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IN THIS ISSUE

Is Religion Private?
Nuns Of The World.
Education And The Culture Wars

Have you visited the new Our Lady of Tahoe web page? Go to ourladyoftahoe.org

  Is Religion Private?

Pope Benedict XVI directly challenged an assumption so many Americans make about religion: that it is a matter of private devotion with few public implications.

Not true, said the pope. “Any tendency to treat religion as a private matter must be resisted. Only when their faith permeates every aspect of their lives do Christians become truly open to the transforming power of the Gospel.”
That is a demanding and unsettling standard for the right and the left alike.

Benedict asked a pointed question: “Is it consistent for practicing Catholics to ignore or exploit the poor and the marginalized, to promote sexual behavior contrary to Catholic moral teaching, or to adopt positions that contradict the right to life of every human being from conception to natural death?”

This is the thinking of a communitarian counseling against radical individualism. “In a society which values personal freedom and autonomy,” Benedict states, “it is easy to lose sight of our dependence on others as well as the responsibilities that we bear towards them. ... We were created as social beings who find fulfillment only in love—for God and for our neighbor.”

There is a radicalism underlying Benedict’s view rooted in a rather different spirit from the one animating the church at the time of Pope John XXIII and the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s. John saw it as imperative for the church to discern “the signs of the times” and was critical of excessive gloom about modernity. “Distrustful souls,” John wrote in 1961, “see only darkness burdening the face of the earth.”

Benedict is certainly not without hope. Indeed, his November encyclical on hope is a moving and intellectually powerful argument on behalf of an often forgotten virtue. Yet Benedict is more inclined than John was to see the church as beleaguered. He is less eager to seek “the signs of the times” than to worry about Christians who “are easily tempted to conform themselves to the spirit of this age,” as he put it.

For this reason, American Catholics of all political hues may find themselves struggling with his message. Benedict’s distinctly Catholic critique of radical individualism in both the moral and economic spheres, and his insistence that the Christian message cannot be divorced from the social and political realm are certain to bring discomfort to many American Catholics.

Nuns of the World

If you saw the movie SISTER ACT the following article will have a special meaning for you; the message of the movie put into real life practice.

In their small chapel in Kansas City, Kansas., the voices of the Little Sisters of the Lamb enfold their visitors within the Psalms they sing. The harmony of their voices lifted in prayer spills from the open windows and settles on their neighbors who daily reap the benefits of the sisters living among them.

To the uninitiated, the prayer of the sisters brings a jolt to the soul with an urgency and a peace that seems out of place in the inner-city neighborhood in which the sisters live. In the short time they have been here, they have become friends with many in the area and have taken on the building of the first North American monastery of the Little Sisters of the Lamb.

In a time when vocations appear to be declining, signs of vitality appear in some unlikely places. The Little Sisters’ presence in Kansas City exemplifies the answer to the call of Vatican II for religious orders to rediscover their roots and for the faithful to participate in a New Evangelization.

The Little Sisters of the Lamb in their blue habits hail from Poland, France, Austria and Luxembourg and bring with them a lifestyle radical by any standard. Founded in France by Little Sister Marie, the community espouses a life of contemplative prayer and poverty. A branch of the Dominican order, the community has Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, a fellow Dominican, as its bishop protector.

The sisters came to Kansas City at the invitation of Archbishop Joseph Naumann who encountered their community in Rome. Archbishop Naumann believes that the  effectiveness of their ministry flows from their poverty, which requires them to go out and beg for their daily bread and, in the process, share the Gospel with those they meet.

“By coming in poverty, many people welcome them,” the archbishop said. “Their strong and beautiful prayer life sustains them in living out this radical poverty.”

The sisters travel in threes to beg for their daily bread in the tradition of St. Dominic. They offer to pray with and for the people they meet and share the Gospel with them. Their motto is “Wounded, I will never cease to love.”

Retired sheriff Currie Myers met the women soon after their arrival. He is impressed with the impact they are having on the people they meet. “We are always amazed at how God is working through them,” Myers said. “They go to poor and rich neighborhoods to share the Gospel. By the time they leave, whether [the people they meet are Catholic, Protestant or unbelieving], they are singing and praying all together.”

Little Sister Alma described how people helped them when they first moved into the old rectory of a demolished parish church. The rectory had been neglected, and there was a lot of work to do. “We went to the parish and told the people we needed help,” she said. “All we had was a pocketknife to open our cans and do everything. Immediately, we had help.”

People from all walks of life came to their aid, wielding tools and supplies to make the old rectory more livable until the sisters could build the monastery. Among those helping were Mario Gutierrez and his family.  “You can feel God’s love through them as soon as you walk through the door,” he said.

Having them in the neighborhood and being part of the sisters’ community as a third order member gives him strength. “I feel strong enough to walk away from some things,” Gutierrez said. “And strong enough to walk toward others.”

Soon after the name of the new monastery was chosen — Lumen Christi (the Light of Christ) — a neighbor stopped by. According to Sister Aude, the neighbor said, “I need to tell you that the neighborhood has changed. This place is a light in the darkness.”

Education and the Culture Wars

From the beginning of the culture wars education has been in the front lines. Weapons and tactics change, but the end game remains the same. Control education, control the culture.

The age old and continuing battle has been over curriculum. You know the battles over Creation, Evolution, sex education, and trans-gendered lesbianic social inclusion studies. But the tactics of how these battles are waged are changing and you should be aware of these subtle changes. One of these new methods of effecting the battle may be entitled “Professional McCarthyism.”

There has recently been a new wave of Professional McCarthyism aimed at purging academia of undesirable ideas (read religious). An example of this tactic recently in the news concerned Kenneth Howell, a professor at Illinois University who teaches a course on Catholicism, who was dismissed for admitting that he actually believes in Catholicism. Specifically because he agrees with the Church’s teaching on homosexuality.

Similarly, some students are being singled out on the same grounds. Julea Ward, a counseling student at Eastern Michigan University, was thrown out of the program for refusing to affirm homosexual behavior. She filed a lawsuit against the University but it was dismissed by a federal judge.

Jennifer Keeton, a student at Georgia’s Augusta State University, was told that because of her views on homosexuality, she would have to repudiate those views and participate in a remediation (read re-education) plan or get out. She was told by a faculty member “You couldn’t be a teacher, let alone a counselor, with those views.” She has also chosen to sue.

The University of California has taken this intimidation to a new level. They are denying admission to students from religious high schools because the University discounts any courses—biology, history, and literature—that include a religious perspective. This essentially eliminates the University of California system for any religious school student affecting mostly Catholic School students. The notoriously anti-Christian Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recently upheld the UC decision. The case is being appealed to the Supreme Court.

This war for the heart and soul of education is being waged all around us every day. We must be aware of the changing tactics and continue to fight these battles.

Your comments on articles presented in this newsletter are most appreciated. We encourage you to express your opinion as many of the issues presented to engender thoughtful reflection.