David Ancell / Saturday, July 17, 2021 / Comments(0)
I’ve been wanting to write more on this site, but I didn’t expect this to be one of the first things out of the gate. In fact, it’s rather unfortunate that this is what I think I need to post. I am not one to publicly criticize papal documents of any kind. I attend a Latin Mass only on occasion (maybe only two or three times in the last year and a half). However, I cannot help but find the new motu proprio, Traditionis Custodes, to be completely unnecessary and, to be honest, plain awful.
We had seen news that Pope Francis was planning to issue regulations (and probably restrictions) regarding the Latin Mass. Maybe there really are places where the extended permissions given by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI in Summorum Pontificum have been abused in some way (probably so), and the local bishop needed to be given some more control over what was happening. In fact, Pope Francis has indicated that a survey had been sent out to the bishops regarding this, but the little that I have seen on this survey suggests that over half of the bishops who responded were either favorable or neutral towards the Latin Mass (but the source is something I would not normally read). However, what we have received is far more severe that I would have expected, and I can’t see any way that this severity was even remotely necessary.
I read it first without having seen any published commentary about it. The thing that caught my eye was that the document appeared to be saying that the Mass should not be celebrated in “parochial churches” nor could any personal parishes be erected. “Surely I am not reading this right, and someone more knowledgeable will set this straight,” I thought. Well, someone did set the record straight, and I didn’t misread the document. So, where are people going to go for Latin Mass – the shopping mall?
Pope Francis claims in his letter that this was issued to promote unity among the faithful. If so, I can’t think this was thought through very well. Catholics who revere the Latin Mass and are working hard to stay faithful to the Church will no doubt feel alienated. The consequences will be even worse for those nearer the edge, about whom Pope Francis purports to be concerned. If they are relegated to the cemetery chapel on the edge of town or the basement of an old rectory for the Mass they love, they may never again show up in a parish church. Those who reject Vatican II or who are extreme enough to be sedevacantists will simply disregard the decree. They either don’t believe in the validity of the ordinary form or don’t believe Pope Francis is really the pope, and they’ll no doubt consider this decree to be evidence of their claim.
To be fair, I am very certain that there are people who attend Latin Mass for the wrong reasons (eg rejection of Vatican II, the ordinary form, or even Church authority). However, there are many legitimate reasons why people prefer the Latin Mass. I do very much appreciate the reverence shown, and I know others do too. Some people simply want to escape the irreverence and abuse that occurs in some places in the ordinary form even though they understand that the problem is not the ordinary form in and of itself. Still others are people who grew up with it and have come to really appreciate it.
In fact, if there’s a real problem with the celebration of the Mass that needs to be tackled, how about the many liturgical abuses that are occurring in the ordinary form? I am fortunate enough to be where those abuses are either infrequent or somewhat minor in comparison (eg having to turn and greet each other before Mass or asking for people to stand if it’s their birthday). However, I’ve both seen and heard of worse (eg goldfish in the holy water fonts or even alteration of the words of consecration of the Eucharist, potentially invalidating it). Next, let’s tackle the use of sappy piano tunes that some people think are hymns. While that’s technically not a violation of the norms, it does reduce the reverence shown to Our Lord in the Eucharist.
What is really needed in this day and age is a reminder that, when we are at Mass, we are there to worship the Lord. God is almighty, all powerful, all holy, and worthy of all of our reverence and love. Yet, he stoops down to love us completely and gives himself to us in the Holy Eucharist. There is nothing more important happening on earth than the Mass. If anything needed to be done, we needed to be reminded of this. I strongly believe Pope Francis made a huge mistake by restricting something that no doubt promotes greater reverence in the Church. Let’s pray he reverses course before too much damage is done.
Category: Response
David Ancell / Thursday, April 30, 2020 / Comments(0)
After having made my previous post about some Catholic virtual conferences and retreats, I’ve been made aware of more events that I wanted to share. While I do not believe that attending virtual events is a substitute for getting away to a real retreat or conference, it’s great to have these available. Besides, there are advantages. These conferences can reach more people, and people who would not take the time to go to a live conference may tune in and be evangelized (and then maybe go to a live conference or retreat later).
There will be a free Catholic Family Conference on May 1st and 2nd. My wife and I plan to “attend” this conference this weekend. They request, but do not require, a $10 per family ($5 individual) donation to help cover costs. It looks like there are some great speakers lined up.
However, from a technical and logistic standpoint, this conference is not the kind of format I’d recommend if asked by a presenter (more on this in a future post). It appears to require a third-party app for your mobile device (update: I later found you could view in a web browser, but I still don’t like the Crowdcast tool.). The format, from what I am seeing, is a live format, and I don’t see any word on whether the talks will be available in any form later (update: They are offering MP3 downloads for sale.). This works fine for a live conference where the participants are at a certain venue, but it doesn’t work as well for a virtual conference. Still, I am going to be there as it looks like a great conference!
If that isn’t enough for you, there will be a virtual Theology of the Body Conference the next weekend, May 8 – 10. This appears to be the same format as the Virtual Catholic Conference, and that has been my favorite virtual event format so far. Like the Virtual Catholic Conference, it is free to attend during the conference weekend, but you will need to buy a premium pass to access the conference after that. Right now, the premium pass is available at a significant discount. Once again, it looks like a great lineup of speakers, and it is sponsored by the Theology of the Body Institute.
I’ve also received an e-mail about a Be Not Afraid conference. From what I’m reading, the actual conference is over but still accessible for free (but with donations accepted). It is self-paced. I’m not familiar with most of the speakers, but the ones that I am familiar with are ones whom I know to be good Catholic speakers.
Don’t miss these opportunities to grow in your faith during this time!
David Ancell / Sunday, April 19, 2020 / Comment(1)
We’ve been through a most unusual Lent that has unfortunately extended into Easter this year. Of all kinds of fasting that one make undertake, I never imagined I’d be fasting from the Eucharist and certainly not for this long. Of course, with this being the case, retreats and conferences everywhere are being cancelled. Thankfully, by the providence of God, there are some virtual opportunities available to grow in faith (most of these were discovered by my wife). At any other time in history before now, it’s not likely we’d have these available. While I think it’s still better we get away to a real retreat once this is over, virtual opportunities, combined with being basically stuck at home, may give you more opportunity for listening to good Catholic talks and learning more about the faith that you otherwise would have had.
Please keep in mind that some of these offerings are being given for free, at least to some extent. However, many of these speakers make a substantial amount of their living doing speaking. With retreats and conferences being cancelled, it’s going to have a big effect on the money they have coming in. If you are able, please consider making a donation where accepted. If not, then please just pray for everyone who is offering the talks (actually, pray for them even if you donate).
One great offering comes from the Carmelite sisters at Sacred Heart Retreat House in California. The Carmelites have had to close their retreat house and cancel their retreats due to COVID-19, but they still wanted to offer virtual retreats. There was one this past weekend, and this coming weekend they are offering another one given by Fr Bryce Sibley. I went to a men’s retreat he gave a couple of years ago, and I’d highly recommend him as a retreat director.
Interestingly, the Sacred Heart Retreat House has a registration deadline for being a part of the virtual retreat, and they e-mail the link to each talk at a certain time that they want you to listen. I can understand that they are trying to keep a normal retreat schedule, but I’ve found that this is extremely difficult to keep to for a house with kids in it. I prefer a “listen when you can” approach. However, you can get the talks later from their podcast. Besides, the retreat is free, and last week’s retreat was really good.
Next on the list is the Ignited by Truth conference. My wife and I went to the live conference when we lived in the Raleigh-Durham area. Since they couldn’t hold their normal conference, they were nice enough to do a free virtual conference, with six hours of content, this past Saturday. Oh, and they’ve kept it available for free on YouTube. If a six-hour YouTube video is a bit intimidating, be sure to check the show notes where they’ve been nice enough to outline when in the video is each talk. My favorite talk was the first one, but the others are well worth a listen.
Probably the first virtual conference I went to was the Virtual Catholic Conference. It was fantastically well done, and during the weekend of April 3rd – 5th, it was free. The free conference time has passed, but it’s still possible to buy perpetual access to the site (though it’s a bit expensive in my view). They got together about 60 speakers, including some very well known ones, to video themselves doing 20 minute talks. On many of them, you can tell they were just in their homes recording on whatever they had, but that’s part of the charm.
On the site, you can choose what you want to listen to and when. Most of the talks stood on their own. I think this conference provides a good example for any parish that has a good core group of people who can teach and would like to put together their own virtual conference or retreat on YouTube or Vimeo (Note that videos can be made “unlisted” in YouTube in case a parish prefers to share with only their own parishioners.).
If you are looking for something a bit more Thomistic and intellectual, try the Thomistic Institute’s Quarantine Lectures. They are short but packed with intellectual material. If you want to catch up on what you missed, they are posted on their YouTube channel. You can watch them for free.
There are a number of other places to go that have been around even before the quarantine. Ascension Presents has a number of good talks in popular style. They also stream Fr Mike Schmitz’s Mass on Sunday mornings if you were looking for a Mass to watch. Franciscan University of Steubenville also posts many talks from past conferences on YouTube. Of course, the YouTube videos are free to watch, but you can also buy MP3s to download in their store if you want. The president of the Franciscan University, Fr Dave Pivonka, is offering a Metanoia program through The Ministry of the Wild Goose.
One of my favorite places to make a retreat is Casa Maria, run by the Sister Servants of the Eternal Word. There are a lot of talks available to listen to for free. If you want to listen to a complete retreat, you can buy the MP3s for a reasonable price. They have some really great speakers, and the sisters are a very faithful to the Church and very joyful people. I hope I’ll get back down there before too long.
Unfortunately, there’s one ministry that I’d have to put in the “what not to do” category. I won’t link to them here, nor will I mention their names. They are otherwise doing some great work, but they put a retreat online, not for sale, but for rent on Vimeo. It’s $50 for only 30 days of access with no option to buy perpetual access or a download. Really, seriously? There ain’t no way I’m going to pay that amount of money to have access for only a limited amount of time! There’s nothing wrong with rental offerings in and of themselves, but, for example, EWTN offers video purchases but then offers rental for a lower price. If this apostolate offered a purchase option, I might even pay more than they are asking for the rental.
So, take time during this rather unusual time in our lives to grow closer to Christ.
David Ancell / Saturday, April 11, 2020 / Comment(1)
A couple of years ago, I posted an article that I named Why Doesn’t the World Stop on this blog. I was talking about the world-changing events that we celebrate during the Easter Triduum. It’s Holy Saturday as I write this after not having posted for a long time. With the COVID 19 threat looming over us, I guess the world did sort of stop (except, of course, for essential businesses). It is definitely not business as usual. The problem is that even our churches our closed, but I plan to write more on that later.
I’m not one to claim that COVID 19 is a punishment from God. I do not have knowledge of such things, nor will I claim to have. However, I do think that God wants us to use this time to stop our normal busyness and hyperactivity to take the time to be able to reflect. It may be that permanent changes in our lives for the better are going to result from this. I, for one, am grateful to not have to waste 2 – 3 hours or more of my life commuting every day.
If you haven’t done much reflecting, this Holy Saturday is a perfect time to do so. Even if we weren’t under the coronavirus threat, there wouldn’t be a Mass to go to right at this moment (at least not until the Easter Vigil). The Eucharist can only be given as viaticum, and no other Sacraments may be celebrated except Penance and Anointing of the Sick (Yes, Confessions may be heard during the Triduum.). On Holy Saturday, we remember when Jesus was in the tomb. Fasting, though not required, is recommended. Certainly the early Easter celebrations and the attending of venues of entertainment are out of character for this day.
This year, needless to say, is different in that the faithful will not be able to participate in a public celebration of Easter Vigil or Easter Sunday Mass. In a sense, we will be waiting at the tomb and doing our own kind of penance. However, with this comes some opportunities that we might not otherwise have. I remember hearing on one podcast that we all said we needed more family time, and now that we have it, we have decided our old schedule was just fine.
For those of you who have families, this is a great time to strengthen your relationships. For all of us, it should be a time to spend alone with God. We can reach out to each other through all of the technology we have. The fact is that it’s here for a reason even though our current crisis will definitely highlight how it is not enough. At this point, it’s what we have. Instead of longing to go back to the way things were before, we can take this time to think of how we want our lives to change and grow closer to God. This isn’t going to be easy, and who knows when it will end. Let’s pray for each other and for an end to this crisis, and let’s trust that God will bring good out of all of this.
Category: Catholic, Spirituality
David Ancell / Sunday, March 31, 2019 / Comments(0)
Last Monday, once again I got to speak to the RCIA. This time the talk was about the Four Last Things – death, judgment, Heaven, and Hell. I also included Purgatory even though it technically isn’t one of the last things because it won’t exist for all eternity. I have been wanting to get to do this one for years and finally got the chance!
This time, I tried to record the live talk, but some of it was lost due to a technical difficulty. I re-recorded that part and included it in its place in the link below.
Click here to download the talk in MP3 format.
Click here to download the handout in PDF format.
In an effort to make some extra resources easier to access, here are clickable links to the resources mentioned in the handout (and a couple that aren’t there):
Let Us Make Good Use of Time – this is the opening meditation we used before the talk
Grace: What It Is and What It Does
CDF document on burial and cremation
Recommended book – A Map of Life by Frank Sheed (not just about the Four Last Things, but an excellent book)
Previous posts of mine:
Please Don’t Say This When I Die
The Weight of Sin and the Truth of Purgatory
Category: Catholic
David Ancell / Wednesday, January 16, 2019 / Comments(0)
I have always enjoyed teaching, especially teaching the Catholic Faith. I did a few talks years ago and have had the opportunity to do a couple this month for those in the RCIA at my parish. I’ll do another one in March. I did not record the live talks that I did, but in an effort to prepare, I recorded a practice round of each talk and decided to make it available for download as an MP3 if anyone is interested.
Dignity of the Human Person and Sanctity of Human Life
Although I didn’t get a handout made in time for the talk, I made one with my references that i used. It’s available here.
Catholic Social Teaching
The handout for this one is here. After giving this practice round, I realized a missed some important points that I added to my notes before I gave the talk. They are:
Anyway, I hope you enjoy these talks. I look forward to doing one more teaching in March on the Four Last Things (Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell) and also Purgatory (which isn’t a last thing because it won’t exist for all eternity). I’ve been wanting to do that one for years, and I finally have the opportunity!
Category: Catholic
David Ancell / Sunday, August 26, 2018 / Comments(0)
I first started blogging right around the time the news of the sexual abuse scandal hit in 2002. You can go back in the archives and see my perspective back then as a single man in his late 20s with no children. In light of recent news stories, here I am now taking this topic up again as a 40-something with a wife and children.
I am hoping I can convey what I want to say without making it look like I am downplaying the absolutely heinous nature of the crimes committed against the victims of the scandal. These things should not be tolerated in the Church, and I think what Fr Dwight Longenecker wrote is a good example of how the problem needs to be handled. I’m especially disgusted at how someone like Archbishop McCarrick could be promoted the way he has been despite his conduct, and there really needs to be an investigation into who knew what and when and what they did about it. However, what needs to be understood is that, as demonic as the sexual abuse is, there is more to the problem in the Church than sexual abuse.
When I have heard people say that the Church doesn’t have a higher incidence of sexual abuse than the rest of society, it underscores the problem for me. The problem is that those who were supposed to be preaching the Gospel followed what our society was doing rather than led it. The light of the world was hidden under a bushel basket. When I hear people complaining about the teachings of the Church in light of the abuse scandal, I know that the real problem was that the teachings on human sexuality weren’t really taught or insisted upon and were sometimes disregarded by those in authority.
One definite component of the problem is enforcement. This article by Phil Lawler from 2002 said something that I had noticed but often wasn’t sure how to articulate. This is more evident when you take a look around the Church and see what else was allowed to slide.
Dissenters against the Faith were allowed to continue to use our own forums as a platform for dissent against established teachings. Our Catholic schools and universities largely sold out to the secular world, and nothing was really done about it. The celebration of Mass in many parishes became filled with saccharine instead of true beauty.
Resources and programs for formation in the Faith were lame at best. Just imagine trying to explain to someone wanting to learn the Catholic Faith that you can’t rely on the official parish or diocesan program to tell you what you really need to know. That was often the case then and is probably still the case now in a number of places. With all of this going on, how surprising was it that even criminal misconduct got swept under the rug?
With all of this said, the problem, and therefore the solution, is something deeper than mere enforcement of rules or the lack thereof. The problem is a lack of faith. There are plenty who will write suggesting “reforms” that are essentially changes to the Church to make her more like the secular world. This is not what we need.
All of us, from our Pope and our bishops to the laity, need to have an authentic faith in what has been revealed by God. Our shepherds need to insist that the faith be lived by those who wish to be called faithful, and the faithful need to insist that our shepherds proclaim the Catholic Faith as it is. Any action taken must address the problem in it’s entirely and must be taken with the salvation of souls in mind. We don’t need statements made and committees formed as though we were a spineless and soulless corporation. We are the Church that Christ founded, and we need to act like it. We will all be held accountable by God himself.
David Ancell / Tuesday, June 12, 2018 / Comments(0)
Articles about depression and suicide are coming across my news feeds in the wake of the recent, tragic suicides of Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain. To be honest, I’m not that familiar with either of them, but it’s my long-standing habit to say a prayer for the soul of anyone whose death I hear about. It’s difficult for me to imagine what must be going through anyone’s mind to decide that taking his or her own life is the best way out. The old saying that kept coming up on the TV ads when I was growing up was that “Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.” However, someone with a mental or emotional problem is going to have a hard time seeing it that way.
We may not want to simply follow the whims of the media, but this is a great time to examine our attitudes as Catholics towards people with emotional or mental disorders. It seems that there are a number of devout Catholics who will over-spiritualize mental disorders. I have even heard a priest talk about how one doesn’t need a counselor but need only say the Rosary. There exists a misconception that the feelings that accompany mental illness are in and of themselves sinful or are purely caused by sin or some other spiritual fault. Someone with anxiety is assumed to not be trusting in God enough; maybe the person with depression isn’t praying enough.
Another form of this extreme is to attribute all mental illness to some activity of demons or even of the Devil himself. Someone who believes this may simply tell someone to pray, go to some deliverance ministry, or even undergo an exorcism. While genuine diabolical activity does exist and may mimic a mental health disorder, making such an assumption without a proper evaluation can be downright dangerous.
The fact is that being a faithful Catholic is not automatic insulation from mental or emotional health problems. Even if it were, how many of us live out our faith so perfectly that we can avoid every problem? Genuine problems can occur with people’s minds, and these problems will require not just prayer, Sacraments, and spiritual direction (though all of these should be used) but also professional mental health treatment. As Catholics it’s our job to support our brothers and sisters who are experiencing these problems and not be dismissive of them.
We must also be careful not to view the problem from a completely secular perspective and to disregard the spiritual component of the problem that may exist (though some disorders may in fact be mostly if not completely biological). This is shown when someone is merely put on medication with no effort to look at the person’s life and behavior. Prayer and the Sacraments end up playing no part in treatment because they are simply viewed as not relevant. No consideration is given to the idea that there may be some sin involved because that would be a form of “blaming the victim.” I am not trying to condone making a quick, armchair diagnosis here but to say that we need to consider all aspects here. Christ does have real power to heal and will use it.
We have body, mind, and spirit all working together, and problems that arise can easily have more than one dimension. If we fail to address part of the problem, we will unnecessarily limit the healing that someone can experience. I think I can safely say that, no matter what the cause, we want people to experience healing. They have to want it, too, but our own approach can be instrumental in bringing this about.
Category: Catholic, Response, Uncategorized
David Ancell / Saturday, September 23, 2017 / Comments(0)
Sometimes it’s hard for me to take allegations of racism in this country seriously. It’s not that I deny that racism exists. Even if I did, the latest events in Charlottesville should have been enough to convince me that it does exist. I don’t deny the evil of racism either. I know it’s sinful. Let me share an incident that has happened in the news to illustrate the problem I have.
In August 2017, a retreat for leaders of fraternities and sororities at Ole Miss (which happens to be where I went to school) was cut cut short due to one supposedly racist incident.. A breakfast had been served that included a fruit cart with bananas. I guess one of the students took his banana to go. He looking for a trash can to throw away his banana peel and couldn’t find one. So, he put the banana peel in a nearby tree. One of the members of a historically African-American sorority saw the banana peel and, having remembered a recent incident involving bananas that really was a racist incident, became disturbed by it.
A meeting was called later that day, and the student who put the peel there explained himself and apologized for it. However, that wasn’t good enough for the offended. They claimed that they didn’t feel safe, and the end result was that a big production was made out of it. The retreat was cut short. My favorite line was that the student who discarded the banana peel needed to consider the “effects of their actions versus their intent” because of the “fear and anger” that was incited. Never mind that it seems pretty unlikely that such an effect could have been anticipated by the student who did this.
I once read a meme that someone posted on Facebook that said something like “If I tell you that you’ve hurt me, you don’t have the right to tell me you didn’t.” There are really two extremes that we need to avoid in cases like these. One is usually not socially acceptable by any decent person. The other seems to be the direction in which our society is headed, and I can only think that it will lead to worse relations between different groups of people as we will fail to walk on eggshells to avoid being accused of “bias.”
The first extreme is only acceptable to genuine abusers. These are the people who do objectively offensive things and blame the other person for taking offense. The incident I have described would have been an entirely different issue had there been a racial slur written on the banana peel or had it been hung from the tree on a noose. It is beyond question that white supremacist groups are wrong. It’s not just about black and white races either. It’s just as wrong to walk up to a Latino or Asian person and tell them that they need to go back to their own country. It would be wrong for someone to meet a Catholic priest and immediately tell him he’s a pedophile. I can’t imagine a decent person saying that a person offended by any of these things is being too sensitive.
The other extreme actually concerns me more because it’s becoming a kind of norm. This extreme basically says that one who is offended by the words or actions of another doesn’t have any responsibility at all for how he interprets those words or actions, and to suggest that he does is “blaming the victim.” This mentality goes beyond the fact that someone was offended by something that was said or done. The person who committed said “offense” is guilty of an enormous evil. Maybe it’s completely unforgivable, or maybe the “victim” makes a major drama about being offended but never seems to be able to describe anything in particular that he wants done about it. Someone has been “triggered,” and now the entire world must be horrified by it.
So, we end up with a group of people being super upset because someone discarded their banana peel in a nearby tree. Great offense is taken because the table centerpieces at a dinner were cotton stalks. If we were deliberately looking for something to be offended by, it would be hard to tell if anything would be any different.
Maybe I had my chance to make some major drama. I am married to an Asian woman, and on two occasions at an amusement park an employee questioned me when I tried to board a ride with my wife and her immediate family. After all, they just assumed that, just because I don’t look like her family, I must not belong with them. What terrible racist people! Really, what could the operators have done? They didn’t have any way of knowing whether I belonged with them or was jumping the line. Still, I could have made it into a racial drama and gotten them in big trouble for nothing more than trying to do their jobs as best they could. Instead, I just laughed about it, and I still think it’s funny.
All of this is not to say that misconceptions and unintentional slights shouldn’t be corrected. St. Ignatius of Loyola is a good guide in this matter. He would tell us to always be ready to put a good interpretation on another’s statement. If we can’t, ask the other how he understands it. If the understanding is not good, first correct with kindness before using more forceful means of correction. In other words, correction needs to be done with an assumption of good will rather than making something into a drama by too easily condemning someone as “racist” or “sexist” or “stereotyping.” Only after someone responds in a way that rules out good will can we assume that there is none.
We also need to recognize that we can’t expect everyone to understand everything about any given race, culture, or religion. I’m Catholic, and the number of misconceptions about the Church is huge. Although I love to talk about it and help bring people to understanding, I have to accept that not everyone will understand. It’s not necessarily a form of bigotry or hatred, but instead it can just be a form of ignorance that someone just doesn’t see the need to correct. Often, when people don’t know something, then don’t know that they don’t know it. I can’t imagine the student putting the banana peel in the tree thinking he had better Google that for racist incidents just to be sure. How would that have ever come to mind?
We’d see a much better improvement in any kind of relations if we thought more critically about the things at which we take offense and took some responsibility for our reactions. Some things are objectively offensive, and true hate groups do exist. There’s no question that we need to fight against them. Other things are misconceptions that need to be corrected with charity. Some things are just misconceptions and misunderstandings, and treating them as racist, sexist, or any other kind of bigotry will merely stir up anger which serves no one. If we are continually taking offense, we leave each other walking on eggshells for fear of unintentionally triggering someone and being dragged before a bias incident response team (Yes, they exist on college campuses with who knows what kind of power!). It will become so restrictive that many will give up trying to improve relations.
Category: Catholic, Response, Social Commentary
David Ancell / Monday, September 04, 2017 / Comments(0)
By now, many people have heard about the Nashville Statement written by a group of evangelicals known as the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. The statement is really a well-written and compassionate statement of constant Christian teaching on sexuality. However, there are plenty in the media, including social media, who just won’t have it.
I have read a number of comments and derogatory tweets stating that the statement is “anti-LGBT bigotry.” Some of the objections weren’t particular logical, like the ones stating that it’s 2017. What does the number of the current year have to do with whether the statement is right or wrong? Others criticized the statement simply because it came out during the time of Hurricane Harvey. Yeah, I’m sure the members of this group knew when there was going to be a hurricane and planned to release the statement then. Seriously, I’m doing my regular job in Nashville, so why can’t they? Even the mayor of Nashville, Megan Barry, posted a critical statement on her Twitter account. However, if you know anything about her, that’s not a surprise. She’s a known supporter of Planned Parenthood, and she’s also known for having officiated at the first same sex wedding in Nashville.
However, the statement is hardly a hate-filled denunciation. It states that marriage is between one man and one woman and that sex belongs only in marriage. It states that men and women are different from each other and that those differences are good. They are part of God’s creation, and both sexes are equal in dignity. It recognized the sinfulness of homosexual acts and of trying to act as though one had a different gender from one’s biological sex. However, also recognized is that those who find themselves with some ambiguity in regard to their sex or attracted to members of the same sex are still people loved by God who can live a fruitful life by obedience to Christ rather than identifying oneself with these inclinations and seeking to act on them. Finally, the statement clearly says in the end that no one is beyond the mercy of Christ. There’s nothing in here that hasn’t been proclaimed by the Church for 2000 years, even though some people in our present age wish to deny this.
As a Catholic, I could affirm everything in the Nashville statement. Still, it’s not perfect. There is one minor point that I would like to see worded another way. There is another statement that I would like to see strengthened and a third on which the Nashville statement is silent but shouldn’t be.
Article 2 of the statement says that God’s plan is “chastity outside of marriage and fidelity within marriage.” I think I know what they meant, but I don’t like the wording. Chastity is a life long virtue for people in all states of life, not just for unmarried people. It simply means the subjection of one’s sexual desires to right reason. It does not only mean abstinence, though it does for anyone not married. I’ve noticed some Protestant works saying someone intends to remain “sexually pure until marriage,” but they don’t mean that they plan to commit adultery once married. There’s nothing impure about the marital act between a husband and a wife when engaged in properly. Total abstinence ends once one is married, but the practice of chastity does not. It not only encompasses fidelity, but also respect for the physical, spiritual, and emotional well-being of one’s spouse.
While Article 1 of the statement does mention that God intends marriage to be a lifelong union, I would have liked a stronger statement against divorce. Specifically, I’d like it to say that “WE DENY that a valid, consummated marriage may be dissolved by anything other than the death of one of the spouses.” However, I do know that many evangelicals do believe in a kind of biblical divorce. Truthfully, there are reasons why one must separate from one’s spouse and even obtain a civil divorce for protection. However, the person is still married to that spouse in the eyes of God and may not seek another during the spouse’s lifetime.
So, what’s the biggest thing missing from the Nashville Statement? It lacks any mention of the necessity of each sexual act being open to life and the sinfulness of and harm caused by contraception. Evangelicals often don’t understand this, but the acceptance of contraception is at least partly responsible for opening the floodgates of the problems in our society today. Allowing deliberate separation of sex from the transmission of life made it possible for people to attempt to redefine its meaning into whatever strikes someone’s fancy. Children became an optional add on to one’s “relationship” and perhaps were even considered a nuisance. It made it much easier for men and women to use each other as objects for one’s own pleasure whether than to give themselves to each other in love. I pray that one day the evangelicals will come to this understanding. When Pope Paul VI wrote Humanae Vitae in 1968, he was prophetic in stating what would happen were there widespread acceptance of contraception. He was right!
Still, calling the Nashville Statement some kind of bigotry is just plain nonsense. There’s nothing new in it. It is simply a proclamation of one part of the Gospel that is badly needed in today’s climate of family breakdown.
Category: Catholic, Morality, Response