An Addendum: Catholic Ethos

I've come across something more to add to the last posting and would like to offer an addendum and an expansion to further magnify what was already stated on a Catholic political ethos.

As it was read from the Gospel according to St. John this Sunday:

Jesus said to them, "Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever." ( John 6:53-58)

To summarize and distill Jesus' words here and, as it were, also the call to all Christians in its very essence: "In brief, the Eucharist is the sum and summary of our faith: 'Our way of thinking is attuned to the Eucharist, and the Eucharist in turn confirms our way of thinking.'" (CCC 1327). These words, "Our way of thinking is attuned to the Eucharist, and the Eucharist in turn confirms our way of thinking," come to us from St. Irenaeus in the Second Century A.D.—before the Schism of East and West, before the Protestant Reformation. The question we must ask now is, why aren't we fully living it in every aspect of our lives? The Church is not stating in her teaching that it is merely our religious thinking or our political thinking. Her teaching states clearly our thinking ought to be attuned to the Eucharist, to His Sacrifice—where time and space are spanned.

This is the Catholic Ethos: the Eucharist.

In Response: A Catholic Political Ethos

I was sent a convincing collection of U.S. state constitution preambles in the context of questioning President Barack Obama's 2009 words in Turkey: "We do not consider ourselves a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation. We consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values."

The preambles of the constitutions use an explicit declaration of an "Almighty God" and even the Virginia Declaration of Rights states in its Article XVI: "That religion, or the duty which we owe to our Creator and the manner of discharging it, can be directed by reason and conviction, not by force or violence; and therefore, all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience; and that it is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love, and charity towards each other."

I am neither going to agree or disagree with the President's words or those of the author of the e-mail I received regarding them. However, the Virginia Declaration of Right's words speak to the duty we have in our view of society and of government in general. I wish to claim it necessary, as such, to view—and thus to to judge—the whole of American society through this particular lens.

Whether or not we were, are, are going to be a Christian nation...the first thing that must be done and instilled in our civics classes is that we have the right as citizens to the exercise of our religious beliefs, which does not mean a shirking of religion from the public square. Rather, it is a healthy expression (not coercion) of religious belief. And, in that, we are to live out the free will we were given since the time of Creation and thus reiterated, time and time again, in the preambles of our state constitutions and echoed countless times through our country's existence—that a country's citizens have a right to not be coerced but to live with one's countrymen in peace and prosperity. That we are truly endowed with the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Freedom of religion (or more rightly stated as freedom from an established state religion) does not equate to freedom from the existence any religion in the public square of the State. If this were to be the case, then the citizen's liberty has been trampled upon and the citizen's pursuit of happiness been halted dead in its tracks.

All men practice religion, but only few actually know what or whom they worship. It's often money, fame, or simply the vain pursuits of life. However, the true virtue of man is to look beyond one's own happiness and see the common good, the common thread in his fellow man. The true practice of religion is to see God's graces in His humanity and His creation and see the Sacrifice He instituted, once and for all time, for the salvation of Man—for the life, the liberty, and the happiness all men deeply long for. It is because of this Sacrifice and the awe of one's gifted existence which flows from this Sacrifice that they are called to true worship, not because of coercion of belief or because of mere labels.

Only once our countrymen actually live up to this calling, to this rugged individualism balanced with a responsible love can we even dare to even call ourselves a "Christian" nation in both word and deed. Only then can we be fully proud to be Americans.

Listen to what Ronald Reagan has to say: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yS4yf723kmY

Patriotism is not meant to be blind. It must be informed, informed not just with thoughtfulness and knowledge but also compassion for one's fellow man. There is no freedom without sacrifice. Freedom exists because of sacrifice.

As Pope John Paul II once said: "As the family goes, so goes the nation and so goes the whole world in which we live." We must change this country not by political speeches but by change in one family at a time. We are called to be missionaries to the secular world. It is in this missionary work that true change can—and will occur. All we must do is put our Hope in the correct place and be the change through Him who sent us—and do all this with perfect confidence in His love.

------

In chapter three of the Georgetown University Press book by Charles E. Curran, Catholic Moral Theology in the United States: a History, pages 77 to 78, the censured Curran makes an interesting deduction: that American constitutionalism as found in the prevailing inalienable rights "is in continuity with medieval constitutionalism" (78).

All other questions of Curran the theologian aside, the first two paragraphs on American political consensus are a good read. As St. Paul said in 1 Thessalonians 5:21: "Test everything; retain what is good"!

Today

Today we saw history transpire,
What men and women, now and to come,
Will find further words more eloquent than these
To speak and scribe to generations to be.

Today we saw a voice inspired,
A realization of what all men of goodwill can become,
A changing of guard, a call to a new generation,
A resounding message that all are meant to be free.

Today from our nation's seat
We still find a country surrounded by storms,
By a mess no man or woman can ignore,
A mess by those same men who to us implore.

Today we received a new call of responsibility,
Of what and of whom we should be.
But all men are fallible; all men fail.
All men fail because we are free.

Today begins our nation's new chapter,
One to be filled with tears but also still laughter.
We have much still to do, to be
In this home of the brave, land of the free.

Today will be tomorrow's yesterday,
And though this still will be true,
We will find a way to our own hearts be true,
To live, to prosper, to never cease to be.

Today we live in a land imperfect,
In a union we have yet to perfect,
But we all should not forget the least among us,
Of those whom we cannot even see.

Today we were on a mountaintop,
But here is not a place we can stop.
Still there is much more to do, so much to renew;
Still more remains until we can with one voice agree:

That today will be like the tomorrow
Where all men are indeed created equal,
Where all have the rights to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness,
Where all created will truly and forever be free.

"The Rockets' Red Glare..."

Finally, a clear day at the launch pad! The first Independence Day manned spaceflight launch, what a sight! They couldn't have picked a better day to have to scrub to. The weather appears to be perfect and the fallen-foam problem turns out, at the first cursory glance, to be not a problem. What a great day!

"If you hear a voice within you say ' You are not a Painter' then by all means PAINT...and forever silence that voice." - Vincent van Gogh

TR's Words to the Wise...

"This country has nothing to fear from the crooked man who fails. We put him in jail. It is the crooked man who succeeds who is a threat to this country." - Theodore Roosevelt

These words are a wise observation from Teddy Roosevelt. Nothing less than a realization that this axiom applies to today's society would be something tantamount to the rejection of democracy as we know it in our country today.

Neither side of the political aisle has lived up to Mr. Roosevelt here in this case. We have crooked men (and women) abounding in today's society. It's isn't a coinidence that notable cases of corporate greed such as Enron (Ken Lay, Jefferey Skilling, Andrew Fastdow), WorldCom (Bernie Ebbers), HealthSouth (Richard Scrushy), and the like have occurred in recent years. It isn't a coincidence that backroom politics rather than citizens' votes have set policy for our country or that even our upper echelons of government are almost constantly rocked with allegations of (and, on the rare occasion, convictions for) crimes of corruption and abuse of power. Look no further than our current administration and the K Street corruption scandals. Look no further than the level of unbounded zeal at which the current administration is using its power to do domestic spying without warrants. Neither side has lived up to Americans of any color, of any creed, or of any political persuasion in the issues as of late. They have been and continue to be ruled by special interests. This MUST come to an end and quickly.

It doesn't worry me that the political party that I have supported are party to several documented cases of unethical behavior. It is the cases that are not caught, that are not reported on and that we--as a public--are not privy to that worry me the most. This is where President Roosevelt's words are so indelibly important. We must fear the crooked man who gets away with the crime.

Whether it be on either party, I want my news unbiased and uncommented upon. I want the facts checked, and I want, by any means necessary and legally available, all facts reported upon both fairly and in their entirety. It is time for both sides of the aisle to remove the partisan atmosphere that has cloaked Capitol Hill and the entire country in a debilitating moral haze that not only aids the enemy abroad but also the crooked man among us.

Forgiving the Unforgivable

Today, everyone knows, is September 11th. It's the fourth anniversary of the horrific World Trade Center/Pentagon attacks. It is an also important day. It is a day for us Americans to reflect on how we should treat the rest of world, including the Muslims both here and across the world. How should we as Christians act? I don't be cliché like, but what would Jesus do? I ask this honestly. Should we treat hate with equal if not greater hatred? The answer should be apparent to you. NO. Revenge is best served on a cold platter, but it is something that should be removed from our vocabulary. Revenge is not reserved for us. God did not give us our gifts here, our one's here on an Earthly loan for the duration our lifespan, for hatred and revenge. Those are not the actions of true Christians. When I see overly judgmental, the ones who judge to a fault, I cringe. This includes myself at times. What place do we have to chastise our brother or sister if our own sins equal if not surpass our fellow brother or sister?

Take for instance the Gospel reading for Friday, September 9th:

Jesus told his disciples a parable:
“Can a blind person guide a blind person?
Will not both fall into a pit?
No disciple is superior to the teacher;
but when fully trained,
every disciple will be like his teacher.
Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye,
but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own?
How can you say to your brother,
‘Brother, let me remove that splinter in your eye,’
when you do not even notice the wooden beam in your own eye?
You hypocrite! Remove the wooden beam from your eye first;
then you will see clearly
to remove the splinter in your brother’s eye.”

--Luke 6:39-42

Another pertinent Bible passage on how we should handle hatred is the first reading from this Sunday's mass, of September 11th:

Wrath and anger are hateful things,
yet the sinner hugs them tight.
The vengeful will suffer the Lord’s vengeance,
for he remembers their sins in detail.
Forgive your neighbor’s injustice;
then when you pray, your own sins will be forgiven.
Could anyone nourish anger against another
and expect healing from the Lord?
Could anyone refuse mercy to another like himself,
can he seek pardon for his own sins?
If one who is but flesh cherishes wrath,
who will forgive his sins?
Remember your last days, set enmity aside;
remember death and decay, and cease from sin!
Think of the commandments, hate not your neighbor;
remember the Most High’s covenant, and overlook faults.

--Sirach 27:30-28:7

How more true can this be? Hate not your neighbor. That's every neighbor, not just our Christian brothers. Do not cherish wrath as the others do, rather cherish love. Cherish God in all his glory.

May God give rest and repose to the victims of September 11th and strength of spirit to the their families on this difficult day. Amen.

Never Forget...

Three years ago, at this very moment, the world as we knew it changed forever. The first attack on the World Trade Center happened at 8:46 A.M. EDT, September 11, 2001. This and the ensuing Acts of War by the 19 Islamic Extremist Hijackers should NEVER be forgotten.

May the remembrance of the loss of life, liberty, and freedom of the unfortunate victims of 9/11 be a reminder and forever a rejection of Extremism of any kind, especially Religious Extremism in any form, whether it is the 9/11 Terrorist Attacks, the Bombing of the U.S.S. Cole, the Bombings of the U.S. Embassies in Africa, the Russian School Massacre, or those unmentioned and those yet to come. Forever must we stand vigilant, ready and willing to bear the load to wipe Extremism from the face of the Earth.

May God Bless America and All on Our Good Green Earth.