David Ancell's Virtual Home

Author: David Ancell

  • Habemus Papam

    If you haven’t read the 173 e-mails that you have probably already received on the subject, we have a new pope! We have the first American elected as pope, which I didn’t expect to see in my lifetime. The most important thing that we can do now is pray for him. Pray that the Holy Spirit will guide him to lead us all to eternal life and that he will heed the guidance of the Holy Spirit. The second most important thing that we can do for him is not take too seriously all of the speculation about what kind of pope he will be. Read it if you want to. I am reading it. Don’t assume that anyone knows much of anything until we start seeing his official actions.

    It seems the normal way of viewing this news is one of great joy and excitement. Instead, there’s a lot of hesitancy. I feel it, too, and I wish I didn’t. We don’t have to pretend that the concerns from the last papacy are not real. We also don’t have to ignore any concerning actions we’ve seen from him in the past. I know that I don’t want to return to that time, which for me was most of the 1990s, where we often got some kind of cheap substitute for the Faith instead of the real thing. I don’t want to see another era where people learn their faith and strive for holiness without, and maybe even despite, the church leadership (which make evangelization rather awkward). However, our best bet is still to pray for Our Holy Father and not make any assumptions about him.

    There have been all kinds of social media posts about him. Some are simply showing past quotes of his. Most are actually really good. Others are talking about how he wore the mozzetta and maybe has worn a fiddleback chasuble, signs that are subtle at best. I’ve even seen people suggest that there was some kind of work being done in the background by Cardinals Dolan or even Burke to get him elected (how would we know this?)

    Then, there are the comments saying that he’s definitely Francis II. Others make note of the fact that he’s from Chicago. Still others are talking about him in terms of American political divisions, which simply is not and cannot be the basis for understanding the Church. Some people even mention that he didn’t speak English out on the balcony (Did Pope John Paul II speak Polish or Benedict XVI speak German? My preliminary research says they didn’t.). I don’t think any of these people really have any right to make judgments.

    The worst are the comments that he was elected to get USAID funding. I don’t know what you need to smoke, snort, or otherwise ingest to think that he’s going to influence President Donald Trump in this manner. I don’t want any of that.

    Seriously, just pray for him, and respect the fact that he is indeed the Vicar of Christ! In fact, love our Holy Father, because that’s what we need to do whether he is a good or bad pope. I’m sure we all prayed for a good and holy pope before he was elected. It’s just as important to pray for this after he is elected so that the pope that we now have will do the will of God. This is what our Church needs, and this is the absolute best way we can all support the Holy Father.

  • RIP, Pope Francis

    As I’m writing this, our Holy Father has died and has been buried at St. Mary Major in Rome. I hope that all of us are praying for the repose of his soul. It did seem a bit disconcerting to be celebrating the octave of Easter with black bunting on church doors and pictures of the Pope draped in black. However, it does serve as a powerful reminder that the Church, while celebrating the great joy of the Resurrection of Our Lord, is also mourning the Pope’s passing on from this life.

    I must admit I struggled with a number of things he said and did and with some of the people he appointed to certain positions. I didn’t talk much about it and don’t plan to say much, if any, more. I made only one other post complaining about something he did. I just didn’t see it as the right thing to do to spill a lot of ink (or electrons in my case) critiquing the Holy Father. That being said, I also don’t think it is healthy or wise to pretend that there weren’t problems or to blow off people who have concerns.

    However, I do believe it is way beyond anyone’s right to call the Pope a heretic, a narcissist, or even an anti-Pope, or to say that the Pope wasn’t the real Pope or was the worst Pope in history. He was none of those things. I, for one, appreciated what he did for the Year of Mercy. He expanded opportunities for people to be reconciled with God. He also was one who wanted to reach out to those on the margins.

    Besides that, he really didn’t (and couldn’t) change the content of the Faith. You’ll hear plenty of news reporters (normally on the liberal side) talk about how the Pope didn’t change the teaching on contraception, didn’t start ordaining women, or something like that. It’s as though the teachings of the Church were a mere political platform that was decided anew by every Pope. No, it doesn’t work that way.

    While I consider sound teaching and sound doctrine essential to any outreach, I would say that I could learn a lot about how we as Catholics really need to reach out to people and to care for the poor. I’ve encountered parishes where people have great liturgy but are closed off to people not like them. I’ve also encountered places where the people seem friendly but don’t have much regard for proper worship and doctrine. I’ve seen love of neighbor downplayed and have seen people who are so concentrated on other people that they seem to have forgotten that there is an actual God who is distinct from us. We really need the “both and” here.

    Let us pray that this is the direction in which the Church goes. Let’s mourn for Pope Francis and pray for his soul. Let’s also pray for the upcoming conclave that the Holy Spirit will guide them and that they will listen. We’ve got sins to repent of, a Gospel to preach, and a live that we need to give to God.

  • Why Does This Site Look Like This?

    If you’ve been here before, you probably noticed that the site looked a lot better than this in the past.  I had my theme that I developed over ten years ago, but a recent WordPress update broke it.  It won’t even come up at all if you try to use my old theme.  I’m using this temporary theme to at least show my latest posts while I figure out what to do about it.

    I’d love to just edit my theme and get it back on there if I can figure out just what is needed.  I’m not having much luck.  Even if I do, some update in the future may break it again.  Not updating is a security risk.  Right now, I honestly don’t have a lot of time to keep the theme up.

    My needs are fairly simple but specific.  WordPress is probably extreme overkill for what I need.  Over the past 23 years, I’ve used some other solutions and even developed my own content management, but I am not going to be able to do that again anytime soon.  Wordpress allowed me to just edit my content.  I really just wanted a blog on the main page with links to other pages on my site and to my social media and an archive that allows people to get to my previous posts.  Then again, I really wonder if there is any reason I need people to be able to easily access what an almost 50-year-old man wrote when he was in his 20s.

    Many of the existing themes I saw didn’t work for me, but I think I will be searching to see if I can find one that will.  I really just wanted to be able to write down what I want to share and post it.  I cannot take the time, for example, to find an image to go with each post.  The available themes tend to be designed for a more sophisticated commercial web site.  However, I may find something that I like that I want to just use.  It would save me on maintenance as long as it stayed in development.

    However, this is all leading me to pray about what I want this site to look like.  I don’t want to give it up.  I really like hosting my own site and even doing as much of the design work as I am able.  One thing about this endeavor of mine is that I didn’t have much of a direction to start off.  Now, I want something that simply works and allows me to share the Catholic Faith, and maybe a few other things on occasion, with people.  Hopefully, we’ll see some updates, but I may need to take my time on this.  In the meantime, you can still read what I post here.  It just might not be pretty.

  • If Any Priests are Reading

    I’m probably going to get myself in trouble for this one. However, I think I need to say it. Please understand that I am not wanting a drive through Mass or anything like that. I want good, reverent worship. However, I really want to be able to attend weekday Mass and also be able to do the duties of my state of life. So, I’m asking something of any priest who is saying a 7 AM or noon weekday Mass. Can the Mass please be kept to 30 minutes or maybe a little less?

    If you are wondering what my hurry is, it’s just that I have to go to work (or back to work) at a certain time. If the Mass runs too long, then I will be late getting to (or getting back to) work. If this becomes an issue, it basically makes daily Masses inaccessible to me. I have to think that there are others who are in this boat as well.

    Weekday Mass is a tremendous blessing. I’m thankful that I get to go as often as I do. However, I’m also someone who thinks a lot about the practical issues. I want to be able to keep attending without worrying about getting in trouble with work. So, please consider my request. It will be most appreciated.

  • How is Your Lenten Penance Going?

    Well, I’m finally back. I’ve been wanting to get a blog post up but could not get it done. However I’m here now. It’s Lent. How is your penance going? If you are struggling with yours this year, I’m hoping that I’ll be able to be of help to you.

    Your penance doesn’t have to be anything major, and, in fact, it probably shouldn’t be without consultation with a priest or spiritual director or mentor. However, it does need to be something that is felt. The sacrifice that you make does need to be perceived. It is in those times when you feel the sacrifice that you can remind yourself to hunger for God rather than seeking consolation in an earthly thing.

    With that being said, I perceived sacrifice is one that you may struggle with and may fail at during Lent. Please don’t be discouraged. It may well be a sign that you are giving up something with a strong attachment to or even overuse of, and the attachment won’t be broken in a few days. As long as the thing given up wasn’t something sinful in itself, breaking the penance is not a sin. It’s a penance freely undertaken, and you are free to modify it or set it aside. However, I wouldn’t necessarily advise that you do this.

    For the most part, I’d say just try again. Keep trying. Even if this is the pattern you exhibit during all of Lent, you may well have still been pleasing to God for undergoing the struggle. It may be that you need to do your penance in stages. If you used to eat two cookies every day, then eat one a day for a couple of weeks before stopping completely, or you can give yourself a break on Sundays.

    In a few cases, it may be wise to examine the penance again and change it. If you gave up coffee and found out that your family and coworkers are suddenly doing more penance that you are, then please choose something else. However, this needs to be done with prayer and discernment and not just out of discouragement.

    However, clinging to Christ as you struggle to deny yourself is a holy thing. If you fail, don’t be discouraged. Your Lenten penance isn’t an all or nothing proposition. Just keep relying on the grace of God, and keep going.

  • Another Take on Politicians

    We often hear about politicians acting like they will be the savior of society. All we have to do is elect them, and there will be the most peace and prosperity that we have ever seen in our lives or even in generations. You may even hear the same message among many supporters of a particular candidate.

    Honestly, I feel sorry for the people who actually believe this every time about a politician. Then again, does anybody? It seems that, even if not, many have high hopes for a certain leader. However, it should be pretty clear that no politician is the savior of the world. That one has already come, and he wasn’t a politician.

    Even getting major improvements in our country seems like a long shot. We are way too self absorbed in our culture to breed, much less elect, a leader with the character to do those things right now. Besides, the real fulfillment of hope in our country will be found in things that simply cannot be legislated. It won’t even work if we could try.

    However, nearly every time I see the fact that politicians are not saviors presented, it sounds to me like an excuse not to care about political things. So, let me just state that our voice in elections really does matter. The right politician may not be a savior, but the wrong one can really, really mess things up. If we haven’t understood that by now, I’m afraid we won’t until it’s too late, if even then. So, even if you don’t imagine a candidate for a political office is going to do a lot of good, just realize that it may be that the reason for supporting a candidate is to keep the other one from bringing disaster on us.

  • Pray for These People

    I have seen some social media posts on my feed from people who have found out they have terminal cancer and not too long to live. May I send out a bit of a reminder here? When you see these things, it’s a great opportunity to do a small but very beneficial act of charity to pray for that person and his or her family. You may not even remember them again, but nothing like this that you send to the ears of Our Lord will be wasted.

    I know nothing about the people whose posts I saw. That doesn’t matter. It costs me so little to pray for them, and it may be what helps them be ready to meet God if they are not healed in this life. Maybe you’ll run across a post like this from someone whom you know to have led a life of sin. We should especially pray for these people. What if our prayers meant their salvation? No matter what someone has done, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile not desiring their salvation with Christian charity. Besides, our only hope is in the grace of God.

    I make it a point also to pray for the souls of anyone about whose death I hear, even if I have no idea who they are or if I know them to be a manifest public sinner. Even if they are already in Heaven or have gone to Hell, I know that my prayer is not wasted and will be used somehow.

  • Inviting People In and Telling the Truth

    I was just at Defending the Faith at Franciscan University of Steubenville. It was, of course, an on-fire experience. There’s always something about being in a space at Mass with a bunch of people who really love Jesus and really want to be there. The atmosphere of the place can easily leave a better impression that the talks do, even though there are a lot of good talks that we heard.

    One speaker said something that I really want to ponder here. He talked about how we need to invite people in to the Church, and if we spend all of our time talking about the problems, people aren’t going to want to join. Well, he’s right. No matter what may be going on, the Catholic Church is where we receive the fullness of truth, and the ordinary means of grace, better known as the Sacraments. There is just no better place to be.

    We definitely don’t want to be those people criticizing everything that goes on, including many things that aren’t matters of faith or maybe even aren’t real problems. Some people make a spirituality out of talking about problems in the Church. This just isn’t going to lead people to Christ. To be honest, I have some sympathy for such people because I remember what things were like as I was coming of age. It was hard to know who to trust to tell the truth.

    In fact, that’s really the thing that I want to ponder. How do we show the great love of God and the great graces he brings through his Church but be realistic about some of the things that are going on? It was always an odd position of mine as I was a young adult trying to say that the Church was the place to be but that, well, there are scandals. Not only that, you also need to realize that, if you want to know the fullness of the truth, you won’t likely get it from official diocesan or parish instruction. Even if they didn’t say anything technically wrong, it didn’t mean that they provided enough of the truth for us to be able to fully understand or live the faith. That said, I do think things have improved greatly in the formation department in the last twenty years.

    I was part of an excellent RCIA team when I was in my early 30s. We really did try to teach the truth in a way that showed what a positive good every teaching of the Church truly was. However, a discussion came up when we were told not to talk about dissent from Church teachings. A few things did get said about problems in the Church however. There was once an outside speaker who said things that I had to kind of sneakily debunk in the next talk I gave. Once again, I actually agree that we can’t spend large amounts of time on problems, but . . .

    Somehow, we do have to convey some of the problems just to give people a realistic picture of what things are like. After all, look at all the stories in the Bible about the people whom God chose to lead. We are not in Heaven yet, and so things are not perfect (and the speaker I mentioned earlier made note of this in his talk). As far as teaching, I think we have far better resources than we had when I was a high school or college student, but dissent still exists. Has it ever not been a problem in some way? I’m a lay Dominican, and the Dominicans were founded to preach against an extremely destructive heresy over 800 years ago.

    While spending loads of time on problems is one extreme, not mentioning problems or downplaying them too much is another. If we don’t give a proper perspective, people will find out the problems. It’s hard to say how they will respond when they do, especially if we are not regularly meeting with them anymore to walk with them through it.

    So, we don’t need to spend our time simply on problems in the Church. However, I think it is wise to say that we have had a period of time when the Church’s teaching was not properly taught and therefore do have a lot of Catholics who don’t know their faith. We want to equip you with the fullness of the Faith. We can even spend a session on different periods of trouble in the Church and the saints that led the reform. I’d argue we can even do this without making it a central theme. After all, we really need to spend our time telling people about God’s love for them, what he wants to give them, and how our lives in Christ should be lived.

  • Eucharistic Revival Update

    I wanted to give an update since my earlier post on not having seen many signs of a real Eucharistic Revival taking place in this country. I now know that the Juan Diego Route of the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage is coming to Nashville this coming week. It was at the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament last week, and my family and I had the privilege of being there. We went to events in Nashville and even drove to St Louis for a couple of others.

    It’s good to see Our Lord being brought on this pilgrimage. However, I still have concerns that there really hasn’t been a serious revival. Until these events were about to take place, I remember next to nothing happening in my area. I think there was a big event in Memphis, but I’m not aware of anything major happening in Nashville.

    Because of this, I have mixed feelings about participating. It’s true that Our Lord will be there, body, blood, soul, and divinity. I want to see how he will work through this. However, there’s something that doesn’t seem quite right. This pilgrimage, and the Congress following, should be the culmination of a major effort. I do worry that being a part of it is participating in the illusion that we actually did something big when in fact we didn’t.

    However, it is great that we brought Jesus out to the streets. This is what we really need to do. It’s not just for people who identify as Catholic but yet do not believe, but for all who do not know or believe in Jesus and the wonderful gift he gave us. In fact, maybe having some processions and special times of adoration every now and then would be one of the best things we can do.

  • About That Graduation Speech

    Now that the dust has settled a bit, and Harrison Butker’s graduation speech (full text here) is old news, let’s take a look at it and what some have been taking offense at. The thing that really gets me is that it seems that the vast majority of the people who made comments either act like he should be tarred and feathered or like this was the direct word of God that is above any criticism. Both are way off here, but the former, some of whom have gone so far as to call for his dismissal from the Kansas City Chiefs, are just outrageous. My question is this: Can there be room to recognize the good things he has said even as we acknowledge that the speech was not perfect?

    You can probably guess that I have absolutely no sympathy towards those that are all bent out of shape by what he said. Their reactions are just sheer insanity. However, there are still problems with people acting like this was just the ultimate in speeches. One person said on X that making a criticism just because the speech wasn’t perfect would be like petty infighting among Catholics. I have some sympathy for his view, and I agree we should support those who try to proclaim the Catholic faith. However, I also find it imprudent to cling to anything that attempts to defend the faith, especially if there’s something being said that is not correct.

    Butker truly did try to convey the importance of family over career. He spoke of the importance of speaking up about and standing up for the faith. He reminded people about the importance of “doing the small things well” and about surrounding yourself with people who share in our Catholic faith to help build us up. We can tell that he took a strong stance just from the sheer number of feathers he ruffled.

    A lot of people took offense to his comments about his wife and women as homemakers in general. While his choice of words in saying that his wife’s life “truly started” when she was married and had children was probably not the best, what he said otherwise about both his wife and himself leaning into their vocations and their family was actually very good if properly understood. He specifically mentions that his wife makes sure that he doesn’t let football and his business take him away from his vocation as husband and father.

    I saw people online accusing him of relegating women to being considered inferior to men. I’ve long found this thinking to be ridiculous. Is there really anything inferior about spending your life raising souls who will one day spend eternity in Heaven or Hell rather than working for a corporation? Why is the modern workplace considered the ideal place that we need to be? I am all in favor of women having opportunities to work and make money. I am not in favor of treating economic opportunities as the most important ones or as a test of whose life is really fulfilling. Besides, just listen to Butker’s words describing the title of homemaker.

    Others took offense because they felt that the life he described was just not possible for them. This is kind of a strange unwritten rule I’ve seen online that says it is not permitted to make a suggestion unless absolutely everyone is able to follow it the exact way you suggest. Look, it’s perfectly fine for someone make a suggestion that may not be possible for everyone. If circumstances don’t allow a family to have a stay at home mom, this doesn’t mean that Butker’s proclamation is wrong. Some women will have reason for working outside the home.

    Like I said before, the speech isn’t perfect. Butker spends quite a lot of time talking about lack of leadership in the Catholic Church. I see where he’s coming from because, when I was his age, it was a huge concern of mine. Just go look at my earliest blogs on this site. With that being said, I think he devoted too much of his speech to this, kind of like I devoted too much of my time and energy to it when I was his age. The problems still exist, but we are in an era now where solid Catholic materials are much easier to find than they were back then.

    The other major criticism that I have of his speech is that he takes a shot at natural family planning saying “there is nothing natural about Catholic birth control.” This is permitted by the Church, and so I really believe what he said was an error. NFP can definitely be abused, and it would be fine for him to give his opinion that more should consider allowing God to give as many children as he will. However, he needs to state that as his opinion. Natural family planning is permitted by the Church, so he can’t consider it “heterodox teaching.” One could also argue that he over-promoted the Latin Mass, but I don’t think what he said was really wrong.

    Then, there were a couple of other things he said that are open to interpretation. So, I’ll share how I interpreted them. He uses the term “stay in your lane.” I took this to be a complaint about a trend we see in the Church that is a kind of “clericalization of the laity and laicization of the clergy.” The former part of this can be seen by the many lay people you have in the sanctuary today, especially the number of lay people distributing the Eucharist. This is really supposed to be the function of a priest or deacon. The former part is a bit more tricky. One example from over a decade ago was when the USCCB had a position on reducing the level of mercury in thermometers. Yes, I really saw that. It’s not a matter of faith, and I don’t think that’s the “lane” of the USCCB.

    He also made a controversial comment about Congress passing a law making it illegal to state biblical teaching on who killed Jesus. This was taken by some as at least a potentially anti-Semitic comment. Let me make clear that I am completely opposed to anti-Semitism. While it’s possible that he meant what he said in an anti-Semitic matter, I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt. That proposed bill he was alluding to could have easily wandered into dangerous territory. Who interprets what is and isn’t anti-Semitism? What is to stop some anti-Christian prosecutor from going after the Gospels? It may not reach that extreme, but these kind of bills are far too open to being interpreted too broadly, and that may be what Butker was getting at.

    The world is greatly in need of people who will truly proclaim the Catholic faith and who will not back down. We need these people in all walks of life, whether it’s sports, medicine, show business, manufacturing, retail, or anywhere else. While I do have some genuine concerns about some things he said, I would definitely be more likely to call this a bold proclamation of faith than I would a disaster. Let’s at least give him credit for being willing to say what he believed needed to be said.