Advent Reflections

Waiting.

We are all waiting, anticipating.

You and I, each one of us is

Waiting.

For a rending,

a breaking,

For the tearing of a crack at the edge

of our consciousness,

that opens to the slowly growing light.

Waiting.

 For that silent, uncreated Word

to speak Itself 

into voiceless silences,

gently and quietly

like mountain waterfalls,

like a symphony orchestra.

Waiting.

For the first ripple upon our stagnant waters

the first breath of wind upon our shores 

disturbing

the mosquitoes and the gnats 

a little,

an intimation of the Spirit's coming,

the rustle of dead leaves

that hung too long 

upon our branches.

Waiting.

For the Other. For perfect Being.

For the great eternal Something

to enter and to fill

the awful wastelands of our nothingness.

We are all waiting

as if in labor

broken,

bleeding,

crying out,

anguished expectancy,

the pain of a hope 

not yet fulfilled...

the convulsions and the clutching of a pillow.

And the others:

in the aptly named waiting room

white knuckled, breath held,

pacing the plain white floor

can only pray

and wait.

Is this also waiting?

This restlessness,

this nervous blinking, peering side to side,

thumbing through the morning papers,

one too many cups of coffee,

fumbling in one's pockets for a lighter,

and a cigarette

one does not have.

Is this also waiting?

The wastrel in the gutter

clutching at his gin

the narrowness, the closing in,

is he also waiting

in his small brown

paper bag?

The addict,

tired of waiting

flick his wrist to find a vein

worn out, afraid,

afraid of all this silence,

afraid of all these voices,

These too, are waiting.

A barren waiting,

devoid of hope.

Afraid You will not break open,

Afraid You will not speak,

not breathe, not fill.

Terrified You might....

And so the frantic

treading of water,

pushing dead branches 

over the open well,

skating very rapidly

on extremely thin ice,

busily nailing down the shutters

of a barren house.

All of these are waiting, too.

And there is expectancy,

another kind of waiting

one not barren

but filled with hope.

And there is another 

kind of silence

not the silence of death or lassitude

but the silence of a momentous

expectancy.

And another void, 

another place of emptiness

undespairing, full of potentiality

Only in this place of nothingness

where we are unmade and then

created,

only in this silence 

can we begin to strain our ears to hear

the first sounds

of the Coming.

Advent and the Parousia.

The First and Second Coming,

and in between a million lesser Comings

to you and me, and to all of those who 

wait.

Somewhere,

the desperate dropping of a needle,

the kicking of a bottle to the curb,

the sudden realization that one has no lighter,

the pouring of the coffee down the drain.

A sudden  silence strikes the waiting ear,

the cries and the contractions cease

more suddenly

than they first came.

And those in eager stillness waiting,

standing just without the door,

leanign forward,

strain their ears to catch

the first small glimmerings 

of sound.

For unto us a Child is born.

"And The Word Was Made Flesh...." Part 1

The idea of sacraments seems strange to many people. The notion that a material substance, such as oil or water, can convey to us spiritual graces has often been decried as superstitious or pagan. Many Christians throughout history have objected to the material nature of the Seven Sacraments, preferring a more pure and spiritual approach to God and sanctity. Yet countless millions, in an unbroken procession of two thousand years, have devoutly believed and firmly insisted that God Himself is the Author of the Sacraments. Catholic and Orthodox Christians especially have long stated that Christ personally instituted the Seven Sacraments, and that these material channels of Grace are not "unspiritual" or beneath the dignity of God, but are rather God-ordained "helps" that draw us into an ever closer communion with the Blessed Trinity.

Opposition to the Sacraments occurred early in Church history, and had its roots in Greek Gnosticism. Members of the various Gnostic sects (which plagued the early church with heresy) considered matter and spirit to be unreconcilable. The body to them was evil, a prison enslaving the soul of man. Many went so far as to state that the God of the Old Testament, Who created the material universe, was different than the God of the New Testament, and was actually evil. It is not difficult to see that such thinking, often in milder forms, still frequently enters Christian thought to this day, exhibiting itself in a dislike of matter and the body, and opposing artistic and liturgical elements of Christianity as "unspiritual" and pagan.

The point of these posts is not to attempt to prove the reality of the Seven Sacraments as defined by the Catholic Church. It is rather to examine the concept of Sacramentalism in the light of Sacred Scripture and human experience, and to attempt to answer the question, "Is sacramentalism beneath the dignity of God and opposed to His Mind, or is good and acceptable to God, consistent with the Scriptures and consistent with the pattern of God's work revealed in history?"

First of all, those who (unlike the Gnostics) accept the God of the Old Testament, are compelled to realize that from all eternity God planned to create the material universe, and when He did so He declared it "Good". Although the creation is infinitely less than the Creator, we must recognize at the very least that God was pleased to create, and did not find matter abhorrent to His plans.

But there is something even more profound. The Sacraments flow from, and are intrinsically bound up with one of the most central dogmas of the Christian Faith: the Incarnation. Here is their root and source, their prototype and wellspring. Here we see something of the Mind of the Eternal God, here we glimpse the archetypal pattern of the way in which God has chosen to accomplish His work among us. The Eternal Word of God, the Second Person of the most Holy and Blessed Trinity, the One through Whom all things were made, not considering matter too far beneath His dignity, took upon Himself our very flesh and blood, and was made like unto us in all things except sin. Nor did He merely clothe Himself in flesh, He truly became man, a permanent member of the human race.

Perhaps we have lost our wonder at the Incarnation of the Son of God. Have we lost that holy sense of awe that contemplates with adoration the fact that the One Whom heaven and earth could not contain slept in a stall in Bethlehem? That the blind man was touched by the Hand of God? Or that Magdalen was granted the gift of annointing the Feet of God? The disciples, listening to the Sermon on the Mount, heard the Voice of God which no mortal ear can hear; and Veronica, waiting along the Via Dolorosa, wiped the bloody Face of God.

Here, in the Incarnation, we begin to understand sacramentalism. We begin to see that God Himself chose to work His great work of salvation through matter. He brought us redemption in a human body. Through the hypostatic union, the Blood of Christ is efficacious, and with the Fiat of Mary God is given a Body. As we ponder the sacraments let us never forget that because of the Incarnation, it was truly the Almighty Who sat down to supper with His disciples; and it was no mere man, but the Eternal God Who said, "This is my body....This is my blood."

Let us then, as Christians, take time to ponder this great and central mystery of our Faith. And the next time that we are tempted to think that matter is below the dignity of its Maker, or that the Sacraments are "unspiritual" and opposed to the Will of God, let us remember the words of St. John the Divine, recorded in Sacred Scripture: "And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory, the glory as of the Father's only Son, full of grace and truth." "What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we looked upon and touched with our hands concerns the Word of life-- for the life was made visible; and we have seen it...."

Death by Rubber

"Be fruitful and multiply."
(Gen. 1:28)

"Between the conception

And the creation

Between the emotion

And the response....

Between the desire

And the spasm

Between the potency

And the existence....

Falls the shadow."

(T. S. Eliot "The Hollow Men")

In 1968 Pope Paul VI drew heated criticism from secularists and liberal Catholics alike upon the publication of his now classic encyclical Humanae Vitae. With this masterful encyclical the Holy Father affirmed once again, in the midst of a swiftly changing world, the Church's unchanging opposition to contraception. In those early years of the sexual revolution the stubborn voice of an apparently reactionary, moralizing Pope outraged the world; and the Catholic liberals within the Church, who had presumably forgotten that the Holy Spirit guides His people, were sorely disappointed that the Pontiff had not bowed to the spirit of the age. Several decades since the opening rounds of the sexual revolution were fired we can step back and survey the carnage, asking ourselves, "Who was right-- the  old-fashioned reactionary in the Vatican, or the revolutionaries whose battle cry was 'Free love' ?"

The burning coals of criticism presently being heaped against the Roman Church for her stand on gender and sexual issues now extend far beyond the matter of birth control. Her distinctly anti-modern stand on issues such as women priests, homosexuality and gay  marriage, pre-marital sex, divorce, abortion, pornography and masturbation, continues to incense the corrupt societies in which She exists. Holy men and women who continue to support long-held moral values are now viewed not merely as out-of-date or reactionary, but as actually sinful and evil. Mother Teresa has been seen by her critics as an oppressor of the poor, because of her opposition to contraception, in spite of all the years of work and suffering she spent on behalf of the poor of India. Bishops and Cardinals who insist on abstinence and refuse to accept the condom are deemed personally responsible for exacerbating the AIDS crisis in Africa.

At the opposite end of this bizarrely inverted morality, the conservative Christian surveys the sexual wasteland of the modern West, and is appalled. Divorce rates increased dramatically during much of the last century. Homosexuality, once taboo, is now openly accepted, and gay marriage is actively promoted. Gay rights activists desecrated St. Patrick's Cathedral in Boston, made a mockery of  Christianity, and masturbated in the streets. The deadly cancer of pornography continues to pervade our society. The yearly number of abortions has reached mind-numbing figures. "Legitimate" organizations such as NAMBLA (North American Man-Boy Love Association), and the Rene Guyon society, with its diabolical slogan "sex before age eight, or else it's too late", have actively promoted pedophilia, and lobbied Congress to lower the legal age of consent. All of this and more, coupled with broken families, rampant STD's, and psychological ailments, leaves the Christian with the desolate realization that the "free love" of the sexual revolution was only the freedom of death.

Certain Christian communites, once the bulwark of sexual morality, have also bowed and broken before the secular onslaught. The Anglican Church, in 1930, condoned contraception for special cases at the Lambeth Conference, something which had previously been forbidden by all forms of Christianity. In the  century since every other  major Protestant and Evangelical church has followed suit. Homosexuality and  divorce have gained acceptance in some churches, as well.

In light of all of this we must pause and ask ourselves a crucial question: Can the Christian communities of the world condone one or two areas of formerly taboo sexual morality (e.g. contraception, divorce), and still hope to stand firm against the swelling tide of modern sexual immorality? More specifically, is contraception a minor or irrelevant issue that can be safely ignored while we continue to preach agains pedophilia, homosexuality, and pornography, or is it central to our understanding of sex and essential to our message?

I firmly believe that the countless tenets of Catholic doctrine form a single cohesive body of thought; like pieces of a puzzle when put together they will form a single image-- the image of religious man, God, and the communion between the two. It is all too easy to take a critical scalpel and surgically remove one doctrine from another, leaving Catholic dogma in various pieces, some of which may be accepted, some of which may not. We must never forget that a divided body is also a lifeless body. We can never hope to remove the heart of a theological issue and still cling to various doctrinal limbs. They too will wither and die. For example, if a Christian community were to deny the inspiration of Sacred Scripture, it will soon happen that belief in the Divinity of Christ will be denied as well. If the theology of the Incarnation is abandoned, the Sacraments will disappear as well. This is the great fallacy of liberal Catholics who presume to hold what the Church teaches in almost every area, but deny Her teaching against contraception. If the teaching of the Church is questioned in this area, it follows that other issues such as divorce and homosexuality will soon be questioned as well. These example could easily be multiplied.

Secondly, I believe that it is vital to understand that the "thou shalt not's"of Catholic dogma are not designed to be a negative list of rules, but rather flow from the positive affirmation of some good, and function as a safeguard of theology and moral behavior, a wall around the Garden of Life.

Therefore, let us look for a while at the Church's teaching on contraception and sexual issues, keeping these two facts in mind: 1., that we must strive to view Catholic sexual teaching as a whole, and 2., that it is imperative to discover the goodness of human sexuality to which all the negative prohibitions represent a protection.

The wellspring of all Catholic doctrine is the Blessed Trinity, the fullest revelation of the Eternal God ever vouchsafed to man. The doctrine of the Trinity by itself sets Christianity apart from all other monotheistic religions. The Church teaches us that God, the great I Am, is one, eternal, omnipotent, omniscient, immanent, transcendent, etc. She also teaches us that God is an eternal community of persons, yet still one God, "neither confounding the Persons nor dividing the substance" as the Athanasian Creed states. From God the Father proceeds eternally the Person of the Divine Logos, the Son of God. From the Father and the Son, in their perfect communion, proceeds eternally the Personal Love of God, "the Holy Spirit, the Lord the Giver of Life." Thus the God Who is Love Himself is an eternal communion of Persons, a community of infinite bliss, dwelling in perfect beatitude. And this same God, Whom the theologians tell us is perfect Being and of Whom St. John the Divine said "God is Love"-- this same God Who is perfect Love, perfect Being, and a Trinity of Persons, chose in His own free will to create ex nihilo the angels, the universe and its contents, and finally Man in His own Divine Image.

Since man was  made in the Divine Image, man cannot be understood except in light of the Trinity. We see in man that he is made in God's Image because of his intellect, consciousness of self, and freedom of will. But it seems that man represents the likeness of God in more ways than these. Man was called in the beginning to live and understand God, not in solitude, but in community. The first account of the creation of man in Genesis says that God created them male and female. From the first man was not made to be a solitary creature, but was made as two parts of a whole, so to speak, so that he would learn love only through the gift of himself to the other, and the reciprocal gift of herself to him. Dare I say that it almost seems to me as though the perfection or fulfillment of man was divided from the beginning into two pieces, so that through uniting with the one who was bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh, man would learn what love is, and what is the nature of God. And perhaps here in a certain sense the Imago Dei  shines forth more clearly than even in the angels. It is also necessary to note here that for Adam and Eve to experience the bliss of their interpersonal communion, it was absolutely essential that the full personhood of neither be damaged, reduced, or distorted in any way. Love cannot exist where freedom and respect are denied, where the person of the other is injured. Love must truly be a free gift, a mutual self-donation (to borrow the language of Blessed John Paul II), a meeting of two free persons.

Inscribed into the very nature of our creation is the additional remarkable fact that when man and woman express the Love of God in sexual union, this free act of love, this mutual self-donation in interpersonal communion, results in the genesis of new life, another person who is the offspring of giving and the fruit of love. Again we see here the pattern of the Trinity expressed in the life of man. No wonder then that the sexual impulse is so strong, for this pattern of love is inscribed into the very being of men and women and speaks of the Divine Image. No wonder, too, that when perverted it can take such dreadful and diabolical shapes.

Let us look a little further and notice two more facts about humans and sexuality. The first is that God gave Adam and Eve only two positive commands-- to be fruitful and multiply, and to tend and keep the garden. Having already seen the creative power of the Word of God in Genesis, we must surely assume that these two commandments were also inscribed deep into the very heart and nature of man. Here again we see man expressing the Image of God. The God Who created gives to man a creative impulse of his own, to be fruitful and multiply. The God Who sustains and upholds all that He made, offers man a share in tending and keeping the Creation. Reproduction and work remain two essential elements of human society to this day.

The second fact is to notice that man, who is designed to express the communal Love of God, is given a body, a fact that distinguishes him from the purely intellectual beings known as angels. The gift of himself that man is meant to give to the other, his knowledge of the other, and his communion with the other, all occur in the body. The body, created in the beginning to be completely integrated with the soul, expresses the soul's will and desires. Man hears, sees, speaks, acts, works, and loves through the body. The body is man's meeting place with the other. Insofar as man is meant to give himself in love he gives his body to the one loved. Man communicates through the body, loves through the body. Man fell through the body, and was redeemed through the Body. In Eden, before death, pain, and suffering entered the world, the greatest expression of love that Adam and Eve could give to each other was the intimate and total gift of their bodies in blissful marital love. Of course the Eucharistic overtones of this are profound. We remember that the Eucharist, which we so appropriately call Communion, is our Divine nuptial feast, in which God Himself says "This is My Body, given for you."

Of course, we know that man fell, and the relationship between body and soul disintegrated. Now the flesh wars against the spirit, and the spirit wars against the flesh, as St. Paul tells us. The body no longer expresses the soul as perfectly as it did. And with the advent of death and pain the loving gift of himself which man expresses through the body changes. It may now not always be blissful, but often entails pain. Love is mingled with suffering, the gift of the body is often expressed through pain and even death. Now when someone truly loves the other and gives him/her self to the other, that person in effect says "I give you my body entirely-- I will suffer for you, defend you, work for you, hurt for you, if need be die for you. Come what may, my body is entirely yours." No longer is marital union the greatest natural expression of man's love, but the total gift of the body in suffering and death. Christ tells us that the greatest love that anyone can show for the other is to lay down one's life for the other. 

In light of this we can also understand that celibacy is not a denial of bodily love, but rather an excellent fulfillment of it. In this fallen world the celibate's choice of abstinence is not a selfish holding back of his or her body, but rather a total giving of it to God and world through suffering and self-denial. The celibate does not keep his body for himself or his own pleasure, but gives and consecrates it for the other.

And so we have, to the best of my abilities here, a dim and poorly sketched picture of the original beauty and meaning of sex. Man, created in the Image of God, learns love and expresses God in a fruitful, life-creating interpersonal communion through the gift of himself to the other through the body. Thus sex involves love (gift), fruitfulness (new life), and community (mutual self-donation).

So where has all of this brought us in connection to the original theme of this essay? Simply this: the various forms of sexual behavior which the Church condemns as immoral are not a randomly selected list of taboos and "thou-shalt-not's". Rather, in light of the preceding paragraphs, we will see that without exception the Church consistently condemns all forms of sexual behavior that willingly and intentionally frustrate the three principles of love, life, and communion, and that deny personal freedom and damage the personhood of either party involved.  A few examples should suffice.

1. Perhaps the most obvious example is that of rape. This action, although it may accidentally cause life, is totally devoid of love, for it is antithetical to the personhood of the other. The rapist utterly divorces personhood from the act, and completely objectifies the victim. There is no freedom, no gift, no interest in the person, and hence no love. The action is of sole importance to the victimizer, the victim has no meaning. The result of this is isolation, the very opposite of communion. The rapist's actions are completely self-centered, his action express his rejection of the other's personality, and hence he creates for himself a life of isolation.

2. Pornography. Although not as violently damaging to the other as rape, pornography is still intrinsically disordered as it denies both love and life. Again, it is focused on the action instead of on the person (who is not even present), and results in objectification and a denial of personality. While many who use pornography (sinful and isolating in itself) would prefer the real to the image, it often happens that the person who frequently uses pornography becomes addicted to it, and finding it free of responsibility and personality comes in the end to prefer the picture, which demands no love, respect, or gift, to the actual person. Pornography use is also a supremely isolating and narcissistic act.

3. Contraception. Here at last we return to the original topic of this post. The Catholic Church has often turned to the story of Onan, who refused to raise up an heir for his late brother, to support her opposition to contraception. Onan, ordered to go into his deceased brother's wife, refused to complete the sexual act with her (because he knew that the heir would not be his own), and spilled his seed upon the ground. Scripture says that the thing which Onan did was detestable to God, and God slew him because of it. It is worth noting three characteristics of Onan's action. First, it was an intentional frustration of fruitfulness, a sexual action opposed to life. Secondly, it was supremely selfish, since Onan refused to give his body for anything which could not directly benefit himself. Thirdly, I suspect that it was objectifying as well, for Onan seems to have had no trouble with enjoying the woman, provided that no life could come from it. Here we see the Divine Image, which ought to have been expressed in human love, so obscured as to be utterly unrecognizable. Simply put, contraception is opposed to life, and therefore the Church is opposed to it. It focuses yet again on the action, but strives to avoid the responsibiliy that stems from that action. It is uninterested in forming new life. It tends toward objectification because responsibility toward the other is reduced.

Contraception is not an isolated "problem area" of sexual morality. Rather, it is intrinsically connected with our concept of sex, and is an espression of the modern misunderstanding and abuse of the beautiful gift of sex. It is a plague that is rapidly destroying the very moral fabric of our culture. It results from, and tends toward the objectification of the sexual act. The body of man, once designed to express human love in a fruitful union, has been divorced from the soul of man from which that love flows. The body now becomes our focus, the action becomes our goal. Sensation is now the end, not life. The field is tilled, but not planted. There is pleasure, but no potency. Love is divorced from responsibility, fruitfulness is removed from marriage, and personhood sundered from sex. Interpersonal communion breaks down and the other is seen more and more as merely a body-- the object of self-gratification.

If what I have written here seems extreme or unkind, let me state clearly that I am considering the general causes and effects of contraception, not attempting to judge the hearts of individuals. There are countless thousands of well-meaning persons who, out of ignorance or difficult circumstances, unwittingly practice contraception (although it is still wrong, even under these conditions). But when our culture, secular and Christian alike, has virtually en masse condoned contraception, then we know that a deadly decay has set in. Interest in, and respect for life decrease; the value of the person is diminished; and freedom and responsibility are reduced. Objectification and selfishnes increase; divorce rates soar; and homosexuality and pornography become ever more acceptable.

As death occurs when the blood is separated from the body, so too, we are slowly dying because we have tried to separate things which were never meant to removed from each other-- things which God Himself has "joined together". We have tried to divorce:

love from life,
body from soul,
freedom from responsibility,
sex from procreation,
fruitfulness from marriage,
and our physical nature from the Divine Image.

And so we, who have contracepted life, are dying a slow and agonizing death-- death by rubber, death by pill. The great loving and creative impulse of man, made in the Image of God, has had a condom put over it; and millions of abortions, sexual perversions, rapes, and addictions, bear witness to the hell that we create when the orgasm, not life, becomes our only goal.

"Others are hell." Sartre

"Lust has no friends, it is not interested in persons." Fr. Vincent Miceli, The Roots of Violence

"The transmission of human life is a most serious role in which married people collaborate freely and responsibly with God the Creator." Pope Paul VI, Humanae Vitae

"The way to plan the family is Natural Family Planning, not contraception. In destroying the power of giving life, through contraception, a husband or wife is doing something to self. This turns the attention to self and so destroys the gift of love in him or her. In loving, the husband and wife must turn the attention to each other. Once that living love is destroyed by contraception, abortion follow very easily." Blessed Teresa of Calcutta

Replies to Christopher Hitchens, Part 2: The Issue of Secularism

This is the first of a series of promised posts designed to answer Mr. Christopher Hitchens' 2007 book (dare I call it a "novel"?) god is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. As mentioned in the Introduction, I cannot hope to respond to, or research, every area of the book. I am no scholar, and do not have the time to do a comprehensive treatment of Mr. Hitchens' work. However, I do hope in the following series, to satisfactorily demonstrate that the large numbers of errors, illogicities, and the evidence of extreme bias found in god is not Great  must cause us to seriously question the accuracy and scholarly nature of Hitchens' text.

In this particular post we will look at a crippling error in Chapter Seventeen, "An Objection Anticipated: The Last Ditch "Case" Against Secularism".

Throughout the text of Hitchens' polemical book there is abundant evidence of extreme bias, which ought to be fairly obvious to any impartial observer. (This will be more fully examined in a later post.) Hitchens does not offer the reader a balanced comparison of the philosophies and arguments of religion and secular atheism. Vast portions of the book are heavily anecdotal, overwhelming the reader with appalling stories (some true, some not) of the immoral behavior and the ignorance of religions and religious people. While much of what he writes is factual, it is worth noting that he scarcely ever can offer any real praise for those religious people who have done untold good in the world, or those religious institutions which have helped to bring about the social, scientific, and intellectual enlightenment he affirms. The rare cases where he does admit to such goodness are generally robbed of religious meaning by the insistance that such people acted out of natural humanitarianism, not religious conviction or charity, or that they were scarcely religious people at all. Note, for example, how the rescues Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. from Christian influence by asserting "In no real as opposed to nominal sense, then, was he a Christian." Nor are noted godly religious people spared the laceration of his pen. Even Mother Teresa comes under criticism here (as elsewhere: Hitchens had already published, in 1995, an attack on the holy woman under the gross and pointless title The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice. Again, more on this in a later post.) Conversely, he his remarkably adept at not noting the evils of irreligious people and secular societies, and easily glosses over such issues when they are noted.

At a point in the book where this increasingly ridiculous  bias and distortion has become virtually intolerable, he finally anticipates the objection that secularism might be blame for evil deeds as well as religion, and asks the first really serious question against his own position. Unfortunately, his handling of the question, and the resolution of it, can scarcely even begin to be taken seriously.

Here then, is that question: "When the worst has been said about the Inquisition and the witch trials and the Crusades and the Islamic imperial conquests and the horrors of the Old Testament, is it not true that secular and atheistic regimes have committed crimes and massacres that are, in the scale of things, at least as bad if not worse?" A couple of paragraphs later he writes: "The point deserves a detailed reply." Let us see of what this "detailed reply" consists.

Hitchens tackles the problem of atheistic regimes such as Communism and Nazism in this 23 page chapter, and by the end has performed one of the most remarkable bits of intellectual legerdemain in the entire book.
His resolution of the charge against the evils of secularism (evidenced in totalitarian regimes of the past century) consists of several points.

1. He first spends a significant amount of the chapter detailing the immoral behavior of religious people (yet again!) who sided with, or gave into these totalitarian regimes. Here the reader's attention is distracted, and focused once more on the horrors of religion.

2. He then removes these regimes from the general parameters of the question. This is done with remarkable ease. The totalitarian nature, absolutist tendencies, and the Utopian "eschatology" evidenced in these regimes smacks of religion, and hence they may not really be considered as part of the glorious secular plurarlism which Hitchens espouses. Thus, the left hand (secularism) is empty, and the audience is focused on the right hand (religious immorality). Then the denouement.

3. Hitchens writes on page 247 "All that the totalitarian regimes have demonstrated is that the religious impulse-- the need to worship-- can take even more monstrous forms if it is repressed."

David Copperfield would be proud....

I don't want to spend a lot of space here dealing with these points. I think that several rather self-evident questions would present themselves to the readers' mind which offer a strong argument against Hitchens' reasoning. Questions such as these: Is it not human nature's fear of death and pain which induces people "at gunpoint", so to speak, to join with the evils of totalitarian regimes? And the religious people who did so, were they not acting against their religions and consciences? Is it really possible to so easily divorce these regimes from the secular question, when especially Communism explicitly sought in its early stages to remove religion from the world and create a utopian secular society? Simply because they are more absolutist than Hitchens' personal take on secularism, in what reasonable way can they be removed from the question? Does not the third point lead us to wonder if the religious impulse ought then to be encouraged? Etc.

However, the primary focus of this post is to expose ain incredibly huge factual, historical inaccuracy. On page 239, Hitchens attempts to revive the tattered war-horse of Hitler's Pope. He spends a few paragraphs on Eugenio Pacelli (Pius XII), and endeavors to demonstrate the he was not opposed to the Nazi regime. In fact, he goes as far as to say "This would involve believing in the death of an anti-Nazi pope, and the accession of a pro-Nazi one, as a matter of divine will...." Thus, Pius XII is emphatically described as pro-Nazi. This is stated as a fact. Unfortunately for Hitchens, this is so far removed from fact as to be the exact opposite of the truth.

A few background comments on "Hitler's Pope":

Eugenio Pacelli was born on March 2, 1876 and was made a bishop in 1917 (also the year of the Bolshevist Revolution). A brilliant and holy man, Pacelli rose to fame quickly. He was fluent in 9 languages besides his mother Italian, was adept at administration, and soon proved himself to be a skilled diplomat as well. He served under Pope Pius XI as papal nuncio to Berlin in the years prior to his own election to the Holy See. During this time he became a well know figure in Germany, and it is worth noting that the Nazis themselves described Pacelli as "Jew loving", and were utterly distraught when he was elected Pope. The Nazis, at least, knew the facts well enough to know that they would never find an ally in Eugenio Pacelli. Nor did their impression change during the war. There is strong evidence that the Nazis plotted for a while to kidnap the pope. So we have here one group of people who knew that the Cardinal, and later Pope, was not pro-Nazi.

Another, and even more important group, was the Jews themselves. Fully aware of the assistance granted them by Pius XII (including his immediate response to Kristallnacht), they almost universally praised him in the years following the war. The chief Rabbi of Israel, Isaac Herzog wrote: "The people of Israel will never forget what His Holiness and his illustrious delegates, inspired by the eternal principles of religion, which form the very foundation of true civilization, are doing for our unfortunate brothers and sisters in the most tragic hour of our history, which is living proof of Divine Providence in this world."

The rest of the world was also aware. A 1941 article in the New York Times avowed that "The voice of Pius XII is a lonely voice in the silence and darkness enveloping Europe this Christmas....the Pope put himself squarely against Hitlerism."

Not until Rolf Hochhuth's spurious 1963 play The Deputy did anyone entertain any real doubts about Pius' beliefs and actions. In the decades following numerous books have advanced the ideas that Pius was weak, silent, or actually pro-Nazi. The best known of these works is Hitler's Pope, by John Cornwell, published in 1999. This virtual anihilation of historical fact has resulted in the widespread public opinion  that Pope Pius XII was in fact an ally or a pawn of Hitler. Fortunately, many other works have been published and continue to be published, that are slowly restoring the historical facts relating to the wartime papacy to the public consciousness. The Myth of Hitler's Pope, by Rabbi David Dalin is easy and fascinating reading, yet completely scholarly. Rabbi Dalin shows excellent familiarity with both sides of the argument, and his acquaintance with the subject matter is profound. With careful, scholarly research he demonstrates once and for all that Eugenio Pacelli was anything but pro-Nazi, and stood more firmly across the path of the Third Reich than any other non-military figure during the Holocaust. The Pope's efforts on behalf of the Jews resulted in the salvation of more than 600,000 Jewis lives (a conservative estimate) according to several scholars.

Nor does Rabbi Dalin stop here. He proposes the Pontiff as a candidate for Yad Vashem, to be officially declared a "righteous Gentile" for his wartime assistance. In this unfortunately short overview of the facts, let me simply end by saying: this matter has been laid to rest by numerous scholars with a finality that cannot be questioned. Pius XII was a hero of WWII, loved by the Jews and Christians alike, a shining example of charity during one of the most savage periods of human history. There never was a Hitler's Pope. Mr. Hitchens hasn't been doing his research....

But there is another aspect of this story. The question arises: what sources did Christopher Hitchens use on this matter? I glanced at the (very scanty) references in the back of the book, and discovered only one: John Cornwell's Hitler's Pope. Apparently, Hitchens was also not aware that Cornwell himself later realized that he had gone too far. In a later book, The Pontiff in Winter, published three years before god is not Great, Cornwell (although still critical of the Pope, and still innaccurate) partially corrects himself and writes, "I would now argue, in the light of the debates and evidence following 'Hitler's Pope', that Pius XII had so little scope of action that it is impossibe to judge the motives for his silence during the war, while Rome was under the heel of Mussolini and later occupied by the Germans." Of course, the alleged "silence" has repeatedly been laid to rest as well, and the Pope's scope of action was still highly effective.

Let the rotting cadaver of the legend of "Hitler's Pope" be placed in its rightful grave and not resurrected again. It  is nauseating to think how long it has been paraded before the public eye, even when the facts of history had already dealt it its death blow. Let the noble memory of the real Pope Pius XII shine for years to come; honored, I hope, both at our altars and with a green tree at Yad Vashem.

And perhaps Mr. Christopher Hitchens should do a little more balanced, careful, and impartial research before writing his next book....

Replies to Christopher Hitchens, Part 1: Introduction

Those of you have been following this blog have no doubt noticed the absence of new posts since shortly after Easter. This is primarily due to a little fellow named William Lloyd Fox, who was born into our family six weeks ago. Needless to say, the first six weeks (or the first two or three months) after having a new baby (and a second child, at that) offer precious little time for writing. I have, however, found the time to do a little reading, and am finally returning to the laptop to try to send a few thoughts out into blog world.

I recently purchased a copy of Christopher Hitchens' anti-religion, anti-God diatribe god is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. Although I anticipated, naturally, that I would not agree with Hitchens' thesis, I did expect that such a famed atheistic intellectual and debater would have crafted a careful and scholarly work, which would require serious thought on the part of the reader, and call for a thorough examination of the arguments presented within the text. However, I did not find this to be the case. At all. The book is decidedly unscholarly, chock full of errors, illogical, biased beyond acceptability, frequently assumptive, and little better than an ill-conceived, bitter, vitriolic attack on religion.

There  are two ways of dealing with this book. The first is to simply leave it alone. The sheer volume of (often) glaring errors and illogical deductions that are scattered across the landscape of its text may lead one to assume that it does not even merit a reply. The second approach is to publicly (and for the public good) expose its errors and dangerous implications. I have chosen the second course, and wish to write a series of replies to Mr. Hitchens.

I believe that the book deserves a response for at least six particular reasons:

1. It is a "popular" book. This is not a dense and ponderous tome of philosophical thought that will be read only by a few sagacious intellectuals. It is a controversial, but wildly popular best-seller. In all fairness to the author, Christopher Hitchens is an extremely well-educated, well-traveled, and highly intelligent journalist, author, and foreign correspondent. He is also an entertaining and powerful rhetorician. I can only imagine the negative impact it may have on the thoughts and souls of its wide readership, many of whom may be completely unaware that its arguments hang on the merest threads.

2. Hitchens does not stand alone. This book is but one part of a secular, atheistic iceberg. Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and other champions of the "new atheism" represent a serious trend in modern thought. They cannot be ignored.

3. god is not Great obscures countless fields of study that relate to history and human behavior. Hitchens' absurd argument that religion is, and has been, the sole responsible cause of nearly all violence, oppression, superstition, ignorance, abuse, and other evils in human history, has the effect of swiftly dropping a thick, dark curtain across the stage of inquiry. Hitchens leaves little room for a serious examination of human nature, or the possibility that various economic, political, and philosophical ideologies may also to be to blame for the various evils just mentioned. No, religion is at fault, end of story. End scene, the curtain comes down. This a perilous distortion of reality, and leaves us with the following assumptive (and conceivably dangerous) result: if religion were done away with, the advances of science, reason, and human evolution would naturally lead us toward an increasingly more perfect state. This monstrous implication cannot be ignored.

4. Hitchens' philosophy inflicts great damage on reason, critical thinking,  and place of both in history. The author's view of history is evolutionary (and influenced by dialectic, given his Marxist leanings), which, coupled with his antitheism, tends toward discounting the great religious intellectuals of the past. The book itself is a minefield of illogical deductions, and unreasonable assumptions/conclusions. Hitchens would have us believe that only modern secular atheists are enlightened (and presumably we should include him in this "enlightened" category), possessed of greater knowledge and clarity than those who went before, and that human history (with religion taken out of the picture) will steadily advance towards a utopian enlightenment. This charge, too, must be answered.

5. The future implications of Hitchens' work must be considered as well. Since religion is the root cause for nearly every evil in the world, must we not question the possibility that many in the future (in spite of Hitchens' supposed "tolerance") will see fit to destroy religion with whatever means? This is a serious question which also must be addressed.

6. One of the most pernicious aspects of Hitchens' work, is that the attack on God and religion may now be considered not only a personal choice, but an actual moral good. To me one of the most unsettling parts of the entire book is the back dust cover. It has the usual snippets of praise one would expect to find on the back flap of a book; and under the heading "Praise for Christopher Hitchens", appears this comment from The New Yorker: "An intellectual willing to show his teeth in the cause for righteousness." When the attack on religion has come to be seen no longer as immoral, nor a reasonable alternative to belief, but actually an act of "righteousness", then in our generation we see a time when good is deemed evil and evil is deemed good. For this reason, if for no other this book must be answered. 

It would be impossible to answer every spurious charge found in god is not Great within the framework of a few short blog posts. Nor would it be possible for me to find the time to research every error contained in it. I have no desire to spend a year or two writing on only one topic! However, over the weeks to come, in a series of eight to ten posts, I hope to address a number of serious problems with Mr. Hitchens' book. These posts will probably be interspersed with essays on other topics (again, I have no desire to spend all my time writing on this decidedly unpleasant book!), but stay tuned for more installments!

Until then, God Bless!

A Song For Easter

The burning sun falls westwards now,
across the sands of Babylon.
One jackal and a crow call out,
triumphant that their war is won.


The days and years fall heavy here,
bearing judgment on this land.
The ants have picked the corpses bare
that lie between the sun and sand.


No music now, no laughter heard,
and all the harlots sleep alone;
the sprouts that pricked the surface once
are shriveled at the roots and gone.


Broken gateways of this place
we leave behind, we turn and fly;
at our backs a gaping sepulcher,
a cactus, and a stone beneath the sky.


One road leads across this desert,
Worn by naked feet throughout the years.
In sackcloth robes and thumb-crossed ashes
we wander through this wilderness of tears.


Salt-stained cheeks; bruised, aching limbs-
Our legs give out; we stumble, fall....
A piece of bread sustains us here,
a piercing ache, an inner call.


Broken, weary, empty, still
the air within our lungs is clean,
and in this cold and desert night
appear the stars that few have seen.

Now, when all but faith is gone,
we come at last to desert's edge;
I see you standing by me still,
my friend, to whom I gave my pledge.


We come to Zion's shining walls
with bleeding breasts and barren wombs;
O Water! Wash away the dust!
O sacred Oil of chrism heal our wounds!


Beyond the pages of the Book,
Past the open, empty tomb,
to the House where Father spreads
a banquet table, in the Upper Room.


And as we stand with shining eyes,
slowly forgetting Babylon
I welcome you, sweet child of God,
and all the choirs of angels sing us home.

"O Vere Beata Nox...."

The liturgy for Holy Saturday, the Easter Vigil Mass, is to me one of the richest and most beautiful of the year. Of all the profound and glorious moments it contains, the chanting of the ancient Exsultet hymn has always been one of my favorites. It calls us to rejoice, to exult, in the dark night that heralds Easter's dawn.The Paschal Lamb has been slain, the first-born sons of Israel have been saved from death, the people of God prepared to leave the bondage of Egypt, and in the morning Christ our Lord will rise in victory over death.

One of the aspects of the Exsultet which I particularly love, is its carefully woven tapestry of Scripture verses and symbols. In its deep theology, in its recounting of God's mighty redemptive deeds, and in the sheer beauty of its prose, it becomes a symphony of redemption.

We arrive at Easter Vigil once again, and I have included the text of the Exsultet below. I hope it will bless you greatly.

There are longer and shorter versions of the text, and various translations from the Latin. The version posted here is fairly close to standard:

Rejoice heavenly powers! Sing choirs of angels!

Exult, all creation around God's throne!

Jesus Christ, our King is risen!

Sound the trumpet of salvation!

Rejoice, O earth, in shining splendor,

radiant in the brightness of your King!

Christ has conquered! Glory fills you!

Darkness vanishes forever!

Rejoice, O Mother Church! Exult in glory!

The risen Savior shines upon you!

Let this place resound with joy,

Echoing the mighty song of all God's people!

My dearest friends, standing with me

in this holy night,

join me in asking God for mercy,

that he may give his unworthy minister

grace to sing his Easter praises.

The Lord be with you.

   And also with you.

Lift up your hearts.

   We lift them up to the Lord.

Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.

   It is right to give him thanks and praise.

It is truly right that with full hearts and minds and voices

we should praise the unseen God, the all powerful Father,

and his only Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.

For Christ has ransomed us with his blood,

and paid for us the price of Adam's sin to our eternal Father!

This is our passover feast,

when Christ, the true Lamb, is slain,

whose blood consecrates the homes of all believers.

This is the night,

when first you saved our Fathers:

you freed the people of Israel from their slavery,

and led them dry-shod through the sea.

This is the night,

when the pillar of fire destroyed the darkness of sin.

This is the night,

when Christians everywhere,

washed clean of sin and freed from all defilement,

are restored to grace, and grow together in holiness.

This is the night,

when Jesus broke the chains of death

and rose triumphant from the grave.

What good would life have been to us

had Christ not come as our Redeemer?

Father, how wonderful your care for us!

How boundless your merciful love!

To ransom a slave you gave away your Son.

O happy fault, O necessary sin of Adam,

which gained for us so great a redeemer!

Most blessed of all nights,

chosen by God to see Christ rising from the dead!

Of this night Scripture says:

"The night will be as clear as day:

it will become my light, my joy."

The power of this holy night dispels all evil,

washes guilt away, restores lost innocence,

brings mourners joy;

it casts out hatred, brings us peace,

and humbles earthly pride.

Night truly blessed,

when heaven is wedded to earth

and we are reconciled to God!

Therefore, heavenly Father, in the joy of this night,

receive our evening sacrifice of praise,

your Church's solemn offering.

Accept this Easter candle,

a flame divided but undimmed,

a pillar of fire that glows to the honor of God.

Let it  mingle with the lights of heaven

and continue bravely burning

to dispel the darkness of this night!

May the Morning Star which never sets

find this flame still burning:

Christ, that Morning Star,

who came back from the dead,

and shed his peaceful light on all mankind,

your Son, who lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.

From Wednesday's Ashes....

"Lent is the season of renewal, the springtime of the spirit." (Fr. Jose Gomez, Archbishop of Los Angeles)

And so we come to Lent again. The penitential purple banners and priestly vestments appear in our churches again; the feasting of Shrove Tuesday is over; the liturgical music is simplified; and the Alleluia's disappear from the liturgy until the great feast of Easter. Lent began this past Wednesday, and we received the sign of the Cross on our foreheads, marked in ashes collected from the burnt palms left over from last year's Palm Sunday celebration. We are reminded that we come from dust and that we return to it, or else we are told to turn away from sin and to be faithful to the Gospel.

This Ash Wednesday I found myself actually looking forwards to Lent, and I must confess that I do not usually experience any positive anticipation of this season. Lent is an uncomfortable time of year through which I would gladly rush to arrive more quickly at the joyous celebration of Easter. It is not natural to man to seek out opportunities of self-denial, to welcome pain, or to wish for sorrow. Too often we associate Lent in our minds only with fasting, penance, suffering, sadness, sacrifice, and other things that are negative. Yet Lent is not a negative time of year, and we miss out on its depth and richness if we can see no further than the things we must give up. So at last I begin to see a more positive side to Lent, and I would like here to share with you some thoughts on that topic.

The Church instructs us during this time to do acts of charity, prayer, and fasting. I suspect that if you told me that I would only hear the word "fasting". But Lent is very much like Advent, when we hear the "voice of one crying out in the desert, 'Make ye straight the paths of the Lord!'" It is a season of anticipation and preparation, during which our souls are cultivated by various practices to receive our God in greater fullness than before. And it is this preparation, this cultivation, that requires from us penance and self-denial. Penance and self-denial are not ends in themselves, but rather paths that leads us to happiness.

It is written in the heart of every man to long for God, and we spend our whole lives seeking for some permanent joy. Yet there is a great principle that we encounter every time seek for, or receive, some happiness or any good thing. I will call this the Principle of Displacement. Every time we attain joy, or are given some good gift, it is necessary that whatever stands in its way be removed, or we cannot receive these good things. We regularly see this principle at work in our every day lives. If we purchase a new and beautiful piece of furniture for our house, we must move or get rid of other things to create space for it. If a cup is full of water, it must be emptied before it can be filled with wine. Long ago, in Greece, Archimedes discovered this principle when his body displaced the water in his bath.

And so it is in our spiritual lives as well. Our souls are designed to contain the very God of Heaven and Earth, yet all too often, when He comes to us, we find that there is no room for Him, because our souls are cluttered with attachments and things of no account or little value. And so the sacrifices and losses of Lent are not a final desolation, but rather a spiritual house-cleaning that will enable us to receive our Divine Guest. The paths of the Lord are made straight, clutter is removed, and a dwelling place for God is made ready within us.

If we look at the great themes and symbols of the Lenten season we will see this principle at work over and over again. Every loss, every negative, either prepares for or ends in positive gain and Joy.

Ashes. We begin Lent with ashes, which call to our minds several associations. Throughout the text of Sacred Scripture we find ashes associated with penance and suffering, often connected with sackcloth. Consider the story of Jonah and the people of Ninevah, or the bitter plight of Job. Ashes also remind us of our mortality, and of their symbolic sibling dust. "Memento, homo, quia pulvis es, et in pulverem reverteris." "Remember, O man, that you are dust, and to dust you shall return." We are also reminded of the mortality, or transience, of the things of earth and of any of our works that do not have their root in God. See I Corinthians 3:12-15 where St. Paul reminds us that the works of wood, hay, and straw, will be burnt up. Yet the sufferings of Job ended in him receiving many times more than what he originally had, and with the gift of really seeing God for the first time. Death itself is closely related to life, and our Savior tells us that that unless a seed fall into the ground and die it will bear no fruit. St. Francis reminds us that "...it is in dying that we are born to eternal life". Penance itself draws our attention to sorrow and contrition, both of which may seem to us to be negative, but which are again only the other side of a very positive coin. Contrition is intimately related to love. The beginnings of real sorrow for our sins are simply signs that we have begun to truly love God at last. Penance, too, is a sign of something positive, that we desire to correct and repair the damage we have done through our sins.

Those who prepare as candidates or catechumens to enter the Church at Easter time may be aware of something else as well. The sacrament of Confirmation involves the pouring of oil upon the new convert's head and the tracing of the sign of the Cross. I still distinctly remember my own confirmation. I was first in the line of the other catechumens, awaiting the anointing with the perfumed oil. Since I was first, I suppose that Father hadn't gotten his "pour" exactly right yet, and he virtually dumped the blessed oil upon my head. As the sweet smelling olive oil ran down my head towards my eyes, a friend standing nearby handed me a handkerchief. I can tell you that the beautiful smell of that oil lingered long on that handkerchief, and I did not even want to wash my hair afterward. So the new converts to the Church may experience that their heads, once marked with ashes, are designed to receive the "oil of gladness" when Lent is done.

The forty days. The next great symbol, or theme, of Lent that we encounter is the forty days. The number forty is used on numerous memorable occasions in Scripture, and it usually also conveys certain negative associations. We remember the temptations and fasting of Jesus during His forty days in the wilderness directly after His baptism in the Jordan river. The flood rains fell upon the earth for forty days during the time of Noah, resulting in the destruction of all life that was not contained in the Ark. For forty years the Hebrew children wandered in the desert, trying to reach the land flowing with milk and honey. And Moses spent forty days of fasting upon Mount Sinai.

The results of these events are both significant and positive. We are granted strength through Christ's temptations; we see that He was succored by angels at the end; and immediately following those forty days He began His public ministry. The Flood purged the earth of its wickedness, and was followed by a great covenant between God and man. When the children of Israel left Egypt (that great Biblical symbol of the world) it took forty years of desert wandering to prepare them for their entrance to the Promised land. Many of them still longed for the "flesh-pots" of Egypt and loathed the heavenly manna. Through their time in the desert the congregation of Israel was purged of many of its rebellious and idolatrous members (much as we are internally during Lent), and their wanderings culminated in their admittance to the land promised to their fathers, which is a symbol of our own heavenly home. And finally, Moses returned from his long fast bearing the very laws of God in his hands, and his face shone with overwhelming glory from his long communion with the Divine. So we see that these times of suffering, destruction, and desert wandering were necessary preparations for doing the will of God (Christ's public ministry), for receiving a covenant (Noah), for entering our eternal home (the wandering of the Jews), and for communion with God and learning the will of God (Moses). No mean list of good results, these!

The Desert. But let us return briefly to a theme touched upon in the previous section. The time of Lent is often associated with the desert. The specific connection here is with Christ's forty days of fasting in the wilderness, and of the Hebrew children's forty years of desert wandering. Yet the great spiritual masters of both past and present refer to seasons of testing and spiritual dryness in the souls of individuals as "desert experiences". This is closely connected with the "dark night of the soul" described by St. John of the Cross. During these experiences, we are told by those who have trodden such paths, the soul experiences dryness, pain, lack of spiritual consolations, and feelings of abandonment. Yet all these things are designed to draw the soul away from its attachments to things of the world, and through emotional discomfort and perceived loneliness to rely on God utterly, and to live by the pure light of faith. The result of these experiences can lead to a union with God that is so profound and deep that it is described by the masters as a spiritual wedding or marriage. The soul becomes the spouse of God. No other love or affection is needed, no natural sight is desired-- only pure union with God and faith remain.

Nakedness. This is not a theme or symbol usually associated with Lent. Yet it is related to all that has been written so far, and is especially connected with the desert and dark night experiences. Through this time of Lent we see loss and self-denial. But we have also seen, through the Principle of Displacement, that the things we lose are lost only to make room for God, to prepare us for the great union of Love. As we are stripped of our sins and worldy affections we may come to a point of spiritual nakedness. This is not the nakedness of shame, nor the nakedness of our fallen nature that requires the white garments of Christ described in Sacred Scripture. No, this is a nakedness of simplicity, of removal of sin, of the tearing down of idols.

In all this world the greatest and most intimate form of natural human love is the love of a man and woman in marriage, which is consumated in the act of sexual union. We always associate sex with nakedness, and there is a reason. No union this intimate can exist as long as anything still stands between the two lovers. Man and wife come together not only physically naked, but with the nakedness of honesty, knowing and accepting each other with no walls and no separations. And so this natural nakedness which involves the removal of clothing can be seen as symbol of a spiritual nakedness, where all our pride, sin, pretences, and shame are stripped away, and the soul at last stands ready for the bliss of Divine Love in the most intimate union of man and God.

In closing, I would like to offer two quotes that describe this reality of nakedness and union. The first is taken from Francis Thompson's immortal poem, The Hound of Heaven, in which the poet finds himself stripped of everything he had sought that was not God. The second is taken from the great spiritual canticle of St. John of the Cross, in which he describes the blissful union of Love with God that follows the dark night of the soul.

"Naked I wait Thy love's uplifted stroke!
My harness piece by piece Thou hast hewn from me,
                    And smitten me to my knee;
                I am defenseless utterly.
                I slept, methinks, and woke,
And, slowly gazing, find me stripped in sleep."

"All which I took from thee I did but take,
                Not for thy harms.
But just that thou might'st seek it in my arms.
                All which thy child's mistake
Fancies as lost, I have stored for the at home;
                Rise, clasp My hand, and come!"

  Halts by me that footfall;
  Is my gloom, after all,
Shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly?
  "Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest,
  I am He Whom thou seekest!
Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest Me."
Francis Thompson (1859-1907)

"O guiding night! O night more lovely than the dawn!
O night that has united the Lover with his beloved, transforming the beloved in her Lover.

I remained, lost in oblivion; My face I reclined on the Beloved.
All ceased and I abandoned myself, Leaving my cares forgotten among the lilies."

St. John of the Cross (1542-1591)

Let this then be our great prayer this Lent: that we leave the world and enter into the desolation of the desert in order to be made ready to enter Paradise; that ashes give way at last to the "oil of gladness"; and that our fasting and spiritual nakedness make way for the great Wedding Feast of the Lamb.

Ora Pro Nobis

In the introductory post for this weblog, "Reflections on a Liturgy", I expressed the desire that this site facilitate, among other things, a Catholic-Protestant dialogue. As a convert to Catholicism, from a somewhat Fundamentalist background, such a conversation is near to my heart. I am not a trained or professional apologist, but I try to offer some thoughts on this site on the Church I have come to know and love, and on Her doctrines and practices. In two previous posts ("In Nomine Patris" and "On the Power of Formal Prayer") I have attempted to examine some points of contention between Catholics and Protestants, and to demonstrate the Catholic practices as reasonable, beneficial, and in keeping with good Christian doctrine. Today I would like to continue in a similar vein.

I firmly believe that one of the great obstacles to Christian unity has historically been a lack of communication, and a lack of comprehension of  the beliefs of our brothers and sisters. A theological term may be misunderstood and result in confusion, an idea may be so foreign to our tradition that it is rejected out of hand, and even the language of our traditions may be misinterpreted by those of other traditions due to unfamiliarity. Without Charity and an earnest desire to understand our Christian siblings, we will continue to misrepresent, misunderstand, misinterpret, and remain separated from each other. Of course, communication is not the final answer. Only God, by the Divine workings of Grace and the Holy Spirit in the hearts and minds of men and women, can ever finally effect a return to unity. Yet we do not give up, for God uses many means to achieve his Will, and our attempts at communication can be part of God's own working, used to facilitate the beautiful unity of His children.

Great strides have been made in recent times in this very area, and I feel that understanding, respect, and dialogue between Catholic and Protestants has increased; yet there is still much to done, and much confusion remains. There are still some severe Traditionalist Catholics who consider Protestants to be damned heretics (in stark opposition to the actual teaching of the Church), and some Protestants (especially those of more Fundamentalist background), like Jack Chic of the infamous Chic Tracts, who continue to advance the most nasty and scurrilous attacks, and repeat with no research the most dreadful lies against the Roman Catholic Church.

As much as in our conscience lies, let us lay aside the "damned heretics" and the "Whore of Babylon", and with much prayer and love let us seek "the peace and unity of your Kingdom where You live forever and ever." Amen. (Prayer from the Communion Rite of the Mass)

There are several Catholic doctrines and practices to which Protestants generally object. Although these doctrines and practices are various, and the objections to them are equally various, there seems to run through them the common thread that they are seen, by those opposed to them, to be pagan or superstitious. This is not the place to examine why they are viewed in such a light, nor to consider whether or not this speaks against the Church, as a mark of "scandal". I would briefly note, however, that the early Christians were considered superstitious by the Romans, and I would refer the reader to Blessed John Henry Newman's treatment of this matter in his seminal work An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine. I do have an idea on the subject, but that may be a matter for another post.

I am more concerned here with demonstrating the fact that these Catholic doctrines and practices are not, in fact, superstitious; and that any objection to them can only reasonably be made on some other grounds. What follows may or may not be seen as convincing, but at least I pray that it will serve to show that these Catholic practices are not unreasonable, superstitious, or opposed to Christian thought.

Among the specific Catholic behaviors that Protestants view as pagan or superstitious is prayers to the Saints. This seems to always be a source of contention, and the amount of material that has been written against praying to the Saints could fill volumes. In this essay I would like to briefly examine this issue, and try to explain what Catholics actually mean and intend when they pray to Saints or Angels.

The objections to praying to the Saints are basically six. They are: 1. That the Bible does not command us to do it, nor does it even speak of it, 2. That Catholics confuse the Saints and Angels with God, to Whom alone we are to pray, 3. That the Saints cannot hear us (or we do not know if they can), 4. That we do not have any reason to suppose that those in Heaven do, in fact, pray for us, 5. There is no need to pray to the Saints when we can go directly to God, 6. And that we do not know all the names of those who are in Heaven.

Let us examine these in order.

1. The Bible does not command us to pray to Saints or Angels; nor does it allow, or even speak of such a practice.

I will not spend a great deal of time on this first objection. This is not an attempt to avoid the problem; rather this problem is answerable only within the context of the larger issue which it addresses--sola scriptura. The real issue at stake here is not so much whether the Bible commands or allows us to pray to the saints, but whether or not the Bible is our sole rule of Faith. Of course, neither the Church nor myself is advocating a doctrinal free-for-all. Certainly no Christian doctrine or practice should ever be opposed to the teaching of Sacred Scripture. But whether Scripture explicitly contains mention of all we are to do; whether Scripture requires no external teaching authority to interpret it; and whether Tradition is to be utterly ignored--these are other matters altogether, and will be reserved for a future post.

However, I would like to offer a couple of brief thoughts before moving on to the second point. The objection was that Scripture does not command us to pray to the Saints. Agreed. But consider for a moment a few of the other weighty issues that the Bible does not specifically address. The Bible nowhere teaches the very doctrine of sola scriptura, nor does it list which books were to be included in its canon. Both of these concepts are extra-Biblical. The Scriptures are silent upon these crucial points. Again, the New Testament offers us absolutely no instructions on how to conduct a Christian wedding ceremony. Nor does it tell us what is required for a Christian marriage to be valid. And yet, every day, large numbers of Bible-believing, sola scriptura Christian are accepting nothing but a tradition as they pledge their live to each other before the preacher. Is the minister necessary? Is the congregation necessary? Perhaps a private vow followed by living together is sufficient. But the Scriptures are still silent.

There is another example that is more to point. I am not aware of any place in Scripture where abortion is explicitly condemned. Yet two other Biblical ideas together clearly express this unwritten law. The first is that a baby is human while still within its mother (we scarcely need to go further here than the story of Mary and Elizabeth, and the fact that St. John the Baptist was filled with the Holy Spirit from his mother's womb). The second is the commandment "Thou shall not kill". With these two facts in mind, it is unnecessary for the Bible to specifically mention abortion, euthanasia, stem-cell research, etc. In similar fashion, if we can discover that the Saints hear us and pray for us, and we have evidence that it is wise to petition the prayers of others, then prayers to the Saints becomes a far less difficult concept.

2. Prayer is to be addressed to God alone. Catholics who pray to the Saints either confuse God with the Saints, or are in grave danger of doing so.

This is a serious objection, but a fallacious one. I believe that it basically rests upon two fundamental misunderstandings. The first error is simply based upon essentially comparing two things have certain superficial resemblances. Prayers and devotions to Saints, feast days, shrines, pilgrimages--all these things smack of pagan polytheism and the worship of the gods. Yet superficial or external resemblance is not always a true test in these matters. Non-Christians often point out that the story of Christ resembles certain pagan tales of suffering gods. Yet Christians know in reality that such a resemblance is only superficial, and that there is no essential similarity . Again, to those who object that this Catholic practice bears marks of relationship to pagan practices, I wold reply that the doctrine of the Trinity could be called a derivation of the three faces of Shiva in Hindu thought. Yet we know that we did not really borrow our theology from India, nor that beneath the surface is there any real similarity. Remember also that all religions have certain elements in common, and that to confuse one religion with another based upon those common elements is a serious mistake. It matters not that the Romans had shrines to their gods. What matters is the teaching of the Church and how we understand our devotion to the Saints. And here, let me plainly say that there is no confusion. The Church has always divided carefully and exactly between devotion and honor to the Saints, and the worship that we offer to God. The Church has exactly defined latria, dulia, and hyperdulia. The worship known as latria, the reverence given to a divine being, is offered and is due to the Blessed Trinity alone. The highest forms of honor and reverence given to the Saints is still infinitely less than the honor given to God, and even it depends completely upon the work of God the souls of the Saints.

Nor is this only a matter of Church doctrine. It is true as much in practice as it is in principle. To think that Catholics confuse God and the Saints is a gross error founded upon assumptions, and which results in passing judgment on the hearts and thoughts of others which we cannot see. I know of no Catholics that suffers from such confusion. The writings of Catholics that come down to us through the centuries betray no such error. If somewhere, in some dark corner of the world, some benighted soul really thinks that the Saints are gods, then I suspect that that soul has received so little catechesis, or has wandered so far from the clear teaching of the Church that the name Catholic could not really even be applied. If such a soul exists, as it may, it would be so rare a thing as to make it inconsequential to this discussion. Confusion on the part of certain specific individuals exists in any religion, and cannot constitute a valid argument.

But I believe that this objection also rests upon a confusion of language. The words used by Catholics such as prayer, devotion, etc., are used exclusively by Protestants in relationship to God. So when a Protestant hears a Catholic "pray to a Saint", or practice "devotion to the Saints", it appears that the Catholic is offering to the Saints what is rightly due to God alone. But we must remember that the origin of these words is very old, and their definitions have been various throughout history. The word "prayer", for example, means only communication with God to the Protestant. But clearly, the word itself simply means "to ask". One can easily imagine a peasant in earlier times saying to his lord or some nobleman, "I pray thee, beseech the King on my behalf." Now we would never assume that the peasant believes that his lord is really God. It is simply an archaic way of saying "ask". This, too, is the Catholic understanding. When we speak of praying to saints, we do not think that they can answer our prayers in same way that God can, rather we are simply asking them to pray for us. Once again we see the crucial importance in any ecumenical discussion of defining and understand the words and phrases used by our Christian brothers and sisters.

3. We do not know if those in Heaven can hear us.
4. We do not know if those in Heaven actually do pray for us.

I have grouped these two objections together, because they are related, and the answers to them will involve certain common passages from Scripture.

Sacred Scripture, in fact, makes known to us that those in heaven are both aware of our prayers, and that they pray for us. I will confine myself to the canon accepted by Protestants, but would still like to note that book of Maccabees makes it clear that the saints do pray for us. While I recognize that this book is not considered canonical by non-Catholics, it is still a remarkable fact, and gives some weight to this argument regardless. Maccabees is the story of a Jewish hero prior to the time of Christ, not a Christian nor a Pagan story. But the canon of Scripture is its own topic, so let us examine only such passages as are commonly accepted.


It is good here to remember the analogy of St. Paul, in which he describes the Church as a Body, united to its Head, which is Jesus Christ. A body is intimately connected, yet it receives its information from the head. If my left hand is injured, my right hand is unaware of its pain. Yet the head interprets this pain, and passes along to my right hand the command to apply a bandage to the left hand. If this is true in our natural bodies, how much more so in the Body of Christ. Since our Head, Jesus, has perfect knowledge, then He can make the other members of His body aware of the trials and tribulations of those member that are still on earth. Remember, the Body of Christ is not divided, and those in heaven are not less a part of it for having passed through the veil. Rather their intimate union with the Head, and their experience of the Beatific Vision, should enable them to have even clearer knowledge of what is going on with the rest of us than do those still on earth. Their sight is now perfect, unalloyed by imperfections, and their union with Christ makes them united with us. There is no reason at all to assume that the Saints are not aware of those who still walk "this vale of tears", as if their worship of God in heaven must necessarily preclude such awareness. When Christ tells us that the guardian angels of children always behold the Face of the Father (Matt.18:10), we learn that gazing upon God does not distract those in heaven from caring for those on earth. Nor is there any reason to assume that those in heaven cannot or would not pray for us. The Charity in their hearts should make them truly solicitous for us, and their closeness with God makes their prayers very effective. St. James tells us that the "prayer of a righteous man avails much". How effective then must be the prayers of those who have been made perfect and stand in the very Presence of God!

But this is still guesswork and possibilities. Do we have any indication in the Bible that those who have passed on are, in fact, aware of us, solicitous for us, and pray for us? Yes, and the indication is strong and clear. We find the souls under the altar in Revelation crying out to God "How long" till their blood is avenged on earth. They know. Dives himself, in the midst of the flame, begs Abraham to send Lazarus to his brethren on earth, to keep them from coming "to this place". Dives is aware. He knows that his brothers are still alive and still in need. And he is not even in heaven! This, of course, brings up to question of Purgatory, for if Dives was in Hell, the thought that he was concerned for others makes no sense at all. But that is yet another topic. Abraham too, is aware, but he knows that the return of Lazarus will not alter their hearts. Karl Keating writes: "If Dives could pray to Lazarus (that must have been how he spoke to him) across the unbridgeable abyss, then why should we not be able to pray to saints across an abyss they have successfully crossed and we hope to cross?" (Catholicism and Fundamentalism). If God could make Moses and Elijah appear after their death upon the Mount of Transfiguration, are we to assume that in heaven they are less likely to be shown what is happening on earth? The elders in Revelation are aware when the time of God's wrath and judgment has come. (Rev. 11:17-18). When the angel announces that Babylon has fallen (Rev. 14:8), do we suppose that inhabitants of heaven were unable to hear the announcement? In Rev. 19:1-3 John hears what seems to be the voice of a great multitude proclaiming the destruction of the same Babylon. And let us remember that St. John himself was caught up into heaven in the Spirit and saw what was, and was to come, on earth and in Heaven. The sight of those in Heaven is not dimmed, nor are their ears deaf. Rather they see and hear more clearly, and are more aware than those of us here on earth. From the vantage point of heaven, the Saint see and know more than we can imagine.

But there is more. A truly remarkable picture that deals with this exact subject is presented to us in the book of Revelation. In Revelation 8:3-4 we read: "Another angel came and stood at the altar, holding a golden censer. He was given a great quantity of incense to offer, along with the prayers of all the holy ones, on the gold altar that was before the throne. The smoke of the incense along with the prayers of the holy ones went up before God from the hand of the angel." (Emphasis mine) The language of Revelation is richly mystical and often confusing, but let step past the symbol for a moment and see what is really happening here. It is actually remarkably clear. The prayers of the holy ones on earth are not going directly to God. They go to God from the hand of the angel! We know that the incense represents prayers. We know that neither it nor the golden censers are literal. We know that the angels do not hand our prayers to God with literal hands. As we step past the figurative and the symbolic we see what is really happening here. The angels are offering our prayers to God. And since they do not literally hand our prayers to God, in what way do they present them? Mentally. By interceding for us. The angels take our prayers, and offer them (intercede) to God. Here the picture of prayer in heaven is given to us clearly. There is no other explanation. And if we look a little further we will see that this duty is not confined to the angelic beings. Revelation 5:8: "When he took it, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each of the elders held a harp and gold bows filled with incense, which are the prayers of the holy ones." Make no mistake about it, the Saints and Angels in heaven both hear our prayers and offer them to God. They know our state, and they intercede for us. To construct a three point argument: (1)if the prayer of a righteous man avails much; (2) if the Saints and Angels in heaven are aware of us and hear our prayers; (3) if the Saints and Angel are, in fact, interceding for us before the throne of God (and we know all three of these things to be true); then by what argument or upon what grounds, may we not ask them to pray for us? And such has been the Tradition and clear teaching of the Catholic Church for centuries.

5. There is no need to ask the Saints to pray for us when we can go directly to God.

I suppose that this is really the most common objection to praying to the Saints, yet it is really the simplest one to answer. The trouble with this argument is not that it does not prove enough, but rather that it proves too much. If there is no need to ask for the Saints' prayers, on the grounds that we can pray directly to God, then the same objection holds anytime we ask anyone to pray for us. Virtually no Christian of any tradition, Catholic, Protestant, or Orthodox, would deny that we are greatly benefited by the prayers of others, and that it is wisdom to request the prayers of others. The evidence of St. Paul requesting the assistance of the prayers of those in Rome (Rom. 15:30) should be enough to convince us that we do well to seek the intercession of our Christian brothers and sisters. Yet, I would ask, "Why should I ask you to pray for me since I can go directly to God?" If this question is seen to be clearly false (which it is) and not in accordance with good Christian doctrine, then the same objection fails just as badly when proposed against requesting the prayers of the Saints or Angels. God could have designed things differently, of course, but it seems that God often wills to accomplish His ends by means of intermediaries. I suspect that there is a great deal of humility and community to  be learned from that fact.

6. We do not know the names of all the Saints in Heaven.

This final objection has a certain relationship to the very first objection which we examined, so the response will be much the same. This is not so much an objection to praying to the Saints as it is an objection to the Church's teaching authority which tells us the names of many of those who are in Heaven. Here, once again, we are on the doorstep of the great debate between sola scriptura and the infallibility of the Church, and that is a topic for another time and another post (or many posts!). Suffice it to say that we may still be reasonably certain of the Saints mentioned in Scripture, even if one may not accept the lists of canonized Saints proclaimed by the Church since that time. Surely we may be confident of St. Stephen, the first martyr, who saw the heavens opened just before his death. Or the Blessed Virgin and the Apostles. And we know the names of two of the greatest angels in heaven as well-- Gabriel and Michael, the Archangels (and Raphael, as well, if we accept the deuterocononicals). Of these at least, even the non-Catholic may be certain, and this is no mean company of intercessors!

                                                  Some Concluding Thoughts

When we step away from the particular thoughts and arguments presented here, and elsewhere by others, we see a clear and simple picture. The key to understanding prayers to the Saints lies largely in coming to see Christians as a family, as part of the Body of Christ. Death does not separate us, and the Saints in heaven are not less our brothers and sisters, nor less a part of Christ's Body, than when they were here on earth. Their unity with us in Christ, and their experience of the Beatific Vision, enables them to be aware of us and pray for us. Their concern for us continues, and their intercession does not cease. We are as much (indeed, more) able to request their prayers on our behalf as when they walked with us here below. The Confiteor, prayed often at Mass, presents this to us simply: "I confess to Almighty God, and to you my brothers and sisters, that I have sinned through my own fault; in my thoughs and in my words, in what I have done and what I have failed to do. And I ask Blessed Mary, ever-virgin, all the angels and saints, and you my brothers and sisters to pray for me to the Lord our God." Here we see Mary, the Saints, and "you my brothers and sisters" as all one family, united in the Lord.

As stated before, I do not desire anyone to adopt this practice if it is at odds with their conscience, but I sincerely hope, that at the very least, you may come to see that this beautiful and beneficial Catholic practice is in no way pagan or superstitious, but firmly rooted in the work of Christ.

Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc, et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen.