Priests for Life Fr. Frank Pavone resigns from Trump campaign roles

Washington D.C., Jun 24, 2019 / 05:47 pm (CNA).- Amid a flurry of headlines denouncing the Vatican for releasing a document condemning “gender theory,” theology professors and Catholic educators told CNA that the document will be helpful in setting priorities for Catholic educators going forward, as Catholic schools respond to questions about LGBT issues.

“I love the emphasis on ‘forming the formators’…It’s important for teachers to realize that they’ve got to be able to answer their students’ questions, whether in religious education or teaching in a Catholic school,” Dr. Theresa Farnan, a professor of philosophy at St. Paul Seminary, the minor seminary of the Diocese of Pittsburgh, told CNA.

“You’ve got to be able to answer your students’ questions. Because you might get one shot to answer that question, and that may be it.”

Published at the beginning of “Pride Month,” during which many cities and corporations mark the campaign of LGBT advocacy, the document says that the Church teaches an essential difference between men and woman, ordered in the natural law and essential to the family and human flourishing.

“There is a need to reaffirm the metaphysical roots of sexual difference, as an anthropological refutation of attempts to negate the male-female duality of human nature, from which the family is generated,” the Congregation for Catholic Education wrote June 10, in a document entitled “Male and Female He Created Them.”

“The denial of this duality not only erases the vision of human beings as the fruit of an act of creation but creates the idea of the human person as a sort of abstraction who ‘chooses for himself what his nature is to be’,” the document states.

For Christians working in schools, both religious and secular, the radical individualism of gender theory should be avoided in favor of teaching children “to overcome their individualism and discover, in the light of faith, their specific vocation to live responsibly in a community.”

Dr. Susan Selner-Wright, who holds the Archbishop Chaput Chair in Philosophy at St. John Vianney Seminary in Denver, told CNA that “dialogue” does not, as some may believe, mean the same thing as “compromise” when it comes to talking about these kinds of issues.

“‘Dialogue’ right now, in the culture, basically means everybody’s got a right to their opinion, all opinions are equal, and ‘dialogue’ is just basically cover for never having to disagree with each other. And I think the congregation was just brilliant in explaining what dialogue really is,” Selner-Wright said.

The document also states that many efforts to implement “gender theory” into society shut down any possibility of dialogue from the Christian perspective.

“[Pope] Francis says that the ideologues just want to ‘assert themselves as absolute and unquestionable, even dictating how children should be raised,’ and then that cuts off dialogue…That’s not real dialogue. That’s just people shouting at each other. It’s not a way to go forward and to help people to live well.”

True dialogue, she said, is not just “dropping knowledge” on people, but rather inviting them into a conversation in order to be able to propose reasons to support your point of view.

“I would caution people not to dismiss dialogue as something that always leads to compromise. It shouldn’t. It should lead us to journey together towards the one who is Truth,” she said.

Much of the document is a reiteration of existing Church teaching on gender, but Farnan said she appreciated the document’s points of emphasis on formation of teachers.

“I will say the gamechanger…is the absolute insistence that they have to form all of their teachers, so that every teacher who is in a classroom with a kid can articulate the Church’s teaching on gender,” Farnan said.

The document says that “school managers, teaching staff and personnel all share the responsibility of both guaranteeing delivery of a high-quality service coherent with the Christian principles.”

“The other brilliant thing about the document, I think, is that it shows the utter continuity from John Paul II through Benedict XVI to Francis on this specific issue,” Selner-Wright said.

“People want to say ‘Oh Francis is my guy,’ well, he’s really not if what you’re talking about is transgenderism. He’s been completely clear that [transgender ideology] is bankrupt,” she said.

“I really liked the model that [the document] used: listen, reason, and propose,” Farnan said.

Farnan said she just finished a three-day workshop with members of the “iGen” generation, who have never known a time before the internet. She said the way to connect with members of the iGen is to be able to back claims up with science and to “be able to carefully distinguish between ideology and genuine scientific contribution.”

“The final part of it, which I think is the most important, is to propose Christian anthropology as a way of life,” Farnan explained.

“And honestly, if there’s anything that over the last four decades, five decades, we’ve been failing at as a Church is that we’re not going out and presenting a confidant vision of how Christianity differs from culture. And this is an opportunity to present a pretty stark difference. I think it’s really important.”

“What this document reminds us is that, as educators, we have to make sure that they’re getting a complete understanding of what Christianity has to offer in a very positive way…the authentic way to live a life of fulfillment of the human being.”

Farnan said she will watch with interest as individual dioceses work to implement the contents of the document. She highlighted Fort Wayne-South Bend as an example of a diocese that has been proactive in holding workshops for their teachers, educators, and priests to form them in Christian anthropology so they can answer their students’ questions about gender theory.

Mary Pat Donoghue, executive director of the Secretariat of Catholic Education for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, told CNA in an interview that she also thinks the document will be useful for ongoing formation of Catholic educators.

“It’s a call for all of us to enter more deeply into an understanding of the Church’s teaching. I think that the document serves that purpose very, very beautifully,” Donoghue said.

“It also, though, has an element encouraging compassionate pastoral response, and I think that is important as well. So on a local level, diocesan level, finding ways to respond and to help schools to respond should these types of situations arise.”

Donoghue echoed Farnan’s point about the importance of “forming the formators.” Individual situations will always vary, she said, but schools faced with challenging situations related to gender theory should always be able to look to the diocesan level for guidance.

“It’s important for our schools to have clear and consistent teaching, certainly around something that’s this important,” she explained.

“It’s also important for our teachers to understand that the Church’s teaching contains the fullness of truth, therefore it’s always going to be the most charitable and the most loving answer. Pairing that with a compassionate person-to-person response I think is the best way forward.”

Bishop Michael Barber of Oakland is the chairman of the Committee on Catholic Education for the U.S. bishops’ conference, and Donoghue said she believes Barber would describe the document as a means to better understand Church teaching about the nature of the human person.

“All human people struggle and bear crosses in many, many different forms, and a person suffering from gender dysphoria bears a very painful cross, and so we certainly don’t stand to condemn or to judge, but to offer care and to bring about the fullness of the teaching to help to liberate that person,” Donoghue said.

Bea Cuasay and Michelle McDaniel contributed to this report.

[…]

The Baphomet statue from the ‘conversion room’ at the Satanic Temple in Salem, Massachusetts, Oct. 8, 2019. / Credit: JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP via Getty Images

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Dec 14, 2023 / 18:15 pm (CNA).

The Satanic Temple display in the Iowa state capitol building is not protected by the First Amendment, a Catholic legal expert told CNA. 

Andrea Picciotti-Bayer, a legal analyst for EWTN, told CNA that the display installed at the request of a prominent atheist group is not religious expression but rather about making a mockery of religion. 

The temporary statue, which portrays a larger-than-life-size goat-headed figure cloaked in red and black and surrounded by candles, was erected at the request of Iowa’s Satanic Temple (TST) alongside several religious holiday displays. According to Forbes the Iowa state capitol holiday display this year also includes a Christmas tree, a Nativity scene, and a holiday banner by another atheist group. Local news station KCCI Des Moines reported that the display will remain in the capitol through Dec. 15.  

Since its unveiling, the TST display has inspired outrage as well as calls to prayer. Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds called the display “absolutely objectionable” and encouraged “all those of faith” to join her in “praying over the Capitol and recognizing the Nativity scene that will be on display — the true reason for the season.”

On Thursday there were reports on social media that the TST exhibit had been vandalized but was still on display.

Others such as Iowa state Rep. Jon Dunwell, a Republican and a pastor, have said that the Satanic display is protected by the free exercise of worship and religion clause of the First Amendment.

Though he said he personally objects to the monument, Dunwell said: “I don’t want the state evaluating and making determinations about religions.”

Picciotti-Bayer, who is the director of the human and religious rights group the Conscience Project, said the First Amendment “absolutely” does “not protect this kind of offensive and irreligious display.”

She explained that because the group has publicly admitted that it is primarily composed of atheists and does not believe in the existence of Satan, the display does not constitute genuine religious expression. Instead, she said it is meant to make a mockery of religion and is part of a “concerted effort to undermine the fabric of American society.”

“We have to avoid the temptation to want to abandon our free speech principles and think that opposing The Satanic Temple can only be done with censorship. I don’t believe it has to. I think that our principles of religious freedom and free speech actually weigh on the side of excluding mockery from our public places,” she explained.

“The first principles that support these core freedoms like religious freedom and free speech did not embrace a farce like The Satanic Temple is trying to put on display. Nor does it protect irreligious mockery of these kinds of core and important celebrations,” she went on.

“The founders in particular, even those who weren’t particularly religious themselves, knew and spoke often about the importance of a religious people and that especially Christian virtues and ethics were key to a healthy citizenry.”

What is TST?  

TST is a national group of progressive atheists with chapters they call “congregations” across the United States.

On its website, TST states that it does not worship Satan, nor does it believe in the existence of the devil or any supernatural force or power. The group says on its website that it believes in “reason, empathy, [and] the pursuit of knowledge.” Its seven core tenets were also shown on the display in the Iowa capitol.

Undermining the fabric of American society

According to Picciotti-Bayer, the danger is that the TST founders have “set their sights on core places of the gathering of citizens.”

“They’re going after public schools, they’re going after our public facilities like our state capitols or even the U.S. Capitol, they’re trying to do that thinking that they can use the rich principles protecting religious freedom and free speech to kind of warrant what they’re trying to do,” she went on. “Sadly, they’ve got some funding to do that. So clearly, this is not just an annoying small group, but it’s a concerted effort to try to undermine the fabric of American society [by] manipulating our principles and the rule of law.”

Picciotti-Bayer said that TST has also become a growing threat to American society through its promotion of abortion as a “religious right” and its increasing presence in public schools.

She said that it’s important that government officials “draw the line” and that “if they’re going to make facilities open for public displays, that they are very clear that it needs to be for the good of the community and not for mocking what people hold dear, which is their religious beliefs.”

“To allow public displays from different community groups to celebrate the richness of our diversity does not mean that it opens the door for those places to be basically made fun of.”

In the case of the satanic monument at the Iowa state capitol, Picciotti-Bayer said she was “very heartened” that Gov. Reynolds “not only objected to it but asked for prayers.”

“Even though the leaders and the founders of The Satanic Temple disavow Satanism, the minute you let Satan in, we all know all sorts of havoc ensues,” she said.

Despite the danger, Picciotti-Bayer said that concerned citizens can take action to push back.

“We need to support our elected officials to stand up to these kinds of manipulations,” she said, adding that “it’s important that officials feel emboldened by their voters and they feel like they have the backup to stand up to this kind of nonsense.”

“The other thing is, I do think we can’t diminish the importance of prayer,” she went on. “Even though the founders of The Satanic Temple claim not to really be Satanists … it’s something that we need to use our most powerful weapon, which is prayer, to fight against.”

TST did not reply to CNA’s request for comment by the time of publication.

[…]

Chicago, Ill., Jan 8, 2018 / 11:50 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The love of God the Father is an inexhaustible source of fulfillment for the human heart, Sr. Bethany Madonna of the Sisters of Life said Thursday at a Catholic youth leadership conference in Chicago.

“So many blessings are coming at us at every second of every day,” Sr. Madonna said Jan. 4 to an audience of approximately 8,000, “and the source of each and every one of these blessings is the blessing the Father gives me with himself.”

Sr. Madonna gave one of the keynote speeches on the third day of the Student Leadership Summit, an event hosted biennially by the Fellowship of Catholic University Students which aims to train young people to be effective evangelists. The theme selected for this year’s conference, which ran January 2-6, was “Inspire & Equip.”

Sr. Madonna is vocations director for the Sisters of Life, a New-York based religious order founded in 1991 by the late Cardinal John O’Connor. Much of their ministry centers around aiding pregnant women and providing healing to those who have had abortions.

“Help us to receive the Father’s love anew, more deeply than we’ve ever received it before,” Sr. Madonna prayed at the start of her talk.

Sister Madonna told the story of a couple named Matt and Lucy, friends of the Sisters, who found out shortly before their wedding that Matt had been diagnosed with cancer and had been given a year to live. The two cancelled their honeymoon in order to begin treatments.

Around the end of Matt’s treatments, doctors urged Lucy to abort their newly conceived child, fearing anomalies due to Matt’s chemo.

Instead, Matt and Lucy “began to pray,” trusting in God. In the end, she said, the only anomaly the child was born with was that two fingers were fused to the palm in such a way that his hands formed the sign for “I love you” in sign language.

“It was remedied with a simple surgery, but Matt and Lucy received it as a message from their Father, brought to them through a son, the Gospel in miniature,” Sr. Madonna said.

However, even in the cases of great defects at a child’s birth, “the Father is saying, ‘I love you’ even more.”

She highlighted the uniqueness of the Father’s love, saying it makes for a relationship like no other. This love “goes to the extremes, indwelling.” She emphasized that only mortal sin can separate human beings from this love.

“When we sever ourselves like this, he holds onto our blessing, and awaits our return,” she said, referencing the parable of the prodigal son.

She told the story of Dr. Michael Brescia, whom the Sisters of Life honored this year with their annual Cardinal O’Connor award. Brescia developed a treatment for kidney disease  in 1966, paving the way for the development of ongoing dialysis. Brescia was offered $1 billion to keep his discovery a secret for one year while a patent was developed.

She related a conversation Brescia had with his Italian immigrant father at the time. Brescia’s father, she said, was overcome with joy to know that 50,000 lives a year could be saved by his son’s discovery, but was dismayed to hear of the delay Brescia had accepted.

“‘Don’t think of this world,’” she said Brescia’s father urged. “‘You would let 50,000 people die?’”

Brescia published his discovery the next day. Sr. Madonna said that despite the invention now being worth $60 billion, he never gained anything from it financially. However, “he’s the richest man I know,” she said.

“Lasciare,” she said, using the Italian word for “release” or “let go” that Brescia’s father had spoken to him in urging his son to give up the discovery. “We too have to let go of so many things,” she said, “that keep us from the blessing that is ours.”

Referencing the “discernment of spirits” developed by St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus, Sr. Madonna said that “so often, we hand desolating thoughts and lies a microphone, and we set them on the stage of our hearts.”

“It’s like, ‘Wow, that’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard about myself. Say it again, just this time in surround sound,’” she said.

“Let these thoughts be taken captive,” she urged listeners.

She told a story from a sister in Romania who had worked at an understaffed orphanage, where babies had stopped crying because there was no one there to respond.

“There are places in our hearts that have not yet cried out to the Father because of a lack of faith,” she said. “We have a good Father, and he hears you.”

“Tonight, we break the silence,” she said, as FOCUS staff prepared the stage for adoration.

Speaking to CNA after her talk of how she herself first came to deeply encounter this love, Sr. Madonna told a story of time she had spent praying with the book of Genesis.

“I had a powerful meditation with the the Scripture of Jacob and Esau receiving the blessing of their father,” she said. In this story, Jacob dresses as Esau to receive his father’s blessing. “Sometimes, I feel like I have to dress up, or be someone else, or impress, or pretend, so that he can bless me.”

“Something happened in my heart where I realized basically how sorrowful that is, how far that is from what the Father is actually offering me,” Sr. Madonna stated. “Through the prayer, I felt like the Father wanted my empty hands, and wanted my heart as it is.”

Speaking to CNA on the connection between accepting God the Father’s love, the focus of the SLS conference, Sr. Madonna said that this love changes how we view those we encounter.

“Once we’ve received our own lives as a gift, and once we recognize that every human person is made in the image and likeness of God and is a communication of him,” Sr. Madonna told CNA, “when I encounter another person, I recognize that they were brought into being by God all-mighty, and are beloved of him. He loves them. They are communicating something to me that was actually entrusted to them by him and it’s unique.”

“When I know that, and live it, then every person is going to know that they’re special, they’re worthy of my time. I desire to know their hearts and be with them in solidarity.”

“We have to tell people; we have to invite them.”

Speaking to CNA on how this evangelization of the Father’s love relates to the work of the Sisters of Life, Sr. Madonna drew on the Blessed Mother.

“When we receive Jesus, and we allow him to be conceived in our hearts as she did at the Annunciation, and then when we go out, like the Visitation, and we meet these women who are pregnant, we hope that, just like John the Baptist leapt in Elizabeth’s womb, we hope that something would leap in these women, that they would recognize Christ come to them, that they would experience this joy, the Holy Spirit, coming upon them.”

[…]