Category: Response

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.

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.

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.

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.

If you follow much social media, I’m sure you’ve seen news of a lot of high profile conversions lately. I mean, they’ve been happening over the years, but recently I’ve noticed a group of them. They range from people converting from a life of serious sin to famous news personalities. Of course, like everything on social media, there are a lot of different reactions. For some of these people making comments, I just can’t fathom how they can think the way that they do.

Some people get too excited and put them on a pedestal. It’s like they figure these famous people are now members of the Super Saints simply because of who they are. Truthfully, some of these conversions are heroic. There are people who sacrificed, or at least risked, a lot by becoming Catholic. However, it’s too easy to forget that they are at the beginning of their journey and will still need to grow like we all do.

Even worse are the ones who are more disparaging. You can find comments in which people have said that someone who was such a sinner could not possibly have undergone such a conversion. Worse yet, in the case of someone who turned from a seriously sinful life, there are those who seem to say that God won’t forgive them. I hope there aren’t Christians saying that, but I’m afraid there are some that are. How can a true Christian really doubt the amazing mercy of God like that!

With that being said, I’m not saying that we should throw out our common sense and ignore obvious problems that we find out about. It’s quite possible that some of the conversions that we learn about will turn out to be phony. However, we really should assume sincerity, or at least hold out hope, as long as we can. I’d much rather stand before God and hear about how I welcomed someone who was an absolute hypocrite that hear about how my snarky comments regarding someone’s sincere, even if weak, conversion contributed to him having fallen away.

Even a sincere conversion can have its weak points. Some people just experienced an emotional high and then could not keep going when it wore off. Some were not well formed and therefore had a poor understanding of what it means to be Catholic. Others may have fallen into their old sins (or other sins), and instead of hurrying back to God and going to Confession right away, they became discouraged. Just think of what reading hateful comments will do to these people. People fall away, and we don’t want to contribute to the fall.

When you add to this the public nature of the life of someone who is famous, it becomes easy to make judgements that we shouldn’t make. New converts are, well, new to the faith. There are things they don’t know yet. Maybe in their formation they learned about chastity and modesty, but it can take time to sort out the particulars of how to live it out and therefore, genuine mistakes are made. Maybe the person has lived for years, if not decades, with a worldly mindset. Chipping away at that mindset can take a really long time. We probably all have aspects of a worldly mindset that we adopted without realizing it. It may be okay to post charitable comments correcting the error, but be careful!

So, what should be our attitude towards famous converts? We have every right to be cautious and acknowledge things (but not necessarily post our opinion about them) that are not quite right. However, let’s welcome them with open arms and encourage them if we are in a position to do so. We want to pray that they will be shining lights that bring people to conversion. They’ve got the ability to reach many people. We can be excited about their conversion and also be charitable and understanding about how they, like those of us who have been in the Church a while, still have work to do.

Sometimes I like to poke fun at something while also asking a question. You see, it has long been my decision not to buy music that is labeled as explicit lyrics. I might buy a non-explicit song off an album that was “stickered,” as I used to call it, but I would avoid the actual songs with the label. However, in looking through some recent music, I’m not so sure what to make of it anymore.

Now, I have to wonder what constitutes explicit lyrics and if I can even use that standard. Take the song, for example, named I’m Offended by John Rich. It’s labeled as having explicit lyrics. The only line that I can find in it that contains profanity is when he talks about how he prays to God and says to the atheist something like “You don’t believe he exists, so why are you so p*****?” I hear that word from people who don’t use other cuss words on a number of occasions.

Another curious example is the now-famous song “Try That In a Small Town” by Jason Aldean. He starts talking about how one day “they” are going to round up all the guns and says “That s*** might fly in he city . . .” Well, maybe you could argue that one shouldn’t play that for one’s kids, but that’s hardly explicit lyrics in my mind. In any event, I found that there is a clean version from Jimmy Levy that says “That stunt might fly in the city.” It has a little different sound to it, but it’s obviously the same song.

What makes the labeling of “Try That in a Small Town” more interesting is Oliver Anthony’s now famous “Rich Men North of Richmond.” I counted four uses of the “s” word, and it’s not labeled as containing explicit lyrics. Honestly, I have a bigger issue with the way he uses the words “Lord” and “God” in the song than the profanity itself. It just goes to show that there may not be a standard that is being applied here.

The funniest thing I saw on an online store was this album being labeled as explicit: Benedicta: Marian Chant from Norcia. No, I am absolutely not joking.! This album is literally Gregorian Chant, but one of the songs was listed on two different music services as having one song with explicit lyrics. The name is “Sequence Ave Maria . . . Virgo Serena.” Search for it if you don’t believe me. I really don’t think the Benedictine Monks are dropping F bombs in Latin.

As a disclaimer, I’ll add that this info is accurate at the time of this writing as I know that sometimes the labels get changed. However, my point is that, while there is a lot of music labeled as explicit that is clearly garbage, the label itself might not be much of an indicator of anything in particular anymore. It’s worth checking out the lyrics online to see if they really are or aren’t offensive and making the decision from there.