April 20 – World Day of Prayer for Asia Bibi

Posted on April 19, 2011 by Deacon Bob

Tomorrow, Wednesday of Holy Week, all the world is asked to pray for Asia Bibi, a Christian Pakastani woman who has been condemned to death in Pakistan for blasphemy, and for all the victims of that country’s contested anti-blasphemy law. This day of prayer is the initiative of the Masihi Foundation which is dedicated to offering legal assistance to Asia Bibi and material help to her family. It is hope that people everywhere will unite themselves in prayer and light a candle, imploring God to save and free this woman and all those who suffer from false accusations of blasphemy.

Asia Bibi is a Christian mother condemned under Pakistan’s strict blasphemy law. She has been fasting during Lent for peace and justice, as have her husband and children. She has been in an isolation cell for two months.

A Christian man, Qamar David, was serving a life sentence for blasphemy in Karachi and was found dead in jail. His death was attributed to a heart attack, but many suspect he was killed by extremists.

On March 2, Shahbaz Bhatti, Pakistan’s federal minister for religious minorities was murdered. He was the only Christian in the Pakistani Cabinet. Al-Qaida and the Punjab-based Pakistani Taliban Movement claimed responsibility for his killing.

Bibi will have spent two years in jail this coming June. Extremist groups have offered $5,000 to anyone who assassinates her. Her husband and children have also been declared targets.

Let us pray for Bibi and all who suffer unjustly for their Christian faith. Tomorrow, speak of her to your friends and neighbors, and pray for her at the Mass you attend or in your personal pray

Read more at: Catholic News Agency and at: Avvenire.

Thank you.

Posted in Church News | 1 Comment

Happy Anniversary, Holy Father

Posted on April 19, 2011 by Deacon Bob

Today is the sixth anniversary of Pope Benedict’s election to the papacy. He was elected in a very short conclave after the death of Pope John Paul II.

He continues, it seems, to enjoy good health, a clear mind, and a determination to work toward Church unity.

May he continue to enjoy the favor of God and the Church which he shepherds.

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Congratulations, Archdiocese of Detroit!

Posted on April 18, 2011 by Deacon Bob

The Holy Father today has named Fr. Jose Arturo Cepeda of the diocese of San Antonio to be the new auxiliary bishop of the archdiocese of Detroit.

Bishops-elect Cepeda was ordained a priest on June 1, 1996 and completed his doctoral degree in spiritual theology at the Angelicum in Rome.

He speaks English and Spanish, and reads Italian.

Congratulations, Archdiocese of Detroit!

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A Meditation for the Beginning of Holy Week

Posted on April 17, 2011 by Deacon Bob

Thanks to Dr. Lori Pieper over at On Pilgrimmage I would like to offer the following prayer composed by Papa Luciani (Pope John Paul the First). It was actually a part of one of his homilies when he was bishop of Vittorio Veneto.

When I make my thanksgiving [after communion], I say to the Lord, “Bravo, Lord. That time, in the Upper Room, you knelt before the apostles, and you washed their feet! You know your job! You are an expert in washing! Now, with this Communion, don’t wash my feet, I beg you, wash my soul! Purify my heart! Make it so I can be truly more pure and clean! I am a bishop, I am ashamed to be dirty, to have a soul that is not clean. Make me truly pure and clean.”

Another example of Papa Luciani’s sanctity, simplicity and humility. Humilitas! was in his very character. And in his humility, we found a saint to whom we all can identify, and call our “Papa.”

Have a good Holy Week. A diaconal blessing on each of you.

Deacon Bob

Posted in Papa Luciani (Pope John Paul I), Prayer and Meditation | 1 Comment

“Steering the Right Course…”

Posted on April 16, 2011 by Deacon Bob

I read today in Deacon DIgest an article written by Deacon Joseph Donadieu from the diocese of Trenton, New Jersey, entitled, “Steering the Right Course with God’s Truth.” In it, he writes about moral relativism.

As you may already know, this is a topic I have posted on many times, and it is what I believe is one of the most pivotal issues that underlies many of our social, moral, and religious problems in our world.

Let me share an excerpt from Deacon Donadieu’s article that speaks well of all of this.

“It reminds me of the moral relativism that plagues modern society: the people who self-righteously declare that one religion is as good as another, that all religions are basically the same; the people who contend that there are no moral absolutes in this world (or there should be none) and that what might be good for one person may not be so for another, or what is evil for one might not be so for another; the argument that what is true for you may not be true for me. It all depends on where you come from, your experiences, and your cultural conditioning, the argument goes……

“Unless we recognize the Truth — this is, God’s love for us as our Creator, in Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, through the power of the Holy Spirit — and all that flows from it, we seem destined to find ourselves in a society where only personal opinion and preferences matter. It is a society which makes itself increasingly vulnerable to manipulation by a few and the absolute dictatorship of their own version of the truth….

“May we always dedicate ourselves to the truth, in union with Church, to seek the truth where it may be found, and with the help of the Holy Spirit to make our lives mirrors of untarnished truth.” (Deacon Digest, Vol.28, No. 3, pgs 22-23.)

Well said, Deacon Joseph!

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Attention All Deacon’s Wives… and their husbands too

Posted on April 16, 2011 by Deacon Bob

I want to alert you to a new blog I have added to the “Good Blogs” listing to the lower right. It is entitled, A Deacon’s Wife and is the creation of Susan Kehoe who hails from the Des Moines, Iowa.

She posted a compelling pro-life article recently. Take a look.

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Happy 84th Birthday, Pope Benedict!

Posted on April 16, 2011 by Deacon Bob

Today is the 84th birthday of Pope Benedict. In a few short days, he will be also celebrating the sixth anniversary of his election as pope.

He was born Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger April 16, 1927 at 8:30 in the morning in his parents’ home in Marktl, Bavaria. He is the ninth German pope, the last one prior being Pope Adrian VI in the 16th century. He was ordained a priest on June 29, 1951 in Freising by Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber of Munich. He became archbishop of Munich and Freising in 1977 and appointed cardinal by Pope Paul VI in June 1978. He became Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 1981 and remained there until until his election as pope in 2005, although he petitioned Pope John Paul II in 1997 to leave the Congregation and to become an archivist in the Vatican Secret Archives and a librarian in the Vatican Library. (The pope refused his request.)

He became pope on April 19, 2005 following the death of Pope John Paul II.

Since his election, he has published several books, written several encyclicals and traveled the world even into his ninth decade of life.

Happy Birthday, Holy Father!

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Is Social Media Hurting Your Marriage?

Posted on April 16, 2011 by Deacon Bob

In my clinical practice, one of the things I am encountering more and more is the impact that social media has upon marriages. Facebook is almost as common in households as cell phones (neither of which I have… well, I briefly opened a Facebook account, but promptly shut it down. Scared me in a subtle way). It wasn’t too long ago when cell phones were a rarity, or should I say a novelty and superfluous; Facebook was something only on the horizon. Email was cool and for those with laptops. We actually spoke to each other with audible words, and we compose hand-written letters.

Those days are gone for most families.

I know couples who spend literally hours on their computers, posting messages on their Facebook accounts. In those posts, they reveal some very trivial and personal information that in some cases at least, lead to a certain neglect of the marital bond and the necessary sharing between husband and wife that keeps marriages alive.

My recommendation?? — yes, I know hardly anyone, if anyone at all will do this — Stop using Facebook. Limit your time on the internet to at most one hour a day (outside of work-related activity) and write a letter by hand once a week to a family member or neighbor.

You will be surprised what will happen to your marriage.

I was browsing today the website Fathers For Good an initiative of the Knights of Columbus, and ran across an article written by Matt Warner about all of this. It is a quick read, and he gives us three points to use in monitoring our use of the social media. To read it, log on to: Warner Article.

Remember, tell your wife you love her… the first thing in the morning and the last thing at night.

Posted in Marriage and Family | 2 Comments

Open Letter from the Minnesota Catholic and Lutheran Bishops

Posted on April 15, 2011 by Deacon Bob

The bishops of the Catholic Church and a number of Lutheran bishops have issued an open letter to Gov. Mark Dayton and the Minnesota Legislature about their efforts to deal with the budget crisis in this state. In it, they express well the need to not forget the poor and marginalized in our society. This letter, as others that have preceded it in years past, is clearly a non-partisan document, reflecting instead the need for both parties to come together to promote the common good of all our citizens.

Here is the letter:  Minnesota Catholic and Lutheran Bishops Letter to the Governor and Legislature

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The Vatican on Recent Illicit Ordinations of Bishops in China

Posted on April 14, 2011 by Deacon Bob

As you may have heard, the government of China coerced the participation of Catholic bishops in China in the ordination of a couple of men to the episcopacy, ordinations that did not have papal mandate and thus are illicit, though not invalid. Ordinarily, any bishop who would participate in such an ordination would be excommunicated as would the man ordained. But since there was coercion involved, there were special considerations.

The Fourth Plenary Meeting of the Commission for the Catholic Church in China took place in the Vatican from April 11-13. At its conclusion, the participants addressed a formal message to the Catholics in China that addressed this issue and others pertaining to the Catholic Church in China.

I include the message here for you to read: Message to Chinese Catholics

The relations between the Holy See and the Chinese government had been improving until the government forced this ordination. As you may know, there is a government sanctioned Church in China that is made up of validly ordained men, but the bishops are all ordained without mandate from the Pope and are subject to government control. In contrast, there is a large “underground” Catholic church made up of bishops, priests and faithful all of whom are in union with the Holy Father, and suffer greatly.  Many dioceses in China lack a bishop because the government historically has not accepted papal appointments to these posts. All of this was beginning to change for the better until recent events.

Let us pray for our persecuted brothers and sisters in China, a land marked by egregious abuses in the areas of human and religious rights.

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Marriage and the Diaconate- Theological Considerations

Posted on April 13, 2011 by Deacon Bob

My wife and I attended this past weekend an annual diaconate day of reflection that was well-attended. The presenter was Deacon Joseph Michalak from the Archdiocese of St. Paul/Minneapolis. In the afternoon session, he spoke of marriage and the diaconate. He had a number of great points, all of which I will not try to summarize, but I do want to highlight a couple of them.

When the married man is discerning the diaconate, he and his wife are discerning a shift in the character of their marriage. Ordination as Deacon is a change in the being of the person of the man, not simply the addition of activities, functions or missions. Therefore, the marriage as a communio personarum will undergo a shift in its ethos and expression. The marriage is ordered more deeply into the Paschal Mystery of Christ for the deacon is ordered anew into this Mystery. This implies that the man and his wife in their marriage will undergo a new and more intense level of suffering and spiritual warfare. It points also to the imperative of an internal grounding in “contemplation”, i.e.,  a habit of prayer by both the husband and wife.

The marriage, then, is to embrace a deeper sense of hope which will free it to accept risk and instill joy.

It may be said that with Holy Orders, the married man is ordered to another Bride, even as he expresses that ordering of life most eminently through his embodied and faithful self-offering to his natural bride, his wife. This ordering toward his wife in the Sacrament of Marriage may experience a new or different expression and a new role of witness.

The married deacon must learn the integration (in contrast to “balance”) necessary to live as a married-father-deacon at all times. This requires a man steeped in prudence.

Again, those are Deacon Michalak’s thoughts and ideas.  They are worthy or our consideration. Perhaps those of us who are married deacons would do well to reflect on them in the particular circumstances of our own marriage and families.

What stands out most for me was the word integration. There is a tendency in our modern social and ecclesial experience to try to sew together numerous activities and roles that contemporary life seems to demand of us. We end up with something looking like what my grandmother would call a “crazy quilt” of odds and ends stitched together without coherence. A lot of work, yes, and tons of effort expended, but incoherence nonetheless. Integration requires an almost seamlessness in life and identity. An amalgam of sorts rather than a layering or hierarchy of priorities. The incoherent man is a man without prudence and right judgment. Too many of us try so hard to keep juggling more and more activity rather than seeing the big and incisive experience of who we are. Another way of saying it is we get caught up in the chronos (horizontal, linear) aspect of time/space with its fragmentation of who we are, and seldom if ever experience the kairos (vertical, all encompassing) aspect of reality that breaks into the immediate.

These questions/ideas could make for a significant portion of diaconal discernment prior to ordination.

Your thoughts?

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Church of the Week

Posted on April 12, 2011 by Deacon Bob

 

Queen of Angels Church

Austin, Minnesota

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Annual Audit on Reports of Abuse

Posted on April 12, 2011 by Deacon Bob

The Unites States Council of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has recently released the 2010 Survey or Allegations and Costs, completed by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA). This in an annual audit of the bishops’ Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People that has been in place for nearly ten years. All dioceses and eparchies in the United States participate in this, except for the diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska, which refuses to do so.

In 2010, seven credible accusations against seven different priests have been documented. The numbers of such accusations continue to decline.

The survey has a lot of data that I will not try to summarize here. It is downloadable for your review at: www.usccb.org/ocyp/annual-report-2010.pdf

The Church in this country continues to respond more and more effectively to the crime and sin of sexual abuse.  If only other institutions in our society would do the same… but understandably, we the Church are held to a high standard, and I welcome it.

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Moral Relativism and Spread of Satanism

Posted on April 12, 2011 by Deacon Bob

I read with interest this morning a newsreport of the Catholic News Agency on moral relativism and the rise of Satanism.

Carlo Climati, the press director of the Regina Apostolorum Pontifical University in Rome told the Catholic News Agency (CNA) that Satanism “destroys those universal values that are written in the hearts of each human being” and creates “a society that is turned on its head, in which good becomes evil and evil becomes good.”

He went on to suggest that young people are often “victims of terrible loneliness, the lack of communication and difficult family situations” and they find the occult to be an “easy and quick fix for their problems” and mistake it for a game and nothing about which to be afraid.

In my own clinical experience, there is no doubt that there is a rise in Satanism, occultism and paganism in our society. It used to be something that people would be “hush-hush” about, but now they openly speak of it as a “religious” preference. Invariably, those who embrace Satanism are unhappy and find themselve wondering why people in their families and friendship circle die tragically, or why they are struck by unexpected problems and misshaps. Yes, everyone one of us experiences those things once in a while (because of the influence of sin and evil), but it is my experience that patients who are Satanists inexplicably suffer more of this than others.

Many think the occult is simple and fun recreation. It is in fact anything but that. It is complicated and distressing.

One cannot be happy if one is oriented toward evil, even if one thinks those ends are not evil. All of human history is a witness to this.

This must give rise in our minds to the question, “Where am I going? To what am I oriented in my day to day decision-making, whether it is about how I spend my money, spend my time, where I work, what music I listen to and movies I watch or about who I worship.

Thou shall not have false gods before me. That includes Satanism and the occult.

To read the entire newreport, go to Moral relativism paves way for Satanism, says expert.

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Congratulations, Diocese of Yakima!

Posted on April 12, 2011 by Deacon Bob

The Holy Father a few hours ago appointed bishop of Yakima, Washington, Bishop Joseph J. Tyson who has been the auxiliary bishop of Seattle.  Bishop Tyson was born in the diocese of Yakima in 1957, studied at the Catholic University of the United States and was ordained a priest for the archdiocese of Seattle in 1989. He was ordained a bishop in 2005.

Congratulations, diocese of Yakima!

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