it spanned the continent. Despite all the blood, sweat, tears and treasure which this nation-building involved, until the Vietnam war it seemed that just about every major problem confronting us was soluble. From small beginnings, and protected by two oceans, we became the richest and most powerful nation on earth. If you’re rich and powerful, you cannot expect to be universally loved. Confronted today with hatred and terrorism, our troops the daily target of sniper and guerilla attacks in Afghanistan and Iraq, and a worldwide economic crisis, we wonder anxiously how long the American success story can continue.

Today’s readings are not about success and power, however, but about rejection and weakness. In the first reading God warns Ezekiel that he is sending him to a rebellious people, who will reject the prophet’s message. The second reading records Paul’s prayer for deliverance from what he called “a thorn in the flesh.”

Some biblical scholars think this was a psychic or physical ailment. Others think it may have been the same opposition from within his own community which faced Ezekiel. Whatever it was, Paul says that God answered his prayer not by taking away the thorn, but by giving him strength to bear it. Through this experience of personal weakness, Paul writes, he learned to rely not on himself, but only on God. “For when I am weak,” he writes, “then I am strong.”

The gospel tells us of Jesus’ rejection by his own community. “They took offense at him,” the gospel says. Jesus offended people in three ways. For some he was too ordinary: “Is he not the carpenter?” they ask. What makes him so special? Others were offended because Jesus was not ordinary. “Where did this man get all this? What kind of wisdom has been given him? What mighty deeds are wrought by his hands!” Others still were offended because Jesus seemed so weak. This was the judgment of the bystanders at Calvary, who jeered: “So you were going to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days! Save yourself now by coming down from that cross.” (Mk 15:29f). Such taunts were the final judgment of Jesus’ contemporaries on this man who seemed to make himself equal with God, yet who, when the chips were down, was unable to save himself from a criminal’s death.

By any normal worldly standards Jesus’ life was anything but a success story. Most of those who knew him remained quite unimpressed. Many took offense at him. That was true then. It is no different today. True, Jesus no longer comes to people in his human body. Today he comes through his mystical body, the Church. People encounter and judge Jesus Christ today through those who have become members of his body in baptism — in other words, through us. We have been made eyes, ears, hands, feet, and voice for Jesus Christ. He has no other.

Many people today say that they accept Jesus Christ, but want nothing to do with the Church. For some the Church is too ordinary. The Church is full of hypocrites, they say, people who are no better than anyone else. Others are offended because the Church is not ordinary. They find us remote, hopelessly out of date. The Church, they complain, preaches irrelevant dogmas to people who need practical help coping with life’s daily problems. They are offended because the Church — and that means us — lacks compassion for people who cannot live up to the Church’s unrealistically high moral standards. Still others are offended because the Church seems so weak. Why doesn’t the Church do something, they ask, about the terrible problems of society: urban poverty and blight in the richest country on earth, crime and terrorism, injustice, greed, and the rape of the environment?

People today, in short, are offended by the Church for reasons very similar to those that caused Jesus’ contemporaries to be offended at him. Many seek a “pure” Church: one that is not ordinary, not remote, not weak. Some — including many Catholics who are no longer with us — think they have found this pure Church in a community of “born again Christians” who exclude the lax and the lukewarm. Others find the pure Church they are seeking on television. The worshipers you’ll see there on Sunday morning are all squeaky clean. The preacher always has a polished and uplifting message. The singing is always fervent and on key. How many Catholic parishes can compete with that?

The Catholic Church doesn’t even try to compete. Like its Lord, the Catholic Church is, most of the time, very ordinary and quite unimpressive. It is the Church of saints, yes. Yet it is also the Church of sinners — and never more obviously so than right now, when the media still bombard us with lurid stories of priestly failings and sins. The Catholic Church is and will always remain the Church of sinners for one simple reason. It stubbornly insists on making room for people who slip and fall and compromise; who are weak in faith — whose faith, in not a few cases, is difficult to distinguish from superstition. Who are these people? We are! If the Church were as pure as we would all like it to be, would there be room in it for ordinary weak sinners like ourselves?

The Catholic Church, in short, is human, as Jesus was human. It is ordinary, as he was ordinary. It can be remote, as Jesus was sometimes remote. And it is often weak, as Jesus was weak. Hidden behind this ordinariness and remoteness and weakness, however, is all the power of God; all the compassion of his Son Jesus; and all the strength of his Holy Spirit, who came in flaming tongues on the first Pentecost to kindle a fire that is still burning; and to sweep people off their feet with a rushing might wind that is still blowing.

Most of Jesus’ contemporaries took offense at him. As another translation of our gospel has it, “They found him too much for them.” What about you?

Father Hughes is author of No Ordinary Fool: A Testimony to Grace.

Site by site by Sondheim

2009-07-04T22:04:00.001-04:00

Prayer request from a Catholic missionary in Honduras

2009-07-04T15:29:00.007-04:00

Received this morning via e-mail:

Dear Friends,

I realize that the current political instability in Honduras may not seem like a big deal, and maybe to the rest of the world, it isn't a big deal - but what happens over this weekend will determine the fate of this small country, and more specifically, the fate of the Church in this country, and the fate of our mission here in Comayagua.

Over the past ten months, I've put down roots here, which is why when I was faced this week with the choice of whether to stay or to go (back to the States), I chose to stay. I'm writing to ask all of you to please, please pray for the mission here in Comayagua, especially over the next couple of days.

I cannot emphasize enough the great need for prayer in this difficult situation. If Hugo Chavez makes good on his threats to the Honduran government, his actions in the coming days (and the subsequent reactions of the Honduran people) could be disastrous. If you can commit to being a prayer warrior for us until this conflict is resolved, please leave a comment on my latest blog post with your prayers, sacrifices and words of encouragement. Whether it's a single prayer, a Mass or a Rosary - we would be so grateful. (As a community, we will be praying a novena to Our Lady Help of Christians - posted on our Community Blog - starting tomorrow.) If I am able, I will share your comments with the rest of the missionaries. It helps to know that we’re not in this alone!

If you still don't have any idea what's been happening down here, I've tried to summarize the events of the past week on my blog. Please stay close in prayer - I will post updates when I can!

In Jesus and Mary,
Emily Byers
http://witnessinghope.wordpress.com

"If it were I, I would appeal to God; I would lay my cause before him... He saves the needy from the sword... He saves them from the clutches of the powerful. So the poor have hope, and injustice shuts her mouth." - Job 5: 8,15-16

Secret plots, Catholic heroes:The truth about Pope Pius XIIA guest post by WILLIAM DOINO JR.

2009-07-03T00:10:00.000-04:00

Ten years ago this fall, British author John Cornwell published Hitler's Pope, a strident attack against Pius XII, depicting him as an unwitting tool of the Nazis. Cornwell argued that Eugenio Pacelli (Pope Pius XII) was among the most dangerous men of the twentieth century, whose political machinations assisted Hitler's rise to power, helping seal the fate of European Jewry.

The book caused a sensation. Vanity Fair ran long excerpts; it was serialized in the Times of London, and Cornwell appeared on "60 Minutes" to expand upon his thesis. The moniker "Hitler's Pope" became synonomous with Pius XII, and was invoked at every turn, by the Church's enemies, to deride the moral authority of the papacy.

As is so often the case, however, God uses an attack on the Church to highlight important truths. In this case, Cornwell provided an opportunity for Pius's supporters to highlight his accomplishments. Shortly after Hitler's Pope appeared, the L'Osservatore Romano exposed the falsehood of Cornwell's claims about the Vatican archives, which in fact offer ample proof of Pius XII's good deed, and Fr. Peter Gumpel, S.J., who oversees the wartime pontiff's cause, published a point-by-point rebuttal. Prof. Ronald Rychlak, employing far better sources than Cornwell, followed with Hitler, the War and the Pope, an acclaimed defense of Pius; The Pius War: Responses to the Citics of Pius XII, a major anthology, appeared; and Rabbi David Dalin completed the counter-attack with The Myth of Hitler's Pope. Cornwell has been in retreat ever since.

Unfortunately, once a myth gets started, its very difficult to contain. Even though reputable historians, and an increasing amount of laymen, now know the truth about Pius, the Hitler's Pope mythology persists. As Cambridge historian Owen Chadwick lamented: "It is still believed by many people that Pope Pius XII was a friend of the Nazis, or that he said nothing at all against racial murder during the war, or that he was so frightened for his own skin or his own palace that he was too timid to say anything whatever, or that he arranged Vatican money to help monsters like Eichmann to escape to South America." These claims are "fables," said Chadwick.

Contrary to Cornwell, Pacelli's time as papal nuncio to Germany (1917-1929) and Cardinal Secretary of State to Pius XI (1930-1939), was marked by a fierce and principled opposition to Nazism, a policy he continued into his pontificate (1939-1958). In the years leading up to World War II, Pacelli foresaw impending doom, at a time when many others remained blind.

"In March 1935," writes Rabbi Dalin, "in an open letter to the bishop of Cologne, Pacelli called the Nazis 'false prophets with the pride of Lucifer.' That same year, speaking to an enormous crowd of pilgrims at Lourdes, he assailed ideologies 'possessed by the superstition of race and blood.' At the Cathedral of Notre Dame two years later he named Germany 'that noble and powerful nation whom bad shepherds woud lead astray into an ideology of race.' The Nazis were 'diabolical,' he told friends. Hitler is 'completely obsessed,' he said to his longtime secretary, Sister Pascalina. 'All that is not of use to him, he destroys...this man is capable of trampling on corpses.' Meeting with the heroic anti-Nazi Dietrich von Hildebrand, he declared: 'There can be no possible reconciliation' between Christianity and Nazi racism; they were like 'fire and water.'"

In 1937, Cardinal Pacelli drafted Pius XI's famous anti-Nazi encyclical, Mit brennender Sorge ("With Burning Anxiety"). That same year, he told the American diplomat A.W. Klieforth that Hitler was not only untrustworthy, but "a fundamentally wicked person." Pacelli, recorded Klieforth, "did not believe that Hitler was capable of moderation" and so "opposed unalterably every compromise with National Socialism."

Little wonder then, that when Pacelli succeeded Pius XI as pope, on March 2, 1939, the Nazi press denounced his election; Germany was the only major power that did not send a representative to the coronation.

Pius XII's pontificate was, as John Paul II and Benedict have said, a "great" one, highlighted by his courageous leadership during World War II. His first encyclical letter, Summi Pontificatus, issued just months after his election, was a scorching condemnation of racism and warmongering, and recognized as an attack upon the Third Reich. His public condemnations of the Holocaust, open embrace of Jews, and active support for Catholic rescue, earned the enmity of the Nazis -- who branded Pius "a mouthpiece of the Jewish war criminals--" but won him praise throughout the civilized world.

When I asked Sir Martin Gilbert, the renowned historian, if he agreed with the Vatican's assessment, in its 1998 document on the Holocaust, that the Church under Pius saved "hundreds of thousands" of Jews, he replied: "Yes, that is certainly correct. Hundreds of thousands of Jews saved by the entire Catholic Church, under the leadership and with the support of Pope Pius XII, would, to my mind, be absolutely correct." These are facts which no amount of propaganda, or anti-papal polemics, can erase.

Perhaps the most dramatic act of Pius XII's papacy is one that remains the least known: his assistance in a plot to overthrow Hitler. The most famous attempt to oust Hitler was led by Claus, Count von Stauffenberg (a Catholic Colonel) in 1944--a story recently told in the remarkable film "Valkyrie," starring Tom Cruise. But there were earlier, equally daring, plots, including one initiated in 1939, the same year Pius XII became pope. At the end of that year, shortly after World War II began, elements of the anti-Nazi resistance contacted the Vatican in hopes of garnering Pius XII's support to remove Hitler, with sought-for cooperation from Britain. The magnitude of that initiative is described by Chadwick: "The Pope was being invited to engage in a conspiracy to overthrow a tyrant, and incidentally to put himself and his aides into those dire risks which attend conspirators....Never in all history had a Pope engaged so delicately in a conspiracy to overthrow a tyrant by force."

Despite these extraordinary dangers, Pius XII agreed to act as a middleman, declaring, "The German opposition must be heard in Britain." Alas, because of events outside the pope's control, the plot wasn't carried out that year, but Pius won the confidence of the German Resistance, with whom he maintained relations-- right up until Stauffenberg's heroic (but unsuccessful) effort, on July 20, 1944, after which Hitler arrested and executed the leading resisters. In fact there is evidence linking Pius to that plot, too: a German report to Hitler, prepared by SS General Ernst Kaltenbrunner, dated November 29, 1944, outlines the backround of the July plot, and specifically names Pope Pius XII as a co-conspirator.

These weren't the only high-stake plots involving the pope. There was another conspiracy, a kind of malevolent reverse of the noble ones against Hitler: a plot to kidnap or kill Pope Pius XII.

Many authors have long maintained that Adolf Hitler targetted Pius, as he was a major obstacle to the Fuehrer's plans for world domination. But some historians have questioned such a plot ever existed, because much of the evidence about it comes from General Karl Wolff (the SS Commander in Italy), and Rudolf Rahn (German ambassador to Italy) -- two highly controversial wartime figures. Recently, however, new testimony has emerged revealing that, at least on this issue, Wolff and Rahn were correct.

On June 16, Avvenire, the newspaper of the Italian bishops, recounted the testimony of Niki Freytag Loringhoven, whose father, Wessel, was an anti-Nazi German Colonel, who learned of Hitler's intentions soon after they materialized. According to Niki, days after Hitler's ally, Benito Mussolini, had been arrested, Hitler, in retaliation, ordered his main security office to punish the Italian people by kidnapping or murdering the leader they respected most: Pope Pius XII. Learning of the plot, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, head of the German counterintelligence service, met with his Italian Counterpart, General Cesare Ame, secretly in Venice, on July 29-30, 1943. Also present at the meeting were the aforementioned Wessel Freytag von Loringhoven, and Erwin von Lahousen--all members of the anti-Nazi resistance. Upon returning to Rome, Ame spread word about the pending plans against the pope, and the anti-papal plot was narrowly averted. According to Avvenire, all this coincides with the deposition given by von Lahousen, at the Nuremberg war crimes trials, on Feb. 1, 1946.

These revelations, coupled with other new discoveries and testimonies, are gradually reversing the Hitler's Pope mythology, even as sporadic attacks against Pius and the Church continue. (Caretakers of the myth -- ranging from Communists to Catholic dissenters -- have ideological reasons for keeping these falsehoods alive). The so-called "Pius War" is not only advancing, but advancing in the right direction. It's only a matter of time before all fair-minded people, not just the Church, will recognize Pius XII as the man he really was: not "Hitler's Pope," but one of Hitler's greatest enemies -- who may yet be proclaimed a saint. Pius XII is a pontiff of whom all Catholics can be proud.

Pope Benedict prays at Pius XII's tomb.

William Doino Jr. writes for Inside the Vatican and other publications. His 80,000-word annotated bibliography on Pius XII appears in The Pius War (Lexington Books, 2004), He has appeared on EWTN and many radio programs to speak about the Church's record during the Holocaust; and was part of a three-day Pius XII symposium, last September, in Rome, hosted by the Pave the Way Foundation. The conference ended with a private meeting with Pope Benedict at Castelgandolfo, where the Holy Father delivered a major address praising Pius XII.

Tour of the chasteCome hear me speak at Patrick Madrid's Envoy Institute

2009-07-03T00:05:00.004-04:00

A reminder: I will be one of the featured speakers at the 2009 Summer Conference of Patrick Madrid's Envoy Institute: "Answering Atheism and the Culture of Doubt," July 10-12 at Belmont Abbey College, just outside Charlotte, N.C.

I will share my conversion story and will also speak on how to answer the culture of "sexual atheism." For a hint of what that entails, see my recent InsideCatholic article "Feminists and Moral Consciousness," as well as my book The Thrill of the Chaste. For more on the conference, see the Envoy Institute Web site.

'His oeuvre's in the Louvre'Classic power-pop tribute to Cezanne re-emerges on YouTube

2009-07-02T00:01:00.002-04:00

What a joy it is to see this again after so many years—the Special Guests' 1985 classic "Paul Cezanne."

Singer and songwriter Tom Meltzer (the one wearing glasses) kept his day job at the Princeton Review—that's the collegiate-testing empire—and now puts his love for the Beatles and Beach Boys into songs about SAT words.

Missionary reports from Honduras:What the world needs to know

2009-07-01T12:16:00.002-04:00

Emily Byers, a Catholic missionary from Louisiana, has the news you're not hearing on CNN. A must-read.

The yoke's on youDownload Archbishop Sheen's advice for surviving marital tensions

2009-07-01T01:04:00.006-04:00

I have discovered that many readers of Christian blogs are people who are in particular need of fellowship because they are married to someone who does not share their faith.

If you are one of those readers, or if you are simply in need of some inspiration to keep going in the face of marital tension, I highly recommend listening to a talk by then-Bishop (later Archbishop) Fulton J. Sheen called "Marriage Problems." You can download it for free from the "Life Is Worth Living" page of the American Catholic Truth Society's site. The page is, incidentally, a real goldmine for Sheen fans, containing dozens of recorded instructions in the Faith, in high-quality audio.

In living colorEaster morning, DeMille style—from 1927!

2009-06-29T21:16:00.004-04:00

Jesus rises from the dead, meeting His mother and Mary Magdalene in this gorgeous Technicolor sequence from Cecil B. DeMille's 1927 blockbuster "The King of Kings." You may prefer it with the sound down, as the contemporary soundtrack is overbearing. Also advised: Have a tissue handy.

Steven Greydanus has more on this classic film, which benefited from the advice of the great author and speaker Father Daniel A. Lord S.J. DeMille remained friends with Father Lord for the rest of the Jesuit's life, as he wrote in his autobiography, more than 30 years after the making of "King of Kings":

"Father Lord and I did not always see eye to eye on artistic matters, but I never lost my admiration and love for that devoted, manly, brilliant Jesuit, whose quality of soul was never better manifested than when he was dying of cancer and I ventured to ask him if, out of that soul-searching experience, he would write for the benefit of others a little statement that I could use in my work as an officer of the American Cancer Society. He complied, with the utterly calm courage which had its unfailing source not in this world.

"One of my brightest memories of the making of The King of Kings is of Father Lord celebrating Mass in the open air soon after sunrise every morning while we were on location on Catalina Island. It was like a continued benediction on our work, which began on the first day of shooting with a short service of prayer participated in by representatives of the Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Buddhist, and Moslem faiths."

RELATED: Click the "Daniel A. Lord" tag below for more on Father Lord, including the only known audio recording of him.

Maria Taylor: 'Cartoons and Forever Plans'

2009-06-26T21:22:00.003-04:00

Brother Dean, a Capuchin friar in Sydney wrote me about this sweet tune by Maria Taylor with Michael Stipe on backing vocals. I'd never heard of her, but he says she was in a duo called Azure Ray.

Taylor reminds me of another Stipe collaborator, this one from 20 years ago: Syd Straw of the Golden Palominos, with "Future 40s."

It's not much of a song, but those jangly guitars sounded nice on the radio in 1989. A better tune featuring Straw's vocals is the Golden Palominos' version of Lowell George's "I've Been the One."

'Money is not a currency by which we can purchase self-esteem'Rabbi Boteach on Jackson's spiritual isolation

2009-06-26T13:30:00.004-04:00

"Because Michael substituted attention for love he got fans who loved what he did but he never had true compatriots who loved him for who he was. Perhaps this is why, when so many of his inner circle saw him destroying his life with prescription medication - something he used to treat phantom physical illnesses which were really afflictions of the soul - they allowed him to deteriorate and disintegrate rather than throwing the poison in the garbage.

"Michael's death is not just a personal tragedy, it is an American tragedy. Michael's story was the stuff of the American dream - a poor black boy who grows up in Gary, Indiana, and ends up a billionaire entertainer. But we now know how the story ends. Money is not a currency by which we can purchase self-esteem and being recognized on the streets will never replace being loved unconditionally by family and true friends."

— Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, from his must-read op-ed "The tragic end of Michael Jackson"

Quote of the dayDaniel A. Lord on 'playing God'

2009-06-26T00:36:00.003-04:00

"Whenever I hear or read of anyone who has a strong desire to play God, I feel like shouting, 'Well, why don’t you?' When someone boasts in my presence about what he would do or not do if he were God, it comes to me with a shock that he constantly has a chance to make good his boast and evidently is not aware of it. For throughout our lives God is constantly asking us to substitute for Him and do for our fellow men the godlike things that will make life beautiful and rich and full.

"Sometimes we answer this challenge rather well, and the happiness that follows for ourselves and others is glorious. Sometimes we fail miserably, disgracefully, and unhappiness ensues. On a thousand occasions mothers stand to their children in place of God. Isn’t the world a vastly happier place because they play that part so well? Many a fine physician plays God when he saves a life, brings back health to those who call upon him. I think that a cook in the kitchen plays God for those she feeds quite as much as a great lawyer plays God when he wins justice for a frightened client. I think the young man who protects a girl from sin and temptation plays God very beautifully and strongly, as does the young woman who adds to the beauty of the world the sweet fragrance of her own virtue.

"Yet, given the chance to play God, we have a way of failing too, too frequently. We are appalled at human cruelty and thoughtlessness and sin in others. Then God gives us a chance to do His work for someone, and we refuse. ...

"I do think that, before we start telling God how to run His world, we might prove that we, given a chance to stand briefly in the place of God, have done a first-class job with ourselves. If we have played God beautifully in the little corner of the world that depends on us, we may have some right to aspire to higher responsibilities. I notice that people who really try to do a Christ-like job in the spot they occupy are usually too humble about their work to aspire to run the whole world, and usually so busy spreading happiness where thay are that they haven’t time to taunt God or even to think too much about His running of the universe."

— Father Daniel A. Lord S.J. "Man Says — 'If I Were God ...'" (1940)

Striptease on the altarChristopher West's YouTube oeuvre

2009-06-25T00:38:00.004-04:00

Christopher West, the popular author who speaks on Pope John Paul II's theology of the body, has yet to make his promised public statement following criticisms from his former mentor Dr. David Schindler, but defenders such as Profs. Janet Smith and Michael Waldstein have. They and others who unconditionally support West's approach assert that his critics have judged him based on his ABC "Nightline" interview, which was heavily edited, and are ignoring his larger body of work. (West's statement on the "Nightline" interview is here; an index to recent articles by his supporters and critics is here.)

West is often credited with helping bring many people into the Church, and, as I have often said, I am one of them. It was his Good News About Sex and Marriage, given me by a Catholic seminarian, that showed me for the first time how the Church's teachings answered the longings of my heart. So, on the one hand, I cannot help but agree with those who say his work has borne much good fruit.

At the same time, as I have acquired more knowledge of the Faith, I have become increasingly concerned that, in trying to popularize the late Holy Father's teachings, West is unwittingly elucidating a theology that is more Christopher than John Paul.

West's supporters are right in that his approach cannot be judged adequately unless one has read it and witnessed it. So I would advise those who are following the current discussion to read his books, particularly the most popular one, Good News About Sex and Marriage, and to watch and listen to his talks. It is easy to get a feel for his speaking style without leaving home, as his fans have posted dozens of videos of him on YouTube.

I have watched nearly all the videos and found many that reminded me of why I was attracted to West's writings in the first place. For example, in this short clip titled "Sexual Healing: From Marvin Gaye to John Paul II," West makes important and, I think, perfectly orthodox points about what the word "sexuality" meant to the late Holy Father—and does so with humor.

However, there are other clips on YouTube that I find problematic, such as the following one, posted in January of this year. The first line, which is cut off at the beginning, is, "Look at Paul's body."

In West's defense, he had no idea that the man he called up to be ogled in front of the altar would take off his blazer like a male stripper. But he is responsible for his own actions as he urges the audience to look at the man's body and, with an air of gentle mockery, calls them to account for their discomfort.

This episode is identical to one described last year by a letter-writer to The Remnant that the newspaper's editor, Michael J. Matt, included in an April 2008 article on West:

Right there in front of the Blessed Sacrament, Christopher West had a young man stand up, and he said: “Look at Jim’s body.” When the audience (men and women, married and single) started to giggle and get uncomfortable, he said that this was the wrong response. Mr. West felt that we should be perfectly comfortable with the idea of looking at someone’s body. I disagreed wholeheartedly because I felt this was our natural modesty calling on us to protect ourselves and the person standing before us. The guy who was standing there was actually blushing! Mr. West said that if someone says “look at Jim”, no one would laugh, and so we were basically being prudish (in the bad Jansenist/Manichean sense) when we laugh at his suggestion to look at the body.

There is no question that audiences by and large love West, especially youths. I believe the reactions of the teenagers in the following video are typical.

Yet, I cannot help but be disconcerted by certain comments the youths make during the clip, particularly one by the girl who speaks at 2:31.

The teen says, "Absolutely amazing. I was just really struck by how prayerful he was, like, especially at the beginning, blessing us all."

She demonstrates by making the Sign of the Cross as a priest does.

According to Catholic Answers, only a person who is in spiritual authority may bestow a blessing. Parents, then, may bless their children, as they did in biblical times, because they are the heads of the domestic church. Beyond parents, however, it appears—and please, canon law experts, correct me if I am wrong—that the only people the Church authorizes to give blessings are deacons and priests.

So, assuming the girl is recounting his actions accurately, West, in blessing the crowd, is imputing to himself a spiritual authority that the Church teaches does not belong to him. This takes me back to my concern, which Schindler has also expressed, that West claims to possess a special gift of the Holy Spirit.

I do not doubt that the Holy Spirit has enabled West to bear good fruit for the Church. But, as it says in the Gospels, it can happen that the wheat gets mixed with the tares. Great accomplishments and great intentions do not equal infallibility.

Your thoughts welcomed.

Looking for pro-life news?

2009-06-24T16:52:00.002-04:00

Check out the latest posts I've been writing at my day job for Americans United for Life.

Chris West tells listener concerned over his language to ask:'Lord, why did I find that uncomfortable?'

2009-06-23T23:41:00.007-04:00

On June 3, the Personalist Project hosted a talk by Franciscan University of Steubenville Prof. Michael J. Healy called "Dietrich von Hildebrand on Human Sexuality," with a response by Christopher West. The talk was highly anticipated because West, the leading popular speaker and author on Pope John Paul II's theology of the body (TOB), had recently come under criticism sparked by his recent appearance on ABC News' "Nightline." (For an even-handed selection of articles by West's critics and defenders, see Headline Bistro's "Following the Discussion on JPII's Theology of the Body." For West's clarification of his "Nightline" appearance, which he says was presented with "editorial comments which may appear misleading," see his Web site.)

The Personalist Project's Web site now features audio from the June 3 discussion and the question-and-answer session that followed. One section of the Q&A particularly struck me for what it revealed about West's response to those who question his using graphic sexual language in his talks at churches and in front of minors.

I have transcribed the question and West's answer to the best of my ability, and offer them here with my comments. Your thoughts are welcomed. Audio of the entire Q&A segment may be found here. The question below appears about two-thirds of the way into the recording:

Q: Just as a follow-up, if I could, one of the things I also wanted to address was something along the lines of what isn't prudish. For example, one of the things, if I could bring that example to you, Christopher -- it' s not to attack you in any way -- but when you had given a talk at our church, uh, in Lancaster three years ago, you read openly from [the future Pope John Paul II's 1957 book] Love and Responsibility --

West: "About mutual climax."

Q: "Absolutely."

West: [laughs]

Q: "And there were even teenagers that were there. I don't believe mine were there, thanks be to God, but I found that very uncomfortable. And then when I expressed that to certain people, I was again called prudish and puritanical. Is that -- would you consider that prudish or puritanical, that me or anyone else who was there, in that, in that setting, would consider that, um --"

West: "I could understand why some might feel uncomfortable with that. But I would just encourage you to take to the Lord your heart. Say -- and, and -- just say, 'Lord, why did I find that uncomfortable?'

"Not that you -- He might say, 'Because that's your particular sensibility, and, and you should have no problem with that. Be totally fine there.'

"But we need to crack open what goes on in our hearts and let the light of the Lord in there. And my experience has been, and it's not gonna be everybody's experience, but that that quote which I share and don't hesitate to share often and repeatedly, including on ABC News, gives people a 'Wow, the Catholic Church isn't what I thought it to be, and the Pope is, here he is, back in the 1950s, he wasn't ashamed to talk about it. He wasn't ashamed to, to share this. We -- people need to know that. And this might be the only opportunity for people to know that John Paul II wasn't afraid to talk about these things.

"So, uh, I understand the sensitivity, and I'm not here to condemn you for it in the least. I would encourage you, like I encourage everyone, just take that, whatever it is, a discomfort, a pain, a fear, whatever it might be, I don't know -- say, 'Lord, shine your light upon it and show me what this is and why I feel this way.' And I think he will."

I am often favorably impressed with West's interpretation of the TOB and believe that in the above instance, as always, he is acting as a faithful Catholic who believes he is speaking the truth in love. However, the exchange strikes me as an example of what Dr. David Schindler calls a theological problem in West's style of preaching. In essence, West seems to present himself as a go-to source for Holy Spirit guidance. In the exchange above, he even presumes to know what the Lord might say in reply to the questioner's prayer.

In Schindler's words, "West often tends to treat resistance to the content of his lectures, for example during the question periods, as matters of resistance to the Holy Spirit (to the Spirit now speaking in and through West's 'charism'), urging questioners to pray to overcome the fear induced in them by their bad theological-spiritual formation. Well-balanced persons have spoken of how West makes them feel a sense of guilt, of resistance to the Holy Spirit, if they experience uneasiness about what he is saying."

Your thoughts?

Alas, poor Yorick, I was his Facebook friend

2009-06-23T09:29:00.003-04:00

Something is texted in the state of Denmark—and very wittily too, though the latest news should have appeared on top.

RELATED: My Daily News headline as coastal towns were evacuated in advance of a hurricane with a Shakespearean name.

Storm heaven for a mom who shines

2009-06-23T00:17:00.004-04:00

Ashli takes her children, Emmil and Elise, to a park last Thursday in Tallahassee, Fla.

Ashli Foshee McCall, the author of Beyond Morning Sickness, is to undergo surgery today to remove a growth from her pancreas. She is expected to be in intensive care, unconscious, for two days following the operation.

Please pray for this brave woman, whose book about the pregnancy disease hyperemesis gravidarum (HG) has helped so many women survive a potentially devastating illness. As readers of her book know, she has experienced much physical suffering in the past, but the recent diagnosis of the pancreatic growth has been a particular trial for her, her husband, and her children.

If you are not familiar with Beyond Morning Sickness, hear Ashli tell her story in her 2007 appearance on CNN.

UPDATE: Thanks for your prayers! Ashli's surgery went perfectly. Read more at Raving Theist's blog.

Please pray for the D.C. Metro crash victims

2009-06-22T20:45:00.002-04:00

A horrible accident happened on the same train line I take to and from school. Please pray for everyone involved.

In this Year of the Priest, every day is Father's dayA guest post by GLENNA BRADSHAW

2009-06-21T23:00:00.000-04:00

“Your family is so blessed.” I am often told that when people find out that we have three priests in our family—my son (that's him, Father Ben Bradshaw, at right), my brother, and my cousin. And they are right, we are blessed. Greatly blessed by the daily faithfulness of these men to their vocations. In this Year of the Priest, I want to share a few thoughts about fostering vocations in a family:

True humility has to be the foundation for every vocation, especially the priesthood. The priesthood, worthily lived, is a gift from God. While I know that surveys have shown that many Catholic families discourage priestly vocations, I've been in the uncomfortable position more than once of having a Catholic mother point to her son and say, "He was supposed to be our priest." My heart ached for the uncomfortable young man in question. Its not up to parents or families to make the decision for or against the priesthood. It's up to the Holy Spirit and the candidate.

Supporting a priestly vocation doesn’t mean worshipping the priest. Again, speaking from experience, often family members have a tendency to place Father on a pedestal once he’s ordained. The opposite can also happen. I.e., priests can be vilified by persons in their own families who denigrate their vocation.

Supporting your pastor doesn’t mean manipulating your relationship with him. Sometimes good Catholic parishioners tend to develop a special relationship with their pastors and, from that, develop expectations regarding the type of 'payback' they can expect in terms of hospital visitations, dinner invites etc.

Supporting our priests during this Year of the Priest would certainly entail some of these key elements:

Prayer and penance. These are two sides of the same coin. One enhances the other. Send your priest a note with a Spiritual Bouquet enclosed.

Refusing to take part in the parish/diocesan naysaying against the priest or bishop in question. Just walk away from it. Even if what is being discussed is true, it's usually harmful to the Body of Christ.

Thank a priest. One worthwhile development of the last few years has been the public instruction to thank a military person for his or her service to their country if you see them in the airport or some other public place. The same gratitude should be shown to our priests.

Give priests the benefit of the doubt. In order to keep a family intact and functioning and healthy, we have to assume the goodwill of the other unless proven otherwise. The same courtesy should be extended to our priests.

Glenna Bradshaw, a nurse, lives in Memphis, Tenn.

Catholic convert, cancer patient writes 'Little Guide for Your Last Days'

2009-06-20T18:07:00.008-04:00

Introductory Note: Jeffry Hendrix, a Methodist pastor who converted to Catholicism [read his conversion story] is a longtime Dawn Patrol reader and commenter—that's me with him at right in May 2007.

Last year, Jeff was diagnosed with bladder cancer. The experience gave him a new perspective on his conversion, his vocation, and, indeed, his entire life. Out of that came his desire to write his first book, one that would help others suffering from terminal illness to reconcile themselves to God: the newly released A Little Guide for Your Last Days.

Jeff and his publisher, Bridegroom Press, have graciously permitted me to reprint Chapter One of Little Guide on The Dawn Patrol. It appears below, prefaced by a personal letter Jeff wrote to his Protestant friends and family to tell them about his book.

Jeffry Hendrix writes:

Since I was young, I have watched death come: for my grandparents; for a multitude of my church members; for my mother; for my brother; and then for me.

But I was not ready when I knew it was coming for me. I was scared to death the morning of the surgery to open me up to remove my left kidney, ureter, and scrape my bladder. I was not ready. I felt in an instant how much of my precious time on this Earth as a human being had been spent being distracted from the absolute and undeniable fact. I. Will. Die.

It was partly my fault – who wants to think about that? It was mostly the milieu in which I was born, lived, and moved through life: modern popular culture strives during our every waking moment to keep our consciousness from the fact of our mortality. We are distracted to death. Sure: it fills with near-pornographic glee the movies, television dramas, comedies, thrillers, gore fests with other peoples’ deaths, but never does it put death in first person singular.

So at 10:30 a.m. on the morning of April 24, 2008, I had my personal Garden of Gethsemane. I was alone (literally). I was mortally afraid. I was not ready or at peace with the fact that I was moving toward my death, and death was moving toward me.

+

The surgery was successful, but in December of the same year, cystoscopy showed I had lesions in my bladder, and chemotherapy was prescribed. It was at that moment that A Little Guide for Your Last Days began to be written. As much for me as for anyone else who might read it.

For any readers who are Christian, Little Guide is my express understanding of the grace of God in Jesus Christ to save us from both the penalty of sin and the fear and pain of death. Yes; it is Catholic in theology and understanding. That is where I find the most truth, the most hope, the most understanding of our human condition, and the most answers to our human plight.

I want A Little Guide for Your Last Days to be not only a memento mori – a reminder of your mortality – but a book of lessons for living your life more in keeping with the will of our self-donating, covenant-making, covenant-keeping God. And He is most clearly revealed in Jesus Christ: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Deo gratias.

A Little Guide for Your Last Days by Jeffry Hendrix—Chapter One
The doctor has shrugged his/her shoulders. All that can be done has been done. It will be x number of weeks/months of relatively high functioning normalcy, a rather steeply descending slope toward the cessation of organ function, a call to Hospice, then a great deal of morphine or the like (you hope).
What should you do now? Let’s start at the other end of the stick. What shouldn’t you do?

First of all, don’t mimic any movie character, any television show plot line, any action of any saint, or any advice given to you by a well-wishing friend, relative, or acquaintance.

What about The Bucket List? You know, the movie with Jack and Morgan – the two old geezers who go about spending their money on fun and dangerous things? Sorry; that drops you right back to square one – distraction from awareness of your gifted knowledge. Do not under any circumstances fall for this ruse. At best, you will come out of the experience with that sinking realization that nothing has changed. At worst, you will provide the keepers of pop culture with yet another example of how to distract yourself to death. Literally.

Secondly, don’t go round to acquaintances, friends, relatives, or perfect strangers looking for sympathy, understanding, concern, or anything else. Simply do not do it. They will not give it to you to the degree to which you are seeking. Even if they do, you will end up resenting their attempts. (Hey, they’re “safe”, or so they think. What’s it costing them? Nothing.) Again, you will end up feeling worse than you did before you went looking for what they really and truly do not have to give to you.

In fact, once the fact is out there, you are in what some cultural anthropologists like René Girard call “the sacred precinct.” You are a certifiable sacrificial victim, and you carry with you a sacred aura. Congratulations, right? It is an honor you would rather not enjoy, of course. As Mark Twain noted, when threatened by tarring and feathering and being ridden out of town on a rail, “If it weren’t for the honor and glory of the thing, I’d just as soon walk.”

And it isn’t such a strange, metaphysical thing. Mortality, being so hidden and kept from the general awareness, makes death the thing of near-pornographic fascination today, as long as it is someone else who is being so fascinating.

So here is the advice: Don’t waste your time in frenetic activities. It won’t get you any closer to what you want the most. Neither will the most tender sympathies of friends, family, or perfect strangers. Nor will the bald awareness and contemplation of your status as being in the cattle chute, as it were. None of these will answer the question burning in your mind and heart. And what might that question be? The Big Question?

I think you already have some idea or you wouldn’t have picked this book up from a bookstore like this. Matter of fact, you wouldn’t have even come into this bookstore if you weren’t already on the path to answering it for yourself.

Quote of the day

2009-06-19T09:33:00.002-04:00

"The procreative aspect of marriage—starting and maintaining a family—is something publicly significant and certifiable. As such, it is and should be governed by the laws of the state. But the expressive aspects are the private reasons for marriage, which should not be governed by the laws of the state, however necessary they might be for the private happiness that makes getting married and staying married personally desirable. In today's parlance, these expressive aspects are about 'relationships' rather than being about what in yesterday's parlance were called 'family relations.' Thus one used to carefully distinguish between one’s relatives and one's friends (even when one privately valued the relationship with one's friends more than one's relations with one's family relatives).

"The state has no valid interest in these private relationships and should not, therefore, interfere with them by attempting to govern them in any way. The state should be concerned with marriage’s public effects, not its private affects. We should be wary of ceding control over these emotions to the state, for private affections become distorted when public interest in them inevitably leads to public control of them. The state should no more govern these private relationships any more than it should govern one’s friendships, however long lasting they might be.

"Like the lives of the human beings who have created it, the state seeks its own survival. In order to regularly replenish its citizenry and ensure national continuity, the state has an interest in encouraging procreation and child rearing. Since procreation-with-child-rearing is the only truly public reason for marriage, I think marriage is essentially endorsed and structured by the state to best facilitate the procreation-and-rearing-of-children so born and raised in the society that purposefully maintains and supports that public institution. In general, parents have the primary right to raise the new persons they have brought into the world. Since these parents are responsible for bringing their children into the world and into society, the children have a right to their parents’ attention to them—a claim on their parents to fulfill their parental duty as much as it is possible for them to do. Absent any severe physical, mental, or emotional impediments to parenthood that inevitably lead to abuse or neglect, children are best raised by their natural parents. The state has an interest in respecting and even enforcing the natural claim children have on their own parents. Thus I consider these rights to be natural, in the literal sense of their natal character; and they are natural in the sense of being pre-political and thus not entitlements from the state."

— Rabbi David Novak, "Why We Should Oppose Same-Sex Marriage"

Virgo redactaChristopher West and the dangers of overanalogizing Mary

2009-06-18T20:41:00.010-04:00

A guest post by FR. ANGELO MARY GEIGER F.I.

Throughout the recent debate concerning the theology and methodology of Christopher West there has been considerable back and forth regarding the specific instances in which West might be taken as representing a line of thought out of step with Catholic tradition. Rather than answer all the specifics of the latest critiques of Prof. Schindler by Profs. Smith and Waldstein, I would like to focus on several examples of West that are often referred to in discussions and which I find poorly represented by him. The larger point of my focusing on these instances, I submit, is to illustrate how West undermines reverence by basing much of his unveiling on arguments not sufficiently based on fact.

I will take two of the best-known topics of West's writings and talks to make my point, though I allege there are more which I might illuminate at another time. They are 1) his reference to the paschal candle as a phallic symbol and the rites associate with it as a symbolic simulation of the conjugal act, 2) his penchant for unveiling the body of the Blessed Mother.

The “Phallacy” of the Candle

In The Everlasting Man G.K. Chesterton recalls a conversion he once had with a walking companion as they rested in the shadow of a church along the way. The companion asked: “Do you know why the spire of that church goes up like that?” When Chesterton had “expressed a respectable agnosticism,” the man went on: “Oh, the same as the obelisks; the Phallic Worship of antiquity!” After a moment of silence Chesterton replied: “Why, of course, . . . if it hadn’t been for phallic worship, they would have built the spire pointing downwards and standing on its own apex!” (p. 1, c. 8).

And that is basically my first point. We should all remember that the Paschal Candle is rather large, round and long, because, well, it’s a big candle. The size and shape are purely and perfectly functional as the candle in general is a masterpiece of engineering. In particular, this candle’s erectile contour is so prominent because it is to be the principle source of light and the focal point within the Church at the beginning of the Easter Vigil. The great Easter Praeconium weaves its verses around the candle proclaiming the candle’s obvious function with liturgical elegance. It is described as a “pillar of fire . . . shining to the honor of God,” because its purpose is to “dissipate the darkness of this night.” The Praeconium continues:

Let the morning star find its flame alight. That star, I mean, which knows no setting. He who returning from hell, serenely shone forth upon mankind.

And so the focus point of the Liturgy of Light is the Paschal Candle, because it is a functional instrument of light and its symbolism, very clearly, refers to the risen Christ. Easter is the beginning of an eternal day that is founded on the Resurrection of Christ. The vigil begins in darkness (death) and ends in light (life), at first that light comes only from Christ (the paschal candle) and then, after we have proclaimed: Lumen Christi! (Christ our Light), that light (life) is spread to the rest of us.

It seems, then, safe to assume, unless any phallic liturgical formularies can marshaled to the contrary, that the liturgy itself makes it clear that we are to understand the Paschal Candle to symbolize Christ, and its light, the Resurrection.

In her latest piece Prof. Smith admits that she was originally uncomfortable with West’s assertion that the symbolism of the Paschal Candle is an illustration of the Church’s sexual liturgical imagery:

I was appalled. Actually any reference to phallic symbols appalls me – I think mine may be a prudish response – and, in this context, I thought it was vulgar and irreverent. Imagine my surprise to learn that liturgists and theologians from the early days of the Church have understood the Easter Candle just as West does. Recently a priest – one who is a great public apologist for orthodoxy – told me that he thinks many priests are acutely aware of the sexual symbolism of the Easter candle/holy water font imagery during the Easter liturgy. I was humbled when I realized my judgment had been based upon ignorance and prudery. I think giving a list of phrases that will shock without context invites people to make judgments based on ignorance and prudery. I don’t in fact know why Schindler objects to West’s claim about the tradition of the Easter candle.

I will say that when I first heard of this phallic reference from West, I was appalled also, and still am. But the great Prof. Smith now tells us that we should all feel ashamed of our prudery because there are nameless “liturgists and theologians from the early days of the Church,” who clearly understood the submersion of the Paschal Candle into the baptismal font during the rite of the blessing of baptismal water to be a symbolic simulation of the conjugal act. I know that West has been teaching this, at least since 1999, and at least since 2001 he has had to defend his use of this imagery. To this day I still have never heard the names of these early Christian “liturgists and theologians” or seen a reference in order to find the respective texts in support of this theory. I am willing to hear the names and read the texts, but until I do, I will just have to assume that there are none.

In his 2001 “An Open Letter to A Concerned Listener,” West refers the reader to Christopher Derrick’s Sex and Sacredness, without quotation or specific reference. One must just assume that Derrick actually argues for the symbolism West has adopted. However, in his latest book, Heaven's Song, he again defends his assertion regarding the Paschal Candle, but this time with a actual quote from Derrick’s book. Unfortunately, there is absolutely no mention of the Paschal Candle in the quotation (170-171). I, therefore, withhold shame over my prudery until some valid authority is found for this theory.

In regard to the symbolism of the baptismal font, which I suspect is the actual basis for West’s contention, there is some authority. Saint Didymus of Alexandria, writes “the water of baptism is like a virginal womb, and the same Spirit who came down upon Mary, fills the sacred font.” Furthermore, the formulary of the vetus ordo of the Roman Rite during the blessing of the baptismal water reads:

May [the Spirit] by a secret mixture of His divine virtue render this water fruitful for the regeneration of men, to the end that a heavenly offspring, conceived by sanctification, may emerge from the immaculate womb of this divine font, reborn a new creature: and may all, however distinguished in body by sex or in time by age, be born into one same infancy by grace their mother.

When the candle is dipped thrice into the font the priest says each time: “May the virtue of the Holy Spirit descend into all the water of this font.” And after breathing three times on the water the priest says: “And make the whole substance of this water fruitful for regeneration.”

Note well, however, that the font’s womb symbolism when combined with the actual non-phallic symbolism of the paschal candle and the accompanying gesture is not tantamount to symbolic copulation. In fact, in the context of the above quotes and the received theological tradition, the symbolism of the font refers to the gestational womb, not female genitalia, as is the case when Elizabeth says to Our Lady: “Blessed is the fruit of your womb.”

Why is this so? Because the fundamental conception of baptism is that of rebirth. In Baptism we are born of water and the Holy Spirit (Jn. 2:5). As St. Thomas Aquinas says, reflecting the entire tradition:

This regeneration is effected by Baptism, for just as a man cannot live in the flesh unless he is born in the flesh, even so a man cannot have the spiritual life of grace unless he be born again spiritually (Exposition of the Apostles’ Creed, art. 10).

The prayers over the water reflect exactly this regenerational (rebirth) understanding.

In order to understand this symbolism with precision it is necessary to go further. There is a relationship between the Christ symbolism of the Paschal Candle and the invocations of the Holy Spirit over the water.

Christ (the Paschal Candle) descends into the water in order to make it holy just as He did in His baptism in the Jordan by St. John. Regeneration begins with the Incarnation and is extended to fallen man by the Incarnate Word as he establishes the sacramental system. But our rebirth actually begins earlier with the conception of Christ in the womb of Mary, where the Holy Spirit overshadows the Virgin and through His power She conceives the Son of God, who then later in the humanity He received from Her, sanctifies the waters of regeneration with His own body in the Jordan as the Holy Spirit hovers above. That virgin body of Christ will remain the incorruptible source of life, even when it is laid in the tomb for three days after His redemptive sacrifice. Our Lord rises incorrupt from the sealed tomb, just as He escaped from his Mother’s womb, without breaking the seal. Here is St. Peter Chrysologus (d. 450) on the subject:

Him whom sealed virginity had brought to this life, the sealed tomb would return to eternal life. It is characteristic of divinity to leave the Virgin sealed after birth; it is also characteristic of divinity to go out from the sealed tomb with the body (Sermo 75, 3: CCL, 24 A).

In a way that is exactly parallel to the virgin births of Christ (from the Virgin and from the tomb) we are also born not of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God (Jn 1:13). In other words our regeneration takes place in a series of virgin births (or conceptions): the Incarnation; the Resurrection; our baptism.

Read the quote from Saint Didymus of Alexandria again: “the water of baptism is like a virginal womb, and the same Spirit who came down upon Mary, fills the sacred font.” Baptism is, in fact, parallel to the virginal conception of Jesus. The waters of baptism are plainly virginal.

Futhermore, in the Didache, a first century anonymous work that includes liturgical instructions to the early Church, we read:

Having first said all these things, baptize into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, in living water. But if you have no living water, baptize into other water; and if you cannot do so in cold water, do so in warm (c. 7).

The water of baptism is not some kind of bodily coital fluid. We are not inseminated by the warm waters of baptism. The water is “cold” and “living,” because through it we are washed clean of our sins and regenerated virginally. We enter the water dead and rise from it in new life. The Bride of Christ has been sanctified, cleansed by the laver of water in the word of life (Eph. 5:26). The womb imagery can only be taken so far, and certainly not so far as to suggest coitus.

Furthermore, West’s interpretation is also partly based on the repetition of the submersing of the candle in the font, suggesting that this is a simulation of copulation. But why really are their three submersions, rather than one? Because the imagery is baptismal. After all we are talking about the blessing of baptismal water in the baptismal font. We are baptized with a Trinitarian formula, and at the name of each of the three persons the catechumen is immersed in the water (or infused with it). The submersion is not a penetration, but a descent into death; the emersion is a resurrection to new life.

Know you not that all we who are baptized in Christ Jesus are baptized in his death? For we are buried together with him by baptism into death: that, as Christ is risen from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also may walk in newness of life (Rm 6:3-4).

What is simulated in the Easter rite is not copulation, but the death and resurrection of Christ under the sign of the Blessed Trinity.

I would submit that the symbolism supported by my arguments is indisputably the primary liturgical reference. Is it hypothetically possible that there might be another layer? Certainly, but it would have to be consistent with what is primary, and I do not see how copulation can be reconciled with life conceived and born virginally. There is no question that the primary images associate with the rebirth of baptism and with the blessing of its waters are the virginal conception of Jesus, His baptism in the Jordan, and the Resurrection, all of which are virginal. Furthermore, the quote of St. Didymus, understood in the very context of the liturgical rites used to bless the water, indicates that the sanctification of the water is virginal. And the reference to the “Immaculate womb” of the font in the rite of blessing is clearly Marian and, therefore, virginal.

To suggest otherwise is to suggest that both the Church and the Blessed Mother are not virginal but, rather, sexually penetrated by the Holy Spirit. I know West would gasp and completely deny that he intends this, but regardless of what he intends that is what is objectively suggested by his interpretation of the imagery.

In any case, the contrary would have to be established by the evidence of a valid tradition developed over the ages. Certainly, the burden of proof is on West and not on those who are appalled by his use of phallic liturgical imagery. I am waiting, but I won’t hold my breath.

Shameless Nakedness

As we have already noted there is a parallel between the virginal conception and birth of Jesus from Our Lady and the virginal conception of holiness in the Easter water. West has a penchant for unveiling feminine images and penetrating them with his interpretation of the Theology of the Body. In fact, he urges us also to unveil the Blessed Mother. We have already intimated this from his treatment of the Easter liturgy.

For years he has told a personal story of his own sexual transformation, of how he resolved a terrible temptation against chastity that he was experiencing during a time before the Blessed Sacrament by recalling all the pornographic images to which he had previously exposed himself and that he could still remember. He brought them up one by one and then asked the Lord to heal him of his twisted view of sexuality and to allow him to see the truth of the goodness of the body. When he was all done, he saw the Blessed Virgin Mary breastfeeding the infant Jesus. He says at that moment he knew what he had always been looking for when he was using pornography.

In his 1999 “Naked without Shame” tapes, he suggests that this might have been a mystical experience. I mention this, even though in his more recent presentations he may not refer to any mystical phenomena, because I think it is telling. In any case, the presentation of the story, done in West’s imitable style, lends a sense of authority to the ideas he is promoting. I will not pass judgment on his personal experience, but I will question its revelation and use to discourage prudery among the average faithful Catholic.

This story sets the tone for many of the ways in which West unveils the Blessed Mother in the interests of being “fascinated” in a holy way with the human body and avoiding prudery (cf. Heaven’s Song, pp. 37-52). I would suggest this proclivity of his has nothing to do with the teaching of John Paul II, and finds no authority in the tradition of the Church.

I am well aware of the iconographical tradition of Maria Lactans (Mary Breastfeeding), such as the many images in Italy of Madonna delle Grazie. This is an old and venerable tradition that once was very widespread and continues in various parts of the world down to this day. Sandra Meisel’s excellent article on this subject is well worth the read. I just part company with her when she, like West, chides anyone who might be a bit squeamish about such images.

I would surmise that that these images became popular when it was common to see women breastfeeding. Living in the Philippines some years ago, I was at times shocked to see women breastfeed in public with little if any effort to cover up—sometimes even in Church! No one made anything of it. I admit I was scandalized.

In America men generally consider exposure of a woman’s bosom provocative, and I assert that men who are trying to live chastely find the such exposure inappropriate, not because they think the female body is evil, or because they have a sexual hang up, but because they find too much exposed flesh in that area, regardless of the context, sexually arousing. Period.

I have been a guy for my whole life and a priest for more than sixteen years. I know well enough how men think. Women can pooh-pooh this all they want, but there is really nothing more complicated, sub-conscious or deep and dark about it than plain old male libido.

I personally have no problem with Maria Lactans, if it is done without the Classical, Pre-Raphaelite or such-like voluptuousness. It was only due to the preponderance of such images that nudity in sacred art “with a beauty exciting to lust” was condemned by the Council of Trent:

Moreover, in the invocation of saints, the veneration of relics, and the sacred use of images, every superstition shall be removed, all filthy lucre be abolished; finally, all lasciviousness be avoided; in such wise that figures shall not be painted or adorned with a beauty exciting to lust; nor the celebration of the saints, and the visitation of relics be by any perverted into revellings and drunkenness; as if festivals are celebrated to the honour of the saints by luxury and wantonness (Canons and Decrees, sess. 25).

Meisel refers in her article to the “decorous reforms of Trent,” in a not altogether favorable context, but admits that not all the images of Maria Lactans and Maria Gravida (Mary with Child) were destroyed subsequent to Trent. In fact, the council was able to distinguish the difference between the moral character of various visual images. Lust is not only a matter of interior disposition. There are in fact concrete non-subjective factors that excite lust.

In any case, I do not think, as West has suggested, that the image of Maria Lactans, however it is executed, needs to be used as a tool for the exorcism of prudishness, or that we should ask ourselves why it might make us uncomfortable and chide ourselves for having unresolved sexual tensions.

But my problem with West on this score runs considerably deeper than his attitude toward the image of Maria Lactans. In his latest book, Heaven’s Song, he has quite a bit on the Blessed Mother, which in my opinion, though I know he is sincere and well intentioned, is grossly irreverent and smacks of blasphemy.

Just as some things are just objectively immodest, some things are just objectively irreverent. As I have already shown in the section on the Paschal Candle, playing fast and loose with Christian symbolism can end by suggesting some pretty irreverent things, such as the loss of Our Lady’s virginity.

Our Lady is the Ark of the Covenant. A bit of advice of all Uzzah’s of the world: Don’t touch the Ark (cf. 1 Chronicles 13:10). Leave it behind the veil. God is not likely to strike anyone dead, but some things are too holy to be violated by our paltry eyes and hands. (And no that does not mean I think our eyes and hands are evil, just not worthy to unveil the Blessed Mother.)

Here again West invokes authority for his opinion, but in the convoluted way which seems to be somewhat habitual for him. He argues that some of the inspiration for John Paul II’s Theology of the Body was the given through the pope’s familiarity with the Marian writings of St. Louis de Montfort (78-79). In this context he analyses a particular passage of Treatise on True Devotion to Mary:

As St. Louis de Montfort put it, God sent his angel to Mary “in order to win her heart.” And on account of the “hidden delights” of his divine proposal, ‘she gave her consent.” At that moment, God poured a “chalice of ambrosia” into the womb of his virgin bride and opening to his “divine nectar,” she conceived God’s own Son. Such imagery would have given my wonderful but rather prudish grandmother cardiac arrest. For anyone experiencing palpitations de Montfort reminds us plainly: “These are the comparisons mad by the saints” (TD, nn. 252-253) (30).

This would be all well and good, except for one thing: St. Louis does not say what West claims he does. Here is the passage from True Devotion:

252. Chosen souls, slaves of Jesus in Mary, understand that after the Our Father, the Hail Mary is the most beautiful of all prayers. It is the perfect complement the most High God paid to Mary through his archangel in order to win her heart. So powerful was the effect of this greeting upon her, on account of its hidden delights, that despite her great humility, she gave her consent to the incarnation of the Word. If you say the Hail Mary properly, this compliment will infallibly earn you Mary’s good will.
253. When the Hail Mary is well said, that is, with attention, devotion and humility, it is, according to the saints, the enemy of Satan, putting him to flight; it is the hammer that crushes him, a source of holiness for souls, a joy to the angels and a sweet melody for the devout. It is the Canticle of the New Testament, a delight for Mary and glory for the most Blessed Trinity. The Hail Mary is dew falling from heaven to make the soul fruitful. It is a pure kiss of love we give to Mary. It is a crimson rose, a precious pearl that we offer to her. It is a chalice of ambrosia, a divine nectar that we offer her. These are comparisons made by the saints [emphasis mine].

St. Louis is speaking about the Hail Mary not the virginal conception of Jesus in Her womb. The “chalice of ambrosia” and “divine nectar” are not references to some kind of supernatural seminal fluid. They are references to the consoling character of the prayer of the Hail Mary. (BTW, West repeats the same argument in a web column as well, entitled “The Spousal Mystery of Christmas“).

This does not merit a line-by-line parsing. This coital imagery is suggested by West alone, not by the saint or by the pope, and so is proposed without real authority. Thus, no one should be brow beaten into feeling bad about their discomfort with it. What West claims is just not there. Perhaps he should have taken his poor grandmother more seriously.

Why is it that Christopher West argues for the existence coital imagery in the blessing of the baptismal font and in the Annunciation, doing so on the basis specious appeals to authority? I am not inquiring about his intentions, but I do see a pattern of thought which suggests to me that West is certain that John Paul II is clearly mandating that we become fascinated with the human body as a way of spiritual renewal. He then goes about and forces this interpretation on everything. As Prof. Schindler says:

In the end, West, in his disproportionate emphasis on sex, promotes a pansexualist tendency that ties all important human and indeed supernatural activity back to sex without the necessary dissimilitudo.

On the same page of Heaven’s Song where West misinterprets St. Louis, he makes his interpretation of the symbolic role of Mary in the Theology of the Body clearer:

With her freely given “yes”—and only with her freely given yes—the Heavenly Bridegroom rejoices to pour his eternal, immortal, invisible seed (his Word) within her, filling her “impregnating” her with divine life” (30).

I am not even sure who he is talking about here. Who is it that he is calling Bridegroom in the context of this insemination? Christ, (the Word) in the context of Ephesians 5? Surely, he is not going there. Christ certainly does not impregnate the Blessed Mother. So then the Holy Spirit must be the Bridegroom who impregnates Her with His Seed (the Word)? Is the fruit of Mary’s womb, then, the Word or what is conceived by the Word?

I have no gripe with referring to Mary as Spouse of the Holy Spirit, or even as Spouse of Christ. St. Francis of Assisi, for example is one of the first to speak of Mary as Spouse of the Holy Spirit:

Holy Virgin Mary, there is none like you among women born in the world. Daughter and handmaid of the heavenly Father, the almighty King, Mother of our most high Lord Jesus Christ, and Spouse of the Holy Spirit, pray for us to your most holy Son, our Lord and Master (Antiphon to the Office of the Passion).

And in another prayer he develops this idea:

. . . You are the Virgin made Church (Virgo facta Ecclesia), chosen by the most holy Father of heaven and consecrated by Him with His most holy beloved Son and the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete. On you descended and in you still remains all the fullness of grace and every good. Hail, His Palace; hail, His Tabernacle; hail His House. Hail his Robe; hail, His Handmaid; hail, His Mother. And hail all you holy virtues, who by the grace and the light of the Holy Spirit, are infused into the hearts of the faithful, so that faithless no longer, they may be made faithful servants of God through you (Salutation of the Blessed Virgin).

Our Lady’s spousal relationship to the Holy Spirit is seen here in the context of the His mission of sanctification, the paradigm of which is the Annunciation, a virginal conception which illumines the meaning of our infusion (not impregnation) with grace and virtue in baptism. Our Lady is the Virgin made Church, and so the Church, along with its members, is virgin made. The Holy Spirit does not beget Christ. He is not His father.

St. Ephrem in the fourth century is the first to refer to Mary as the Spouse of Christ:

. . I am mother because of Your conception, and bride am I because of your chastity. Handmaiden and daughter of blood and water [am I] whom You redeemed
and baptized (quoted in Gambero, 117).

Here again this spousal attribution has nothing to do with begetting as is obvious from the reference to chastity.

These are venerable traditions. But they simply do not translate into the absurd and idea that Christ could be his own father or that the Holy Spirit is the father of Jesus.

The fact is that in the tradition of the Catholic Church the Holy Spirit is not referred to as the Father of Jesus. Our Lord has only one Father from whom He is eternally generated as Son. He has a Father in heaven, but no mother. And we say that on earth He is conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. He has a Mother on earth, but no father. St. John Chrysostom (d. 407) writes:

The Son of God has no father and no mother. But how? Yes, he is without a father according to his earthly generation; he is without a mother according to his heavenly generation. For he had neither a father on earth nor a mother in heaven (Gambero, 179).

The Church is precise when she says that Mary conceives the Christ virginally through the power of the Holy Spirit. And this is why she avoids speaking of the Virgin’s impregnation. There is no supernatural insemination. There is no coital metaphor by which we come to better understand the virginal conception of Our Lord in Our Lady’s womb.

Again, because West artificially forces his particular view of TOB on everything he looks upon, he unwittingly insinuates that Our Lady is penetrated by the Holy Spirit and that there is some carnal insemination or physicality of the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity. I know full well that West does not intend this, but he jumps in where angels (and Fathers of the Church) fear to tread and then finds the implications of his assertions staring back at him. This is precisely why the Church does not use these metaphors in the way he does.

West rightly understands that analogy works two ways, both up and down (cf. Heaven’s Song, 132-133); however, I think he is confused when he suggests that the higher heavenly realities point downward. No, the earthly realities point upwards because they are visible signs of heavenly realities, and the truth of the heavenly realities, given to us through divine revelation, help to illumine the meaning of the earthly signs, but they are not signs themselves. In the case of the middle realities like the virginal conception, they are signs, yes, but they point up not down. There is no divine coitus that points down to the virginal conception, and Our Lady’s conception of Jesus does not point further down to the coition of the baptismal waters. In fact, the virginal conception, sans divine coitus, points up to the fulfillment of spousal love as it is realized in the unitive way and the beatific vision. And it illumines the signs below it without itself being a sign of lower things, by focusing our attention on the true meaning of earthly marital love, namely, the love of Christ for the Church and the love and obedience of the Church to Christ.

It is a responsibility of a theologian to be aware of the possible implications of his use of analogy, including those that he may not intend. For many who do not understand theology, they may not find all of this a big deal; however, Schindler points out what, early on in the history of an idea, might appear only to be a minor point, once clarified theologically, could turn out to be something that the magisterium has to deal with. He also says that the struggle over subtle distinctions is not merely an academic exercise, as is shown by the fact that “all of the most important matters involved in Church doctrines turn on just such subtle distinctions.” I submit that West fails to make some important subtle distinctions and errs by forcing coital interpretations where they don’t belong. The result is pansexualism.

Further on in Heaven’s Song West returns to the teaching of St. Louis about Our Lady in True Devotion, quoting phrases like “untold riches, beauties, rarities and delights” [of Mary’s Garden], “Mary’s virginal bosom,” “nourished with the milk of her grace,” “in the bosom of Mary [we are to] grow mature in enlightenment, in holiness, in experience and in wisdom,” “It is upon [Mary’s] breast that all good things come to me” (79, quoting TD 261, 264, 156, 216).

He then goes on, as he so often does, to admonish those of us who might be uncomfortable with this language. However, it is really not the language of the saint that I have a problem with, but the context and methodology in which it is being presented by West. Our Lady is both physical and spiritual mother; however, in reference to us, “poor banished children of Eve,” She is only a spiritual mother. Yes, of course Her physical maternity points up to Her spiritual maternity, and we can benefit by understanding the metaphors used by St. Louis, but he does not seem to be suggesting that we become fascinated with the Blessed Mother’s body as West asserts he does.

I am inclined to interpret West’s own experience of Maria Lactans, as an understanding that sexual desire finds its ultimate meaning in the union of the divine and human exemplified by the sign of the nursing Child at His Mother’s breast, and that West understands that the metaphorical nursing suggested by St. Louis is not a some kind of virtuous fulfillment of sexual desire. However, in the context of the issues I have raised here, it seems that West is his own worst enemy, because he seems hell-bent on placing coital imagery where it does not belong. And it certainly does not belong with the Ark of the Covenant. Hands off, please.

Don’t Touch that Veil

I just want to conclude by saying once again that I hope with Christopher West that all men, male and female, may through the comprehensive teaching of the Church experience the full effects of the redemption, including the redemption of the body. Like Janet Smith, I applaud West for his efforts at mining John Paul II’s Theology of the Body and pioneering its popular formulation. But at this point we need to be careful to distinguish between what comes from the magisterium and the saints, and what comes from West’s unanchored speculation. No matter how much novelty may sound like good news that does not equate it with the gospel or with the teaching of the Church. We just need to be crystal clear about that.

Schindler was exactly correct when he said that the uneasiness of many individuals with the ethereal excursions of West “is a consequence not only or always of unconscious “Puritanism” on their part, but often simply of their spontaneous and authentic human and Catholic instincts.”

I have to admit, I rolled my eyes a bit as Professor Smith confessed her prudery over the Paschal Candle; and likewise, I was a bit surprised when Professor Healy admitted that he was taken aback when West suggested before an audience that a certain questioner might have some sexual hang ups, and then bent over backwards to defend West’s behavior. It’s like we have fallen under the spell of the prudery police.

Much can be done to avoid the extremes to which men, male and female, are prone to go in matters of sexuality, but the harping about prudery every time someone disagrees with West needs to stop. It is not helpful and, as I believe I have shown above, it simply is not accurate.

There is nothing wrong with leaving the body under the veil and only revealing it to one’s spouse when the two find themselves within the sanctuary of the nuptial garden. For this no one needs to feel guilty or damaged. It is not a matter of prudery, inspired by the Manichean demon. It is a matter of reverence, inspired by the Queen of Virgins.

Father Angelo Mary Geiger, a Franciscan Friar of the Immaculate, blogs at MaryVictrix.com.

Blogging for life

2009-06-18T11:45:00.003-04:00

If you'd like to read the latest on culture-of-life issues, particularly efforts to defend and protect life via state and federal legislation, check out the posts I've been writing as part of my "day job," over at the Americans United for Life blog.

Comments closed—please leave your comments on the AUL blog.

Washington Times' Amanda Carpenter spotlights 'Sex and Chastity'

2009-06-18T09:42:00.004-04:00

Amanda Carpenter, the Washington Times columnist who is a frequent guest on news TV shows such as the "O'Reilly Factor," wrote me yesterday to ask if I would speak about my blog entry on Chastity Bono's "sex change," "Sex and Chastity."

The story appears today in Carpenter's "Hot Button" column. Many thanks to her for giving me the opportunity to expand upon some of the points I made in the blog post and in my book The Thrill of the Chaste. Here is what I had to say:

""I am born again, but in the body that I was supposed to have. Chastity [Bono] is seeking a rebirth that's really a death of the entire body she was given.

"Any attempt to change one's sex is really an attempt to kill one's self. When I was younger and sought sex outside marriage, living the life I thought would bring happiness, it instead brought loneliness and made me suicidal. What I experienced in my conversion was the death of the things I didn't like about myself, and a rebirth of the person who was meant to live in the body I was born with. I think that is the only way one can truly have peace in both body and soul."

Read the full story in Carpenter's column.

Quote of the day

2009-06-17T00:02:00.003-04:00

"I knew it was not consistent with my beliefs. So that’s hypocritical, and I don’t want to be a hypocrite. And I could just feel the emptiness… it didn’t feel good. The feeling afterwards. Just that empty sort of… weird space. And I’d had enough."

— Lenny Kravitz on the morning-after experience that spurred him to become chaste.

* * *

The entire interview with Kravitz is well worth reading, revealing the workings of grace in his own life and also in that of his Jewish father.

RELATED: I have written in The Thrill of the Chaste and elsewhere about similar experiences of what Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen calls "black grace"—the grace of realizing that one is seeking the Infinite where it cannot be found. With God's help, it can lead to the "white grace" of conversion, causing one to seek the Love that goes beyond sex.

Catching a buzz

2009-06-15T11:57:00.003-04:00

Someone must be talking about my book today; as I write this, The Thrill of the Chaste: Finding Fulfillment While Keeping Your Clothes On is back in Amazon's top 30,000 (and the Kindle version is in the top 10,000).

If you'd like to get a taste of The Thrill, the introduction and first chapter of the book are available on the Christianity Today Web site. You can also learn more about it at thrillofthechaste.com.

A couple of years ago, when I was just beginning to give talks, I spoke to Catholic young adults in a Cleveland, Ohio, church basement [hence the prominent bingo sign] about what my book reveals that popular culture omits.