From a site I just came across for the first time, though it's run by the Knights of Columbus, this piece is more about Cardinals Burke and Wuerl, but Lopez's introduction is a pitch-perfect putdown of the latest TIME idiocy regarding B16...Kathryn Jean Lopez is editor-at-large of National Review Online and a nationally syndicated columnist..
B16’s Christmas gifts
to American Catholics
by Kathryn Jean Lopez
Dec. 17, 2010
You may be surprised to learn that Pope Benedict made it to Time magazine’s much-buzzed about Person of the Year issue.
You may not be as surprised that it’s not for Eucharistic Adoration in Hyde Park in London. (Move over Justin Bieber, B16 is the new Beatle?!)
It’s not that he’s ushered in a new season of intolerance for the “filth” of abuse in the Church.
It’s not that no man in the world with as loud a voice, as firm a hand and as high an authority has done more to change the environment in which abuse was able to happen and be hidden and transferred. That no man more powerful has been as contrite and insistent on investigation and penance.
It’s not that he’s been a herald of the great women in Catholic history (in a series of talks, among other things, this year).
It’s not that he provided an unprecedented, candid, book-length interview to a journalist in the latter half of the year.
Nope.
The Pope made the “Person of the Year” issue . . . because women can’t be priests, because there have been scandals in the Church, and because he still has hang-ups about condoms.
Of course, that shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone who has been a consumer of the media this year. It was Holy Week when you heard panel after panel on MSNBC insist that the Pope’s resignation was not only imminent, but that nothing short of it would be acceptable. The party line came after agenda-driven, erroneous recycled “reporting” from the
New York Times.
But despite all that, the media can’t actually take away the reality of this year in the life of the Church. They can’t take away the Eucharist. They can’t take away prayer. They can ignore but they can’t take away new, orthodox vocations.
And they also can’t take away the two early Christmas gifts Catholics in the United States were given by Pope Benedict XVI. Wrapped in poinsettia red, they were Cardinals Raymond Burke and Donald Wuerl. And both of them, in turn, have many gifts to share.
Some of their gifts did not take long to manifest themselves: They’re calls to arms – clear, and firm, examples of shepherds shepherding their flock. Their message: Be Catholic. And they’re using their office to help us do just that.
On his first trip back home from Rome, where he is currently assigned to what tends to be imperfectly described as the Vatican’s supreme court, Cardinal Burke went to Boston to speak to an event hosted by neighboring New Hampshire’s Thomas More College. Appropriately, his remarks focused on Catholic higher education.
During the speech, Cardinal Burke emphasized that:
“In a particular way, the Catholic university which is true to her identity will help students to be strong in giving an account of their faith in their vocation in life, whether it be the married life, the dedicated single life, the consecrated life or the ordained priesthood, and in whatever field of human endeavor they engage, resisting the secularist dictatorship which would exclude all religious discourse from the professions and from public life in general.”
Needless to say, Catholic schools do not always present this vision of the world to students.
Cardinal Burke went on to say: “The first and chief teacher at every institution of Catholic higher education is Our Lord Jesus Christ Who is the fullness of the revelation of God to us. A Catholic college or university, at which Jesus Christ alive in His Church is not taught, encountered in the Sacred Liturgy and its extension through prayer and devotion, and followed in a life of virtue is not worthy of the name.”
The vision of a sacramental campus is one, again, often contrary to the life of the Catholic campus today, where administrators and professors are often embarrassed by piety. They are products of the dictatorship of which the cardinal speaks – and that’s no way to graduate confident Catholic scholars, and no way to change the culture.
But you can read the whole speech yourself, and I urge you to.
http://www.thomasmorecollege.edu/blog/2010/12/13/full-text-of-cardinal-burkes-address-at-thomas-more/
The point is that we must be who we say we are: as individuals and institutions who describe ourselves as Catholic.
“CHRIST IS THE WAY,” is how Disciples of the Lord: Sharing the Vision, by Cardinal Wuerl, begins, written while still an archbishop.
In this “Pastoral Letter on The New Evangelization,” the cardinal archbishop of Washington, D.C., continues: “When Jesus first came among us, he offered a whole new way of living. The excitement spread as God’s Son, who is also one of us, announced the coming of the kingdom. The invitation to discipleship and a place in the kingdom that he held out to those who heard him, he continues to hold out to you and to me today. But, for many, the invitation has lost its appeal.”
“Jesus beckons us,” the cardinal reminds us. “The joy we experience compels us to share it with others. We are not only disciples, we are evangelists.”
He goes on to say: “My brothers and sisters, we are called to water, to nurture and to cultivate those seeds already sowed, or to plant new seeds where we recognize the opportunity. The ground may be rocky, filled with thorns or readily trod upon, but we can make a difference. Our effort is part of what today we call the New Evangelization. We can help people we know, neighbors, coworkers, even, in some cases, family members, hear all over again, this time for the first time, the good news.”
He gives all of the encouragement you might expect, to serve and to pray, and he does so in compelling ways. But he also encourages relatively simple outward signs of the life of faith, like wearing a crucifix and visibly blessing yourself before meals – even at high-end D.C. restaurants.
But, again, you can read it yourself, and I urge you to.
http://adw.org/pastoral/pdf/ADW_PastoralNewE_Eng.pdf
To read it – and to hear him talk about it – is to see a man who is not only overwhelmed with the joy of Christ, but who sees His Presence throughout his archdiocese, in true servants of the Lord, especially among enthusiastic young people, whose hearts are willingly open to Him.
These are stories that don’t make
Time magazine. And maybe that’s, in a way, a blessing. The likes of
Time offer important reminders about how a hostile media perceives us – but also a reminder that there are a lot of hurting people who were raised Catholic, scandalized by the examples of all too many Catholics behaving badly – Catholics not being Catholic.
We owe them our fidelity to Christ. It’s about integrity. It’s about being who we say we are. Truly faithful Catholics can be contagious examples of life in Christ, an encouragement and support to others.
Among Pope Benedict’s “highs” (as
Time would put it) of the year were elevating two men who know that and consider it their duty to help teach, heal, and nourish. Wise men still seek Him. But faith needs support.
This year the Holy Father also launched a new pontifical council on the New Evangelization. What is the New Evangelization, a concept which Pope John Paul II introduced? Expect that to be explored in vivid spiritual detail to come.
But at heart, we are the New Evangelization – you and I and every man and woman who has the courage to be Catholic. We are the living, ongoing renewal of the Body of Christ, when we give our hearts to the Lord. When we truly trust Him, so we can truly be His servants. Only with the courage of Christ can we survive for eternity.
This has been a difficult year for American Catholics. But we teach, and we pray, and we surrender our wills, and we have all the hope in the world. Like the young girls entering a vibrant Dominican convent in Michigan, something even Oprah couldn’t help but notice. And more than two good shepherds, too.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 19/12/2010 00:34]