For Ben: One Man Much Loved

Ash Wednesday 2009

I tried to give it to Peggy, but she was adamant that she was done with trinkets. My son Stephen and I had been delivering odds and ends to various charities, and the medal must have fallen out of one of the bags.

I continued out the door to my car. Ben Simpson was re-arranging his music and stands in his car. He didn't know, but I'd left him a music 'cheat book' for the Big Band era songs for the nursing homes with one of the priests, for him to receive as a surprise. I was curious if he'd gotten it yet, & surreptitiously looked for it in the very cluttered vehicle. This was pretty normal for me, as I flit about many places and have many interests. I joke that I'm "one of St. Anthony's kids", i.e. that I'm always finding things or remembering treasures discarded.

Ben wandered in much the same way, so we were related in many ways. For example, I always sought advice from men I respected when I was unsure of decisions involving my fatherless sons, and Ben often was kind enough to help me think things through. I always hit the pancake breakfasts for clubs and charities, including the one at the airport for the Civil Air Patrol. When I mentioned going there one year, of course it was one of Ben's passions. (On his advice, I even took the boys and their friend to see if anyone might be interested in joining their youth corps.) When I was a teenager, I'd been a member of a guitar mass group, so sometimes we talked about music or discussed which hymns might appeal to which congregations. I was always honored that he asked my opinion, since he was a professional and I just a tinkerer whose memory bridged the 'old' and the 'new' Church music years.

Ben and I were also family in a couple of ways. For several years, my son had a best friend who shared his entire name... Stephen Joseph Bartholomew was the son of my body and Stephen Joseph Nathaniel, now a Marine, was the son of my heart. I used to call them "Stephen Joseph squared." Well, the Marine's aunt and the Simpsons were best friends; in fact, one couple were godparents to the son of the other. So, sometimes we talked about them.

I have six younger brothers and sisters, and through the marriages we have a very wide range of nationalities and religions. I have two Jewish nieces in a progressive community in New Jersey, Irish, Mexican, Greek, two families of Polish, English Presbyterian...So when Ben's son was "breaking his mother's heart" by marrying outside of the Roman Catholic Church, I could share how the Lord worked his will in my own family life. There's nothing to soothe a troubled soul like a factual witness!

Earlier this Wednesday morning, I'd been teasing him about playing 'follow the leader', since we'd visited just yesterday after mass at St. Agnes and here we were together again at St. John's. Now, here we were as fellow travelers again moving from the church to the parish hall. In a way I was glad to speak with him again, since Bob & Peggy were as concerned as I about how sad he was this Advent season. That is a time when everyone needs to be particularly solicitous of the widowed. Advent is harder than Christmas for so many. Ben was always so faith-filled that the change in him this year was apparent. The joy was missing, and replaced with something else that he was not yet comfortable sharing. Just before mass, Peggy had noticed that something was not quite right, but she didn't know what it was either.

"Ben, I have this little angel for the car," I said. "You see so many more people than I do. Do you think you could find someone who needs it?"

Ben took the angel from me and looked at it thoughtfully.

"It's for me...it's mine," he said. "I'm always in a hurry these days. I don't worry about it, though, since I have a very fast guardian angel."

"Benjamin," he said. "You remember who Benjamin is, don't you?"

I don't know why Ben wanted to talk about his name. By now, he should have learned not to play Bible trivia with me since I'm a history and Old Testament buff. I remember being impatient, since I was in a rush to finish many things before taking my sons to Chicago for Christmas, and all I wanted to do was to find a home for something beautiful.

"Of course I remember, Ben," I said. "He was the youngest and dearest child of Jacob, called Israel. His beloved wife, Rachel, died giving birth to him and Jacob was never happy ever after unless that boy was by his side. His full-blooded brother, Joseph, nearly killed Israel when he insisted his father allow Benjamin to be brought to him in Egypt during the famine."

Peggy now was making her way to the parish hall. I caught her satisfied smile as she watched us talking by Ben's car under the tree. She was probably relieved she escaped being saddled with another piece of paper or medal or something I'd picked up from the floor. I can be quite annoying, and no doubt she was very relieved that I was bothering someone else today!

"Benjamin", my friend Ben said as he loaded his car, "was much loved. Did I tell you that I'm going flying today?"

We talked some more, about nothing and everything as was our way together. He spoke several times about how very much he was looking forward to finishing the many things he must do--always quite a list!--before he finally would be free to fly.

Ben loved to fly. There, in his eyes each time he mentioned his plan to fly this evening, was the joy that I had missed in his manner. That was all that he really wanted to talk about. I teased him about having way too much to do and that he should have a kid chauffeur him around so that he could finish his notes and make his plans instead of having to keep his eyes on the road. Ben agreed that he was probably doing too much again, but it was obvious that being of service, being busy, and having just a few minutes in the Lord's beautiful sky was all that he wanted in life right now.

No longer worried about him for today, I left the pretty little trinket with him. Knowing Ben, it was in his pocket when whatever overtook him that night robbed us of his melodious voice.



Ben, our dear friend, please know how very much we all miss you.

This Benjamin was one man much loved, and I have no doubt that he knows now, as he rests in the arms of the Savior he so loved, just how very much.

The battle of mortal sins: Scandal vs Calumny in Catholic Culture Wars

Our teachings against procuring abortion, a practice condemned in the first century of the Church, make no unscientific claims and are morally clear. No one may interfere with the development process from embryo to fetus to human child. The encyclical Evangelium vitae is accessible to all: ...we need now more than ever to have the courage to look the truth in the eye and to call things by their proper name, without yielding to convenient compromises or to the temptation of self-deception......It is true that the decision to have an abortion is often tragic and painful for the mother, insofar as the decision to rid herself of the fruit of conception is not made for purely selfish reasons or out of convenience, but out of a desire to protect certain important values such as her own health or a decent standard of living for the other members of the family. Sometimes it is feared that the child to be born would live in such conditions that it would be better if the birth did not take place. Nevertheless, these reasons and others like them, however serious and tragic, can never justify the deliberate killing of an innocent human being.

I don't know any pro-choice Catholics who reject this teaching. Despite the opinion of those who have appointed themselves my judge and jury, I certainly don't. When I was pregnant, I avoided all tests whose purpose was 'to help me make an informed decision' about continuing the pregnancy, I instructed my non-Catholic husband about the importance of saving the child instead of me in case of health emergency, and I fought my doctors' unwarranted interference whenever I deemed it morally appropriate. I have been active in the Gabriel Ministry, donate cash and goods to Providence House and Sunlight Home, and give regularly to CRS and to the American Friends relief service who goes freely where we cannot.

Where the Curia insults the sensus fidelium and undermines their own moral authority on this and other issues throughout the world is in the hypocrisy of their political position. As Joseph Cardinal Bernadin said so well "...the Church's understanding of the gospel defies conventional political and ideological lines," but a few of our U.S. Catholic Bishops have led a very vocal minority to believe otherwise. Should any Catholics not embrace their stringent insistence that overturning Roe vs Wade claims our highest allegiance, our orthodoxy is suspect. Exactly which mortal sin we Democrats are guilty of is unclear; I can only guess they mean scandal. What I consider far more scandalous is that the Bishops are repeating the same mistake that they made in Germany in the 1930s of believing the lip service of criminals.

These nasty accusations by the ultramontane, including the position paper of the USCCB for Catholics in Political Life that anyone who doesn't work to correct the abortion laws is "guilty of cooperating in evil and sinning against the common good" are pretty hard to justify on any rational ground. While a particle physicist is the one to ask about atomic structure, one consults an engineer to apply that knowledge; similarly, the Church has always recognized that the laity have an important role in the application of our Christian ethic in the secular sphere. Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, Katharine Townsend Kennedy, et al., have said little that anyone but the most rigidly dogmatic crazies can claim contradicts the Magisterium's teachings. In some cases, public apologies have been given them, but they have not gone far to repair the damage to reputations nor cover the stink raised by veiled accusations. Most recently Cherie Blair, a human rights attorney married to the former British PM, was libeled this way; to his credit, one of our Catholic moral theologians called the claims of her critics "rash and outright calumnious" in Catholic News Service. I doubt any of her critics were denied communion for their mortal sin.

My sympathy for our vocal pro-life vicars of Jesus Christ is tainted by despair that their actions are mostly public pillories of desperate women that contradict Our Lord's words and actions towards sinners. The question is not whether abortion is an evil, it certainly is; however, it is also a fact that some pregnant women will even risk their lives to avoid bearing a child they do not want. Where abortion is illegal, the main result is not a low abortion rate but a very high maternal death rate accompanied by dead fetuses in dumpsters. How should Catholic Christians respond to the fear and moral confusion of these mostly poor women?

The political question is whether or not the state should throw people in prison. The only thing that passing laws does is make criminals of more sinners and interject the government into these decision. In the United States, our penal system is already the disgrace of the free world in its emphasis on revenge, nearly total lack of rehabilitation, outrageously long sentences for relatively minor infractions, and unequal punishment of wealthy over poor and white over people of color. Is prison the appropriate place to send these women, who often have other children at home? When the Catholic principle of subsidiarity is ignored, governments often overstep their bounds; Americans in general and American Catholics specifically believe that issues at the very beginning and at the very end of life should be made without government interference. The bishops and priests may intervene if they are so called; however, we prefer you not call the police.

In our relations with our governments and within the secular world, the laity who have the expertise needed to form appropriate public policy. Listening to the opinions of the faithful isn't a matter of putting fingers in the wind, but of heeding the voice of well-formed consciences of the Church itself active in the world. The Catholic faithful in the U.S.A. mostly agree with Roe vs Wade's ruling that the state "has legitimate interests in protecting both the pregnant woman's health and the potentiality of human life" and very few Americans favor re-criminalizing medical procedures in general. From Europe to Melbourne, Australia to even very Catholic areas like Uruguay, Mexico City, and the Philippines, the laity disagrees with a legalistic approach to these sins. My own opinion is that insistence on this particular political approach is a grievous sin against women, indefensible in an age where we imprison neither adulterers nor sodomists. That those women murdering their children are often drawn from the poorest and least educated compounds my pain at the grave consequences of their lack of charity.

A better approach than the recent postcard campaign against legislation that doesn't really exist yet would be to help to write a strong, pro-life half of FOCA. Our bishops should lobby to provide the support that poor women need to bear their children: paid maternity leave rather than unpaid, prison sentences for those who fire pregnant women, free universal health care for childbirth and childhood innoculations, etc. Put your money where your mouths are, Excellencies, and put the resources you now waste on making noise to work caring for people. Give pro-life budgets to our Catholic hospitals instead of insisting that people lift burdens they cannot financially bear.

A similar problem haunts Catholic teachings against forms of contraception. Some positions don't make much sense at all, particularly if you happen to be female rather than male. We respect 'natural law' when it suits the purposes of the husband, and ignore the way that women's libidos and biology work. Desperate to continue to defend the 1968 Humanae vitae that is rarely accepted in practice by the faithful, Cardinal Ratzinger himself tried a 1987 follow-up Donum vitae that was barely coherent, and bishops tout the "Theology of the Body" by our dear philosopher-mystic Pope John Paul II, a man so steeped in Marian devotion that he doesn't seem to know any real women. The Curia is neurotic with worry that people will confuse abortifacients with contraceptives, and then compound the error by confusing the two themselves in public pronouncements.

The recent Dignitas Personae continues this trend of shooting Catholicism's credibility in the foot. The document exhibits little moral clarity and some of its claims are false. Anglican bishop Dr. Lee Rayfield, spokesman for the Church of England on ethics, put it very diplomatically: “... It worries me that there are assertions in it, for example about IVF and intra-cytoplasmic sperm injection, which simply do not bear the weight of theological or ethical scrutiny, even from within the absolutist standpoint taken by the Roman Catholic Church.” The Episcopalians in the U.S. were less charitable, with one headline reading "Pseudo-science from the Vatican". A deputy chair of the Italian Society of Contraception was widely quoted as calling Dignitas Personae a work of science fiction, and even those who wrote it seem to have problems with it. On top of this, we have the Vatican making claims about the Pill and the water supply (see here here here here here ...well, you get the idea) that really make them look--well, stupid.

Where's a leader like our dear 'brother Joe' when we need him? I pray for his intercession from heaven: perhaps it's time for a new Common Ground.

Notre Dame law prof on Catholic Democrats

One of the best commentaries that I've read in the last few months:

Real Americans, Real Catholics

Race, religion and the 2008 election

By Vincent D. Rougeau | FEBRUARY 16, 2009

I t has never been easy being African-American and Catholic in the United States. Though many of us, along with our Latino brothers and sisters, trace our Catholic roots to traditions that have been present in the Americas for centuries, we have often been made to understand that we are invisible to many of our fellow U.S. Catholics. How else would one explain the relative insignificance of the political and cultural concerns of African-Americans and Latinos in the rhetoric of some American bishops and other Catholics who heaped vitriol on those of us who supported Barack Obama in the recent presidential election?

Although this hostility was typically directed in that election toward any Catholic who failed to share the view that abortion was the only issue that mattered in selecting a candidate, the message to Catholics of color was particularly stark: Not only were we not “real” Americans in the coded language of Sarah Palin and the Republican Party base; we were not “real” Catholics either.

Being invisible to the Republican Party is something African-Americans have learned to live with. It is one important reason why many of us rarely vote for Republican candidates. Hispanics were perhaps a bit more relevant to the Republicans in past election cycles, but the “real” American response to immigration reform that was championed by Republicans in the House of Representatives has put an end to any meaningful outreach to Hispanics by the Republican Party for the foreseeable future. Yet despite explicit appeals to nativism by some Republicans throughout the campaign, several Catholic bishops—apparently blind to the irony of an immigrant church supporting nativist politics—alluded to Barack Obama’s candidacy in ways that made it clear that the only issue in the presidential race worth discussing, as far as they were concerned, was the criminalization of abortion. This made the invisibility of people of color to certain Catholic bishops even more apparent, and that invisibility was much harder to deal with. (article continues...)

Faithful or Faithless, Hopeful or Hopeless: Catholic Culture Wars (cont'd)

The mothers in Alaska sued the Jesuits and their former provincial, now a university president in Seattle, for 'dumping pedophiles' there. Two priests accused of stealing over $8 million from one Delray Beach, FL parish went on trial. That was just January...

While my Bishop has no use for the Voice of the Faithful, a Catholic lay group formed in response to the sex abuse scandal and the sins of power that enabled them, it appears that the Holy Spirit might.

As Pope Benedict gathers in schismatics and kooks, he risks losing the rest of us. Right-wingnut Catholics hurl epithets at anyone protesting the Iraq war, those who are uninterested in a pet devotional practice or other, those against re-criminalizing abortion, those who reject free market idolatry, and even against those who stand rather than kneel when they worship--and let's not get started on Democrats! At least the progressives have the decency not to question the religious sensibilities of their well-meaning but terribly uncharitable opponents. Just who is placing these wounds in the Body of Christ?

Last year, our local VOTF chapter went from critical to rude to quite insulting; the Bishop moved from stern disapproval to banning their educational forum's speakers from Church property. Those in the Voice of the Faithful in Naples include some of our most educated area Catholics: they run book clubs, teach classes, subscribe to The Tablet/Commonweal/America/NCR etc., and many hold advanced degrees in theology. They enjoy discussing Church controversies. The speakers they invited last year mostly had problems with church hierarchy for holding 'heretical' (i.e. minority) views on contraception. As is usual in cases of persecution, when the bishop banned their event from meeting on church property, the organization became more militant. A prudent Bishop would have found something useful for them to do that would fulfill their calling; a wise Bishop would invite them to a meeting to air their concerns and suggest a better course of action. I love our Bishop, but he's such a 'cheesehead' sometimes...

From the Naples Daily News, letters to the editor, 29 January 2009:

Censorship and the church Editor, Daily News:

A recent Pew Research Center study found the Roman Catholic Church, as usual, ranked as one of the two leading religious denominations in the United States.

The surprise was the third-leading denomination. Shockingly, this denomination was comprised of Roman Catholics who left their church. The number of Catholics who have been alienated by the church was sufficient to exceed the next largest religious denomination.

One issue raised among local Catholics is why the “spiritual servant” of the diocese denies, without any consultation, guest speakers access to church property. In one instance, the reason for denial by the “servant leader” was, “I do not approve.” In this instance, it was not the speaker who was disapproved, but rather, it was the sponsoring organization’s honorary advisory board.

An astounding censorship incident occurred last year at St. William’s parish when a ladies group planned to meet and discuss the life and work of the nationally respected Sister Joan Chittister. They were informed that there would be no discussion of Sister Chittister on Catholic property. Censorship is a very dark symptom; it is a fear of losing control.

It is possible that, naive as it seems, imposing censorship is considered an action that might dam up the flow of alienated Catholics pouring out of the church doors? Or, more probable, is it a continuation of imposing clerical dictates at the expense of the lay parishioners?

Whatever the impetus, censorship can only exacerbate the exodus of Catholics and possibly elevate “the third denomination” to the second-highest denomination in numbers.

Peg Clark, Naples President, Voice of the Faithful of Southwest Florida

Which, naturally, prompted more screams of 'heretics' at VOTF, less attention by VOTF to their mission statement, and more arguments about peripheral issues:

(2/2/09) Letter: Choices and the church

Editor, Daily News:

Peg Clark’s letter on censorship in the Catholic Church again raises her group’s — the Voice of the Faithful — chronic beef with the teaching and governing authority of the Catholic Church. It’s sadly typical of those who persist in calling themselves Catholics while fundamentally disagreeing with church doctrine, taking a very American approach to church membership.

Because we’re so accustomed to voting for what we think best for the country while clamoring for our ever-expanding rights, we’re tempted to think the Catholic Church functions the same way.

But the church is not a democratic republic. The job of its successors to Christ’s apostles is to teach as he taught, not to take opinion polls on his teaching. They guide the church faithful in universal truth, led by the Holy Spirit, regardless of how unpopular.

The church has thrived for two millennia because, among other good reasons, it has not stuck a moist finger in the wind every time a voice of the faithful disagrees. And yes, that sometimes results in those voices going elsewhere.

St. Jerome said, “Heresy comes from a Greek word which means ‘choice,’ because every heretic chooses what seems to him preferable.”

Sister Joan Chittister, whose work Clark would have liked discussed at St. William’s parish, has spoken and written heretically for years in support of abortion and women priests — her choice, of course.

But no “spiritual servant” worth his salt has any choice when a dissenting voice would be presented as if it were speaking for the very church it dissents from.

Patricia Bucalo, Naples

Pity that her false impressions and poor understanding of church history went unanswered...

The group will be showing the documentary "Deliver us from Evil" on Feb 22nd, will host noted author Dr. Paul Lakeland on Thursday, Feb 26th, and Dr. Leon Podles will discuss his book Sacrilege on Thursday, March 19th. The film will be at St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church in Naples; the speakers will be heard through the kindness of Vanderbilt Presbyterian, who stepped in when the priest at St. Katharine's Greek Orthodox Church was forbidden to host them.

In the meantime, a friend and former member of the VOTF board recently put together a Catholic Lay Assembly that drew representatives from all over the state, and is working with Corpus, FutureChurch, Take Back our Church, ARCC, groups formed to support the (now excommunicated) female priests, and others to call an all-American Catholic Assembly in Detroit in 2011:

http://www.americancatholiccouncil.org/faqs.html

FAQ’s about the American Catholic Council

Who is behind this gathering?
Catholics, committed to the principles of Vatican II. As lay, religious, and ordained Catholics we ground ourselves in our common baptism giving us rights and responsibilities to continue the mission of Christ on earth. We are a partnership of individuals and representatives of organizations committed to the fullness of the Catholic Church. As Vatican II Catholics we are united under a new banner, the American Catholic Council, a not for profit corporation, with pending IRS 501(c)(3) status.

All of this is terribly interesting. I can hardly wait for Lent!

VOTF Strategic Plan Presentation