The Spiral of Silence

As those of you who have read ID for a while know, I have often written about the "don't ask, don't tell" culture of Catholicism. We don't ask where people are in their lived relationship with God and we don't tell them the good news of Jesus Christ.

So I was fascinated to come across Communication scholar Elisabeth Noelle-Neuman's theory of the “spiral of silence". You can tell that I didn't major in communications because Neuman published this theory 25 years ago and it has been talked about endlessly since.

Neuman's idea is that most people have an intuitive awareness of the majority sentiment within a group, and most are less likely to speak up when they find themselves in the minority. The silencing effect thus reinforces itself: if a 40% minority does only 20% of the talking, they perceive themselves to be even more outnumbered than they truly are and are thus even less inclined to speak. Hence, the spiral into silence.

Neuman found that individuals avoid speaking out on controversial issues due to an innate fear of social isolation.

Because of this fear of isolation, people continuously scan their environment to try to assess the climate of opinion at all times. This would includes current and future distribution of opinion. If we think that our opinion is shared by the majority or that it is gaining ground in our culture/group, we are much more likely to talk about it openly.

And this is fascinating: If people find no current, frequently repeated expressions for their point of view, they lapse into silence; they become effectively mute. In other words, if we don't hear people about us or in the media talking about something, we literally don't have the language to think or talk about it ourselves. Most of us don't think completely original thoughts in completely original language. We are given categories and frameworks and language with which to think and talk about the world from those around us.

Neumann was concerned primarily with the role of the media in establishing the impression that certain beliefs are the belief of the majority but she also studied the role of interpersonal support in enabling people holding minority opinions to hold to them and talk about them openly. If interpersonal support decreases, the number of those who will talk about a minority opinion and eventually, even hold to it also decreases. A Christian culture that is silent about fundamental things produces Christians who will also be silent about these things with their families, their friends, and in the marketplace.

•Noelle-Neumann quotes Tocqueville about this dynamic in regard to the Catholic faith in revolutionary France.

People still clinging to the old faith were afraid of being the only ones who did so, and as they were more frightened of isolation than of committing an error, they joined the masses even though they did not agree with them. In this way, the opinion of only part of the population seemed to be the opinion of all and everybody, and exactly for this reason seemed irresistible to those who were responsible for this deceptive appearance.

The combination of our secularized post-modern culture without and our "don't ask, don't tell" culture within the Church has helped ensure that the Church's teaching on evangelization is a dead letter on arrival.

If we are to enable Catholics to buck the cultural tide and not only hold onto their own personal faith but share it eagerly with others, if we are serious about evangelization at all, we have to start talking about following Christ and intentional discipleship explicitly in our parishes. We have to both ask and tell on an on-going basis.

Can Anything Good Come Out of Nazareth?

From Luceat! - a blog of the Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS)come this moving anecdote:

As we began our pilgrimage to the tomb of St. James the Apostle in Santiago de Compostella, five FOCUS missionaries and six student leaders joined the Benedictine sisters who kept our albergue (hostel) for prayer before we began walking the next day. As the mother superior intoned the ancient prayers of the Liturgy of the Hours, something about her caught my attention. She possessed a beauty that was uniquely feminine and radiated a sense of peace that told me she had a heart that had experienced both profound suffering and profound joy. This was a holy woman.

After vespers, this beautiful bride of Christ spoke with Jason, the missionary that led our pilgrimage. With great sorrow in her expression, she spoke with Jason about the state of the Church in Spain – about the devastation after the Spanish Civil War and about the breakdown in family life and about the mass exodus of young people from the Church and about the profound shortage of priests. “And then I see you,” she said to Jason with a renewed light in her eye “and I have hope.”

She explained to Jason that she and her sisters beg our Lord for a renewal in the church in Spain, but they have not yet seen the fruit of their prayers in the way that they hope. She explained that she sees the Church flourishing in Africa and in India, but that with her understanding of how grace builds on nature, these places do not have the political stability nor the economic means to raise up the other cultures of the world.

“No,” she said, “I believe, as did our beloved John Paul II, that the center of the New Evangelization must be the United States. The new Avila – the new Sienna – the new Assisi - must be your St. Louis, Missouri, your Chicago, Illinois, your Denver, Colorado.” Referencing the story of Joseph in Genesis, which happened to have been the first reading in mass that morning, she suggested that just as the family of God in Genesis was saved from famine through their youngest brother, so would the family of God living at this moment in Salvation History be saved through their “youngest brother,” the faithful disciples of Christ, especially “the dear young people” of the Catholic Church in the United States."

I was struck some months ago by a comment by an evangelical mission leader from Africa. He observed the Holy Spirit is most often visibly active on the periphery, not in the center of powerful institutions. I suppose it's the "can anything good come out of Nazareth" phenomena. Certainly we have found in our travels that almost all effective evangelization going on in the American Church today is happening at the grassroots,parish level. And that there are a lot of wonderfully creative grassroots initatives out there. Could Mother Superior be right? Could the American Catholics be the key to the New Evangelization?

I think she is - with a few caveats: It's true for now - for the next 10- 15 years, perhaps 20 years. Because the third world is catching up with us quickly in terms of stability and economic growth. India has been famously enjoying a economic book over the past decade and even Africa is changing while our eyes are focused upon her many struggles. I read an article in the New York Times observing that three times as many African nations are democracies now than in 1989. Some are fragile but there has been a definite trend. This is probably a crucial moment for the American Church but our unique advantages aren't going to remain unique very long.

In the end, much more important through Christian history than wealth, infrastructure, and political stability is passionate discipleship. The fastest growing Christian community in the world for the past 3 decades has been in China where the growth has often occurred in the midst of terrible persecution and where religious initiatives are still routinely restricted.

Nepal is an excellent case in point. Until 1951, Nepal was completely closed off to all missionary work. In 1960, there was only a handful of known Nepali Christians. The big breakthrough occurred in the early 60’s when two lay evangelists from India crossed the Himalayas to share the Gospel.

By 1970, there were about 7,450 Nepali Christians in an illegal underground movement led by teenagers who were tortured and imprisoned for their faith. In the early 80’s, I remember hearing an evangelical woman missionary just back from Nepal describing the marks of torture still visible on the hands of the young leaders. By the turn of the millennium, there were almost 600,000 Christians in Nepal, most associated with indigenous, New Apostolic movements.

Nepali Christianity is growing so fast that Barrett estimates that the Christian population topped 768,000 by mid-2005 and now makes up 2.8% of the total population. 582,000 or 76% of Nepal’s Christians are Independents. There are only 6,626 known Catholics in the country.

“At least 40 to 60 percent of the Nepali church became Christians as a direct result of a miracle," says Sandy Anderson of the Sowers Ministry. "Most times the people do not know what we are talking about when we preach the gospel. That's why it is very important to demonstrate the gospel. We preach. Then God heals the sick when we pray. The gospel is not only preached but demonstrated in Nepal." (The Church at the Top of the World, April 3, 2000, Christianity Today).

Passionate evangelizers can and will use any cultural or structural opportunities to spread the gospel that present themselves - from the Pax Romana to the internet - but only if they are already burning to share the good news of Jesus Christ. Discipleship, prayer, and apostolic imagination trumps societal stability and technology in this area every time. A man or woman who loves Christ and his Church will find a way to share that love - and the greater the love, the more creative and compelling the sharing will be.

I suspect the good sister is right. A unique opportunity is before the American Church - but only to the extent that we are intentional disciples of Jesus Christ who have taken up and living our apostolic identity and mission.

The Weight of Glory

Back from the Diocesan Ministry Congress where I did a couple of break-out sessions and have fun of some great conversations with people who are discerning. Including this really intriguing conversation just before I left this morning.

A 40-something woman sitting at the booth next to us in the vendor's room asked me that most shaming of questions to a mendicant like myself: Do You Remember Me? AAAAAAHHHHHH!

I did a emergency search of the slovenly, jammed-packed warehouse that I call my brain but nothing turned up - no memory of her face or her story - much less her name. It was confession time - again since I face this dilemma several times a week. When you've worked directly with 33,000 people, that's about 32,800 people whom I encountered briefly and whose names I either never knew or have probably forgotten but whom I'm probably going to run into again - 6 months or 8 years down the road. (It has gotten to the point where I've had flight attendants come up to me in my seat and ask if I'm the "Called & Gifted" lady.) I long ago learned that honesty and self-depreciating humor is the only graceful way out.

I confessed. Mea Culpa. So she (I'll call her Fiona) filled me in. Apparently Fiona attended a workshop I taught about 21 months ago for religious educators and taking the Catholic Spiritual Gifts Inventory was a huge turning point in her life. And I did a "5 minute" interview with her, looking quickly at her inventory scores and pointing out the possible significance of the patterns. She had gotten a high score in celibacy and I asked her if she had ever considered religious life - which, though I didn't know it, was the single biggest issue in her life. I apparently pointed out that her profile was classically Dominican (a focus on communication gifts and charisms of understanding) and suggested that she might consider exploring Dominican communities.

So she did. She contacted Sr. Francine Barber, OP who now works for the Diocese of Pueblo, Colorado 40 miles away but who used to be stationed in Seattle. What this woman could not know was the Sr. Francine co-taught my very first RCIA program in Seattle all those years ago. I like to joke that I blame everything on Sr. Francine because she could stopped this whole "should I become Catholic?" thing at the very beginning.

After a year of discernment with Sr. Francine, "Fiona" realized that her call was to "stability" and she is, today, a aspirant to a local Benedictine women's community. And she said over and over that taking the Inventory and my brief conversation with her was very significant in that process.

God's network is amazing. Sr. Francine encouraged my first steps into the Church and then I (without knowing) was used by God to encourage this woman on her way into religious life which sent her to Sr. Francine - and so it goes.

It's the circle of Life alright. God calling us to his own life. And incredibly, He entrusts small but very significant roles in this great drama to every one of us.

I quote from C. S. Lewis' magnificent sermon "The Weight of Glory" at every Called & Gifted workshop and Lewis sums it up with such eloquence:

"It may be possible for each to think too much of his own potential glory hereafter; it is hardly possible for him to think too often or too deeply about that of his neighbor. The load or weight or burden of my neighbor's glory should be laid on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken. It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strong tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you know meet, if at all, only in a nightmare.

All day long we are, in some degree helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics.

There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations-these are mortal and their life is to our as the life of a gnat. But it immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit-immortal horrors or everlasting splendours."

A Tribute to Gloria Straus

Go to the Seattle Times website and scroll down until you see the section with Gloria Straus's picture. Click on the audio slideshow: a tribute to Gloria.

It's radiant with love and faith and is a fitting remembrance of a radiant little girl.

A Hummingbird Spa

One of the things I'm doing this weekend is plant more Agastashe - a tough, xeric flower for this climate that attracts hummingbirds like this:

Colorado is a major bird migration point and hummers are all over the place in the summer. One goal: to grow a sort of hummingbird spa in the backyard.

Whatever Is Truly Christian . . .

Dr. Philip Blosser asks an excellent question in the middle of a long discussion with Janice Kraus:

"Let's get to the point: Here's a Catholic teaching and tradition. I would like you to comment on it. It says:

"... Catholics must gladly acknowledge and esteem the truly Christian endowments from our common heritage which are to be found among our separated brethren. It is right and salutary to recognize the riches of Christ and virtuous works in the lives of others who are bearing witness to Christ, sometimes even to the shedding of their blood. For God is always wonderful in His works and worthy of all praise."

But wait. That's not all:

"Nor should we forget that anything wrought by the grace of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of our separated brethren can be a help to our own edification. Whatever is truly Christian is never contrary to what genuinely belongs to the faith; indeed, it can always bring a deeper realization of the mystery of Christ and the Church."

Decree on Ecumenism (Unitatis Redintegratio) (1964), I, 4.

Janice, what do you think Mother Church is teaching us here? Which "truly Christian endowments" and "riches of Christ and virtuous works" among our separated brethren do you think could be described as "genuinely [belonging] to the faith," "wrought by the grace of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of our separated brethren" and, moreover, could be considered as "a help to our own edification" as Catholics, bringing us to "a deeper realization of the mystery of Christ and the Church?"

Note, first, that the Decree is not even discussing Catholic converts here, but non-Catholic Christians; and, second, that the Decree is not stating merely that certain endowments and works of non-Catholic Christians are compatible with Catholic teaching or belong to "our common heritage, but that they may serve to edify Catholics. Your comments, please."

And we'd love to hear from you as well . . .

Bloggers: Witness or Shapers of History?

We have all heard the jokes about the pajamadeen, heros in pajamas and slippers who fight for truth and justice via the laptop on their dining room table. There has been huge debate about the power of bloggers to spread news around the world with astonishing speed. But this story coming out of Myanmar (Burma) gives a vivid sense of how powerful blogging can be.

Via CNN:

Armed with a laptop, a blogger named Ko Htike has thrust himself into the middle of the violent crackdown against monks and other peaceful demonstrators in his homeland of Myanmar.

Snip

He runs the blog out of his London apartment, waking up at 3 a.m. every day to review the latest digitally smuggled photos, video and information that's sent in to him.

With few Western journalists allowed in Myanmar, Htike's blog is one of the main information outlets. He said he has as many as 40 people in Myanmar sending him photos or calling him with information. They often take the photos from windows from their homes, he said.



Myanmar's military junta has forbidden such images, and anyone who sends them is risking their lives.

Ko Htike's blog (significant portions of which are in English)gives a chilling, immediate sense of the crisis and violence in Myanmar.


And the impact and significance of blogging.

Update: 9/28: CNN covered Ko Htike's activities, last night the internet was shut down all over Myanmar. Ko Htike writes:

Dear All,

I sadly announce that the Burmese military junta has cut off the internet connection throughout the country. I therefore would not be able to feed in pictures of the brutality by the brutal Burmese military junta.

I will also try my best to feed in their demonic appetite of fear and paranoia by posting any pictures that I receive though other means (Journos!! please don’t ask me what other means would be??). I will continue to live with the motto that “if there is a will there is a way”.

Update: 9/28, 10:00 am

Just another indicator. I stepped away from the computer for a bit, only to discover upon returning that CNN has linked to this post under the rubric of blogger's reactions to the plight of another blogger in London who is one of the few windows on what is happening on the other side of the world. The junta is desperately trying to control news leaving the country but it can't. Long live the pajamadeen.

Meanwhile in Ko Htike's comment boxes, journalists beg for interviews, bloggers in Italy are coloring their blogs in red in support, and lots of Americans are writing to let him know of their support. But, he's had to shut down his comments because someone "misused" them.

Please pray for the Ko Ktike and the people of Myanmar at this moment of crisis.

Rome, Sep 27, 2007 / 10:52 am (CNA).- The Catholic Bishops' Conference of Myanmar (CBCM) has called on Catholics to pray for their country as street demonstrations by Buddhist monks against the military government which has ruled for 45 years entered a second week.

According to press release published by the UCA News Agency, the bishops said, “The Church in Myanmar has been making chain prayers, fasting and perpetual adoration turn by turn in all the parishes of all the Archdioceses and Dioceses for peace and development in the country since February 1, 2006 up to now.”

“Especially at the present situation,” the bishops continued, “all Catholics are requested to make unceasing prayers and to offer special Masses for the welfare of the country. They also noted that in accordance with “the Canon Law and Social Teachings of the Catholic Church, priests and religious are not involved in any party-politics and in the current protests.”

Reclaiming Fatherhood

It's a first: a conference on the effect of abortion on men will be held at St. Mary's Cathedral in San Francisco on November 28, 29. Reclaiming Fatherhood

Topics covered will include current research, abortion as trauma, and counseling men who have experienced pregnancy loss through abortion. This is a unique opportunity for those who deal with men in pastoral or clinical settings to learn about this much neglected topic.

Carolyn Aigle

What a woman.

Carolyn Aigle would have turned 33 on September 12.

But this remarkable Catholic woman - the first fighter pilot in France - choose to risk her own life in order to save the life of her unborn son. Diagnosed with a very agressive cancer when she was 5 months pregnant, Carolyn, together with her fighter pilot husband Christophe, refused to have an abortion when urged to do so by her doctors. Her son was born at the beginning of August (3 1/2 months early) but it was too late and Carolyn died three weeks later. Her doctor reports that son Marc is doing well.



Carolyn's "funeral was celebrated by Father Pierre Demoures, a former fighter pilot himself. In his homily, he remembered Caroline as someone who led people to Christ with “her qualities, kindness, willingness, passion,” and he praised her for choosing to give life to her son, for whom she “postponed a treatment that was urgent.”

Father Demoures recalled that when Carolina and Christophe sought him out for marriage preparation, they asked him for a book that spoke not about the love of one for the other, “but rather about the love that opens us to love others.”

Remember Carolyn, Marc, her husband Christophe, and their two other children in your prayers.

The Works of Catherine of Siena in Braille

Over the past several years, thanks to some generous Catherine of Siena enthusiasts, the works of Catherine in English have been gradually transcribed into Braille. So far the Dialogue, Prayers, and one volume of the Letters have appeared, and just now Suzanne Nofke's Catherine of Siena: Vision through a Distant Eye.

If you are interested in access to these volumes, contact EVR Braille Services (Emelita de Jesus), 1906 Bonita Avenue, Burbank, CA 91504.

hat tip: Dominican Life

O Come, Let US ADORE Him

ADORE is a new ministry of the Diocese of Houma/Thibodaux in Lousiana

Their inspiration: The Catechism of the Catholic Church, #2097:

To adore God is to acknowledge, in respect and absolute submission, the nothingness of the creature who would not exist but for God. To adore God is to praise and exalt Him and humble oneself, as Mary did in the Magnificat, confessing with gratitude that He has done great things and holy is His name. The worship of the one God sets us free from turning in ourselves, from the slavery to sin and the idolatry of the world.

ADORE focuses on non-liturgical worship mixing contemporary Christian music, Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, and teaching. They offer regular gatherings within the diocese but have started to take it on the road, traveling to 8 states in the early-mid September.

In their FAQ's, they answer some obvious questions such as:

ADORE sounds more Protestant than Catholic. Is it Catholic?

In the Spring of 2004, Pope John Paul II declared October 2004 through October 2005 as �The Year of the Eucharist�. In October of 2004, the Holy See published �Mane Nobiscum Domine.� There, Pope John Paul II urged the Church universal to �cultivate a lively awareness of Christ's real presence, both in the celebration of Mass and in the worship of the Eucharist outside Mass.� In addition, the Holy Father writes, �During this year Eucharistic adoration outside Mass should become a particular commitment.� ADORE seeks only to foster worship that integrates the potent wisdom of the Holy Father, as well as the timeless Tradition of Eucharistic Adoration, with the contemporary trends of modern worship.

As a Catholic, I worship on Sunday, yet, ADORE is designed to lead worship. Don't Catholics worship at Mass?

Yes, we worship at Mass. In fact, worshiping on Sunday at Mass not only integrates the third commandment into our lives, but the Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us that "God's first call is that we accept Him and worship Him." In fact, the Catechism goes on to say, "The Church and the world have a great need for the various forms of Eucharistic worship." Thus, there are other forms of worship, Sacramental and Eucharistic worship, which have their ancient place in the Tradition of the Catholic Church. So, while Catholics are morally bound to worship at Sunday Mass, there are other experiences of worship in our Tradition.

Bishop Sam Jacobs seems to be supportive (the director - a lay man - and the other main speaker - a priest who is also a pastor and in charge of seminarian formation - work directly for the diocese). It probably is not an accident that Bishop Jacobs is Chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Committee on Evangelization.

Take a look and tell us what you think.

Ham Lake, We're Coming Your Way , , ,

Well, Fr. Mike is coming your way - is actually flying your way - at this very minute.

Ham Lake, MN where he will be leading a team to put on our 325th live Called & Gifted workshop while

I will be slipping in and our of our local Colorado Springs Diocesan Ministry Conference.

Hope to see you there!

No More Elves Please . . .We're British

A wonderful review of Diana Pavlac Glyer's The Company They Keep: C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien as Writers in Community ran in the London Times a couple weeks ago.

Tolkien and Lewis formed the spine of the Inklings, regularly convening to read and discuss one another’s work in Lewis’s rooms at Magdalen College. There were nineteen members in all, and Glyer excels at depicting their world, with its petty rivalries, joshing honesty (“he is ugly as a chimpanzee”, wrote Lewis of fellow Inkling Charles Williams), its wit and learning and championship of scholarship for its own sake. The Inklings were often supportive and sympathetic (“the inexhaustible fertility of the man’s imagination amazes me”, wrote Lewis in 1949 on receipt of another instalment of The Lord of the Rings), but were capable of ferocious criticism if it was felt that a member had done anything less than his best (“You can do better than that. Better Tolkien, please!”). Tempers must surely have become frayed at times – as Tolkien became unyieldingly critical of Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia (“about as bad as can be”) or as the English don Hugo Dyson met the latest bulletin from Middle Earth by (according to Tolkien’s son Christopher) “lying on the couch, and lolling and shouting and saying, ‘Oh God, no more Elves’”.

Not that all of them were ever present at the Magdalen reading meetings: often no more than six or seven would turn up, while the rest preferred to save themselves for the more raucous social gatherings in the Oxford pub The Eagle and Child. Inkling James Dundas-Grant recalls a typical scene:

“we sat in a small back room with a fine coal fire in winter . . . . back and forth the conversation would flow. Latin tags flying around. Homer quoted in the original to make a point . . . . Tolkien jumping up and down, declaiming in Anglo-Saxon.”

Just like the old Nameless Lay Group. For Inkling fans and those - who like me - have visited the Bird and Baby in Oxford, it sounds like a must read.

Glory

The Colorado high country in late September

Orthodox Sense & Sensibility

Fr. Gregory Jensen of the great Koinonia blog, gave this response to my Catholic Sense and Sensibility post below and I just had to share it:

In the Orthodox Church one often hears about the need for converts to develop an Orthodox mindset (phronema). In my experience, it is worth noting that the development for an Orthodox phronema is almost always limited to converts. Not unsurprisingly, this need arise in response to a challenge that someone wishes to dismiss without a hearing ("You think too much like a Protestant/Roman Catholic--you need to develop an Orthodox phronema that will help you understand why we don't (or do) XXXXXX.")

But whatever else an Orthodox mindset or a Catholic sensibility might be, it is never an absolute thing. The desired mindset/sensibility is always relative to the situation in which we find ourselves. The mindset we need to develop is akin to the virtue of prudence--of knowing what the right and God-pleasing thing is in the situation. For the more biblically minded among us, it is the need for maturity as St Paul uses the term.

Our mindset/sensibility should serve our obedience to Christ, not (as it invariably is used to do) limit the range of our obedience to only what has been done before. Let me re-phrase that, we ought not to limit ourselves to only those things done in the past that met the approval of those who have a vested interest in limiting the range of grace.

This Time Around

I am going to be in Detroit on October 24 to appear on Ralph Martin's The Choices We Face and to speak at a graduate course in the New Evangelization.

The thing that has intrigued me is how Ralph Martin responded when I asked him the other day exactly what he wanted me to talk about. I presumed that it would be about the significance of charisms in the new evangelization.

To my surprise, he said "Tell us about the Institute and its work. Talk about what you've seen in the church as you travel. Talk about collaboration between the clergy and the laity, about evangelization, about charisms. Share from your heart. The whole class is yours."

I'm still startled two days later. No one ever asks me to just talk. About anything that I think is important. Like the humbler class of professional speakers everywhere, I'm always having to work inside parameters established by the sponsoring organization in light of their priorities (which is perfectly appropriate). You know, 45 minutes on charisms or a day on discernment. And I've got loads of pre-packaged talks for those sort of invitations.

But not this. And never has anyone asked me to speak from my heart. In the circles I run in, few Catholics ever talk about your heart - they definitely want your head.

The last time I had a chance to do something similar was 12 years ago before the Institute was a twinkle in anybody's eye. It was to the Dominican pastors of the Western Province. I had never seen that many priests before (I don't know if I believed that priests were entirely human at that point) and my knees literally buckled as I walked up the podium - which Fr. Michael Sweeney found highly amusing. (I remember fiercely muttering "you can faint when you are done, but not now!")

I had no credentials, was unknown outside my parish of Blessed Sacrament and Fr. Michael Sweeney, who had asked me to do this, had never heard me speak. As far as I knew, this was the only chance I'd ever have to do what many lay Catholics dream of: give a group of priests a piece of my mind.

My topic? The Strategic Role of Lay Catholics in the Dominican Mission. The impact of that talk helped birth the Institute.

And now I get to do it again. Dizzying. I'm really gonna have to pray about this one. If I could say anything to an international group of Catholic leaders, mostly clergy, what would I say? I hope and presume that I'm past the knee-buckling stage.

Because this time around, they know where to find me.

LAMP is Still Shining . . .26 Years Later

LAMP (Lay Apostolic Ministries with the Poor) of New York City is a "Catholic lay missionary association, comprised of people who serve among the materially poor, with a focus on evangelization. It was founded by a married couple, Tom & Lyn Scheuring in 1981 and is still going strong 26 years later.

LAMP Missionaries may be married couples, single men and women, as well as religious sisters and priests who can commit a least a year to this work. Lamp missionaries work in material poor parishes who can't afford salaried staff to do home visits, working with youth, adult religious education, Scripture sharing groups, etc. They also work with the homeless and their work is beginning to spread beyond the New York area.

Check em out.

Ancient Christian Ethiopia

The New York Times has a piece this morning about tourism's re-discovery of ancient Christian Ethiopia and the rock churches of LALIBELA.

Legend has it that these churches were carved below ground at the end of 11th century and beginning of the 12th after God ordered King Lalibela to build churches the world had never seen -- and dispatched a team of angels to help him.

Snip.

Ethiopia boasts eight UNESCO World Heritage Sites but decades of hunger, conflict and political instability have kept the country and its fabled palaces, obelisks and castles off the beaten track for most visitors to Africa.

Tourism represents a mere 2.5 percent of its gross national product -- something the government is keen to change.

It has set the ambitious goal of attracting one million foreign visitors a year by 2010, quadrupling current figures.

Religious tourism may prove to be the answer.

"We are focusing on our comparative advantage, which is the diversity of the cultures of the Ethiopian people, and ... the faith aspect," Dirir said.

TOO MANY TOURISTS?

Far from being a dead relic, Lalibela's churches throng with local worshippers on any given day.

Wrapped in white Muslim robes, some read Biblical passages on parchment in Ge'ez, a 2,500 year-old language. Others press lips and foreheads to damp walls, clustering round pillars or prostrating themselves to kiss the stone floors.

Check out this collection of incredible pictures from northern Ethopia, which includes the magnificent St. George above.

Purity and Openness

A second topic raised in the discussions over at Commonweal was that of Donatism (the converting Bishop had given a public talk on the subject)

Cathleen Keveny:

A. Donatism in the narrow sense is the heretical belief that the validity of the sacrament depends on the worthiness of the minister. (p.2)

B. Donatism in the wider sense is a certain attitude toward purity, error, and sin, as well as toward the proper stance on the relationship of the church to the world. On this point, he endorses the eminent Augustine scholar Peter Brown’s description:

“The Donatists thought of themselves as a group which existed to preserve and protect an alternative to the society around them. They felt their identity to be constantly threatened, first by persecution, later by compromise. Innocence, ritual purity, meritorious suffering predominate in their image of themselves. . . . The Catholicism of Augustine, by contrast, reflect the attitude of a group confident of its powers to absorb the world without losing its identify. This identity existed independently of the quality of the human agents of the Church; it rested on ‘objective’ promises of God, working out magnificently in history, and on the ‘objective’ efficacy of its sacraments.”

To which Christopher Ruddy made this striking reply:

I acknowledged then and acknowledge now that church-world tension, but I think it is wrong to conflate that unavoidable tension with a Donatist desire for a purer church. A church that is not in some sort of substantial tension with the world is either corrupt or deluded. Augustine, the anti-Donatist, wrote a few words on that tension, as did Vatican II; the church as leaven and the church as light to the nations are not mutually exclusive realities. Moreover, a concern for identity and orthodoxy cannot be reflexively reduced to a fear-driven desire for purity and security. One can be confident and open, as I believe Benedict is, in the face of a difficult, even hostile situation. His words and actions as pope give little evidence of a fearful, cramped man. On an impressionistic level, he looks relaxed and happy; he wears the yoke of his office lightly and does not seem burdened as Paul VI was.

and then went on to articulate an important balance

Gerhard Lohfink captures the difference in "Does God Need the Church?: Toward a Theology of the People of God" through his reflections on biblical election and his description of God's People as a "contrast society," one which avoids both sectarianism and cooptation; God's people are elected, called out (literally, an ek-klesia) through no merit of their own, precisely in order to exist for others, to reveal to the world God's will for all peoples. Election and openness go hand in hand, they call for each other. Donatists and their heirs get election, but forget openness. Some Catholics today get openness, but forget election. Thinking of the church as a contrast society--and living as such--helps one to see how brilliant intensity and broad openness can coexist.

The answer to your second question, I believe, is found in Acts of the Apostles and other New Testament writings, which I consider to be part of the history of Catholic ecclesiology. It's also exemplified in Vatican II's exposition of the universal call to holiness. Vatican II affirmed the basic, if easily forgotten, Christian insight that all of the baptized are called to the same high standard of perfection in Christ. That we all pursue that high standard in different ways and places (and very mundanely, as when I clean up a son who has diarrhea or you serve on a committee), or that we all repeatedly fall short of that standard, doesn’t take away from the intensity of that call, which "costs not less than everything," as T.S. Eliot put it. Calling people to the radical conversion demanded by the Gospel does not in any way necessarily involve excluding those who are searching or uncertain or struggling. God is patient and hospitable, and so must his followers be, too. This is what the then-Cardinal Ratzinger was getting at it in his comments on the catechumenate and the “God-fearers.”

I understand that some Catholics feel judged or excluded by such language and such currents--or dismiss them as 'evangelical'--but that doesn’t negate the basic reality: We are all mediocre, God-beloved people called to conversion and to divine life in community. No one is perfect, and one of the strengths of Catholicism is precisely its mediocrity, its anti-elitism, its willingness to welcome all who are willing to come. Go, for instance, to an urban, northeastern Catholic cathedral to see the congregation for a weekday Mass. I always find moving the communion procession, in which all kinds of people come forward to receive healing and strength and welcome from the Lord. But, that welcome is also bound to conversion, and it would be hard to read any of the Gospels or letters of Paul and not hear that call to conversion. Among the first words from Jesus's lips in Mark's Gospel are, "Repent, and believe in the Gospel." Paul calls the Philippians--and us--to be "children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world" (2:15)--quite literally a "brilliant intensity."

I believe that the renewal desired by Vatican II will take place only when more of the baptized become aware of their personal responsibility for the church’s life and mission—and when ecclesial authorities are equally converted to that vision and help foster it. That renewal will likely be driven by small communities of believers whose "brilliant intensity" shines not for themselves but for others and whom through their life and attractiveness draw the rest of us to live better our own high callings.

I'm liking this Christopher Ruddy guy!

Catholic Sense and Sensibility

Bishop Jeffrey Bishop Steenson of the Diocese of Rio Grande send a notice to his clergy last week that he had decided to be received into the Catholic Church. This has produced much debate around the blogosphere but especially over at Commonweal.

A long, most interesting, thoughtful discussion ensued. (A pleasant surprise for me since my previous, limited exposure to Commonweal led me to the conclusion that such discussions were unlikely to occur at Commonweal.) I won't attempt to recapitulate the arguments here but I wanted to highlight two fascinating sub-topics that emerged:

1) The issue of "Catholic sensibility": A few relevant comments:

Lawrence Cunningham observed:

Getting ecclesiology right has powerful ramifications on everything from who gets baptized to who presides at the altar. Being faithful to the Way of Jesus has profound ecclesiological undertones. Often people become Catholics precisely because it is there that they can best nourish their discipleship. Being faithful to the Way of Jesus has profound ecclesiological undertones. Often people become Catholics precisely because it is there that they can best nourish their discipleship.

To which Mark Jameson responded:

Ah, but is that really Catholic? Or is it the result of the layering of Catholic dogmatism onto an American-Protestant-Evangelical sensibility?

Cathleen Kaveney:

I think having a Catholic sensibility is something that takes a while to develop--and it's not the same thing as a Lutheran or Episcopal sensibility that rejects a defined set of progressive changes in their current polity.

Joseph Gannon:
I wonder if there is such a thing as a Catholic sensibility tout court, I suspect there are quite a few varieties. On the few occasions when I have watched EWTN I have found the sensibility exhibited quite different from mine.

Sensibility:

As used in the discussion above, "Catholic sensibility seems to be remarkably similar to what is sometimes called the "Catholic imagination" or "Catholic culture". I notice that "sensibility" and "imagination" are used more frequently by those on the liberal end of the aisle while "Catholic culture" seems to be a favorite term for those on the more conservative end.

As used in Catholic circles, "sensibility" seems to be a kind of intuitive sense of the faith that exists in considerable independence of the actual teaching of the Church: the Catholic "tune" for which dogma provides the lyrics. (A la the famous Mark Twain quip about his wife's attempts to use profanity: "you know the words but you don't know the tune.")

There is discussion of whether or not there are a variety of "Catholic sensibilities" but the term is used in the singular most of the time, the common assumption seems to be that there is one common sensibility that all true Catholics share. All seem to agree that this "sensibility" is one that you are socialized into gradually - ideally by being raised Catholic or having been Catholic for a long time and exposed to the right (truly Catholic) influences.

The fascinating things is that,as we have seen on this blog and elsewhere, the users of all three terms on opposite ends of the spectrum agree: the concept of "discipleship" is not in keeping with Catholic sensibility and is essentially foreign. I have yet to encounter a single person who asserts that evangelization or explicit discipleship is in keeping with "Catholic sensibility". Catholics who are advocating evangelization or discipleship appeal to Scripture and the teaching of the Church, not to "catholic" sensibility, imagination, or culture. When one appeals to Church teaching, the response is often a variation on "you don't know the tune so why should I take you seriously?"

Which puts us in the very odd position of having something which the magisterium has been declared to be the primary mission of the Church and yet is simultaneously felt to be contrary to the deepest, most "Catholic" instincts of the majority of the baptized.

Comments?

I'll address topic number two in a second post.

40 Days for Life

The 40 Days of Life campaign begins today.

40 Days of Life is "the largest simultaneous pro-life mobilization in history: a continuous, 960 hour, prayer and fasting vigil outside of abortion sites in 89 cities in 33 states."

Go here for encouraging stories of the impact made in 7 cities who have finished 40 day campaigns in recent years.

Any readers been involved or had direct knowledge of this initiative?

It's Corn Harvest Time Again in Hungary

And the last Sunday Mass of September in Tiszaalpar is accompanied not by organ but the tekerő. Here's a brief clip of tekero players playing a traditional Hungarian hymn.

Ethiopian (Ge'ez) Rite Mass

Who knew that there was a Ge'ez Rite? This Mass was filmed at Kidane Mehret Ge'ez Rite Catholic Parish in Washington,DC, established for Ethopian and Eriterean Catholics.

Easter Joy in Malawi

I'm checking out You tube for videos of Catholic life around the globe and as I find good ones, I will post them.

I found the spirit of joy in this clip from an Easter Mass in Malawi absolutely infectious.



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Giving Couples A Vision of Marriage

Pete Vere of St. Blog's has written a piece for the Washington Times on the huge percentage of couples who are already sexually active or cohabiting when they approach the Church to be married.

In the diocese of Sault Ste. Marie, "about 60 percent of couples seeking marriage [from the diocese] are cohabitating, and about 25 percent of couples seeking marriage are either pregnant or bringing children into the marriage."

The Diocese of Lexington's marriage-preparation program, Father List works closely with Mike Allen, the diocese's director of family life ministry. About 60 percent of couples are cohabiting and about 85 percent of couples are sexually active when they approach the diocese for marriage preparation,Mr. Allen said.

The solution, he said, is to persuade couples seeking marriage to accept the Catholic Church's teaching on marriage and human sexuality "not as rules, but as a vision."

To this end, the Diocese of Lexington uses a program developed by moral theologian Christopher West. The program helps couples understand the four things Catholics believe are common to every marriage: permanence, faithfulness, openness to the procreation and upbringing of children, and the mutual support between spouses. The program also promotes sexual abstinence during the courtship and engagement as well as the practice of natural family planning during marriage. The last skill assists couples in spacing out childbirth and family size without the use of contraception.

Mr. Allen said the diocese's previous program focused mainly on building skills such as communication and management of household finances, leaving "a deficiency in helping couples to understand what marriage is."

The West program helps plug this deficiency by giving couples "a spiritual vision of marriage whereby they see how marriage fits in within the wider context of the Catholic faith," Mr. Allen said."

The Parish as a House of Formation for Secular Apostles

Good stuff is happening at Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha parish in the Archdiocese of LA.

Bobby Vidal, who is on staff at BKT has attended both Making Disciples, Equipping Apostles in 2006 and the revised Making Disciples last August here in Colorado Springs and is getting ready to rumble. He has gotten permission to change his title from Director of Religious Education to Director of Evangelization and Lay Formation and has come up with an intriguing implementation plan:

Two especially interesting bits in light of our discussion last week of diocesan planning processes and discipleship:

"We must form a compelling vision for what real Christian community can do:

1. Draw the unbelieving and the unchurched
2. Foster life-long discipleship & spiritual growth
3. Discernment of gifts (charisms) and vocations
4. Equip and support extraordinary apostolates

We need to integrate this vision into the different pillars of the pastoral plan (i.e,, Liturgy, Education & Formation, etc.) (Our Hearts Were Burning Within Us, #168)”

And this:

“Mapping out General Paradigm Shifts

From: How do I get more people to come to my ministry?
To: How can I and my minister get more people to experience an encounter with Jesus Christ?

From: How do I train those involved in my ministry to take on leadership (do what I do)
To: How do I and my ministry train those involved in my ministry to discern their individual call?

From: How do I get people who come to my ministry to commit (give more) of themselves to the ministry?
To: How do I and my ministry assist people in committing their life to Christ

From: How do I maintain the numbers of people in my ministry?
To: How do I nurture the discipleship (spiritual growth) of those involved in my ministry?”

I know that Bobby doesn’t mean that developing competence in a specific ministry is not valuable and important but he is asking first questions first: What is the end for which we are working?

His paradigm is mission not institutional maintenance: Service within as formation and support for a larger purpose shared by the whole Christian community: mission outward.

Most parish ministry is conducted by lay apostles, the vast majority of whom have vocations and apostolic calls that are to be lived outside the parish. Parishes are like seminaries in that they exist for the sanctification, formation, and governance of apostles whose primary mission is elsewhere. Parish ministry is formation for secular mission just as service within a seminary community prepares future priests to go out into their true mission field.

In light of this understanding, a ministry leader’s overall point of discernment becomes:

How does my specific parish ministry foster intentional discipleship, spiritual maturity, and prepare parishioners to discern and answer God’s call primarily (but not exclusively) outside ecclesial structures?

So this example regarding Religious Ed/Formation ministry from Bobby’s plan:
"
From: How can I get catechists to make good lesson plans?
To: How can I get the catechist to live and proclaim the kerygma and address the stages of pre-evangelization and initial proclamation of the gospel before initiatory catechesis is done?”

Good lesson plans are still critical. But we can’t determine what a good lesson plan or good ministry looks like until we are clear about the desired end result. When we are clear that our end is “evangelical” and “apostolic”, the criteria by which we judge the “goodness” of our lesson plans or our ministry structures changes dramatically.

Note from the Camino

This was a part of an e-mail I received from my friend, Sally, as she nears Campostela, the destination of her pilgrimage with her daughter.

"When we first began this journey and everyday was a hardship, physically, emotionally and all the other ly´s you want to throw in; I thought of how there really isn´t a line that separates us from the poor, nothing more than a hard days journey into the unknown. Learning the depths of gratitude that a waiting place of rest can bring about in a person. Last night we were in an univiting place, dirty and uncomfortable and I realized this morning that many, far too many live in conditions far worse than we were in, with no parallel existence where a nice clean bed waits for their homecoming, with no way clear to them of how to move on. There is a line that separates me from the poor, and I have drawn it with my own hand. "

If you are reading this on a computer, you are one of a tiny percentage of humans who are wealthy enough to have access to one.

We have so many reasons to be grateful!

Jesus Isn't Just the Healer; He is the Healing.

I'm writing this on the kitchen table of my gracious hosts in Santa Clarita. Half the world already knows but I just found out this morning: 11 year old Gloria Straus died Friday morning while I was stuck in the Colorado Springs airport.

Reporter Jerry Brewer who has covered her story and that of her family for the past 7 months has writing a moving interview with her parents this morning in the Seattle Times:

Hours after cancer killed Gloria Strauss, her parents looked at their little girl and saw a woman.


They gazed again. And again. And again. It was astonishing. She did not seem 11 anymore. The nurses had cleaned her body, a family friend had washed her hair and, goodness, there was a smile creasing her face. "She looked like a grown woman," said Gloria's mother, Kristen. "It was amazing. Her body seemed long and beautiful, just like a young woman."

After more than four years fighting neuroblastoma, Gloria stopped breathing shortly after her parents fell asleep in her hospital room Friday morning. It was 6:50 a.m. when two nurses tapped Doug and Kristen. Minutes later, the parents said goodbye. They did not receive the kind of healing miracle they wanted. Instead, they believe Gloria received the "ultimate healing" — heaven.

snip.

They know the obvious questions: Do they feel robbed? Can their faith withstand this loss? How can they believe in one miracle so strongly and accept this detour?

Tom Curran, a family friend who runs a Catholic ministry, has helped the Strausses throughout this process. To understand their beliefs, he says, one must look at this journey as an ongoing relationship between Jesus and the family.

"The key phrase, which Doug has used before, is that Jesus isn't just the healer," Curran says. "He is the healing. This is an intimately and profoundly relational thing."

To nonbelievers, it is an abstraction. To believers, it makes sense. But Doug and Kristen never demanded for God to follow through on a promise. They simply chose to trust, believe in what they hoped God meant and bend to his will.

"It's not going to make sense to people who are not in the relationship," Curran says. "It appears like a contradiction. It seems like, at the end, somebody just pulled a rabbit out of the hat. But that's not how God has been involved."



Jerry Brewer who told Gloria's story to hundreds of thousands of readers summed up his reaction this way:

Now that the writing is over, it's important for me to expose my feelings.

You can't cover a story like this for seven months and not ache for the family. You can't get to know a child like Gloria and say, "Tough break, kid."

This isn't a story to me. This is my heart on paper. This has been an opportunity for me to redefine myself, as well as my journalism career. I'm very honored to tell a story this moving. I'm very humbled that, despite how difficult this became, the entire Strauss/Trimberger family and Gloria's entire support base continued to embrace the telling of this story. Check that: They spurred the telling of this story.

This journey has been more uplifting than depressing. The tears I will cry for Gloria are for joy, for gratitude and for the other children who suffer like she did.

How has reading about Gloria and her family affected you?

"Growing True Disciples"

This post is a nice follow-up to the one just made by Sherry, I think. I had been working on this yesterday and today, and just saw her post when I prepared to upload this.

I just finished reading a book by George Barna, the president of Barna Research Group, Ltd., a marketing research firm that focuses on issues related to faith and culture. He's an evangelical whose company has conducted research for hundreds of churches and parachurch ministries.

His book, "Growing True Disciples," is interesting in terms of his insistence that the focus of Christian ministry is to encourage and facilitate discipleship. Similarly, Pope Paul VI said in Evangelii Nuntiandi that the Church exists to evangelize, and the purpose of evangelizing, is, of course, to make disciples of Jesus. Barna's book looks at models of promoting discipleship used by different Protestant churches. All of the models demand a lot more from the individual than most Catholics are used to giving. The point that's made clear in the book is that discipleship usually doesn't "just happen," just as any significant change in the way we live doesn't "just happen."

Acts 2:42-47 describes (perhaps ideally) what the early church community looked like. What it describes is a group of people who are completely "sold out" to Jesus; who seek to not only follow his teaching, but to allow his life and power to flow through them. They have made following Jesus the focus and content of their life: all else is secondary

Early on in the book (p. 27), Barna lists the characteristics of a true disciple. They are challenging:

"Disciples experience a changed future through their acceptance of Jesus Christ as Savior and of the Christian faith as their defining philosophy of life.

Disciples undergo a changed lifestyle that is manifested through Christ-oriented values, goals, perspectives, activities, and relationships.

Disciples mature into a changed worldview, attributable to a deeper comprehension of the true meaning and impact of Christianity. Truth become an entirely God-driven reality to a disciple. Pursuing the truths of God becomes the disciple's lifelong quest."

Of course, there's something missing here, yet is present throughout the disciple-making models he presents: a community of faith.

All of his models insist upon regular participation in a church community. It is through engagement with the word (and thus the Word), communal prayer, encouragement from other Christians, and accountability to others - as well, of course, through grace - that disciples are formed. As Catholics, we also include active, conscious participation in the sacramental life of the Church as a crucial, non-negotiable element.

While Barna's book has its flaws, and I don't agree with all of his presuppositions, I appreciate the unrelenting emphasis upon discipleship. He challenges pastoral ministers like myself to ask tough questions like, "Is my preaching, counseling, teaching, and leadership in and out of worship effective in assisting people to become disciples?"

I also have to ask myself if my life reflects the life of a true disciple. Do I consistently obey Jesus' commands and His Church's teachings? Do I love other people in practical ways that cause me to "pour out my life" for them? Have I put the attractions and distractions of this world in their proper place and focused my desire upon knowing, loving and serving God? Is my life "a living Gospel for all people to read"? Am I sharing my faith with others who do not know Christ?

In short, is my life bearing fruit worthy of a follower of the risen Lord?

One of the practices of most of the Christian communities that are successful in promoting discipleship is the setting of personal spiritual goals and practices that may help reach those goals. These goals must be practical, achievable, and specific; not simply "I will be more loving," but "I will stop gossiping about Mary Jane and instead spend time getting to know her better, choosing to discover her good qualities, and pointing out those good qualities as attributes that give glory to God."

That may be a little too specific, but you get the idea.

So that's my project for the next week or so: to re-evaluate my life and pinpoint some areas where I want to grow in my relationship to Christ and the Church, and come up with a gameplan. Maybe I'll share some of what I discover with you. Feel free to do the same.

Beginning With the End in Mind

Todd wrote in response to my post below

Sherry, thanks for the reply. I do agree with your thrust at ID as part of a catholic whole, shall we say.

Hi Tod:

Thanks for your response. First of all, I need to make it clear that I’ve heard nothing but good things about Archbishop Dolan and my limited experience of the archdiocese has been very positive so my concern really isn’t about Milwaukee as such. This is but another instance of a dynamic I have encountered all over the Catholic world: this same strange reluctance to talk explicitly about Christ and our response to him, this same strong preference for a spiritual language so general, vague, abstract, and bureaucratic that that our personal response to Christ is never called in question.

Following Christ is not the whole of Catholic belief and practice certainly but it is the source a