Why Do So Many Catholic Doctors Hesitate to Promote Natural Family Planning?

Posted on November 28, 2010 by Deacon Bob

It would seem that a great majority of Catholic physicians fail to promote Natural Family Planning (NFP) with their patients. Why?

Perhaps for many reasons.

The Catholic News Agency reports the following which they reprinted from NFP Outreach:

Most doctors are not trained during medical school in Natural Family Planning, even though medicine has advanced the effectiveness of NFP. According to Pope Paul VI Institute at Creighton University, the science of NFP has advanced to allow a couple to space pregnancies and to overcome infertility in many cases. They have stated that NFP is three times more effective than standard treatments for infertility without the risk of hyper ovulation.

Catholic doctors have reported prejudice against NFP in their medical training. Many Catholic physicians may not have strong enough faith convictions to overcome these prejudices.

There is a paucity of good courses in Catholic medical ethics in Catholic universities.

Financially, it is more profitable to prescribe the Pill over the course of years than to teach a couple how to use NFP, after which there is no further expense.

Finally, many Catholic doctors have compartmentalized their faith convictions. Their faith has not been integrated into their professional practice. There is the growing trend in medicine to see patients as “customers” who we are to please rather than treat with what is morally, physically and emotionally the best options.

There is no doubt in my mind that NFP works and is a healthy and responsible method of family planning. It definitely enhances communication and mutuality in marriage, deepens the respect a man has for his wife, and calls forth from men the development of maturity and virtue. I believe women will attest to the same.

I pray more and more Catholic physicians will lead the way in promoting NFP to all patients.

For more information on this, log on to: NFP Outreach.

Posted in Ethics and Morality, Marriage and Family | 3 Comments

Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus!

Posted on November 28, 2010 by Deacon Bob

Today is the beginning of Advent. May we long for the coming of Jesus as did the early Christians who lived each day as if it were the day of his return.

Jesus is coming. We often say this with an intellectual assent but how many of us are moved in our hearts by this belief, moved so as to change what we will do this day?

“O God, our Father, may there arise in us the will to go out to meet Christ with good deeds, for he comes. May he call us next to him in glory to possess the Kingdom of Heaven. He is God, who lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.”

Happy Advent to each of you.

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Quote for the Day

Posted on November 26, 2010 by Deacon Bob

“If you are not willing to die for your God and your brothers, at a moment’s notice or by a thousand cuts and sacrifices over many years, then you don’t have a religion. You have a hobby.” – Anonymous

This quote was given to me by a parishioner who is in a local nursing home. He uses it for meditation. I thank him for this wonderful reminder that we all are called to martyrdom as Christians.

Posted in Prayer and Meditation, Spirituality | Comments Off on Quote for the Day

50 Million Christians are Persecuted

Posted on November 26, 2010 by Deacon Bob

L’Avvenire reported yesterday that over 50 million Christians are victims of persecutions, discrimination and contempt. The number was furnished by a French intellectual, René Guitton, author of “Christian-phobia” at the beginning of 2010 Report on Religious Liberty in the World.

He says India and China, because of their sheer size, have the most cases of persecution.

When the report was given there was present the Bishop Joseph Coutts of Faisalabad, Pakistan, who confronts this reality in his diocese. He pointed to the anti-blasphemy laws in Pakistan and the ways in which these laws are actually applied. One law since 1986 has incriminated 993 people, accusing them of profaning the Koran or defaming the prophet Mohammed; among these were 479 Muslims, 340 Hamadi (a sect of Islam that the government doesn’t recognize as Muslim), 120 Christians, 14 Hindu and 10 from other religions.

When, I ask, will we all finally begin to live out Christ’s law of love? Christianity has never failed, contrary to popular opinion. It has never been truly embraced and lived out. Yes, there have been and continue to be numerous individuals who have lived as Jesus lived, but as a whole, we continue to use violence to advance our causes, and we continue to seek vengeance rather than forgiveness in the face of evil.

Loving Christ in our neighbor is the answer. But that really requires a lot of kenosis, self-emptying and service to our fellow men and women. Will we stir up within us the gifts of the Spirit to do so?

Let us pray, too, for all our persecuted Christian brothers and sisters throughout the world.

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R.I.P.

Posted on November 26, 2010 by Deacon Bob

The Italian Catholic newspaper, L’Avvenire reported two days ago that Manuela Camagni died after being struck by an automobile on the Via Nomentana in Rome.

She survived the incident for a short while, but died in the hospital from a cranial fracture.

Manuela was a consecrated laywoman of the Memores Domini, assigned to the pontifical apartments.

May she rest in peace.

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Happy Thanksgiving!

Posted on November 25, 2010 by Deacon Bob

I wish all of you a happy Thanksgiving day. May God continue to bless you abundantly and may your gratitude for his unlimited grace and presence in your life be evident in all you do and say this day.

I am grateful for the presence of my family and friends, for the wonderful vocation of marriage and my wife, for the humbling call to the diaconate, and for my continued health.

Pray for me as I do for you everyday.

Deacon Bob

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The Growing Presence of the Deacon

Posted on November 24, 2010 by Deacon Bob

I ran across another excellent article today about deacons in the Catholic Church. Those of us who do parish ministry as deacons understand how so many of our parishioners think of us a “mini-priests” or  laymen in special clothing acting like altar boys. Neither is true. Many wonder how we are similar to priests. (Answer: the Sacrament of  Holy Orders. We are clergy too, just as are priests and bishops. We all receive the one sacrament of orders, only we are ordained to different offices.)

There may come a time in the United States when the face many will see first in the parishes will be the face of the deacon. Over 17,000 deacons are now in the United States. The diaconate is a booming; there is no vocation shortage here as compared with the priesthood and religious life.

Read the article in US Catholic. Here’s the link: www.uscatholic.org/church/parish-life/2010/10/churchs-married-clergy-40-years-deacons

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Cremation and the Communion of the Saints

Posted on November 24, 2010 by Deacon Bob

Many more Catholics are choosing cremation over traditional burial. For centuries, the Church forbade cremation for it was, in those times, a sign of denial of the central belief in the resurrection of the body. Nowadays, almost all Catholics who choose cremation believe in the resurrection of the body, and thus the Church removed her restriction; we are free to choose cremation as long as we believe in the resurrection of the body and we bury the ashes of the deceased.

What I am finding, though, is that so many of us do not bury the dead after cremation. We place the urn in our homes, or scatter the ashes someplace, or even divide up the ashes among family members or make jewelry of it.

These practices are not expressing our Catholic belief in the Communion of the Saints, and are not permitted in Catholic practice.

The Church has done marvelously well in catechizing the faithful about the resurrection, but I sense we haven’t done well in teaching the communion of the saints. If we all took to heart this belief, we wouldn’t be so reluctant to bury the ashes of our beloved ones.

The communion of the saints is the relationships we continue to have with the deceased. We remain one family, even after death. The dead who are in heaven pray for us. We can talk to them and ask for their intercession. The dead in purgatory are with us and we pray for them. The dead are as close to us as they were when they lived their earthly lives. Our relationships to them never end, they just change.  In many ways, we are closer to them after death than prior.

When we commit the body of a Christian to the earth, we do so with a firm knowledge that they are embraced by countless saints and angels.  They are not alone. We are not alone either, for they remain with us in a remarkable way.

By retaining the ashes, I suspect we are expressing our reluctance to really embrace this truth of the faith. We are expressing a fear of “letting go.” But in all reality, we aren’t really letting go as much as embracing them in a new and more profound way. Burying our dead is an act of love, an expression of faith, and is done in profound hope.

Posted in Dogmatic Theology | Comments Off on Cremation and the Communion of the Saints

Quote for the Day

Posted on November 23, 2010 by Deacon Bob

“One ‘Glory Be’ said in adversity is worth more than a thousand thanksgivings in times of success.” — Blessed Mother Mary Angela Truszkowska, SFO

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Benedict XVI and the Diaconate

Posted on November 22, 2010 by Deacon Bob

The Holy Father made a beautiful reference to the centrality of the diaconate to the life of the Church and to the life of Jesus Christ in his homily to the newly appointed cardinals two days ago.

I am using the Italian translation in rendering this English version of his comments here.

“To be united with Christ in faith and in communion with him means to be ‘rooted and founded in charity’ (Eph. 3:17), the fabric that unites all the members of the Body of Christ.

“In the Church no one is lord, but all are called, all are sent, all have arrived and are guided by divine grace. This is also our security! Only by listening again to the words of Jesus, who calls ‘come and follow me’, only by returning to the original vocation is it possible to know one’s proper presence and mission in the Church as authentic disciples….

“The criterion of greatness and primacy according to God is not domination, but service; the diaconate is the fundamental law of the disciple and of the Christian community, and it lets us see something of the ‘Lordship of God’. Jesus also indicated this point: the Son of Man, who came to serve; he brought together his mission under the category of service, understood not in a general sense, but in a concrete manner in the Cross, in the total gift of life as a ‘ransom’, as redemption for the many, and he pointed out this as the condition for following him…..

“It is not the logic of the world, of power according to human criteria, but a logic of bending over to wash feet, the logic of service, the logic of the Cross that is at the base of every exercise of authority…..” (Bold print mine)

The washing of feet is at the base of every exercise of authority!

Let us pray that all of us deacons take to heart these words. Those of us who are permanent deacons have a good sense of this. Our brother who share in our Order, i.e., priests and bishops by virtue of their ordination to the diaconate, may benefit from them also, as clearly the Holy Father was directing these words to them specifically last Saturday.

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Odometer Reading: 200,000 Visits!

Posted on November 19, 2010 by Deacon Bob

Catholic Faith and Reflections has reached the 200,000 visit mark. The site meter reads only 100,000, but this only accounts for the number of visits since it was recalibrated a while back. Prior to its reset, an additional 100,000 visits had been logged.

I am obsessive-compulsive enough to keep track of these things! 

It is gratifying to know that so many people have accidentally or intentionally perused this weblog over that past couple of years.

I hope your faith has been enriched……

A diaconal blessing to you and your families.

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St. John Eudes on the Mysteries of Christ and the Church

Posted on November 19, 2010 by Deacon Bob

Today’s Office of Readings includes a tract from St. John Eudes regarding the mysteries of Christ as lived in our lives and the life of the Church.

I am transcribing it here for you to read. It is a wonderful reflection as we conclude the Church’s liturgical cycle.

My translation of the Italian text I used.

“We must continually develop in ourselves and eventually complete the reality and mysteries of Jesus. Therefore, we must pray that He will carry to completion in us and the Church these mysteries.

“In fact, the mysteries of Jesus have not yet reached their total perfection and completion. They are certainly complete and perfect as much as they concern the person of Jesus, but not yet in us who are his members or in his Church which is his mystical body. The Son of God desires a certain  kind of participation, like an extension and continuation of the in us and in all of the Church of the mystery of his incarnation, of his birth, of his infancy, of his hidden life. This happens when it takes form in us, being born in our souls by means of the holy sacraments of baptism and the divine eucharist. He works in this way by having us live a spiritual and interior life that may be hidden with him in God.

“He intends to make perfect in us the mysteries of his passion, death and resurrection. He make present these mysteries by our suffering, dying and rising with him and in him. He desires to communicate with us his glorious and immortal condition that he has in heaven. He obtains this by having us live with him and in him in a glorious and immortal life. This he will accomplish when we will reach it in heaven. In the same manner, he promises to realize in us and in his Church all his other states and mysteries by his communicating with us and by his participation in our lives. St Paul said that Christ grows and reaches his maturity in the Church and that we contribute to this process of development. We effectively cooperate to create that perfect man and to bring Christ to his full maturity (Col. 1:24). Since the perfection of the saints does not arrive at its culmination until the end of time which has been established by God, so too the mysteries of Jesus will not reached the highest and absolute level of their salvific work in individuals nor in the Church until the end of the world. Only on the day of universal judgment will the mystical body arrive at its perfect age.”

A wonderful description of the end times, the Incarnation and our participation in the life, sufferings and resurrection of Jesus!

Posted in Dogmatic Theology, Saints and Prophets, Uncategorized | Comments Off on St. John Eudes on the Mysteries of Christ and the Church

Why Do Many Women Want to be Like Men?

Posted on November 17, 2010 by Deacon Bob

I am going to stir up some trouble, I suppose, in posting on this topic. What I don’t understand well is why so many women want to be like men in the Church, and why so many men don’t want to be like women in the Church.

I have heard it said that comparatively, we don’t have so much a priest shortage as we do a “mother shortage.” By this is meant that the strength of the Church lay in the hands of the holy women in years past, and too many men have failed to emulate the holy women in their families and in their parishes.  It was from women that the Gospel was transmitted to children, to the sick in the hospitals, to the dying. Nowadays, the role of motherhood is so diminished by society that women seek to be like men, whom they perceive as holding the power, and men get lost in their efforts to de-masculinize themselves without assimilating the strength of women.

At least, that is what is seems to me.

One problem with that is women have taken on the vices we men have never overcome, and we men have never assumed the virtues of women. Both sexes suffer.

If the definition of power is the  ability to create change, then I think it is a fair statement that women have demonstrated great power within the Church, for they have change hearts, souls, and minds of countless individuals throughout the generations.

The recognition of difference, and mutual respect of those differences, is not cause for dissension or competition; rather for a cooperation in the divine plan of God for all of humankind. Power comes in many forms. Even Popes bow down to the power of mothers and other holy women.

Don’t take my word for it; read the writings of Pope John Paul I to see it described. It is unmistakable in the writings and spirituality of Pope John Paul II.

Posted in Uncategorized | 7 Comments

Quote for the Day

Posted on November 17, 2010 by Deacon Bob

“We must not be wise and prudent according to the flesh; rather, we must be simple, humble, and pure.” — St. Francis of Asissi

Posted in Saints and Prophets, Spirituality, Virtues | Comments Off on Quote for the Day

The New President of the USCCB

Posted on November 16, 2010 by Deacon Bob

Congratulations to Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York in being elected the president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops today. He was elected over Bishop Gerald Kicanas of Tucson, who had been the vice-president the last few years.

Archbishop Dolan was the rector of the North American College in Rome for a number of years before being appointed Archbishop of Milwaukee. More recently, he was appointed to the Archdiocese of New York.  He is known for his humor and his preaching ability.

May God assist him in his new responsibilities.

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