Court motions filed as atheist group sues for churches to file tax returns

CNA Staff, Jul 1, 2020 / 11:22 am (CNA).- Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York wrote Sunday that the destruction of monuments is detrimental to the knowledge of history, and warned against a ‘cultural revolution’ like that of China under Mao Zedong.

“God forbid we’d go through a cultural revolution as China did five decades ago. Beware those who want to purify memories and present a tidy – and inaccurate – history,” the cardinal wrote in a June 28 opinion piece at the Wall Street Journal.

China’s Cultural Revolution of 1966-76 sought to eradicate traditional elements from Chinese society, particularly old customs, old culture, old habits, and old ideas.

“And who’s to say which statues, portraits, books and dedications are spared,” the cardinal asked. “Remember when some objected to raising the status of the Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday to a national holiday, citing his self-admitted flaws?”

Many public monuments have been the focus of vandalism or have been thrown down in recent weeks.

Long-controversial statues of Confederate leaders were toppled in some localities, as were statues of George Washington, Christopher Columbus, and Ulysses S. Grant. At least two statues of St. Junipero Serra were knocked down by rioters in California, and a statue of St. Louis has been protested against.

The cardinal recalled the story of a parishioner who opposed his dedication of a new parish to Saint Peter, citing the first pope’s three-fold denial of Christ.

“Knowing her and what parish she was from, I wrote back, ‘But you’re a proud parishioner at St. Mary Magdalene Church. She was sure not a paragon of virtue for a chunk of her life. Yet, by God’s grace, she became a radiant, inspirational saint. If we can’t name churches after sinners, the only titles we’d have left would be Jesus and His Mother!’”

He noted that the same is true “of America’s historical personalities,” adding that “all of them had flaws, yet all of them still contributed a lot of good to our nation’s progress.”

He said toppling statues and vandalizing monuments is comparable to book burning.

“Our children need to know their country’s past, its normative figures and their virtues and vices. That’s how we learn and pass on our story,” he said.

He suggested that there is no “more effective way to comprehend America’s history of racism” than by reading Huckleberry Finn or the short stories of Flannery O’Connor.

“My own mom kept a photo of her parents hanging on the wall of our house. Her dad, my grandfather, was an abusive drunk who abandoned his family. I’m glad we got to know of him, the good and the bad,” Cardinal Dolan wrote.

He reflected that “if we only honor perfect, saintly people of the past, I guess I’m left with only the cross. And some people would ban that.”

Having studied American Church history, he said that “as a historian … I want to remember the good and the bad, and recall with gratitude how even people who have an undeniable dark side can let light prevail and leave the world better.”

“I want to keep bringing classes of schoolchildren to view such monuments, and to explain to them how even such giants in our history had crimes, unjust acts and plain poor judgment mixed in with the good we honor.”

[…]

Washington D.C., Feb 6, 2018 / 09:55 am (CNA/EWTN News).- A longtime friend of distinguished theologian Germain Grisez will celebrate the scholar’s funeral Tuesday, at St. Anthony Shrine Roman Catholic Church in Emmitsburg, Md. Grisez died Feb. 1, at the age of 88.

Grisez was professor emeritus at the Mount St. Mary’s University in Emmitsburg, and the author of dozens of books and articles. He was widely regarded as an astute and original ethicist and moral theologian, and a vocal defender of Pope Paul VI’s Humanae Vitae.

Father Peter Ryan, SJ, a professor at Sacred Heart Major Seminary, met Grisez after his brother, Bill Ryan, was taught by the scholar at Georgetown University. The men developed a friendship while Fr. Ryan was studying theology in Rome, and the friendship became a relationship of scholarly collaboration.  

 “The Lord saw fit to give me many years of friendship and close collaboration with Germain,” Ryan said. “It’s been a real blessing.”

When their friendship began, Grisez asked Ryan to review draft chapters of “Living a Christian Life,” the second volume of his landmark work of moral theology, “The Way of the Lord Jesus,” which includes three printed volumes.  The volumes also appear on Grisez’s website along with hundreds of pages of a fourth volume and many of his other works.  

After the second volume was published, Ryan continued to collaborate with Grisez; the pair published articles together and consulted with one another regularly about individual projects.  

In fact, Ryan told CNA that he will continue to work on a theology text—a book on eschatology—that he and Grisez began together. “It will be very much inspired by his thought,” Ryan said.

Ryan said that Grisez’s scholarship was rooted in his deep spirituality.

“He was very interested in having us see that morality is not about extrinsically ‘laying down the law,’ but is rather the implication of loving persons, wanting all that is good for persons, desiring their true fulfillment,” he told CNA.

For Grisez, morality is best understood as “striving for what is truly good for you and others,” Ryan said. “It’s beautiful to live that way—and not always easy!”

Ryan told CNA that Grisez wrote a good deal about personal vocation–that idea that “God has a unique, unfolding plan for everyone’s life.” Following the Lord’s plan means “always seeking God’s Kingdom first, or living out what Grisez calls ‘evangelical life.’”

For motivation to live that way in the face of difficulties, Ryan cited Romans 8:18, “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are as nothing compared with the glory to be revealed for us.”
 
“I think Germain really tried to live that,” he said.

Ryan said his “mentor and collaborator,” was “a remarkable man, a very firm believer. He had a strong and unswervingly orthodox faith, which he defended with great lucidity. And he was loyal.  He loved his family and was a faithful friend.”

“I think he had a lively sense of Providence.’

He also, said Ryan, loved to work.

“He was a workhorse. He was 20 years older than me, and he would be working as if he were 20 years younger. I would think, ‘if he can do it, I should be doing it.’”

Ryan said the witness of Grisez’s life helped him know how to preach at his friend’s funeral.

“He was very concerned that we need to be prepared for death, and to live with confidence that the Lord really will destroy sin and death, and that we will be able to live with Him in great joy.  He knew that the definitive Kingdom that God is preparing is real and very much worth devoting one’s entire life to,” he said.

Ryan also told CNA that he would not be starting from a blank slate as he prepared the funeral homily.  Grisez, Ryan said, had some “thoughts sketched out about what it would be good to talk about—and he was thorough!”

[…]

Zack McCarthy via Flickr (CC BY 2.0).

Lansing, Mich., Feb 17, 2022 / 14:27 pm (CNA).
A former executive of a historically Catholic Michigan non-profit that serves neglected children and young adults has been sentenced to prison and must pay res… […]