A Word from my Superiors

After two posts related to the mosque controversy and Catholic-Muslim dialogue I am proud to post here a copy of a statement that has come from my Provincial leadership, namely John O'Connor, OFM, our provincial, and Dominic Monti, OFM, our vicar-provincial.   I offer no further comment except that my words and theirs are motivated by our Christian and Catholic faith and its demands, not by any partisan political leanings.  Also, please note Pope Benedict's recent statement on the outrageous acts planned by the preacher in Gainesville, FL. Just click on Papal Statement

 Reflections Approaching September 11, 2010

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

For the past eight years throughout our nation, the anniversary of the horrific September 11th terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon has been marked by remembrance of the victims and prayers for peace and reconciliation in our world. Each year, the Memorial Mass at our Church of St. Francis of Assisi in New York City has called to mind the self-sacrificing dedication of our brother, Fr. Mychal Judge, OFM, and the thousands of others who perished on that day, and also has offered an opportunity to pray for healing among the peoples of the world so that such tragedies might not reoccur.

This year, however, the mood in our nation is different. Members of a small independent church in Gainesville, Fla., declaring that “Islam is of the Devil,” have announced plans to mark the September 11^th anniversary by publically burning copies of the Qur’an. A project to build an Islamic Center in New York several blocks from “Ground Zero” has unleashed vitriolic abuse against Islam as a religion; strong local opposition has surfaced in a number of places against Muslims providing places of worship for themselves in their communities. Perhaps heightened by our current economic insecurity, there is a mounting cry against the perceived “other” in our midst and that “true” – i.e., Christian – Americans must somehow “take back” the country.

As leaders of the Franciscans of Holy Name Province, we wish to lift our voices against this tide of anti-Muslim rhetoric in our nation. We cannot help but recall that in the nineteenth century, there was a similar outcry against Roman Catholics as an foreign, inassimilable mass within the nation, that our Catholic practices and values were contrary to the American way of life. Time, of course, proved those sentiments wrong. We must give our Muslim brothers and sisters the same opportunity. We must accept them as fellow-worshippers of our common God.

Our position as Catholics is grounded in the clear teaching of our Church. The Second Vatican Council’s dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, after speaking of the People of God who have explicitly professed faith in Christ, and then the Jewish people, goes on to state: “God’s plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, first among whom are the Muslims: they profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, who will judge all human beings on the last day” (LG, 16). The Church thus clearly teaches that Muslims are not “pagans” or  “idolaters” but children of the same loving God as Christians and Jews.

On a practical level, the Decree on Religious Liberty of the same Council, Dignitatis Humanae, states that: “religious groups . . . must be allowed to honor the Supreme God in public worship. . . and promote institutions in which members may work together to organize their own lives. . . . Religious communities also have the right not to be hindered by legislation or administrative action by the civil authority. . . in erecting buildings for religious purposes, and in the acquisition and use of the property they need.” (DH 4)  This has clear implications for how Catholic Americans should accept Muslims in our society. We cannot allow the actions of a fanatical minority to define an entire religion.

In a particular way, we Franciscans cannot help but recall that we are followers of a man who crossed frontiers, even battle lines, to offer a message of peace to the perceived enemies of Christianity. As Paul Moses has strikingly portrayed in his recent study, The Saint and the Sultan, at a time when some preachers were urging Christians “to kill a Muslim for Christ,” Francis boldly defied the prejudices of his era to demonstrate to the Sultan of Egypt that Christianity had another face than that of the Crusaders who faced him in battle.  Francis was not able to win the Sultan over to the Gospel of Christ, but returned to Europe impressed by the faith he had experienced among the followers of Islam, convinced that he had met other worshippers of God like himself. Our General Chapter in Assisi last year urged Franciscans throughout the world to take up this heritage and to work in a special way at dialogue among Christians and Muslims and be architects of peace and reconciliation in society.

Three pieces of steel from the tangled mass of debris of the World Trade Center were entrusted to the Church of St. Francis of Assisi in New York and now form a memorial to the victims of September 11th, including our own brother, Fr Mychal. The compressed pieces of steel vividly summon the grief and unspeakable sadness of that tragic morning. Still, a single golden rose rises gently from the mass of contorted steel, transcending the senseless brutality with an enduring promise of hope.

Let this September 11^th be an opportunity for all of us to summon the better angels of our nature, to rise above the anger and bitterness that seem to be an increasing feature of our country, to show respect to all people who seek the face of God, and to be agents of true and lasting peace and reconciliation in our own land and among all nations.

Fraternally,

Fr.  John F. O’Connor, OFM                                      Fr.  Dominic V. Monti, OFM

Provincial Minister                                                      Provincial Vicar

(Mrs.) Theresa Bartha

Executive Secretary

HOLY NAME PROVINCE

129 West 31st Street, 2nd floor

New York, NY 10001-3403

(646) 473-0265 x.309

Fax: (1-800) 420-1078

TBartha@hnp.org

More on Muslim-Catholic dialogue

I want to thank my blog readers for the e-mails and comments that you made last week. My hope is that we can diffuse irrational emotion and enter into a discussion with reason, not only about the ground zero mosque but on a wider level of Christian-Muslim dialogue. Right now the political world, both on the left and the right, is driving that discussion. I believe that in the years ahead the Catholic Church and other Christian Churches, as well as the Jewish faith community, must invite dialogue with Muslims. Dialogue, of course, must be a two way street. there are some questions to raise about violence and the lack of religious freedom, not to mention the treatment of women in many Muslim countries. At the same time we must seek common ground together.

I am in the middle of reading a fine book entitled THE FUTURE CHURCH: How Ten Trends are Revolutionizing the Catholic Church. by John Allen, Jr., a writer with the National Catholic Reporter. Like myself I'm sure that many will not like all of these trends, but they are there and we must deal with them. Apropos of this entry one of the trends that he brings up is the fact that the next major challenge facing the Church, especially in Africa and the Middle East, is Islam. His Chapter on Islam (pp. 95-140) offers a fine summary of the complexities of dealing with Islam, touching on grounds for hope as well as areas of concern. While no one can offer a complete analysis of a topic like that in a space of 45 pages, Allen certainly points out several important features and offers fine references in his Suggestions for further Reading at the back of the book.

Allen's book was published by Doubleday in 2009. The ISBN number is 978-0-385-52038-6. I'm sure you can purchase it through the usual online services, as well as through NCR. When I finish reading it I will opffer a review on this blog.

Catholics and Muslims

The flap over the mosque near ground zero in New York has set me to thinking about several things in regard to our understanding of the Muslim religion. I am not writing this blog entry to take a stand on that issue, but I do think that several things need to be pointed out.

I certainly appreciate the sensitivity to victims of 9/11, but sensitivity notwithstanding we sometimes need to point to facts rather than emotions. And one fact is that the Muslim religion did not take down the World Trade Center towers. Islamic extremists who distort Islam performed that terrible deed. Another fact is that the US Constitution makes it impossible to ban the construction of a house of worship on private property. All this having been said I do hope that the Immam and some of his followers could sit down with political leaders from New York and come to some common agreement. Right now it seems that they're talking through the airwaves but not directly to each other.

I also believe that this debate has surfaced a great deal of Islamophobia. I am not saying that all opponents of the project are guilty of this, nor has most of it come from New Yorkers, but from people all over our country and elsewhere.

When there is fear and anger there is usually ignorance. As a Franciscan, an order entrusted by the Church with Catholic-Muslim dialogue, I believe that we need to learn more about Islam. We need to understand where we agree with Muslims, and where we disagree as well. Maybe each one can take it upon him/her self to try to engage a Muslim in informal discussion about their faith. Perhaps we can try to read literature which explains the Muslim faith.

Here are a few interesting points of which you may not be aware:

1. Allah is not another god. Allah is God. If you go to Mass, say in Lebanon or Syria, it will be in Arabic and the prayers will be directed to Allah, the Father of Jesus. Allah is the Creator. Yes, Muslims believe some different things about Allah than we do, but Allah is God.

2. Muslims believe that Jesus was a prophet.

3. Muslims believe in the Virgin birth of Jesus and honor Mary.

These are a few things to ponder. I'm sure there is a lot more.

Finally, if the New York mosque is built perhaps they could contact local Christian and Jewish clergy and establish a program for dialogue. I'm going to write a letter to my provincial in New York and suggest that we Franciscans might explore that possibility.

A Midsummer Feast

This coming Sunday the Church will take a break from ordinary time and celebrate the Feast of the Assumption of Mary. It was on the feast in 1963 that I received the Franciscan habit. A year and a day later on August 16, 1964 I professed my first vows as a Franciscan. I was 18 for the first event, 19 for the second. Much has changed in the world, the nation and the Church during that time and needless to say much has changed in my own life. An understanding of this great feast of Mary perhaps can shed some light on those changes.

For some it might be tempting to dismiss this feast as something tough to explain in light of modern science and our present understanding of the universe, but I think that a deeper look at the true meaning of the feast shows its timeliness, even though the theology around it may need to be reworked.

With the Church's teaching that Mary is assumed body and soul into heaven a statement is made that our salvation and redemption is not just spiritual. It offers the hope that all human beings share in the hope of resurrection, of body and soul, of the whole person. So why do we insist on praying for the salvation of souls and not the salvation of people? If salvation is only spiritual then the material world is devalued. Is it any wonder that we continue to pollute the environment? Is it any wonder that we can't seem to strike a healthy balance with our sense of sexuality, bouncing constantly over the years from puritanical prudishness to hedonism. And further, is it any wonder that so many Christians struggle to see the quest for justice as an integral part of the Christian mission. If we only have to save our souls why struggle against earthly injustice.

The Gospel text for the feast, from Luke 1, ought to guide us in understanding this feast. The author of the third gospel places on Mary's lips a canticle in which she praises God for what has been done to her in becoming the mother of the Redeemer, and then goes on to proclaim that in this child of hers God, "has cast down the mighty from their thrones, . . .has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty." That doesn't sound like a merely spiritual salvation to me.

It is interesting too that Pope Pius XII in proclaiming this doctrine in 1950 was trying in his own way to offer hope to a humanity so torn by the ravages of World War II.

And so dear readers of this blog please do reflect on the deeper meaning of this feast and ask for what kind of salvation do we strive. What did Jesus really come to bring about?

In the Blood

Reading the blog of my brother friar Steve Dewitt (A Franciscan abroad, link to the right on this page) brings back memories of my days in Bolivia. I spent a little less than 3 years there between 1981 and 1984, a lot less time than I've spent in other places, nonetheless to borrow a term from Catholic sacramental theology, it left an indelible mark on my soul, mostly for the the better, although there are a few scars as well. Thankfully those have been healed

I think that anyone who spends time away from his or her home country, above all in a poor country, is challenged to stretch, to be open to see life in a different way and to question a lot of the presumptions about life that seemed quite reasonable back at home, and also to appreciate more the many blessings of home.

I could go on at length with various examples, but I'll mention just a few things that come to mind.

1. As a priest and friar I never was big on ecclesiastical pomp and the inner workings of chancery offices and Vatican congregations, but experiencing Church at the level of the campesinos of Bolivia, whose faith is so genuine, real and down to earth, moved me oven further from that dimension of Church, and keeps me grounded in dealing with Church now, helping me to focus on the Church as what is happening in the lives of very real people rather than what is going on at the top.

2. I speak Spanish, perhaps the greatest gift that Bolivia gave me. Sometimes I think that in God's great plan for things that is the reason why I went there. I left Bolivia in a down mood, thinking I had "failed" because my ambition to spend a lifetime there didn't work out. Since returning I spent two years at our largely Spanish speaking parish in Camden, NJ, and now move about the country preaching missions in English and Spanish. With the language comes an openness to the varied cultural differences of the people I meet from Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua and other Spanish speaking countries. This has added a richness to my life that would not be there had I not been in Bolivia.

3. My thirst for justice is stronger. I look at issues such as immigration reform, health care, etc. through the lens of my Bolivia years. Likewise my perspective on the present economic downturn is colored by my encounter with a poverty more extreme and severe than anyone here in the US can know.

Again I could go on with more but that could turn into a book. I thought it would be good though to share with you, the readers of this blog, a glimpse into these very important years of my life.

A Parish Priest

My summertime experience in the Northwoods of Wisconsin is off and running. Most of you know how much I love being a traveling preacher, a Wandering Friar. It is indeed my vocation within a vocation and I hope to keep on traveling and preaching until I'm unable to do so. That having been said I must say that I love having the opportunity to be a parish priest for a few months here in Wisconsin.

I began traveling from Natick, MA to St. Peter the Fisherman parish in Eagle River, WI, back in 1995. In 1999, due to a shortage of priests here, St. Peter's became part of a three parish cluster with St. Mary in Phelps, WI and St. Albert in Land O'Lakes, WI. Over the years I have grown to feel truly a part of all 3 of the parishes and am warmly welcomed back each year. I enjoy preaching regular Sunday homilies and getting to preside at baptisms, funerals and occasionally a wedding, things i don't get to do while preaching parish missions.

My involvement here has taken me beyond the Catholic parishes to other events in the area. Since 2005 I have been singing with an ecumenical choir at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church here. I love singing and more importantly I have a chance to share faith with other Christians in this nearly 100 member choir. There is a concert from Tuesday through Thursday each year on the last week of July and proceeds from a free will offering go to various local charities. The POPS (for prince of Peace) is a regular part of my summers now as is the American Cancer Society Relay for Life on the first weekend of August. I have been participating in that with St. Peter's team since 2007 after my 2006 diagnosis of prostate cancer.

As I have been sitting here writing this entry at a local wi-fi site several people have stopped to say hello. It's nice to feel a part of the community here and I hope to keep coming back.

Faith and Doubt

The other day I was presented with an interesting question which basically asked if it was sinful to doubt one's faith. My quick response to that is no, doubt is natural and normal, though it would be wrong and careless when presented with doubts not to struggle for deeper understanding.

From my point of view doubt is necessary in order to grow in faith and understanding of the faith. The answers and explanations provided in grammar school often don't satisfy the educated adult mind. I know that it was in the seminary that I began to question some teachings of the Church, as I understood those teachings. Questioning and wrestling with different approaches led me to a deeper understanding of many Church teachings, and a stronger faith in God. Learning that many parts of Scripture were true, but not necessarily historically true, has given me a deeper appreciation of the Scriptures and a deeper conviction that they are the revealed Word of God.One difficulty that we face today however, especially with some of our younger people, is that as they begin to experience doubt they just give up. They don't pursue deeper understanding. Part of this is due to an intellectual laziness on their part, but part of it is due to the fact that many of us Church leaders have never told them that we are available to listen to and discuss their doubts.

Another, and deeper, level of doubt is what happens when we wonder not about a particular Church doctrine, but about the whole thing--Is there a God at all? Is there anything after this life. In the end no expression of doctrine can fully express the great mystery that is God. We are all confronted with a decision to believe, or not believe, that there is a Creator, that there is something more than this earthly life. Though I am a priest I have often visited this question, and always come away with a deeper Yes. Not everyone does however. Though i believe that many of our teachings, while true, are inadequately expressed by an outdated theology and understanding of the universe, I still believe that they point to a deeper mystery which can never be adequately expressed. None other than Thomas Aquinas expresses this at the end of his great work, The Summa Theologica.

A third type of doubt is that created by the bad witness of us Christians, especially those who are leaders. The recent sex abuse crisis is a vivid case in point. This leads people to ask "How can I believe in a Church where such things happen, where priests abuse children and others cover it up?" That is certainly a legitimate question that hopefully leads us to understand that while these things are atrocious and horrible and need to be stopped, the mystery of Church is deeper that the bad example of some leaders. At the same time it helps to realize that this is a true "scandal" in the biblical sense, not because it involves shocking behavior, but because it leads others astray.

There are many wonderful bishops, priests, religious and lay people who provide me with inspiration that strengthens my faith. i pray that more attention can be called to them, especially in the media. At the same time I also believe that it is incumbent on those of us who believe to strive to live lives that reflect those beliefs.

I believe. Amen