For His Friends

Here are a few of the thoughts which struck me as I was preparing the homily for yesterday’s [Saturday] ECHO graduation at Notre Dame. I have edited slightly and deleted a large section which probably could not be understood outside of the context in which it was given but perhaps as you returned from Mass this week-end, still wondering about the Gospel, this may or may not help. I hope it will.

When I was studying theology in Boston in the mid-seventies, seminarians then as now were required to do apostolic work of some kind. My assignment was to Boston College where I and about six of my colleagues who on one week with about three hundred undergraduates in a huge lecture hall would listen to the presentation of a Master Teacher on the subject of the Four Gospels. Then the following week, we would break the large group down into small groups and discuss the previous week’s presentation on the Gospel. At the end of each semester, the Master Teacher, who by the way today teaches on this campus, would ask the undergrads this question: Which of the four Gospel writers would you most like to have as your pastor and why?

The result was overwhelmingly in favor of Luke and the reasons were markedly consistent and broken down into three primary reasons for the choice: Luke’s Jesus is more human and focused on doing his father’s will; Luke’s Jesus interacts with women more frequently, sensitively, and occasionally at some cultural and religious risk; and, finally, Luke’s Jesus shows the greatest concern for the poor. Three rather good insights into the Gospel, I thought then and now.

This afternoon we heard Luke at the top of his game. The farmer in the Gospel is not necessarily a bad man. He is rich but there is no sin in that. But in Luke’s Gospel riches can be a barrier to following Jesus (remember the parable of the rich young man?). There are two primary problems, however, with the farmer in the Gospel: admittedly he has all that he or his family will ever need but he suffers from an insatiable appetite for more and second, his rugged individualism has placed him outside of any community and he has little concern for others. To be without a community in the time of Jesus was to be without an identity. You were recognized by which community you were from, Galilee, Samaria, etc.) Consulting no one and with no obvious concern for those who have less, all the rich farmer wants to do is build more barns – not for his family, not for his community but seemingly for his own peace of mind. It might appear to many that this man  has it made.

Jesus on the other hand understands the religious tradition from which he comes. He may or may not have been aware of the teaching from Ecclesiastes in the first reading. Certainly his response indicates as does Qoheleth that the ephemeral is precisely that – it is passing, fleeting, of no eternal value. I once had a married woman tell me of her husband, “Father, my husband brought home without asking a new BMW and he showed it proudly to all our neighbors. He was so happy, until four weeks later BMW introduced an even finer and more expensive version of the same model and then he became depressed.” Ecclesiastes draws our attention from this moment’s accomplishments and directs us towards those things which will last and enrich not only ourselves but our families, our Church, our nation – things that will make for a better world.

St. Paul to the Corinthians begs us to set our sights on higher things. Keeping things in proper perspective is what today’s Liturgy of the Word is all about. It can be a call not only to us as individuals to examine our priorities and values but it can also be a call to communities, local, regional and national, to churches (parishes, diocesan and universal) to see if our sights are clearly set on those things which are not vanity but are from and of God and that hoarding has no place among us, sharing does.

I shall look back tonight and throughout this week on these three readings, reflect on them, apply them.

+RNL

I am back from fishing and after a long day in the office found myself on a plane to South Bend and the University of Notre Dame. I had been invited to celebrate the graduation Mass, give out the certificates which precede the diplomas and preach for the seventeen members of the ECHO group who are graduating and those returning this week-end for their second year in their dioceses and those who will be beginning their two year service in the dioceses of the country starting, well tomorrow for some. We have had the privilege of three ECHO students in our diocese for the past two years who are graduating today: Anthony Paz who served at St. Jude Cathedral, Katie Muller who served at St. Paul parish and Holy Family parish, and Ellen Voegele who served at Blessed Trinity parish. Anthony is from Eureka, California and graduated with his bachelor’s degree from Amherst College, Katie is a graduate of Marquette University and is from the Chicago area and Ellen is from Batavia, Ohio and graduated from Marian College in Indianapolis. The two young women are returning to continue to serve at Blessed Trinity as Director of Faith Formation and St. Paul’s as High School Youth Minister and Middle School Religion teacher and Anthony is joining the staff of St. Luke’s parish in McLean as Coordinator of Adult Faith Formation. Congratulations and gratitude and appreciation is extended to these three wonderful young people for their educational and pastoral accomplishments during the last to years of ECHO. When they are in the diocese of St. Petersburg, Brian Lemoi, the Director of Religious Formation is their mentor and thanks are also due to him. Father Joseph Waters attended the ceremonies in South Bend for Anthony who served one year with the new pastor of the Cathedral.

Happily, their places will be taken by three new ECHO representatives serving at Holy Family parish in St. Petersburg, at St. Jerome parish in Indian Rocks Beach and at Espiritu Santo parish in Safety Harbor. ECHO at Notre Dame is an activity of the Center for Catechetical Initiatives which itself is a part of the Department of Theology. During their two years in the program, its participants called “apprentice catechetical leaders” experience four important dimensions of growth: academic formation leading to a Master’s degree, professional ministerial formation, communal formation, and spiritual formation.

Our liturgy was lovely and what great readings for the Mass this week-end. One can count on the fingers of both hands the number of times in a three year cycle when all three readings can be tied together thematically and this is one of them. It was a great Saturday for me and for the ECHO program. Tomorrow I fly to Orlando for a meeting with my brother bishops of Florida. Who says summer is a time of rest and relaxation. In fourteen years I think I can prove that summer only sees a slight decrease in activities in our Church.

ET ALIA

Some readers have asked me to comment when I return on how successful I was at “fishing” the last few weeks. I caught nothing as my friends would expect but it was relaxing.

I was out-of-town when George Steinbrenner died and I regret that I could not be present to his family at the time of their great loss. I knew him as a very generous and great man whose love for his children and grandchildren was exceptional. He was generous to a number of Catholic institutions (the Academy of the Holy Names and St. Cecilia school to name two) and very generous in this community. I loved being with him as he constantly teased me about the high school which I graduated from in Columbus, Ohio (St. Charles) while he was coaching at our arch-rival, Aquinas High School. More than the Yankees should be mourning his loss. His heart was larger than his reputation was occasionally controversial. Rest in peace, good friend of the Bay area and great head of a family.

Finally, you should be reading new entries several times a week in the coming month. I missed the discipline which this exercise requires. It is nice to be back.

+RNL

Update 8/5/10: Anthony went to Amherst College, not the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

I must have something of a death wish for reopening this issue but I was thinking about what has happened in the year since the University of Notre Dame held its last commencement ceremony with all the attendant publicity and controversy. What prompted this reflection was the splendid Laetare Medal recipient’s speech given this year and available on the “mother of all Catholic blogs,” Whispers in the Loggia“ (worth a listen!) What are the givens a year later after President Obama’s appearance, commencement address, and award of an honorary degree? Notre Dame is still the premier Catholic university in the country; its current President enjoys more support from faculty, students, Board of Trustees and nation than he did prior to the contretemps; more parents than ever seek admission to Notre Dame for their daughters and sons; and in a moment of truth, many bishops in the United States would tell you that ND produces more signs of hope for the faith and its transmission from its young graduates than any other Catholic college or university. True, some alumni may temporarily or permanently cease giving to their alma mater but my sources tell me that this backwash has been very minimal. So the University continues along doing good things, preparing students to live in a religiously pluralistic world and embracing a strong Catholic identity as well as core beliefs.

How about President Obama, who along with the university president, took his lumps during the controversy? Well, “the most pro-abortion president ever elected” as he is often referred to has not exactly led the pro-abortion movement as was feared. His actions to date, and I emphasize to date, are no more pro-abortion, anti-life than the Clinton administration’s in their eight years with whom I had to deal during my Washington years. His actions on behalf of born human life have led to a lessening of the chance of nuclear war; extended health care which the Church posits as a basic human right soon to be available to millions of additional Americans even if, as I suspect, the legislation has severe flaws; he promises a genuine, just and effective immigration policy for the future; and so on. In other words, last year’s Notre Dame commencement speaker with the worrisome exception of being   unacceptably pro-choice/pro-abortion  has done other things which embody much of Catholic social teaching and its concomitant dreams for a better society. The jury is still out on this president in many ways and the history of his presidency is yet to be written. We will have to see.

How has the Church fared through this controversy and its fallout? Some bishops chose to take a strong stand. I was not among them then and am not now. I merely publicly stated that the exclusion of the local bishop from the decision making process on something which would be controversial was sad, as I understood it at the time. I would hate to be blind-sided by such an occurrence in this diocese, even if the college or university chose to reject my position and proceed anyway. I believe that a university can remain solidly Catholic while allowing for a certain freedom of expression. Inviting the President of the United States and having him accept, even if there are substantial differences of opinion on major issues, is not beyond the scope of my thinking. President Bush was invited to Notre Dame very early in his time in office with rumblings already in the air about an attack on Iraq which was a challenge even then to the traditional Catholic just war theory. He also unabashedly supported capital punishment.  Anyone who thought then or thinks now that the nature of the college or university in the United States is likely to change because of the assault on Notre Dame last year is deceiving themselves. Perhaps colleges and universities will be more cautious (thoughtful?) in making the choices, and perhaps local bishops where these colleges and universities are located may be more involved prior to a public announcement, but that, or so it seems to me, is about all that was accomplished last year. Zero sum gain for the Church, in my mind.

I remain proud of the University of Notre Dame, our own St. Leo University, St. Thomas and Barry University in Miami, and of all our Catholic colleges and universities. They need a certain amount of autonomy within the framework of a dedication to Catholic identity to remain credible in the higher education ethos in which they are found. As I have often said in this space in the last year and a half, as shepherds we need more energy and assistance in inviting people into the Church than drumming them out. As a religious minority in a pluralistic society we have much to be proud of  in our elementary and secondary schools, our colleges and universities, our hospitals and nursing homes, our charitable outreach through various ministries of mercy. Only close collaboration has a chance of keeping all these disparate elements in the fold. Attacks do little good for the common weal other than make the attacker feel better. Finding common ground remains the Christian and Catholic way of dealing with those things which can be accommodated while boldly but perhaps more empathetically teaching that which can not be changed. This is the reflection I draw from last year’s dome days.

+RNL

Rev. Theodore Hesburgh CSC, (ND Newswire)

It would be hard to think of a single American outside of government who in his or her lifetime has been more instrumental in shaping public policy than Father Ted Hesburgh of Notre Dame. His contributions to American life in the latter half of the last century, especially in the area of civil rights are nearly unparalleled and so it was with great interest that I read the following article which appeared in the Wall Street Journal. I offer it to you for your own thoughtful analysis.

A Setback for Educational Civil Rights

Wall Street Journal

March 18, 2010

Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, CSC

When President Dwight D. Eisenhower asked me to become one of the founding members of the newly formed U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, African-Americans drank at separate water fountains and our schools were segregated. A decade later, when people came together to march against these injustices, the idea that a black man could ever be elected president of the United States was still something for dreamers. My experience with that great movement gives me a particular appreciation for the historic importance of the presidency of Barack Obama—and the new dreams that his example will inspire in our young.

If Martin Luther King Jr. told me once, he told me a hundred times that the key to solving our country’s race problem is plain as day: Find decent schools for our kids. So I was especially heartened to hear Education Secretary Arne Duncan repeatedly call education the “civil rights issue of our generation.” Millions of our children—disproportionately poor and minority—remain trapped in failing public schools that condemn them to lives on the fringe of the American Dream.

For all these reasons, I was deeply disappointed when Sen. Richard Durbin (D., Ill.) successfully inserted a provision in last year’s omnibus spending bill that ended one of the best efforts to give these struggling children the chance to attend a safe and decent school.

That effort is called the Opportunity Scholarship program. Since 2004 it has allowed thousands of children in Washington, D.C., to escape one of the worst public school systems in the nation by providing them with scholarships of up to $7,500.

Despite its successes, it is now closing down. On Tuesday the Senate voted against a measure introduced by Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I., Conn.) that would have extended the program. Throughout this process Mr. Duncan’s Education Department and the White House raised no protest.

Much has been written about the crisis in education, and the effective resegregation of our public schools. It’s clear who is paying the price. A study a few years ago from Johns Hopkins University highlighted the terrible disparity of the current system: Nearly half of our nation’s African-American students, nearly 40% of Latino students, but only 11% of white students attend high schools in which graduation is not the norm.

Many of the parents using Opportunity Scholarships chose Catholic schools for their children even though they are not Catholic themselves. That’s no coincidence. When others abandoned the cities, the Catholic schools remained, and they continue to do heroic work.

At Notre Dame we launched our own efforts to bolster this mission. Our Alliance for Catholic Education, for example, takes talented young men and women, trains them to see teaching as a career, and then sends them into struggling inner-city schools such as Holy Redeemer in Washington, D.C.

But these inner-city schools can’t do it themselves. Recently the archdiocese of Washington announced that Holy Redeemer would be forced to close its doors at the end of the year because the families who send their children to the school are unable to afford it without the financial aid they receive from this program. The archdiocese stated that “decisions last year by the U.S. Department of Education and by Congress to phase out the federal D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program . . . negatively impacted Holy Redeemer’s financial situation.”

Of Holy Redeemer’s 149 students, 60 were on Opportunity Scholarships. Unlike so many of their peers, these kids were on their way to college. Now they have to find some other safe haven. Others will never get the chance at all.

I know that some consider voucher programs such as the Opportunity Scholarships a right-wing affair. I do not accept that label. This program was passed with the bipartisan support of a Republican president and Democratic mayor. The children it serves are neither Republican nor Democrat, liberal or conservative. They are the future of our nation, and they deserve better from our nation’s leaders.

I have devoted my life to equal opportunity for all Americans, regardless of skin color. I don’t pretend that this one program is the answer to all the injustices in our education system. But it is hard to see why a program that has proved successful shouldn’t have the support of our lawmakers. The end of Opportunity Scholarships represents more than the demise of a relatively small federal program. It will help write the end of more than a half-century of quality education at Catholic schools serving some of the most at-risk African-American children in the District.

I cannot believe that a Democratic administration will let this injustice stand.

Father Hesburgh is the former president of the University of Notre Dame.

22,000 Catholic youth gathered in Kansas City this week-end for the bi-annual nationwide convention. The gathering of our most committed and devoted young people places them in contact with wonderful presenters who are able to connect with them, gives them time to experience good liturgy, and spend time in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament  which an amazing number of the participants utilize. On Saturday all 22,000 processed through the streets of Kansas City in an Eucharistic procession which gave the locals of whatever and no religious persuasion something to think about. Our own Father Len Plazewski was there along with a good representation from the diocesan youth. One might have though that tough economic times would have cut into the number of participants this year, but no – this was one of the largest.

Youth ministry is a challenge for our beloved Church. There are so many things competing for young people’s time and attention today from sports involving far more youth than in my day to a whole menu of after school options. Parishes still try hard to have good programs for the young people but getting them to come is a real challenge. Everyone points to the success of Protestant outreach to young people and I must admit that it is one of the few comparison points for which I am often jealous. One of the bright lights these past two years has been the three ECHO program members from the University of Notre Dame’s post-graduate program in religious education and youth ministry working in four of our parishes. Their presence and good work has injected some life into our times moribund-like youth ministry programs.

I believe that today’s young Catholic can have a thirst for the faith and it is incumbent upon myself and our pastoral leadership to meet these needs. At the same time, I do  not think it a wise strategy to offer programs where adult leadership assumes the mantle of acting like we were still young but rather we need to help our young prepare for an adult faith which awaits them. We have some extraordinarily generous young people who edify and sometimes humble me by their commitment to the Church, its teaching and values, and the responsibility of the baptized to share the faith with others boldly and fearlessly. I also see in the new interest in vocations to the priesthood and religious life the seeds of a renewal we badly need. It is our job as adult Catholics to provide the fertile soil in which these seeds can settle, germinate and blossom. The Church is looking for good gardeners in the soil of the faith of our young. Do you think you might be able to help?

+RNL

Fridays I try to reserve for myself but today is not going to be one of  those days, th0ugh I do hope I can get to my first RAYS game tonight. Some general responses to comments which many of you have taken the time to share with me over the past weeks and months. It is impossible for me to respond to all of them but some response seems apropos. I do not consider this a blog, as you know, where comments are posted. I read them, take them seriously, sometimes respond to them generically without publishing them specifically.

First, thanks to all who read this blog. The number of people visiting each day is on a steady increase and I know that many check it out intermittently. We can tell where the readers are from (general location) and how long they remain on the blog site (the longer time usually means someone comes intermittently and thus takes more time to read its contents). I do  not consider it my duty to blog every day although sometimes it may appear that way.

I was pleasantly surprised at the response level of support in favor of the position of restraint which I tried to take on the Notre Dame graduation issue. Thank you for that and thanks also to those who respectfully disagreed. From the beginning all I hoped for was a civilized discussion/debate.

One reader mentioned the loss of THE FLORIDA CATHOLIC and asked what we were planning as a vehicle for delivering “news” of the diocese, especially clergy assignments, etc. We hope our web page will be the major manner of communicating to all who can access it through the electronic media.

That so many of you loved the ordination of Father Melchior brought a return of tears of gratitude and happiness. Also, the blog on the virtue of hope seems to have struck a responsive chord in a number of readers.

So let me end with some good news for a change. The vocations to the priesthood picture brightens considerably this year as we have accepted about eight  into the seminary to join the twenty-four we currently have. For the first time since 1988 we have more than thirty seminarians and this year will be the third best year for the number of seminarians since 1984. Thirty-nine is the highest number in the forty year history of the diocese (1983-84). I attribute that grace to several factors: God’s blessings and favor, a good vocation director who works the job hard, and the quality of our present seminarians who attract those discerning a vocation. It also helps that only Father Carl Melchior left the seminary this Spring (understand that properly now!) while for the first time in my memory, all others are remaining in formation for next year. Finally, your prayers help a lot. The media this morning is filled with a story of a priest who felt he needed to leave the Church of his ordination. Not enough attention is paid to those who choose to remain and serve. Soon, if it is God’s will, there may be more of them.

+RNL