Saint of the day: Gianna Beretta Molla

Today is the feast of Saint Gianna Beretta Molla. She is a great figure in the Pro-life movement and her story is really powerful! The following comes from the EWTN site:

Saint Gianna Beretta Molla was born in Magenta (Milan), Italy, on 4 October 1922, the 10th of 13 children. Already as a young girl she willingly accepted the gift of faith and the clearly Christian education that she received from her excellent parents. As a result, she experienced life as a marvellous gift from God, had a strong faith in Providence and was convinced of the necessity and effectivneess of prayer.

She diligently dedicated herself to studies during the years of her secondary and university education, while, at the same time, applying her faith in generous apostolic service among the elderly and needy as a member of the St. Vincent de Paul Society. After earning degrees in medicine and surgery from the University of Pavia in 1949, she opened a medical clinic in Mesero (near Magenta) in 1950. She specialized in pediatrics at the University of Milan in 1952 and thereafter gave special attention to mothers, babies, the elderly and the poor.

While working in the field of medicine—which she considered a "mission" and practiced as such—she increased her generous service to Catholic Action, especially among the "very young" and, at the same time, expressed her joie de vivre and love of creation through skiing and mountaineering. Through her prayers and those of others, she reflected on her vocation, which she also considered a gift from God. Having chosen the vocation of marriage, she embraced it with complete enthusiasm and wholly dedicated herself "to forming a truly Christian family."

She became engaged to Pietro Molla and was radiant with joy and happiness during the time of their engagement, for which she thanked and praised the Lord. They were married on 24 September 1955 in St. Martin's Basilica in Magenta, and she became a happy wife. In November 1956, to her great joy, she became the mother of Pierluigi; in December 1957 of Mariolina; in July 1959 of Laura. With simplicity and equilibrium she harmonized the demands of mother, wife, doctor and her passion for life.

In September 1961, towards the end of the second month of pregnancy, she was touched by suffering and the mystery of pain; she had developed a fibroma in her uterus. Before the required surgical operation, and conscious of the risk that her continued pregnancy brought, she pleaded with the surgeon to save the life of the child she was carrying, and entrusted herself to prayer and Providence. The life was saved, for which she thanked the Lord. She spent the seven months remaining until the birth of the child in incomparable strength of spirit and unrelenting dedication to her tasks as mother and doctor. She worried that the baby in her womb might be born in pain, and she asked God to prevent that.

A few days before the child was due, although trusting as always in Providence, she was ready to give her life in order to save that of her child: "If you must decide between me and the child, do not hesitate: choose the child—I insist on it. Save the baby." On the morning of 21 April 1962 Gianna Emanuela was born. Despite all efforts and treatments to save both of them, on the morning of 28 April, amid unspeakable pain and after repeated exclamations of "Jesus, I love you. Jesus, I love you," the mother died. She was 39 years old. Her funeral was an occasion of profound grief, faith and prayer. The body of the new blessed lies in the cemetary of Mesero (4 km. from Magenta).

Gianna was beatified by Pope John Paul II on April 24, 1994, and officially canonized as a saint on May 16, 2004. Gianna's husband Pietro and their last child, Gianna, were present at the canonization ceremony.

St. Gianna is a patron saint for mothers, physicians, and unborn children.

St. Thomas More, Pray for us!

The following comes from Fr. McCloskey at The Catholic Thing:

Where in the United States of America are today’s followers of St. Thomas More? As we know, More was martyred for his faith after resisting Henry VIII’s co-option of the Catholic Church for his personal and political ends. For this resistance unto death, More received an eternal reward. In October of 2000, to Catholics in our contemporary civic struggles (which loom particularly large for Americans in this election year), St. John Paul II proclaimed him as the heavenly patron of statesmen and politicians.

In his proclamation, St. John Paul identified as one motive for his action “the need felt by the world of politics and public administration for credible role models able to indicate the path of truth at a time in history when difficult challenges and crucial responsibilities are increasing.” The pope specifically singled out “the need to defend human life at all its different stages,” given that today’s novel situations “urgently demand clear political decisions in favor of the family, young people, the elderly and the marginalized.”

Not long after that proclamation, I joined forces with Gerard Wegemer, a professor at the University of Dallas and a top expert on More in the United States, to produce a 13-part series on EWTN, Mother Angelica’s global Catholic network. (The series remains available from them in DVD form with the title “St. Thomas More: Faithful Statesman.”)

Professor Wegemer had a hand in prompting that proclamation by the Holy Father, as it happens. In the intervening years, surely if anything, the urgent need for St. Thomas More’s intercession and for his adoption as a role model has increased. As I write, we Catholics (I hope) are following the primary races and closely screening the men who are running for the presidency, the Senate, the House of Representatives, and the governorships of many states. If we take the model of St. Thomas More seriously, we will be looking, in the pope’s description, for a candidate who will “[distinguish] himself by his constant fidelity to legitimate authority and institutions precisely in his intention to serve not power but the supreme ideal of justice. His life teaches us that government is above all an exercise of virtue.”

One example of such a life just recently ended is that of the faithful Catholic and brilliant Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, a man greatly devoted to St. Thomas More for his faithfulness to the Catholic Church, clear thinking, courage, and integrity. We have a great need of such men and women in public life: people who, in the words of Thomas More, know that, “The times are never so bad but that a good man can live in them.”

As we know from what happened to More (and what he knew from history had happened to a great many Christian martyrs in a great many difficult situations), a good man may be required at some point to give up his life. That doesn’t contradict what he said. We all live and we all die; it’s the way we do both and the decisions we make along the way that will determine whether we make it into the category of good men and women (and, God willing, maybe even saints!) or instead fall into the tragic category of people who have failed to make the kind of choices God calls us to make.

Such people can still repent and be saved, of course, while they live and breathe. But the wrong they have done and the good they have failed to do still affect the course of history, including the condition of their own country.

Our country and its political institutions need fine, faithful men and women who are loyal to our Constitution and who also realize the importance of the natural law. Thank God we Catholics have received in a special way the teaching that comes down to us from the Magisterium of the Catholic Church related to civic duties and the just state.

But in addition, it is up to us to intervene in the particular issues of our time, especially those concerning the value of human life from conception to natural death, and the primary role of the family in transmitting life, religion, morality, and culture.

Along those lines we should pray every Sunday in the prayers of the faithful that our country will become ever more aware of the dignity of human life, the beauty of God’s plan for marriage, and the significance of an authentic religious liberty. We also should pray for married couples, that God assist them in living their matrimonial vocation. And we should ask that the rights of individuals to act according to their religious convictions be respected by the state and its agents.

In addition, all Catholics should pray that we may have statesmen and politicians who will work for the good of society – and be ready to give their life if necessary, knowing what is ahead for us in our heavenly home. So in these challenging times for those who wish to be truly faithful to Our Lord Jesus Christ, let us ask the intercession of St. Thomas More, the patron of statesman and politicians.

Mother Teresa: Every Abortion is a Rejection of Jesus

The following comes from CNS:

It was no mistake that God came into the world as a baby, an innocent child. It was all part of His divine plan.  Had Mary said no, had she rejected God’s will, then our salvation might not have been. She cooperated with God, as did Joseph.

There’s a lot of theology in that point but one lesson is clear: In accepting pregnancy, in accepting a child, every mother and father accepts Jesus to one degree or another, but if they say no to a pregnancy, they reject Him.

Jesus told us this Himself in the Gospels, “Anyone who welcomes one little child like this in my name welcomes me.” (Mt 18:5).  Mother Teresa (1910-1997) emphasized that point in a now-famous speech at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C. on Feb. 3, 1994.

“But I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because Jesus said, ‘If you receive a little child, you receive me,’” said Mother Teresa. “So every abortion is the denial of receiving Jesus, is the neglect of receiving Jesus.  It is really a war against the child, a direct killing of the innocent child, murder by the mother herself.”

Read the rest here.

Pro-life Quotes of Pope Francis

The following comes from UCatholic:

1. “It is God who gives life. Let us respect and love human life, especially vulnerable life in a mother’s womb.”

- on Twitter, May 15, 2013

2. “All life has inestimable value even the weakest and most vulnerable, the sick, the old, the unborn and the poor, are masterpieces of God’s creation, made in his own image, destined to live forever, and deserving of the utmost reverence and respect.”

- Message to Catholics taking part in annual Day for Life in Britain and Ireland July 28, 2013

3. “Let’s say “Yes” to life and “No” to death.”

- Message to Catholics taking part in March for Life in France Jan. 19, 2014

4. “Every child who, rather than being born, is condemned unjustly to being aborted, bears the face of Jesus Christ, bears the face of the Lord, who even before he was born, and then just after birth, experienced the world’s rejection. And every elderly person… even if he is ill or at the end of his days, bears the face of Christ. They cannot be discarded, as the ‘culture of waste’ suggests!”

- Speech to Catholic healthcare professionals and gynecologists Sept. 20, 2013

5. “All too often, as we know from experience, people do not choose life, they do not accept the ‘Gospel of Life’ but let themselves be led by ideologies and ways of thinking that block life, that do not respect life, because they are dictated by selfishness, self-interest, profit, power and pleasure, and not by love, by concern for the good of others.

…As a result, the living God is replaced by fleeting human idols which offer the intoxication of a flash of freedom, but in the end bring new forms of slavery and death.”

- from homily at Mass for ‘Evangelium Vitae Day’ June 16, 2013 

6. “Unfortunately, what is thrown away is not only food and dispensable objects, but often human beings themselves, who are discarded as ‘unnecessary.’ For example, it is frightful even to think there are children, victims of abortion, who will never see the light of day; children being used as soldiers, abused and killed in armed conflicts; and children being bought and sold in that terrible form of modern slavery which is human trafficking, which is a crime against humanity.”

- Speech to diplomats Jan. 13, 2014

7.  Human life must always be defended from its beginning in the womb and must be recognised as a gift of God that guarantees the future of humanity.

- Pope Francis, Letter to Brazilian families for National Family Week, August 6, 2013

8. “I join the March for Life in Washington with my prayers. May God help us respect all life, especially the most vulnerable”

- on Twitter, January 22, 2014

9. “The victims of this [throwaway] culture are precisely the weakest and most fragile human beings – the unborn, the poorest, the sick and elderly, the seriously handicapped, etc. – who are in danger of being ‘thrown away’, expelled from a system that must be efficient at all costs.

…It is necessary to raise awareness and form the lay faithful, in whatever state, especially those engaged in the field of politics, so that they may think in accord with the Gospel and the social doctrine of the church and act consistently by dialoguing and collaborating with those who, in sincerity and intellectual honesty, share – if not the faith – at least a similar vision of mankind and society and its ethical consequences.

- Speech to a delegation from the Dignitatis Humanae Institute Dec. 7, 2013

9. “We are called to reach out to those who find themselves in the existential peripheries of our societies and to show particular solidarity with the most vulnerable of our brothers and sisters: the poor, the disabled, the unborn and the sick, migrants and refugees, the elderly and the young who lack employment.”

- Message to the 10th General Assembly of the World Council of Churches dated Oct. 4, 2013 

10. “The right to life is the first human right. Abortion is killing someone that cannot defend him or herself.”

- Cardinal Bergoglio with Rabbi Abraham Skorka in book ‘On Heaven and Earth’

11.  ”We should commit ourselves to ‘eucharistic coherence,’ that is, we should be conscious that people cannot receive holy communion and at the same time act or speak against the commandments, in particular when abortions, euthanasia, and other serious crimes against life and family are facilitated. This responsibility applies particularly to legislators, governors, and health professionals.”

- Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, Pope Francis

12.  ”Defend the unborn against abortion even if they persecute you, calumniate you, set traps for you, take you to court or kill you.”

- Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, Pope Francis

Phil Robertson of Duck Dynasty: "You have a God given right to live!"

Tim Staples: How to share the truths of faith with others

Pope Francis Blesses Unborn Children Around the World

(CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis met with families on Tuesday at Our Lady of the Assumption Cathedral in Santiago de Cuba, thanking those gathered for their warm witness and inclusive nature, reflecting that it is at home, in the family, that Christ shows the love of God.

Going off script from his prepared remarks Sept. 22, the Pope recalled that at the General Audiences held each Wednesday in St. Peter's Square, “I pass by so many people, so many women, who show me they're pregnant, and they ask my blessing.”

“I will propose something to you, to those women who are 'pregnant with hope', because a child is hope, a source of hope: at this moment, touch your womb. Not just those here, (but) those listening on television or radio – to each one, each of these children, boys or girls in the womb, I bless them! I bless the children in the womb, in the name of Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”

“I hope they may be holy, they may grow. Be tender to the child whom you are expecting.”

In his prepared remarks, Pope Francis said, “I remember in my former diocese, how many families told me that almost the only time they came together was at dinner, in the evening after work, when the children had finished their homework,” adding that these times around the table are “special times in the life of the family.”

“These were also times when someone might come home tired, or when arguments or bickering might break out,” the Holy Father continued, saying, “Jesus chooses all those times to show us the love of God.”

At home, Pope Francis noted that children and families learn how to receive, to appreciate the blessings of life, and to learn interdependence.

“That is why the Christian community calls families ‘domestic churches.’ It is the warmth of the home that faith fills every corner, lights up every space, builds community,” the Holy Father noted.

Read the rest here.

Fr. Barron on Planned Parenthood and the Loss of Human Dignity

Kathryn Jean Lopez: The Truth and Abortion

The following comes from Kathryn Jean Lopez:

“The most disgusting part of this to me is these folks lied, lied to gain access to clinics,” Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards said on This Week Sunday, in reference to the undercover videos showcasing Planned Parenthood executives talking about selling fetal body parts (including a now-infamous Lamborghini reference). 

She’s right. Lies are a problem. And we’ve been lying for decades. We’ve been hiding the destruction of human lives behind words like “choice” and “freedom” and placards with “women’s rights” and ”women’s health” written on them to keep us looking away from the dehumanizing details of abortion — dehumanizing for all involved. 

At this point in human history, the consciences of the people at the Center for Medical Progress should not be the primary cause for chattering-class concern so much as the “conscience of our nation.” 

Or, as President Ronald Reagan put it in Human Life Review in a manifesto with that very title ten years after the Supreme Court legalized abortion in all trimesters of pregnancy (a little-known American fact): 

As an act of “raw judicial power” (to use Justice White’s biting phrase), the decision by the seven-man majority in Roe v. Wade has so far been made to stick. But the Court’s decision has by no means settled the debate. Instead, Roe v. Wade has become a continuing prod to the conscience of the nation. Abortion concerns not just the unborn child, it concerns every one of us. The English poet, John Donne, wrote: “… any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.” We cannot diminish the value of one category of human life—the unborn—without diminishing the value of all human life. 

Later in the essay, President Reagan wrote: 

The real question today is not when human life begins, but, What is the value of human life?The abortionist who reassembles the arms and legs of a tiny baby to make sure all its parts have been torn from its mother’s body can hardly doubt whether it is a human being. The real question for him and for all of us is whether that tiny human life has a God-given right to be protected by the law—the same right we have. 

And he quoted Malcolm Muggeridge as going “right to the heart of the matter”: “Either life is always and in all circumstances sacred, or intrinsically of no account; it is inconceivable that it should be in some cases the one, and in some the other.”

Read the rest here.

St. Gianna Molla

St. Gianna Molla - World Meeting of Families 2015 from saltandlighttv on Vimeo.

Chris Stefanick on the Pro-Life Generation

Ronald Reagan Endorses Personhood

This comes from Ed at In God's Company 2.

Emancipation Proclamation of Preborn Children January 14, 1988
NOW THEREFORE, I, RONALD REAGAN, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim and declare the unalienable personhood of every American, from the moment of conception until natural death, and I do proclaim, ordain, and declare that I will take care that the Constitution and laws of the United States are faithfully executed for the protection of America's unborn children. Upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind and the gracious favor of Almighty God. I also proclaim Sunday, January 17, 1988, as a national Sanctity of Human Life Day. I call upon the citizens of this blessed land to gather on that day in their homes and places of worship to give thanks for the gift of life they enjoy and to reaffirm their commitment to the dignity of every human being and sanctity of every human life.

Pope Francis preaches in Bethlehem

Archbishop Chaput: Homily for Mass before March for Life

Below is the text of Archbishop Charles Chaput’s homily for the National Prayer Vigil for Life Closing Mass on Jan. 22.  Weather prevented the Archbishop’s travel to Washington. The homily was delivered on his behalf by Msgr. Walter Rossi, rector of the National Shrine.

***

First reading: 1 Sm 17: 32-33, 37, 40-51
Responsorial Psalm: Ps 144: 1B, 2, 9-10
Gospel: Mk 3:1-6

***

Today is the 41st anniversary of Roe v Wade, which effectively legalized abortion on demand.  It’s a time to look back and look ahead.  The abortion struggle of the past four decades teaches a very useful lesson.  Evil talks a lot about “tolerance” when it’s weak.  When evil is strong, real tolerance gets pushed out the door.  And the reason is simple.  Evil cannot bear the counter-witness of truth.  It will not co-exist peacefully with goodness, because evil insists on being seen as right, and worshiped as being right.  Therefore, the good must be made to seem hateful and wrong.

The very existence of people who refuse to accept evil and who seek to act virtuously burns the conscience of those who don’t.  And so, quite logically, people who march and lobby and speak out to defend the unborn child will be – and are – reviled by leaders and media and abortion activists that turn the right to kill an unborn child into a shrine to personal choice.

Seventy years ago, abortion was a crime against humanity.  Four decades ago, abortion supporters talked about the “tragedy” of abortion and the need to make it safe and rare.  Not anymore.  Now abortion is not just a right, but a right that claims positive dignity, the license to demonize its opponents and the precedence to interfere with constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech, assembly and religion.  We no longer tolerate abortion.  We venerate it as a totem.

People sometimes ask me if we can be optimistic, as believers, about the future of our country.  My answer is always the same.  Optimism and pessimism are equally dangerous for Christians because both God and the devil are full of surprises.  But the virtue of hope is another matter.  The Church tells us we must live in hope, and hope is a very different creature from optimism.  The great French Catholic writer Georges Bernanos defined hope as “despair overcome.”  Hope is the conviction that the sovereignty, the beauty and the glory of God remain despite all of our weaknesses and all of our failures.  Hope is the grace to trust that God is who he claims to be, and that in serving him, we do something fertile and precious for the renewal of the world.

Our lives matter to the degree that we give them away to serve God and to help other people.  Our lives matter not because of who we are.  They matter because of who God is.  His mercy, his justice, his love – these are the things that move the galaxies and reach into the womb to touch the unborn child with the grandeur of being human.  And we become more human ourselves by seeing the humanity in the poor, the weak and the unborn child and then fighting for it.

Over the past 41 years, the prolife movement has been written off as dying too many times to count.  Yet here we are, again and again, disappointing our critics and refusing to die.  And why is that?  It’s because the Word of God and the works of God do not pass away.  No court decision, no law and no political lobby can ever change the truth about when human life begins and the sanctity that God attaches to each and every human life.

The truth about the dignity of the human person is burned into our hearts by the fire of God’s love.  And we can only deal with the heat of that love in two ways.  We can turn our hearts to stone.  Or we can make our hearts and our witness a source of light for the world.  Those of you here today have already made your choice.  It’s a wonderful irony that despite the cold and snow of January, there’s no such thing as winter in this great church.  This is God’s house.  In this place, there’s only the warmth of God’s presence and God’s people.  In this place, there’s no room for fear or confusion or despair, because God never abandons his people, and God’s love always wins.

We are each of us created and chosen by God for a purpose, just as David was chosen; which is why the words of the Psalmist speak to every one of us here today:

Oh God, I will sing a new song to you;
With a ten-stringed lyre I will chant your praise,
You who give victory to kings,
And deliver David, your servant from the sword.

The Psalmist wrote those words not in some magic time of peace and bliss, but in the midst of the Jewish people’s struggle to survive and stay faithful to God’s covenant surrounded by enemies and divided internally among themselves.  That’s the kind of moment we find ourselves in today.  All of us are here because we love our country and want it to embody in law and in practice the highest ideals of its founding.  But nations are born and thrive, and then decline and die.  And so will ours.  Even a good Caesar is still only Caesar.  Only Jesus Christ is Lord, and only God endures.  Our job is to work as hard as we can, as joyfully as we can, for as long as we can to encourage a reverence for human life in our country and to protect the sanctity of the human person, beginning with the unborn child.

We also have one other duty: to live in hope; to trust that God sees the weakness of the vain and powerful; and the strength of the pure and weak.  The reading from Samuel today reminds us that David cut down the warrior Goliath with a sling and a smooth, simple stone from the wadi.  And what I see here before me today are not “five smooth stones from the wadi” but hundreds and hundreds of them.  Our job is to slay the sin of abortion and to win back the women and men who are captive to the culture of violence it creates.  In the long run, right makes might, not the other way around.  In the long run, life is stronger than death, and your courage, your endurance, your compassion even for those who revile you, serves the God of life.

The Gospel today tells us that Jesus has power over illness and deformity.  But even more radically, it reminds us that Jesus is the Lord of the sabbath itself – the one day set aside every week to honor the Author of all creation.  The sabbath is for man, as Jesus says elsewhere in the Gospel, not man for the sabbath.  In like manner, the state and its courts and its laws were made for man, not man for the state.  The human person is the subject of life and the subject of history; immortal and infinitely precious in the eyes of God; not an accident of chemistry, not a bit player, and not a soulless object to be affirmed or disposed of at the whim of the powerful or selfish.

If Jesus is the lord of the sabbath, he is also the lord of history.  And sooner or later, despite the weaknesses of his friends and the strengths of his enemies, his will will be done — whether the Pharisees and Herodians of our day approve of it or not.

Sacred and Inviolable

Fr. George Rutler: Christ's Little Ones

The following comes from Fr. George Rutler:

Liturgical readings in the Easter season often couple the Book of the Acts of the Apostles with the Book of Revelation. They are so different that at first you might think it is like putting a history of Dutch New Amsterdam alongside a science fiction novel. The Acts seem so human, with charming details, such as the fine needlework done by Dorcas (Acts 9:36-42). There is none of that in the Revelation of St. John. But think again: Dorcas the seamstress was raised from the dead. That is as astonishing as St. John’s descriptions of Heaven, which — since they are being filtered from eternity into time — seem almost like hallucinations.
 
St. John was not given to fantasizing, but he was shown truths to which the most bizarre fantasies compare only as frail shadows. The very practical historical details in the Book of Acts are but the other side of the coin of the great mysteries privileged to St. John. They are clues to a more solid world than this perishable one, in which mortal eyes can only see “through a glass darkly” (1 Corinthians 13:12). There is a biological parallel of this in the way a baby can see only shades of gray at birth, with between 20/200 and 20/400 vision. After three months, however, the baby can recognize faces even at a distance and can tell bright colors. In Heaven there are no pastels, but all is bright, like the primary colors of a “rainbow shining through an emerald” (Revelation 4:3). If St. John’s description seems confused, it is because human words cannot diagram the grammar of Heaven.
 
Socrates, whose mother was a midwife, described education as something like bringing eternal wisdom out from latency into articulate consciousness. A new baby can look very old, and Socrates sensed that the life of this little one was coaxed from eternity into this mortal world. The teacher, acting as a midwife (maieutikos) lets hidden knowledge breathe.
 
Having come down from Heaven, Jesus shot his sharpest language at those who would harm the littlest children, whose lives are endowed from Heaven. Even selfish people with a shred of conscience need verbal fig leaves, euphemisms, to cover their shame when they sanction unholy acts against life. Sometimes they call babies killed in “partial-birth” abortions “viable fetuses.” On April 18, The New York Times referred to newborn babies murdered by an abortionist as “neonates.” You might then call Herod’s Massacre of the Innocents, the Termination of the Neonates. But the same issue of that newspaper, in an article on page 24 about diaper training, spoke of “babies” as did an Op-Ed essay on gun control.
 
Our Lord knows more about it than we do, and that is why he said: “See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 18:10).

Fr. Robert Barron: The Pope's Field Hospital

The following comes from Real Clear Religion:

As by now everyone in the world knows, Pope Francis offered a lengthy and wide-ranging interview to the editor of Civilta Cattolica, which was subsequently published in sixteen Jesuit-sponsored journals from a variety of countries. As we've come to expect practically anytime that this Pope speaks, the interview has provoked a media frenzy.

To judge by the headlines in The New York Times and on CNN, the Catholic Church is in the midst of a moral and doctrinal revolution, led by a maverick Pope bent on dragging the old institution into the modern world. I might recommend that everyone take a deep breath and prayerfully (or at least thoughtfully) read what Pope Francis actually said. For what he actually said is beautiful, lyrical, spirit-filled, and in its own distinctive way, revolutionary.

The first question to which the Pope responded in this interview as simple: "Who is Jorge Mario Bergoglio (his given name)?" After a substantial pause, he said, "a sinner whom the Lord has looked upon." At the heart of the matter, at the core of the "Catholic thing," is this encounter between us sinners and the God of amazing grace. Long before we get to social teaching, to debates about birth control and abortion, to adjudicating questions about homosexual activity, to disputes about liturgy, etc., we have the graced moment when sinners are accepted, even though they are unacceptable. Pope Francis aptly illustrated his observation by drawing attention to Caravaggio's masterpiece, "The Conversion of St. Matthew," which depicts the instant when Matthew, a thoroughly self-absorbed and materialistic man, found himself looked upon by Christ's merciful gaze. Because of that look, Matthew utterly changed, becoming first a disciple, then a missionary, and finally a martyr.

I believe that this first answer given by Pope Francis provides the interpretive lens for reading the rest of the interview. He is confessing to be a sinner who has found grace and conversion and who has thereby been transformed into a missionary. On the basis of that master insight, he is able to survey both Church and society with astonishing clarity and serenity. One of the most commented upon remarks in the interview is the following: "This church with which we should be thinking is the home of all, not a small chapel that can hold only a small group of selected people." What the Pope is signaling here is that the Church, as his predecessor Paul VI put it, doesn't have a mission; it is a mission, for its purpose is to cause the merciful face of Jesus to gaze upon everyone in the world. It is not an exclusive club where only the morally perfect are welcome, but rather, a home for sinners, which means a home for everybody.

And this insight provides the right context for understanding another controversial remark from the interview: "The Church sometimes has locked itself up in small things, in small-minded rules. The most important thing is the first proclamation: Jesus Christ has saved you." The Pope is not suggesting that rules -- moral, spiritual, liturgical, etc. -- are unnecessary or unimportant, but he is indeed suggesting that they are secondary to the central reality of encountering the living Christ. If the Church leads with moral regulation, it will appear, especially to our postmodern culture, as fussy, puritanical, censorious. And it will most likely awaken a defensive reaction on the part of those it wishes to reach. It ought to lead with its always-appealing central message, namely the saving cross of Jesus, and only then should it speak of the moral and spiritual disciplines that will bring people into greater conformity with Christ. If I might proffer a perhaps trite analogy: when attempting to attract a young kid to the game of baseball, you don't begin with the rulebook; rather, you begin with the beauty and majesty and rhythm of the game -- and then you trust that he will come in time to understand the nature and purpose of the rules from the inside.

One of Pope Francis's gifts as a communicator is a peculiar feel for the memorable image: "Shepherds should smell like their sheep;" and seminarians and priests ought to be willing to "make a mess" come readily to mind. The most striking analogy in the interview is this: "I see the church as a field hospital after battle." No doctor doing triage on a battlefield is going to be fussing about his patients' cholesterol or blood sugar levels. He is going to be treating major wounds and trying desperately to stop the bleeding. What we find today, the Pope is implying, are millions of people who are, in the spiritual sense, gravely wounded. They are alienated from God, stuck in the no-man's land of moral relativism, adrift with no sense of direction, and tempted by every form of errant desire. They require, therefore, not the fine points of moral doctrine, but basic healing. Perhaps this explains why the Church's altogether valid teachings on ethics are so often met with incomprehension or hostility: far more elemental instruction is required.

I will confess to sharing some of the misgivings of commentators who have lamented that the Pope's criticism of excessive legalism gave comfort to the wrong people. NARAL (National Abortion Rights Action League) published an ad, which simply said, "Pope Francis, Thank You. Signed, Pro-Choice Women Everywhere," and Planned Parenthood expressed its approval of the Pope's call to Catholics not to "obsess" over the issue of abortion. I certainly understand that those who have stood on the front lines of the pro-life battles for years feel that the Pope has unfairly characterized them as fanatics.

In the end, I feel that this relatively casual interview, precisely because it is not a formal encyclical, will provide a route of access to the Church for many people who might otherwise not have bothered to pay attention. It might in fact appeal to many of the walking wounded today who are in desperate need of mercy and healing.

Father Robert Barron is the founder of the global ministry, Word on Fire, and the Rector/President of Mundelein Seminary.

Mother Teresa and Her Address to Harvard

The following comes from First Things:

Today the Catholic Church celebrates the Feast of Blessed Mother Teresa. A great work to revisit is her famous 1982 Harvard Class Day Address found here.

Yes, there is hunger. Maybe not the hunger for a piece of bread, but there is a terrible hunger for love. There is a terrible hunger for the word of God.

I never forget when we went to Mexico, and we went visiting very poor families. And those people we saw had scarcely anything in their homes, and yet nobody asked for anything. They all asked us: Teach us the word of God. Give us the word of God. “They were hungry for the word of God. Here, too, in the whole world there is a terrible hunger for God, among the young especially. And it is there that we must find Jesus and satisfy that hunger. Nakedness is not only for a piece of cloth. Nakedness is for the loss of that human dignity, the loss of that respect, the loss of that purity that was so beautiful, so great, the loss of that virginity that was the most beautiful thing that a young man and a young woman can give each other because they love each other, the loss of that presence, of what is beautiful, of what is great this is nakedness. Homelessness is not a lack of a home made of bricks, but the feeling of being rejected, being unwanted, having no one to call your own.
I never forget, one day, I was walking down the streets of London and I saw a man sitting there. He looked so sad, so lonely. So I went right up to him. I took his hand and I shook his hand and my hands are always very warm. And he looked up at me and he said: “Oooh, after such a long time I feel the warmth of a human hand.” It was so small that little action was so small and yet it brought a radiating smile on a face that had forgotten to smile, who had forgotten what is the warmth of a human hand. And this is what we have to find in our country, in all other countries around the world, everywhere.

Mother Teresa condemns abortion, speaks of purity and chastity as the greatest gifts young people can give to each other and emphasizes the importance of family in an individualistic world. Over and over, she forces one to consider if social justice can ever be separated from faith. But the best part of her speech is her invitation to contemplate upon the relationship between love and sacrifice, which leads one to holiness:

My prayer for you is that you grow in that love for each other. That you grow in that likeness of Christ, in that holiness of Christ. Holiness is not the luxury of the few; it is a simple duty for you and for me.

For a great piece in response to critics of Mother Teresa, see William Doino Jr.’s post from earlier this year here.

Jim Caviezel, Pro-life, Adoption and Faith

The following comes from Lifesite news via the Marian Shrine:

Jim Caviezel, the star of the blockbuster film "The Passion of the Christ," told an interviewer that he had been challenged by a friend who was not pro-life to live up to his professed pro-life convictions and adopt a disabled child.

The friend told Caviezel that if he did that, then he would change to the pro-life position. When Caviezel and his wife Kerri, went to China to adopt not one, but eventually two orphans suffering from brain tumors, the friend reneged on the deal. Caviezel, however said, "It didn't matter to me because the joy that we hadfrom (Bo) - he's like our own." The couple's first child, Bo, had been abandoned on a train, grew up in an orphanage until he was five and was diagnosed with a brain tumor. The Caviezels nursed Bo through his surgeries and he remains today at the centre of the family.

"We took the harder road," the actor said. "That is what faith is to me; it's action. It's the Samaritan. It's not the one who says he is; it's the one who does - and does without bringing attention to himself. I'm saying this because I want to encourage other people."

Handsome and a compelling actor, Jim Caviezel has taken leading roles in a number of mainstream feature films - "The Thin Red Line" and the "Count of Monte Cristo" being the best known. But it is his role as the suffering Jesus in the "Passion of the Christ" that he has become best known for. About the adoption of his children, Caviezel was frank about his feelings, saying the challenge "completely terrified" him at first. "Yes, you do feel fear, you do feel scared but you have no idea the blessings that you have coming to you if you just take a chance on faith."

When the Caviezels went to adopt their second child, they were first offered a healthy baby girl, but a five-year-old girl with a brain tumor from the Guangzhou region of China also needed a home. The Caviezels reasoned that a healthy baby would be more likely to be adopted by another family and that the child with the tumor had a greater need for a home.

Caviezel's optimism and selfconfidence showed early in his acting career. He was told that as a devoutly believing Catholic he should be prepared to keep his beliefs quiet. But it was his openness about his faith that attracted the attention of Mel Gibson and led him to offer Caviezel the role of Christ.

Asked about the challenges of being a publicly Catholic figure in Hollywood, Caviezel responded, "It's part of the cross you take up when you choose to believe in him (Christ)...we all have this desire to want to be liked...but what we should be asking God for is the desire for humility. (Lifesitenews)

Fr. George Rutler: Calling evil its true name

The following comes from Fr. George Rutler:

With my parents at a performance of Gounod's Faust at the opera some years ago, when Marguerite went mad in Act V after killing her baby, my mother let out a gasp that embarrassed me, for we were in a box over stage left and conspicuous. Now I bless my mother because that maternal empathy is the heart of civilization. “A voice was heard in Ramah, Rachel weeping for her children” (Jeremiah 31:15). Stifle the mother, and you stifle the child, and the world dies. Our Lady, being a take-charge kind of woman, as was evident at the wedding in Cana, may have been a midwife often in Nazareth, weeping at the loss of infants as she surely did when the innocents were massacred in Bethlehem.

In the opera, the repentant Marguerite is taken by angels singing “Salvation!” But Faust, who bartered his soul to Mephistopheles before fathering Marguerite's child, is bound to that Satan who, in the words of Milton, bids “Evil, be thou my good.” Anyone who calls evil good, moves discourse about infanticide to a very dark place.

On April 26, President Obama, the first sitting president to address Planned Parenthood, not only thanked that organization which aborts around 300,000 children a year, but added, “God bless you.” Evil, be thou my good.

On June 13, Nancy Pelosi said that the abortion issue is “sacred ground.” Evil, be thou my good.

On June 20, a New York Times Op-Ed contributor described the aborting of her 23-week-old son, who had a heart defect: “I felt my son’s budding life end as a doctor inserted a needle through my belly into his tiny heart. As horrible as that moment was — it will live with me forever — I am grateful. We made sure our son was not born only to suffer. He died in a warm and loving place, inside me.” Evil, be thou my good.  

Our merciful Lord will hear the cry of those who make terrible mistakes, especially those who have not had the grace of being taught right from wrong. To them he offers real angels, and not singers on a stage. But he also predicted that “a time is coming when anyone who kills will think he is offering service to God” (John 16:2). Like Faust, such people ask God to bless destroyers of life, and call the killing fields “sacred ground,” and even describe the womb of a mother who kills her child as a “warm and loving place.” Blessed Teresa of Calcutta said that no one is safe around a mother who would kill her own child. Anyone who makes a Faustian bargain knows that even Christ is not safe around such a mother: “Inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me” (Matthew 25:40). Satan calls evil good. Christ calls it crucifixion.