St. Catherine of Sienna

Today is the Feast of St. Catherine of Sienna, Third Order Dominican, mystic and Doctor of the Church.

Anti-Catholicism, Again

That's the title of an article in the Weekly Standard, authored by Joseph Bottum. The full article can be found here. Here is how it begins:

The day the Antichrist is ripped from his papal throne, true religion will guide the world. Or perhaps it’s the day the last priest is gutted, and his entrails used to strangle the last king, as Voltaire demanded. Yes, that’s when we will see at last the reign of bright, clean, enlightened reason—the release of mankind from the shadows of medieval superstition. War will end. The proletariat will awaken from its opiate dream. The oppression of women will stop. And science at last will be free from the shackles of Rome. 

For almost 500 years now, Catholicism has been an available answer, a mystical key, to that deep, childish, and existentially compelling question: Why aren’t we there yet? Why is progress still unfinished? Why is promise still unfulfilled? Why aren’t we perfect? Why aren’t we changed? 

Despite our rejection of the past, the future still hasn’t arrived. Despite our advances, corruption continues. It needs an explanation. It requires a response. And in every modernizing movement—from Protestant Reformers to French Revolutionaries, Communists to Freudians, Temperance Leaguers and suffragettes to biotechnologists and science-fiction futurists—someone in despair eventually stumbles on the answer: We have been thwarted by the Catholic Church.

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Catholics Give the Best Parties

Here is a humorous article at Inside Catholic about Catholics and their feasts:

By Jeffrey Tucker

Postmodern man -- and postmodern woman -- don't know how to give a good party. It's up to Catholics to reclaim this lost art and share it with the world.

Why? Because good parties are intrinsic to our Catholic faith. The liturgical year is punctuated with a wide array of feast days and celebrations, many of which are Christianized versions of holidays that once closely tracked the agricultural calendar of planting and harvesting. The two largest and best-known feasts are, of course, Christmas and Easter, but there are also the two Christmas and Easter spin-offs, Epiphany and Pentecost. In addition, there's the feast of Mary, Mother of God (New Year's Day); Ascension Thursday; Corpus Christi; the feast of the Immaculate Conception; All Saints Day (with Halloween and the Day of the Dead); and, the most famous party of all, Mardi Gras, which has strayed far from its Catholic origin as the last celebration before the Lenten fast but still embodies a certain Catholic sensibility. Above all, every Sunday for Catholics is a feast day on which we celebrate Christ's resurrection. Only in Lent and the mini-Lent of Advent is it not party time, but even in these two seasons, there are exceptions for St. Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day, St. Nicholas's Day, and other feasts.

Of course, as the Church wisely realizes, feasts are more fun if preceded by fasts. The stricter the fast, the merrier the feast. Truly the Catholic tradition has mastered the art of well-timed, heavily scheduled, carefully orchestrated good times.

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The Media Slanders Pope Benedict XVI

By Jim Seghers, Covington, La., from Totus Tuus Ministries Newsletter, No. 45, March 2010.

I had another essay prepared, but I received so many inquiries about the current attack of the media on Pope Benedict, that I am presented this review of the facts for your edification.

The Murphy Case
On March 25, 2010 in a fallacious front-page article the New York Times charged Pope Benedict XVI with failure to act against Fr. Lawrence Murphy when, as Cardinal Ratzinger, he was the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Murphy was accused of molesting boys at a school for the deaf in Wisconsin. Subsequently, media sources uncritically reproduced or cited the New York Times article without checking its accuracy, which they could easily have done by examining the supporting data available from the New York Times website that refuted the allegations. It is sad to realize this and other similar articles reflect the current state of American journalism. What are the facts in this case?

Fr. Murphy left St. John's School for the Deaf in the Milwaukee Archdiocese in 1974, after accusations of sexual abuse. He was granted a "temporary sick leave" and moved by Archbishop William E. Counsins of Milwaukee to the Diocese of Superior in northern Wisconsin. Nineteen years later in 1993 Archbishop Rembert Weakland of Milwaukee, who became archbishop of Milwaukee in 1977, oversaw an investigation in which Fr. Murphy admitted to sexual misconduct with nineteen boys. According to Canon Law (the legal code of the Catholic Church) it was the responsibility of Archbishops Counsins and Weakland to administer penalties against Fr. Murphy for his reprehensible behavior.

The current archbishop of Milwaukee in a homily on March 30 clearly placed the blame for mishandling the Murphy case on his predecessors:

“Mistakes were made in the Lawrence Murphy case. The mistakes were not made in Rome in the 1996, 1997 and 1998. The mistakes were made here, in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, in the 1970s, the 1980s and the 1990s, by the Church, by civil authorities, by Church officials, and by bishops.”

On July 17, 1996 Archbishop Weakland wrote to the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith headed by then Cardinal Ratzinger. This was in preparation for a full canonical trial of Fr. Murphy, which Archbishop Weakland ordered. Fr. Murphy received official notice from Archbishop Weakland of a canonical trial against him on September 10, 1996. Preparation for this trial continued in Milwaukee in 1997. In 1998 Fr. Murphy wrote to Cardinal Ratzinger asking that in light of a recent stroke he be allowed to end his days in peace. As a result Cardinal Ratzinger’s deputy, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, not Cardinal Ratzinger, suggested that the trial might be terminated in lieu of sanctions against Fr. Murphy administered by Archbishop Weakland.

However, that suggestion was never followed. The documentation available on the Times website indicates that the canonical trial against Fr. Murphy was never stopped by anyone other than the death of Murphy on August 21, 1998. Two days prior to Murphy’s death Archbishop Weakland stated that he intended to halt the canonical trial and proceed to remove Fr. Murphy from the priesthood, an action he should have done without a canonical trial back in 1977. The canonical judge in the Murphy case, Fr. Thomas Brundage, reported on March 30, 2010 that, contrary to the Times article, the canonical trial was never halted-- by the Vatican or by the archdiocese-- and Father Murphy was a defendant at the time of his death.

Father Brundage was the judicial vicar for the Milwaukee archdiocese at the time of the Murphy case. He also reports that reporters never contacted him to verify details of the case. Moreover, he declares that statements attributed to him in the New York Times article were taken from handwritten notes were not written by him but by someone else.

Misrepresentation by the Arizona Daily Star
On April 1, 2010 The Arizona Daily Star repeated the slanderous allegations made in the Times article and claimed that Bishop Moreno’s “frustration” with the slow process of cases against Fathers Michael Teta and Robert Trupia was caused by the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith headed by Cardinal Ratzinger. Both these priests were laicized in 2004 after long delays; Teta was suspended in 1990 and Trupia in 1992.

However Bishop Gerald Kicanns of Tucson affirmed that the frustration expressed by Bishop Moreno “clearly refers to the challenge of getting the case resolved locally and it did not refer to a frustration with the Congregation for the doctrine of the Faith.” Then he added:

“Pope John Paul II's decision to transfer the competency for dealing with allegations of sexual abuse of minors by clergy to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith [in 2001] and his granting of an administrative removal of a priest from the clerical state have been immensely helpful to our Diocese in resolving these difficult situations,”

In regard to the cases involving Teta and Trupia, Bishop Kicanns asserted that Cardinal Ratzinger’s office sought to expedite these cases not impede them.

ABC News
On April 1, 2010 an ABC News headline read: “New Questions About Pope Benedict’s Role in Sex Scandal.” The implication, of course, is that Pope Benedict was soft on priests who committed sexual abuses. However, the text of the story gives a very different picture. It claims that Cardinal Ratzinger was prevented from censuring Fr. Marcial Marciel by powerful friends of Marciel inside the Vatican. However, the article affirms that when he was elected Pontiff, Benedict XVI promptly took action against Fr. Maciel.

The Hullerman Case in the German Diocese of Essen
In 1979 Fr. Peter Hullerman was accused of abusing boys. The priest was transferred to the diocese of Munich, which was then administered by Archbishop Joseph Ratzinger. Fr. Hullerman was sent to the Munich diocese for therapy. At that time it was generally believed that therapy could be effective in curing sex offenders. Subsequently, Fr. Hullerman was returned to the ministry and continued to abuse boys.

Newspaper articles around the world, including the Times on March 26, 2010, claimed that Archbishop Ratzinger was at fault, because he personally approved Fr. Hullerman’s reassignment. However, Mgr. Gerhard Gruber, then the Vicar-General of the Munich Archdiocese, acknowledges that he alone made the decision to return Fr. Hullerman to pastoral work. Furthermore, he declared that Archbishop Ratzinger was not aware of his decision.

Conclusion
It is ironic that these slanderous accusations are made against Pope Benedict XVI, the man who has done more than anyone else to combat sexual abuse in the Church. "No one has been more vigorous in cleansing the Church of the effects of this sickening sin than the man we now call Pope Benedict XVI, reports Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York last Sunday.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith under Cardinal Ratzinger did not become routinely involved in sex-abuse cases until 2001 – four years before Cardinal Ratzinger was elected Pope. His decision in cooperation with American bishops to bypass full canonical trials, often criticized by canon lawyers and some Vatican officials as a betrayal of due process, allowed bishops to act quickly and decisively when sex-abuse accusations arose.

The dramatic progress that the Catholic Church in the United States has made could never have happened without the insistence and support of Pope Benedict XVI who now being maligned by groundless innuendo and false statements.

Divine Mercy Sunday

By Anthony Tobin, Mobile, Ala., Director of Religious Education, St. Ignatius. Taken from Anthony's Blog.

In 1931, Jesus appeared to a young nun in Poland and asked her to spread the message of His Divine Mercy. During the course of these visions, Jesus asked St. Faustina numerous times that a feast day be celebrated the Sunday after Easter for His Divine Mercy. Therefore, in May of 2000 Pope John Paul II declared the Sunday after Easter Divine Mercy Sunday. St. Faustina tells us:

"On one occasion, I heard these words: My daughter, tell the whole world about My Inconceivable mercy. I desire that the Feast of Mercy be a refuge and shelter for all souls, and especially for poor sinners. On that day the very depths of My tender mercy are open. I pour out a whole ocean of graces upon those souls who approach the fount of My mercy. The soul that will go to Confession and receive Holy Communion shall obtain complete forgiveness of sins and punishment." (Diary of St. Faustina 669)

Because of the Father's Divine Mercy, anyone who partakes in this feast and fulfills the four criteria below, will receive a plenary indulgence, which is the total remission of a persons temporal punishment due to sin. To receive this plenary indulgence, these four criteria must be met.

1. One must take part in the Mass on Divine Sunday with a spirit that is completely detached from the affection of sin, even venial sin.
2. One must take part in the Sacrament of Confession, within about 20 days before or after the feast. The best option is receiving Confession before Sunday Mass so you are completely detached from your sins before celebrating the feast.
3. One must take part in the Sacrament of the Eucharist, preferably on the feast day, or ASAP on the days before or after.
4. One must offer up prayers for the intentions of the Pope.

This should not be something we should take lightly. Our Father in Heaven wants to shower us with His mercy. Please humble yourselves, open your hearts, and rejoice in Our Fathers love and mercy.

There is also a Novena that can precede the feast of Divine Mercy Sunday. These are the prayers that Jesus asked St. Faustina to pray for the conversion of sinners which includes the Divine Mercy Chaplet. For more information on the Divine Mercy Chaplet or the Novena, please click the link.